Mary Tillman

Mary Tillman is the mother of Pat Tillman. Today Mary Tillman testified before a congressional committee on the lies told to her family by our government. Mary Tillman is a woman who has lost a child, her son, and she has never stopped demanding that in her son's honor the truth be told about his death.

Here is a clip of Mary Tillman at the hearing today.

Thank you Mary Tillman, for your quest for the truth, for your honesty and for the bravery you show each day.

The MidEast cringes in horror...

...as Dubya decides that his post-Presidency focus will be on continuing to advise on how to promote democracy in said turmoil-heavy region. Source: MSNBC

Not that they want to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but can't you feel the eyes of an entire region roll?

I certainly must agree with the Pensito Review: "The president's sad bluster about staying involved in Middle East politics would be funny if it weren't so scary. Allowing him to meddle in the Middle East could easily result in nuclear-bomb craters dotting the landscape from Tel Aviv to Teheran."

The phrase "haven't you done enough already" springs to my mind. How about you?

Say No to Escalation

Tonight Bush will announce his plans to escalate the Iraq war by sending 21,500 additional American soldiers to Iraq. This escalation is yet one more bad decision in an endless list of bad decisions. When we first occupied Iraq Rumsfeld told Americans that within six months there would be less then 30,000 American troops in Iraq. Today we have over 125,000 troops and with the escalation we will have almost 150,000 troops stationed in Iraq.

Tonight Bush will state that Iraq must reach benchmarks and take over the security of their own country, however Bush has not provided any type of deadline for Iraqis to protect their own country. Is there any reason to believe that what Bush is proposing will work? Sending 21,500 additional troops is too little, too late, and in addition our troops STILL do not have the equipment promised to them over three years ago:

The thousands of troops that President Bush is expected to order to Iraq will join the fight largely without the protection of the latest armored vehicles that withstand bomb blasts far better than the Humvees in wide use, military officers said

Bush has decided that no one can stop him from sending more of our soldiers to die, and as ABC is reporting, the escalation has already begun:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 10, 2007— President Bush's speech may be scheduled for tonight, but the troop surge in Iraq is already under way.

Have you had enough? Isn't it time to be heard, isn't it time for us to say no more? MoveOn.org is organizing rallies this Thursday against this escalation, click here to find a rally near your home, and if there isn't a rally planned for your area, organize one.

Wish Pat Tillman a happy birthday: vote Democratic

That seems to be the message in this powerful and poignant piece written by slain football star turned serviceman PatTillman's brother (and fellow military guy) Kevin Tillman.

Pat's birthday would have been Monday. Election Day is Tuesday. Kevin is saying "you do the math."

Key excerpt:

Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few "bad apples" in the military.

Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It’s interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that "somehow" was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday.

But read the whole thing. In case you were looking for some extra motivation to get through these last few days of lame campaign ads and Republican obfuscation.

Steve Anderson: You want to own 9/11 Mr. President?

Well, you can have it!

Steve Anderson has a damning list of 9/11-related issues Dubya can "own" over at the Huffington Post.

Anderson gives the last word to TBogg, and I will too:

...there is a legacy at stake here, but that legacy belongs to President George W. Bush who ignored warnings about Osama bin Laden. His National Security Advisor was warned about bin Laden, Richard Clarke was right there. And... they... did... nothing.

They went on a one month vacation after only eight months in office.

They failed. They didn't do their job.

This is George Bush's Legacy. Suck on it.

Dubya Dealing with Dissent...from his own side

Poor Dubya. We're 60 days from the mid-term elections, and he now has more than his own ranking as Worst. President. Ever. to worry about. No, now he may have to worry about being the guy who hobbled the Republican Party for years to come.

And don't think rational Republicans don't know it. That's why Dubya is having more trouble than ever before "managing" Republicans in Congress to do what he wants. It's gotten so bad that now he's telling some Republicans that their actions are "hurting the nation" and helping the terrorists win! [Source: New York Times.]

Not just any Republicans, but Republicans that have managed to retain at lease a modicum of bi-partisan stature and respect...like John McCain, John Warner and Lindsay Graham. Would I vote for these guys? Probably not. But do these guys represent a wacko strain of the Repug Party? Nope. They're generally well-regarded even by their opponents.

Sucks to be Dubya (or Republican) right now.

Some stats on how much "safer" we are.

Bob Geiger over at the Huffington Post lays out some stats that show how the War on Terror is really going on Dubya's watch.

You may not be surprised to discover that the answer is "not very well at all."

How so?

More Al Qaeda than before 9/11.

More attacks on "coalition" troops in Iraq than when the war started.

More Taliban activity in Afghanistan.

Read 'em and weep.

Seriously...weep. Bu then get pissed and get out and vote.

Why can't the GOP find decent candidates?

Yesterday on Hardball Chris Matthews interviewed a GOP candidate for congress, Van Taylor ( TX-17 ). There are not enough words to give justice to the performance by Taylor, especially when his talking points fail to address any of the questions Matthews askes.

Take a moment to view the interview for yourself:

Van Taylor and Paul Hackett debate the Iraq war on Hardball

More below the fold.....

Amazing wasn't that? Worse, Taylor is the ONLY candidate from the GOP who is an Iraq vet, yes, the only one. Democrats on the other hand have over 50 vets running for offices across our nation. Taylor is not only without a clue, all he can do is repeat talking points and faced with a questions about those talking points he turns into a deer caught in headlights, his eyes wide and his brain empty except for talking points that Matthews destroys with a few questions.

As Iraq continues to fall apart, the GOP can no longer count on "talking points" to fool the people of this country, and given that 61 percent of Americans now oppose the Iraq war, it is clear that "terror, terror, terror" will no longer work as a means for the GOP to elect candidates.

Bush II; Day 561: Haditha

The news first broke 2 weeks ago, and it's exactly the kind of thing none of us want to hear. It's like Abu Ghraib. It's like stories out of Vietnam (which for a lot of us come more from movies than memory.)

Call us naive, but yeah, most Americans want to believe that we conduct ourselves with more honor and with higher standards than other countries, even when we're at war.

And when we become convinced that our leaders are behaving unethically and incompetently we still hold on to the fact that that is what the people temporarily in power are doing, but the people with their feet on the street, the average everyday Americans wouldn't behave that way.

So it's what makes situations like Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and now Haditha hard to bear. Because while Rumsfeld, Cheney and Dubya might have created the environment and situaiton in which such actions take place, they didn't pull the literal trigger.

Haditha is still ever-present, both in the news and in the blogs. There are conflicting accounts, word that the US paid $2500 per victim to the families, and the predictable knee-jerk response from the right-wing blogs that it must all be exaggeration (as though it would suddenly be OK if it happened to fewer civilians.) Just one example.

I can't understand why the people who are willing to accept the worst from Americans are the one who are trying to lay claim to being the biggest America-lovers. That has never made sense to me, and it never will.

Bush II; Day 542:Let's talk about Iraq

Oh, yes, I'm one of those negative nellies on the left. Excuse me for thinking that we shouldn't forget about Iraq, how compeltely messed up it is, how there are people to blame for it, and how we ought to be demanding accountability!

Is that so wrong?

So, let's talk about:

-A new group of refugees are bing created in Iraq as thousand flee their homes amid sectarian violence. Source NY Times

-Or how reconstruction is being hampered by almost incomprehensibly poor execution Source: NY Times

-And, please don't forget that people just keep on dying: soldiers, Iraqi police, but mostly civilians. Source: CBS

That is all.

Bush II; Day 526: Regular Reminder: Iraq is still a deadly place

April has been a deadly month for American troops in Iraq.

And an internal staff report by the United States Embassy and the military command in Baghdad illustrates why. Contrary to how Administration officials try to downplay the seriousness of the insurgency and the ever-increasing potential for all-out civil war, the reality is a lot more scary.

Why bring this up? Don't we all know that?

I don't think so. I certainly don't think it's top of mind for the vast majority of Americans. It has become background noise.

Of course, the report might just be designed to quell increasing calls for immediate troop withdrawal. The article closes with this quote:

Gen. Qais Hamza al-Maamony, the commander of Babil's 8,000-member police force, said his officers were not ready yet to intervene between warring militias, should it come to that, as many fear. "They would be too frightened to get into the middle," he said in an interview.

If the American troops left Babil, he said, "the next day would be civil war."

Will the American people ever get truth from the current executive branch?

Perhaps only if we change the balance of the legislative branch this November and give the current administration something to really worry about.

Bush II; Day 522: BUsh relying on his military generals?

You know how Dubya always says that he relies on the advice of his military leaders? You know how he has hung on to to that statement, even when it comes out that military leaders thought we'd need more troops in Iraq, and the White House didn't listen?

Well, apparently he doesn't listen to them when it comes to staffing recommendations either.

Despite yet another military general piling on and calling for replacing Donald Rumsfeld, Dubya thinks Rummie, like Brownie before him, is doing a heckuva job. Yup, Rumsfeld has Dubya's full support.

Loyalty to his buddies above fealty to our American troops.

Nice.

Bush II; Day 519: Because I said so, OK!?

Why oh why is the mainstream media treating the news of Dubya's de-classification of reports for leaks to the press as merely "embarrassing" and unlikely to cause damage, not potentially actionable?

We have been lied to again and again basically. This, the wiretaps, each time the Bush Administration claims ignorance, and then when their claims are shown to be untrue...then they go for the argument "It's legal when the President does it." Then why not save us all time and taxpayer dollars by coming clean up front?

Because it looks really really bad that's why.

So, we can get into semantic arguments about it, or we can admit that we have no reason to believe that Dubya's first story about anything is the actual truth.

I'm so proud.

Bush II; Day 516: D'oh! Smoking gun on Plame case?

The other shoe has dropped, and Scooter Libby has rolled over but good. Of course it's odd how he accuses Cheney of ordering him to leak classified info with Dubya's approval, but doesn't cop specifically to leaking Plame's name. Oh, like if you leaked other stuff, but not her name, it doesn't count? Sort of like calories don't count when you eat standing up.

Ern Kotecki Vest over at BlogHer has a round-up of who's talking about this (lots of folks, natch.)

Bush II; Day 505: Most of this is no surprise

More excerpts have been released from a secret British memo. I thought we already knew most of this, but in case you've forgotten, here are the key findings:

The memo indicates the two leaders envisioned a quick victory and a transition to a new Iraqi government that would be complicated, but manageable. Mr. Bush predicted that it was "unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups." Mr. Blair agreed with that assessment.

The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein.

Bush II; Day 502: I thought it was Afghanistan we got right?

It's been a common moderate and liberal stance to say that they approved of going into Afghanistan, as if to prove they're not complete wusses who abhor violence. Even my hero Jon Stewart kinda bugs me with the way he feels compelled to mention his support for the actions in Afghanistan.

So, everyone, that was almost 5 years ago now...I think it's fair to say that whatever we supported...the initial military action to topple the Taliban because they were harboring bin Laden etc...is now long past, and we've been merrily watching things get screwed up in there ever since.

I agree with the NY Times editorial that queries why our troops should be risking their lives, and why our budget coffers should be drained to watch:

-A man be threated with the death penalty for converting to Christianity
-Women be at risk for stoning for adultery

And I'm sure some other barbaric practices. Oh, sure, barbaric to me and the culture I was raised in...I'm sure there are some apologists, like even Bill Maher...who also annoys me sometimes...who will say that different cultures interpret freedom and a moral society differently.

Fine. Dandy. Don't spend my tax payer dollars propping up a theocracy that clearly doesn't share our values.

Am I crazy?

Bush II; Day 489: Letting my Clark colors show

So I don't hide that I was Wesley Clark supporter, and I still am. (I'm thinking a Clark-Clinton ticket, whaddya think?)

Anyway, he was on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" last week and was his usual smart self. How do you argue with some of this:

Re: Iraq:

One of the things that's happened to us, George, is this debate - largely because of the administration in the way it's been portrayed, it's always about the military. What's happening in Iraq is not about the military. It's about who controls the country and what the future policies of Iraq will be. Those are political questions. Our ambassador over there is trying to do that job but he's not getting the help he needs. We've never established a regional dialogue we needed to - with Syria, with Iran, with the other states in the region. We just haven't given the military the help it needs to resolve this problem and so I just have to shy away from the excessive focus on the military. This is not a problem the military can solve. They're part of the solution and the military forces can be used to create political leverage, but we're not going to be able to change the forces in play in Iraq simply by jawboning. It won't be enough. We've got to use the leverage, from the region and internally, to get the responsible Sunnis into that government. Now. And the constitution changed before it's too late.

Well, it's a very mixed message going to the Iranians, frankly. We're not saying we're not going to buy their oil. China's not telling the Iranians 'we won't help you build subways'. The Russians aren't telling the Iranians 'you're not going to get our billion dollars worth of weapons that you've ordered'. It's a very mixed message and really it's the United States which hasn't taken its leadership responsibilities seriously enough to go and talk to the Iranians first before this crisis comes to a head.

Well, what I'm trying to do is help the right Democrats get elected in 2006. That's the most important thing. And, I'm very proud, we've got something like 55 US military veterans running for Congress as Democrats. I want to help each and every one of them. I think they can make a huge difference in the future of this country. I think having one-party domination of government is very dangerous for democracy and frankly that's where all my energies and activities are focused.

We need to really get to the bottom of the Abramoff scandal, we should have a special prosecutor appointed for that, we really need a congressional investigation of the whole business of the NSA wiretapping and how far that goes, there's been a lot of squirreling around the edges; we've never completed the investigation of 9/11 and whether the administration actually misused the intelligence information it had - the evidence seems pretty clear to me, I've seen that for a long time. I think Americans are best served by a strong 2-party system and that's been out of whack and what I can do in 2006 is try to help the right Democrats get into office and that's what I'm going to do.

Bush II; Day 487: Can you say awwwk-warrrd?

Oh dear. It's not fun when editorials scold our President like he's a naughty boy in knee-pants.

Oh, who am I kidding? It is kinda fun. Like this one from the NY Times exposing just how amateurish Bush's recent Asian road-trip was.

Remember, it's not just corruption that plagues the Bush Administration. It's incompetence.

Bush II; Day 478: Coast Guard wasn't Cool with Dubai port deal

But their concerns were allayed, apparently, because Dubai Ports World promised to be good.

This port deal story is just one more example of an administration who feels so annoyed that there are rules and checks and balances they have to follow. They want to be able to do what they want when they want. Wiretapping? That damn FISA takes too long. 45-day review process for deals like this port deal? Why bother. We all just need to trust them and let them handle things.

An attitude I find annoying!

Bush II; Day 477: The Governors are getting cranky about the Guard

Governors of both parties are concerned that their states are being left vulnerable. Not only are 1/3 of the ground forces in Iraq from National Guard brigades, but where they go, their equipment goes. And when they return, it seems like their equipment is staying behind. Apparently the Army can't account for about half of the equipment left behind by Guard brigades, and has no plan to replace it.

And the states are feeling a wee bit nervous about it.

Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, a Republican and chairman of the governors association, said: "The National Guard plays an incredibly valuable role in the states. What we are concerned about, as governors, is that when our troops are deployed for long periods of time, and their equipment goes with them but does not come back, the troops are very strained, and they no longer have the equipment they were trained to use."

Of course Dubya wants folks to just trust him...it'll all be taken care of, but not everyone is feeling so warm and cozy.

Some choice quotes:

"Governors should be involved in these decisions," Gov. Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho, a Republican, said after meeting with the president. "There has been too much that we have learned outside the loop. It's time we were inside the loop."

Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, the president's brother, said: "I trust General Pace. I trust the president of the United States. They said they would find the money. I think you can take it to the bank."

But Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, a Republican who is chairman of the National Governors Association, said Mr. Bush had offered "a genuine olive branch." He quoted the president as saying, "You know, if I've not been as thorough in consultation on issues like the ports or the National Guard, then let's sit down and work through the details."

Um, I think this qualifies under the 'D'oh you caught me!' defense, no? If you're operating with a 'do what you want now, apologize later' strategy in place.

Bush II; Day 476: The Civil War everyone has been fearing?

It's getting fearfully ugly in Iraq. So ugly it's stunning the average Iraqi.

So ugly that every one, from world leaders to religious leaders of opposing sects are calling for calm.

So ugly that even some are taking about who will be to blame if there is a complete collapse in Iraq.

And I can't help feeling that it is hard to reconcile tolerance for some kinds of violent rioting (over the Danish carton as an example) but not other kinds. That cognitive dissonance is a contributing factor too. I mean how can people possibly keep track of which violent hateful methods are OK, and which aren't?

Scary times.

Bush II; Day 474: Port-gate?

Time to get your conspiracy theorist hat on, and I'm always up for a bit of that.

After all, I was just explaining to my lunch-mate yesterday that the Cheney folks were likely happy that there was such a brou-haha over his shooting an elderly buddy in the face, since it distracted from other more significant revelations about Cheney that week (like Libby being authorized to talk Plame by his "higher-ups.")

This week's theory: that the Bush Administration's seemingly bonehead move to turn over port security to a United Arab Emirates-based company is really about having that company facilitate continued torture of prisoners. No, really.

Check out this post at Corrente for the run-down on why this is not as crazy as it sounds.

Question is this: do you think the Bush Administration is above these kind of shenanigans to ensure their continued above-the-law and outside-the-law actions? I don't. Pretty sad.

Hat tip: You Forgot Poland!

Bush II; Day 472: Surprise: more folks from the military were anti-torture.

Why? Because if we're torturing our prisoners, you can bet that'll be considered license to torture theirs.

But more that that...because that's not the way we are supposed to play.

A lengthy memorandum has been released, reflecting the concerns of one of the Pentagon's top lawyers...a die-hard Republican...about procedures the Administration was putting in place.

Key excerpt:

The lawyer, Alberto J. Mora, a political appointee who retired Dec. 31 after more than four years as general counsel of the Navy, was one of many dissenters inside the Pentagon. Senior uniformed lawyers in all the military services also objected sharply to the interrogation policy, according to internal documents declassified last year.

But Mr. Mora's campaign against what he viewed as an official policy of cruel treatment, detailed in a memorandum he wrote in July 2004 and recounted in an article in the Feb. 27 issue of The New Yorker magazine, made public yesterday, underscored again how contrary views were often brushed aside in administration debates on the subject.

"Even if one wanted to authorize the U.S. military to conduct coercive interrogations, as was the case in Guantánamo, how could one do so without profoundly altering its core values and character?" Mr. Mora asked the Pentagon's chief lawyer, William J. Haynes II, according to the memorandum.

"...how could one [authorize the U.S. military to conduct coercive interrogations] without profoundly altering its core values and character?"

How indeed.

Bush II; Day 463: Iraq Data Distorted? You are kidding me!!!

Haven't about 10 people already said what retired CIA official Paul R. Pillar has now said: that the Bush Administration cherrypicked their way through pre-war intelligence...keeping the nuggets that would help them justify the war and discarding all the evidence that would support letting the UN inspectors finish their jobs? Or the evidence that would make them face the fact that was wasn't going to be all easy-peasy?

He is the first guy who was in the CIA to speak out, so I guess that's news. Anyway, key, unsurprising excerpt:

"If the entire body of official intelligence on Iraq had a policy implication, it was to avoid war — or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath," Mr. Pillar wrote. "What is most remarkable about prewar U.S. intelligence on Iraq is not that it got things wrong and thereby misled policymakers; it is that it played so small a role in one of the most important U.S. policy decisions in decades."

Bush II; Day 454: Just in case you've forgotten the cost of war

The costs of war are huge. The costs of this war include:

American life and limb
Iraqi civilian life and limb
Our civil liberties
Diminished standards for truth-telling from our leaders
The character assassination of many a public figure who dares to criticize or question, up to an including the outing of a CIA operative.

And lest we forgot, actual $$$....billions and billions of them. And requests for billions more coming down the pike.

For a war that was going to "pay for itself."

Bush II; Day 445: One more story of incompetence

You wanna know what's so sad? That stories of gross incompetence and inefficiencies, like the report from the Inspector General's office on their efforts on Iraq Reconstruction, coming out of the Bush Administration have become so commonplace and so frequent...they elicit yawns.

It's like we've just bent over and accepted that they will muck things up everywhere they go.

And all those regular lies and deceptions and obfuscations? Ho hum.

Future Presidents take note: the bar is really really low.

Bush II; Day 431: Changing the words doesn't change what's happening

So Dubya is trying to fight back against his image as a lying, spying, war-mongering, pro-torture, Bush-in-a-bubble who is the leader of a corrupt party.

Not by taking decisive action to sweep out those who are doing wrong, or by devising a concrete plan to address the concerns of well over 50% of then population. No, his favorite way to deal with things is to try to put new "catch-phrases" into the public ears, all while acting decisive. The only thing he is decisive about is that he couldn't have been wrong and that there's no need to adjust course.

Read the tack he's reviving now. More accusing those who dissent or disagree of being Anti-American simply because they are anti-Dubya policies. Source NY Times.

Mr. Bush said Americans should insist on a debate "that brings credit to our democracy, not comfort to our adversaries."

Mr. Bush was warned several times that if he neglected to build support at home, he could face the problems that the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations faced with Vietnam.

Any effort at finding what the White House calls a "common ground" on Iraq strategy, he said, "has to be coupled with a cessation of calling people who disagree with the strategy 'unpatriotic.' "

Yeah. What he says.

Bush II; Day 426: Am I supposed to feel all warm and fuzzy?

So, Dubya has made a big show of convening a meeting of a bunch of former Secretaries of State and Defense from both parties to talk about Iraq.

Good PR move for sure. And I'm sure several of this people had strong dissenting views that he was forced to sit in a room a listen too for once. Boy outside of his bubble.

But it's still quite a rarified and narrowly-focused crew...mostly politicos, and a couple of military folks too.

How about some cultural or historical experts?
How about some analysts outside of government?

I'm not trying to say that all of those people are motivated to make nice, but I found it significant that commentary afterwards included the fact that not a single person at that able favored immediate withdrawal.

Hey, I'm not sure I do either, but last I read, there are a significant number of people who do favor such a thing...and some of them have some credentials. How about hearing them out?

Good start. But if it's a one-shot deal it impresses me not so much.

Bush II; Day 423: You're starting now?

The NY Times reports that the Department of Homeland Security "will evaluate new requests for money from an $800 million aid program for cities based less on politics and more on assessments of where terrorists are likely to strike and potentially cause the greatest damage."

Of course, my post title asks the obvious question: you're starting this now?

But we've known for some time that money was being spent unwisely in this regard.

Conspiracy theorists might say that the money wasn't getting spent in those areas with the most likely targets (SF, NY, Chicago...you know, our great American cities) because those cities vote blue.

Then again perhaps those who feel most at risk weren't voting for Dubya for a reason, and maybe all those people in other parts of the country who let Dubya use the politics of fear to sway their vote should think about that.

It's sort of a chicken/egg thing.

Bush II; Day 407: It's been a bad day...

I was just writing about how Dubya's Washington seemed to be falling apart.

And then the shoes started dropping.

The Senate refused to renew the Patriot Act. Source: TalkLeft. Dubya may be trying to spin this as a bunch of irresponsible, anti-national security wackos, but the truth is that 4 conservative Republicans joined Democrats in saying enough is enough. If we don't retain our civil liberties then exactly what lifestyle of freedom are we engaging in this War on Terror to defend?

Just a day earlier Congress had handed Dubya a stinging defeat by defying his veto threats and passing anti-tirture legislation. He now has agreed to sign it. D'oh. Source: NY Times.

It's no fun being Dubya today.

Bush II; Day 397: Wes Clark on a plan for Iraq

Well, it might not satisfy those parts of us that want immediate withdrawal from Iraq, Wes Clark's editorial this Sunday on a real plan for getting out of Iraq successfully has a couple of things going for it.

-He talks about real military tasks and how many troops they require.

-It comes from a guy who is steeped in military knowledge and experience, and isn't just a politico.

Lastly, Clark posted this in his blog and then proceeded to post thoughtful responses to the comments he was getting on that blog. What? Willing to actually respond to questions and disagreements? Willing to stand behind what you said and explain it further? You know this guy's not a Republican.

Bush II; Day 392: Don't you feel better about Iraq, now that we have bullet points?

It's like a joke or, more accurately, a bad dream. You would think that the President of the United States would have the best minds working around the clock night and day, well, before going to war, first of all. But certainly once we're in a war, you'd think those bright minds would be figuring out how to cleanly execute and get out.

But no, the minds working for Dubya are much more concerned about presenting stories to the press and the public, much more concerned about positioning those stories to cover their own incomeptent asses. Krugman has it right.

Oh, and sometimes the minds working for Dubya are much more concerned with smearing those who disagree or point out the gaps in their little bedtime stories. And if I read this NY Times story correctly, Judy Miller isn't the only press person who has forgotten that the press should remain independent of the government...not helping them out with their cover-ups!

I don't get the folks who want to defend Dubya at all costs. You know, most of the military is doing the best they can (in a bad situation). But they've been put in that bad situation by the folks in the Administration...and all the unpleasant incidents we're hearing about, from Abu Ghraib to secret prisons can be traced morally, if not directly, back to the White House.

Are we willing to say that even if, in the end, we manage to get out of Iraq, that their government actually stabilizes and survives, that the ends justifies the deceptive, incompetent means?

It's Machiavellian...but in this case the clumsiest Machiavellian scheme ever.

Bush II; Day 383: Let's beat the dead horse, shall we?

I know the Republicans would like us all to be bored with the idea that we went to war under false pretenses, and that part of the scandal around PlameGate isn't just about leaking a covert agent's identity, but that they did so to support what they knew was a fictitious case for going to war.

But indulge me, let's remind ourselves again anyway.

Source: Murray Waas' lengthy, detailed article for the National Journal

Bush II; Day 363: Wesley Clark on torture

I'm always happy to be able to read or listen to Wesley Clark. I think he is the kind of guy that represents the best this Party can put forward to the public.

Here, John Amato from Crooks & Liars conducts an interview with Clark on the latest legislative attempt to sanction CIA tirture of prisoners. The Crooks and Liars link goes to tha actual audio file of the interview. Blah3.com also posted a text transcript.

Key excerpt:

"We need the moral high ground and our troops need the moral high ground because we’ve always believed we were better, we weren’t like other armies—we didn’t abuse people, we didn’t torture, we didn’t kill them. And to strip that core value from our troops is to strike at the very heart of the patriotism, the morale, the spirit, that animates the force of free men and women fighting for democracy."

Bush II; Day 354 Redux: A tragic milestone

Lest you forget that we are fighting a war...a war that was waged based on lies, a war that we went into without a plan to get out of, a war that is costing us illions of dollars and now, 2000 lives.

I cannot imagine how Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld sleep at night, knowing those soldiers died because of them.

Yes, I mean it.

Bush II; Day 338: Bush getting his torture on

Bush apparently feels really really strongly that he should be allowed to allow torture.

More folks, including military folks and plenty of Republicans, disagree.

Dubya feel so strongly that he should be allowed to allow torture that he's threatening to make a bill saying the military has to follow the rule of law his very first veto.

Something very sick about this.

Bush II; Day 299: Mitch Ratcliffe points out, in case you've forgotten

That we are screwed nationally because we have sent so much of our National Guard overseas.

Not that I needed another reason to be pissed. But I'm wondering how they're feeling about it down there in the red states right about now.

Bush II; Day 290 Bonus: Cindy Sheehan's latest entry at the Huffington Post

Must-read.

Bush II; Day 290: Must-read Frank Rich on the right's inability to "SwiftBoat" Cindy Sheehan

Rich is at his usual high level, but the part of the story that intrigued me was not just Cindy and Casey Sheehan's story, but the story of another grieving mother.

"Another mother who has journeyed to Crawford, Celeste Zappala, wrote last Sunday in New York's Daily News of how her son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, was also killed in April 2004 - in Baghdad, where he was providing security for the Iraq Survey Group, which was charged with looking for W.M.D.'s 'well beyond the admission by David Kay that they didn't exist.'

As Ms. Zappala noted with rage, her son's death came only a few weeks after Mr. Bush regaled the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association banquet in Washington with a scripted comedy routine featuring photos of him pretending to look for W.M.D.'s in the Oval Office. 'We'd like to know if he still finds humor in the fabrications that justified the war that killed my son,' Ms. Zappala wrote."

I'd like to know too. The bastard!

Bush II; Day 289: What took 'em so long?

Does anyone else remember Dubya buddy Karen Hughes being assigned to improve our could-it-possibly-be-lower P.R. rep in the Middle East back after his inauguration?

Yup, big fanfare in January, she was going to solve all our problem.

Well, apparently she's only taking office this week, and now she's going to get right on that image problem...9 months later.

Somebody want to remind me why the public's confidence in how Bush is doing his job, particularly in regard to the War, is at record lows?

Bush II; Day 286: Artificial Deadlines Missed

It's even more fun to read Digby's post on the Bush Team's artificial deadlines (like the one for completing the Iraqi constitution) after you know the Iraqi's missed the deadline.

It's so disgusting. They tout August 15th like it's some holy day, until the date (which was picked for who knows what reason? Oh, yeah, probably because it would be the middle of summer when no one's paying attention) is missed.

The all of a sudden we are oh, so hands off, and oh, so pleased to watch the Iraqis work things out in their own way on their own timetable.

Feh.

Bush II; Day 283: Bonus! Idiotic Bush quote of the day

Really, where were his handlers when he said this? The transceiver must have been out of range:

Bush said he is aware of the anti-war sentiments of Cindy Sheehan and others who have joined her protest near the Bush ranch. "But whether it be here or in Washington or anywhere else, there's somebody who has got something to say to the president, that's part of the job," Bush said on the ranch. "And I think it's important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to those who have got something to say."

"But," he added, "I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life."

Emphasis: mine

Also mine: Jaw-dropping amazement at the insensitivity!

Bush II; Day 282: The "What a surprise" edition

Boy, current events never cease to amaze!

A General doesn't want more pictures of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib released...what a surprise!

The administration has to lower their unrealistic expectations in Iraq...what a surprise!

Key excerpt: "What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground. We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

Dubya can only face Cindy Sheehan obliquely in his weekly radio address...what a surprise!

I don't know about you, but I'm just floored by each of these revelations.

Bush II; Day 281: Read Cindy Sheehan at the Huffington Post

Read her piece from yesterday.

Read her piece today.

And read how Dubya responded yesterday.

OK, so somebody from the military help me out here: doesn't one usually have military objectives when one deploys troops? Is "not sending a signal" a valid military objective?

Read Cindy Sheehan's pieces today.

Bush II; Day 280: Speaking of Iraq? Oh, you mean you don't want to?

Maureen Down asks a good question: why won't Dubya just come off his ranch and lend an ear to bereft and bereaved mother Cindy Sheehan?

Well, we know why he can't now: because he's strong, strong I tell you!, and to come out now under pressure would make him look weak.

But really, how much of a dick has this behavior made him look lie?

But let's move on and address a related issue: who are really sacrificing their sons and daughters for this war? Could it be, no, don't tell me, those unpatriotic, unAmerican Blue States? Yes, yes it could you hypocritical, deceitful and divisive bastards!

Check out the map for yourself, courtesy of Needlenose:

Blue states, particularly urban areas, taking the biggest hits. What a non-surprise.

Infuriating.

Bush II; Day 279: Things are hunky-dory in Iraq. No, really.

Oh, that little problem where armed men entered the municipal offices in Baghdad and "deposed" the official mayor of the city?

That ol' thing? Why deposing mayors only happens when everyone needs a break from the daily suicide bombings.

Seriously. Take a moment. Imagine what it's like to be a regular Iraqi citizen. The chaos. The destruction. The lack of infrastructure. Or order. Or light at the end of the tunnel.

Sucks to be them.

Bush II; Day 275: Because we shouldn't forget those who make it back alive

Bob Herbert has a touching story of one badly injured soldier, and what he faces now that he's out of Iraq.

And Dr. Neubaurer, over at Yahoo! Health Experts Blog reminds us of the emotional toll war takes.

This reminds me of a personal story. About 12 years ago I dated a guy who was in the Marine Reserves by the time we met. He had been over in the Gulf War. GulfWarVet (GWV) had also been abused as a child. Let me tell you, he told me everything about that abuse, but he never wanted to talk about being over there. (And remember that was a more bloodless war.)

He wasn't actually on the front line, but in the next battalion back (forgive me if I don't use the proper military terms.) The one time he really said anything about it to me he said that it really messed with your mind because you knew death was just around the corner for some number of you, or could be. And not knowing whether you'd ever make it back, ever get married, ever have kids, ever see the people you loved again...those thoughts were your constant companions.

These soldiers are not just a backdrop for Dubya speeches. It's a damn shame we don't arm them properly, don't feed them properly, don't cover their health expenses properly.

Bush II; Day 259: The latest on Rove

The White House and RNC lapdogs led my Mehlman can say that Karl Rove is "vindicated" all they want, but the dog won't hunt.

Rove tried to say he heard about Mrs. Joseph Wilson (and yes, he does only have one wife) from a reporter first. But that didn't stop Rove from being the one who told Time reporter Matt Cooper first. And that was still wrong (whether you even believe that he heard it from a reporter to begin with.)

Heard a bunch of other stupipd rationales, weaselly excuses and attempts to turn it around on the other guy lately? Well, let the NY Times editorial staff spell it out for you. Those arguments are also pure bunk.

Key excerpts:

The obvious:
"If Mr. Rove or any other officials involved were really concerned about getting out the truth, all they would need to do would be to stand up in public and tell it."

Where the smearing is really happening:
"In fact, Mr. Wilson had excellent credentials for the mission, and the entire Niger story had already been pretty thoroughly debunked by the time Mr. Cooper and Mr. Rove spoke."

Of course now Bush is saying he'll fire anyone who "committed a crime." Wow, what a relief. Again, Dubya is the master of setting the bar so low for our country, for his administration...comforting you know.

Dishonesty, disingenuousness, deception, hell, lying...not enough anymore.

Bush II; Day 258: Let's not forget, this is all about the War

It's fun to be all mad at Rove for leaking and Bush for lying and the press corp for wimping out, but let's not forget why this matters: the White House set out to smear a government official who was trying to expose that this White House wanted to go to war so bad that it demonstrated willful dishonesty about the rationale for war and wanton disregard for the rule of law or the structure of our system of government to go to war as desired. Really. That's what this is really about.

And meanwhile, the White House continues to wantonly disregard the rule of law, and no one is holding them accountable. Like Congress. See the Pentagon owes Congress some info about the War. And they simply are not delivering it. Info about exactly how it's going over there. In some circles that would be called "Contempt of Congress."

You know they keep complaining that we're all influenced by the nightly news of more bombings and insurgency attacks in Iraq, that the news media isn't giving us the true, glowing, positive picture.

So, dudes, fork over the data, the metrics, the info that would prove it's really all going swimmingly.

Hmmm. What possible reason could they have for missing their deadline to provide data that shows how things are going over there? What reason could they have? Hey, I know...maybe because it's a big old mess, and they have no idea how to fix it?

Hat tip to The Talent Show for the link.

Bush II; Day 251: Oh dear, timing certainly is everything

And the Congress doesn't have it.

As Digby points out, we're too busy funding the Iraq War and tax cuts for the wealthy in time of war to afford little things like, oh, homeland security as one example.

Too bad they had to slash that security funding for mass transit systems in the US a mere two weeks before the London bombing huh?

They look like very silly wabbits no?

But then, so do we all at this point.

Bush II; Day 245: Defining moment is now?

Fie on all these ridiculous pundits who are calling Bush's impending Supreme Court nomination a "defining moment."

And even fie on Salon.com for saying that moment has passed...because he's already weighed in ideologically via the Schiavo case, and his recess appointments and other right-wing behavior.

Umm...hello...does no one else think that the defining moment of Bush's presidency was when he decided to lie to the American people and to Congress to justify a war he had his heart set on? And that since then he and his posse have stopped at, well, very little to silence critics, consolidate power and avoiding assigning and accountability or taking any responsibility for things that have gone terribly wrong.

Anyone?

Bush II; Day 239: Is it really, really worth it?

In the aftermath of Dubya's tired re-hash of old excuses and debunked rationales, his one plea wasfor the American people to agree with him that the cost in American lives, civilian lives and billions of dollars in Iraq was all "worth it."

Worth it because of September 11th (when we all know there is no direct connection.)

Worth it because of the spread of democracy. (When our insistence on spreading democracy is resulting in the election of exactly the kind of anti-American hard liners we don't want in power throughout the region.)

Worth it because...well...we're not really supposed to question it...that makes us bad Americans who don't support our troops.

So in honor of those troops that supposedly I don't support, why don't you read this piece from the Washington Post about our soldiers and what they're going through. It's entitled Am I Next?

Here's just one of many key excerpts:

Their faces dusty and streaked with sweat, the soldiers huddle to talk through the incident, raising more questions than answers. Why had the engineers been operating in daylight, when insurgents could easily "template" their position? Why had the infantry left them vulnerable? Why hadn't they caught the sniper who killed Miller?

Spec. John Wayne Miller was killed by sniper fire in Ramadi, Iraq, on April 12. Miller's squad leader, Staff Sgt. Steve "Shaggy" Hagedorn, is more blunt. "We spent three days clearing a route and I guarantee it's worse now than when we started," he says. "So everyone's asking, 'What are we doing it for?' Everyone's asking, 'Am I next?'"

Thanks to Christopher Betke for the link.

Bush II; Day 238: Torture is still wrong, even if we're not quite as bad as the worst people in the history of mankind!

So sue me; call me unpatriotic; remind me about two fruits...I still think it's no great glory to say that people would be happier in our prisons/detention center than in the Russian gulag or a Nazi concentration camp.

Sure I agree. But is that where we're setting the bar?

And you know what, this is one time when I'll stick it to Jon Stewart too. Yes, throwing around the Nazi word is bad...but let's not take our eye off the bigger picture which is: torture is wrong, and it puts our own military at risk.

And since I've got general Wes Clark on my side of this argument, I'm feeling pretty OK and like I've retained my patriotism. Go read what Wes has to say and sign his petition here.

Bush II; Day 235: NY Times with the smack-down

Yes, today's NY Times editorial calling for some honest communication from the White house to all Americans about what's going on in Iraq and the War on Terror is quite the smack-down.

And yet that same editorial could have been written one year ago before the election, no?

So, what's it gonna take?

Well, apparently threatening Big Bird gets people riled up.

But I'm not sure they don't like to throw issues like that out there. Get us all worked up. Then back down a bit. Just to keep us lulled into thinking that if people protest enough our government will respond.

But as far as I can tell the public is pretty damn dissatisfied with what's been going on with the War and has been for a long time. And there is not acknowledgment of that and certainly no honest straight talk about it coming from our so-called leaders.

I'm glad Big Bird is going to be OK, but let's not take our eyes off of a couple of VERY BIG ISSUES that are still not OK:

-The War...on Iraq and the other war...on terrorism.

-The economy and deficit...did you see? 2006 is going to be a slower year. Slower than what? This molasses we're living through in the Silicon Valley?

-And the efforts of the most extreme wing of the Republican Party to push their minority agenda down the throats of a populace who simply cannot seem to believe they could accomplish it!

2006 is the first opportunity to send a real message. And it's only <18 months away. Take that opportunity.

UPDATED: Bush II; Day 226: The Downing Street Memo

UPDATED: Arianna brings up a point in this post that is right on the money (about how the Administration is trying to sidestep this issue. Enough to make you puke.
====================

I have yet to weigh in on the Downing Street Memo.

Part of it is there is a fair amount of blog swarming happening on the topic, check out any of the major liberal blogs and you'll get your fill. And I did point you the other day to the blog devoted entirely to the issue. I am just not sure I can really add anything to the discussion.

But I confess that part of why I'm not writing about it is that I have felt a sense of futility. People believed Bush wanted war with Iraq before. People believed that he wasn't entirely honest about his motives before. People thought he manipulated the data to match his ideology before. Just like he's done on the environment, on sex education, on women's health issues...that is the Bush Administration's modus operandi.

But back to Iraq: regular people thought this. Media people thought this. They thought this because every insider who came out and talked openly about it frankly acknowledged it. And it was like we accepted it. The outrage was minimal. The ennui was palpable.

And now we have the Downing Street Memo. A British insider with meeting notes indicating that all that the Bush insiders were already saying is true.

And MediaMetters as always can be counted on to elaborate at length on why this Memo is important

Elsewhere, Harry Shearer highlights a particularly salient excerpt in this Huffington Post entry:

""Regime change per se is no justification for military action; it could form part of the method of any strategy, but not a goal," he said. "Elimination of Iraq's WMD capacity has to be the goal."

"Ricketts said that other countries such as Iran appeared closer to getting nuclear weapons, and that arguing for regime change in Iraq alone "does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam.""

Yeah. Sounds about right. So what? Now we're going to do something about it?

Well, God I hope so.

At least we have Representative Conyers. Republicans refused to allow him to hold a hearing or inquiry on the House floor, so he held one anyway in a Capitol basement. And C-SPAN is covering it.

Remember to track all things related at the blog DowningStreetMemo.com.

Anyway, I'm trying to overcome my feeling that the American media and people have been lulled into some hypnotic state where we no longer care about lies and cover-up.

And my emergence from this funk actually may have started yesterday when AmericaBlog pointed me to this truly amusing little exchange between the weasly Scott McClellan and Terry Moran. Read it to the last line, which is truly a LOL moment.

Bush II; Day 208: Women in the military get no respect

First, I agree with Bill Maher that it's odd that the real scapegoats they're focusing on in the Abu Ghraib scandal are two women.

Second, I'm not sure what Congress (or should I say the Republican in Congress) are thinking to disrespect women soldiers and try to prevent their participation in combat activities when the army is having so much trouble recruiting as it is.

Now, Republican ideology is impacting the health care option for women soldiers.

I'm beginning to think it would serve these chickenhawks if women pulled a Lysistrata...only instead of withholding sex, all the women in the military could go on strike.

Yeah, gret idea...they'll all be thrown in the brig.

And yes, I know I'm mixing my military metaphors.

But really, read the NY Times editorial above and see if you don't get completely aggravated into near incoherence.

Bush II; Day 183: FYI: People are still dying in Iraq

I feel it's my duty to remind you every now and then that as much as it seems to be a backburner topic and certainly nothing that the Dubya administration wants to acknowledge or address...bad stuff is still going on nearly every day in Iraq.

Cases in point:

Dozens die as Iraqi police recrutment center bombed.
More Iraqis blown up as they volunteer to serve their country.
At least 60 Kurds killed for helping combat the insurgents

Source: New York Times over the last two days

Or just look at the first page of the NY Times Search on "violence".

Just in case the Republicans are succeeding in making us think everything is hunky-dory over there.

Oh, and PS - it's a corrupt financial sink-hole over there too. Jeez.

Bush II; Day 175: Have we forgotten all about terrorism?

So many screw-ups, so little brain-space to remember them all.

You know the one area where Dubya still polls well? The War on Terrorism. What a joke!

According to this Reuters report, World Terror Attacks Tripled in 2004.

Oh, and OBL and the Z-man are still on the loose too.

No wonder Dubya would rather talk about Social Security, even though that's a loser of an issue too.

Bush II; Day 150: Don't let the shock overwhelm you, but...

...the data on WMDs in Iraq was "dead wrong."

Yes, yes, I know this news must shake you to your very core, but a recent report from a presidential commission on intelligence found that the data, and how it was gathered, was fatally flawed.

And that procedures still haven't really been fixed.

But here, without doubt, is my favorite paragraph in the above article from the WaPo (emphasis mine):

"Yet while unstinting in its appraisal of intelligence agencies, the panel that Bush appointed under pressure in February 2004 said it was "not authorized" to explore the question of how the commander in chief used the faulty information to make perhaps the most critical decision of his presidency. As he accepted the report yesterday, Bush offered no thoughts about relying on flawed intelligence to launch a war and took no questions from reporters."

I know it's not meant to be funny, but seriously, don't you just have to laugh in a really pained way...sort of like when you watch Curb Your Enthusiasm or The Office?

How much do you want to bet this story is reported for exactly one day in the mainstream press, and that no one will follow up in a few weeks and see if any action has really been taken on the commission's recommendations or not?

Sigh.

Bush II; Day Ninety-Eight: The deaths continue; the press yawns

Has anyone else noticed that the media seems so hypnotized by the elections in Iraq that no one is commenting on the daily round-up of successful insurgent attacks on our own military, Iraqi forces and civilians?

Yes, Reuters and the AP have their obligatory story per day on the 21 killed yesterday and the 27 killed the day before, not to mention the dozens killed on Election Day.

But where is the additional commentary and analysis? The war is remaining as deadly as it has ever been, but the watchful eye of the press seems turned elsewhere.

It's like we've become completely inured to the daily death toll. It gets its one news item in the morning, and that's it.

Am I missing the outcry somewhere?

Bush II; Day Eighty: More on Condi Rice

Well, Kerry and Boxer at least bothered to vote 'No' on Condi's confirmation, unlike the other sitting Democrats on the committee.

Kerry did it in a sort of "I know it's fruitless, but I'd like to send a message" kind of way.

Boxer actually took her rejection seriously.

And given that Condi gave no indication that she is even the slightest bit concerned about lack of diplomacy, reliable evidence, truth when talking to the American people or anything else I thought Americans cared about, none of these wimpy, wussy Senators who are going to let her confirmation go through without a whisper should act surprised when things continue spiraling downward in our foreign relations.

Seriously, it's like they were saying, "Oh, please try to do just a teensy bit better in this 2nd term, OK? Please? See, we asked nicely!"

Feh.

Bush II; Day Seventy-Nine: Arianna Nails It Again...what will it take for Democrats to at least ask the tough questions?

Arianna Huffington's latest online column is smack dab on the money yet again.

Soon Congress will be asked to approve billions more in war funding, and it's time to ask the real, tough questions that frankly I think all Americans want answered. Look, the latest WaPo poll results show a dismal lack of support for the job Dubya is doing in Iraq, so despite his sunny recounting of the "accountability moment" that was the 2004 Elections, he's got some 'splainin' to do.

Like: how much more money will they ask for?

Like: how will you pay for more? Since your budget figures don't include war costs, exactly what are your thoughts: maybe roll back some of your tax cuts for the wealthy? No? Then what...where do tens of billions more come from?

Like: why is the Iraqi reconstruction so half-ass? Hey, I watch "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." With enough money, manpower and motivation they seem to work miracles. Well, I'd say we've been throwing the money at the problem...are we lacking the other two things?

Arianna urges the Democrats to find their backbones and ask these kindof questions, and so do I!

we can't leave itall up to Barbara Boxer.

Sometimes a Picture really Is Worth 1000 Words

Check this one out.

It's depressing and heart-breaking.

But you should look anyway.

Don't worry: it's not of a guy getting his head cut off or of dead Tsunami victims. But there is some blood.

Bush II; Day Seventy-Five: Elections?They're not "pivotal" anymore, just the "start"of the process!

I could just scream at the hypocrisy, and worse, how they get away with it.

Rather than postpone the elections until the country of Iraq could possibly be in good enough shape to hold them safely, the Administration would prefer to have them, and just admit up front they're kind of symbolic. No, not even symbolic...symbols have some meaning.

Let me get this straight. The ever-morphing reasons for going to war in the first place ended up settling on the whole "set Iraq up as a democracy and the rest of the Mid-east nations will fall like dominoes on the path of democracy too." Right?

And now, we can't even show them proper democracy in action. (Of course, we haven't even been able to do that in our own country, so why am I surprised?")

I just love how the Administration is able to change their tune with impunity over and over...and no one is calling them flip-floppers! Why the hell not?

This whole war has been one, long loser-move. And sending them into this mess and keeping them mired in a mess is no way of "supporting" our troops.

Daily Kos has more.

Bush II; Day Seventy-Three: Naive, Misled Voters

I talked to a lot of voters during the campaign. And I went out of my way to talk to those who did not share my point of view. I talked to lots of people who were going to vote for Bush, or, though undecided, were leaning his way.

Now, you can find pundits on TV and in blogs who claim to love, love, love the War in Iraq. But the real, everyday people I talked to? Not one of them felt good about there being no WMDs. Not one of them felt good about going in and being unprepared for the level of insurgency we would encounter. Not one of them felt Bush had told us the whole truth, or that he had been served well by his team. And most of them felt a little uncomfortable with Bush's inability to admit that anything was wrong or that any mistakes were made.

And some of them even expressed the "changing horses mid-stream" cliche an alternate way: "it's his mess, he should clean it up."

And those voters still felt like they could vote for Bush. Some like a (very disappointing) Mark Cuban attributed their vote to that hard-to-define quality: Leadership. Others simply did not know Kerry would do better, so they stuck with the devil they knew.

But the President who sees 50.8% of the vote as a mandate doesn't have time for such subtleties. And the President who sold stubbornness and arrogance as "Leadership" is really still just stubborn and arrogant.

And those naive voters who felt sure that Bush would learn from his first term mistakes and approach the second term wiser and with a little more humility handed him, instead, all the justification he felt he needed to continue on, status quo firmly in place.

Yes, Bush believes your votes in the 2004 election "ratified" his actions in Iraq. That that was the "accountability moment", and the voters spoke, so there is no need to hold anyone in his Administration "accountable" in any other way.

I feel very sad for our country that this childish and narrow thinker is our "leader".

Breaking News: Abu Ghraib Soldier Convicted

I have mixed feelings.

I believe this soldier was wrong, and must have known what he was doing was wrong.

I also believe that those higher up did know what was happening, in fact likely authorized or even ordered it.

And not one of them is going to face the music for these wrongdoings. Not one. officer.

This guy was wrong, but he's taking the fall for a lot of higher up folks who were even more wrong. And that's too bad.

Bush II; Day Fifty-Four: More on the Iraq elections

The whole Iraqi election topic seems fraught with inconsistencies, hypocrisies, and recipes for disaster.

Read all about it in the extended entry:

First of all, I continue to think we are trying to have our cake and eat it too. We proclaim that we are not occupiers, that the Iraqis want to run their own government, run their own security etc. Yet, we, the US government, are the ones refusing to entertain any suggestions of delaying the elections. My question continues to be, shouldn't we at least be letting it appear like the interim Iraqi government has a say in when they hold elections?

Now, there's this prickly issue of: when is a democracy NOT a democracy? When, actual election results are ignored to guarantee a certain presence in the government for opposition parties. Yes, there are suggestions being floated that the Sunni Party get some guaranteed presence in the government, regardless of whether they win it by votes or not. Hey, neat idea...are you going to give some Democrats judgeships and cabinet seats, Dubya? You know, to avoid polarization?

But, it may all be a moot point anyway, as the WaPo reports that the Sunnis are "pulling out" of the elections. Again, voices inside Iraq beg for more time to prepare for the elections...both to improve security and to educate the people...but those voices are ignored. Sort of like the Administration ignored the military voices who urged them to send more troops, don't you think?

It just sounds ugly and getting uglier all the time.

Bush II; Day Forty-Nine: Who Knew What When?

It continues to look ugly...the whole torture problem.

Why are we not more up in arms about this? It confounds me.

Here are some links to keep you up-to-date:
Washington Post 12/21
Washington Post 12/22
TalkLeft's take on it

Bush II; Day Forty-Seven: Iraq insurgency seems more coordinated

From Reuters: Bombing attacks continue in Iraq, this time coordinated across more than one holy city. in addition, election officials have been targeted and murdered.

We are 6 weeks before the election. Is there really any hope that this election can continue, as planned, come off without any major glitches, and can extinguish some of the flames, both rhetorical and real, that are consuming Iraq?

I hope so, but I fear it may not be so.

Bush II; Day Thirty-Seven: They're attacking our troops AND the infrastructure

What would drive a people to act outside their own self-interest and the interests of their countrymen?

Why would the insurgents in Iraq go beyond attacking our troops, which may be reprehensible, but is hardly incomprehensible, and attack efforts to reconstruct the country?

While Bush would say it's because they "hate freedom", I fail to see why these people would want to preside over a country on its crumbling last legs either.

And for those of you wondering why I wonder why the insurgents do what they do: rent "Fog of War." Robert S. McNamara's first lesson: Empathize with the Enemy.

Not sympathize.

Not pity.

Not concur.

But empathize...understand their perspective and what drives them.

So what reasons are there for this destruction of their own country?

I consider a few in the extended entry:

1. They are fighting an occupier with the blind, lashing out violence of caged animals.

2. They believe the reconstruction efforts are only lining American pockets, so harming the projects really hurts America more than Iraq.

3. They don't want America to have any credit for any good deeds in Iraq. They want to drive us out, and then rebuild, so that all the credit remains internal.

We can say (and we do) it's because they're just a cold-blooded vicious enemy who want to instill fear and keep things chaotic, or we can try to understand what the enemy imagines their purpose to be.

Every example I can think of boils down to driving out what they perceive to be the occupying force and take control of their own country.

Does that mean I think the country would be better off with these peope in charge? Nope. Does that mean I know what to do about it? Nope.

But it surely should be somebody's job to figure it out and try a companion strategy that is more than what we are doing now. We can do what we are doing now, and it will never end.

Bush II; Day Thirty-Six: Rumsfeld to Troops: "Sh*t Happens"

Well, maybe he didn't say that exactly, but I think it's a pretty fair paraphrase.

I suppose you'd be a little thrown off too if a photo op with soldiers turned into an interrogation.

But do you really think the best answer for soldiers wondering why they are scavenging through junkyards for metal to try to arm their vehicles is: 'well that armor won't help you if the tank totally blows up'?

I think he could have done a little tiny bit better than this.

Bush II; Day Twenty-Four: The other shoe drops

Admit it, you were just like me, convinced that there was no way Iraq could really hold elections in january.

And yet very few like-minded mainstream media or government folks said so out loud. To do so was "un-American", "anti-democracy", "encouraging our enemies."

That's what i find so offensive about this Administration: truth is anathema.

Well, the other shoe has dropped, and no, Iraqi officials don't think there is any way to hold elections next month. Try again in another 6 months.

No one on our side of the world is going to admit that the inevitable yet. And when they do, you can bet it will be "letting the Iraqis decide their own fate", since we're not an occupying force or anything.

Bush II; Day Thirteen: Supporting Our Troops

Perhaps supporting our troops would include:

1. Not putting them in untenable situations, so that they don't end up behaving in ways that bring even further scorn and anger their way...for example Abu Ghraib, or this latest nightmare.

2. Not spreading them so thin that we have to call up men nearing 50 who haven't served in years. [reg. required]

Bush II; Day Ten: Is This a Flip Flop?

Seriously...check out these two headlines on the very same day. I can't figure out if the problem is a so-called-liberal-media problem, or Bush purposely keeping us all confused by sending such mixed messages. After all a confused populace can't really pinpoint what they're dissatisfied with and focus on changing it...can they?

Reuters: Bush Warns of Growing Violence in Iraq

Associated Press: Bush Paints Rosy Picture of Iraq Situation

Bush II; Day Nine: Another Catastrophic Success?

OK, we finally go after Fallujah...and whether we were waiting for Allawi's OK or for the election to be over with, it doesn't matter...the point is they think many of the insurgency leaders were able to escape.

So, I'm just asking...will Bush define this as another catastrophic success?

Bush II; Day Six: Reduced accountability for funding terrorism, and anti-environment plans continue

Two stories grabbed my attention on this, day Day Six of Bush II:

1. Despite a lot of tough talk, companies that do business with terrorist-sponsoring nations don't seem to suffer much for it. I'll ask the question I always do: exactly how "pro-business" do we need to be? Pro- enough to let them continue, unfettered, funneling money to and from the people we claim to be warring against? Apparently.

Source: Associated Press

2. Bush is once again interpreting his slim win as a mandate to continue being the worst environment president ever. The free market will make sure that companies do the right thing by the environment, at least according to BushCo. Get ready for drilling in the Arctic, relaxed standards for polluting companuies and more.

Source: NY Times [Reg. Required.]

Bush II; Day Five: Iraq Declares martial Law, US Troops Await ALLAWI'S OK?

OK.

Two bad things here. Obviously martial law in Iraq is not a good sign for free and fair elections to be held 2 months from now.

But also, I'm simply confused. I'm pretty sure one of Bush's major flip-flops is on the issue of who's in charge of the US military effort there.

On the one hand he has stated that the US controls their own military...and its tactics.

On the other hand, in an effort to respond to the charge of the US as "occupiers", we seem to be now waiting for commands from Iraqi interim President Allawi.

And isn't that a disaster waiting to happen?

It'd be one thing if US troops were part of a large multi-national force under the command of, say, the NATO Supreme Allied Commander or something. But they're not...Poland aside.

I find it confusing...and obviously I'm concerned that our troops are the pawns.

So It Begins: How Dare Art Examine War?

Thought my readers here might find this interesting;

I also blog for a theatre company in San Francisco called 42nd St. Moon. They specialize in classic musicals, especially those from the earlier eras that may have been "lost" for many decades.

A show called "Hooray For What!" is opening in a week. It was performed in 1937, and its a wild farce that satirizes war profiteering, jingoism and war hawks. (This was in a still isolationist US after all.) The lyricist and co-author of the book was a known leftist, Yip Harburg.

When 42nd St. Moon sent their email blast to their subscriber list, promoting the show and its "relevant anti-war theme", they got a nastygram back from one reader...citing Tuesday's Kerry loss as evidence that "anti-war daydreaming" is not relevant!

Yikes.

Even though their blog is pretty light in tone, they let me respond in the blog, which you can find here:

42nd St. Moon's Blog

Bush II; Day Two: US Soldiers confirm Al QaQaa looted on their watch

Conveniently waiting to tell their story until after election day and requesting anonymity for fear for their jobs, US troops tell the story of the looting of Al Qaqaa.

60 Minutes Last Night

Am I the only one who felt strong sympathy for that National Guard Commander, desperately trying to find a way to be both honest and cover his ass by not lambasting the Administration? I didn't know one person could blink that much in such a short period of time.

So ironic that Cheney is now settling on saying Kerry has no plan for Iraq. Its the height of arrogance, and let's hope hubris, that Cheney can't see that it is HIS TEAM that is supposed to have a plan RIGHT NOW, and that if HIS TEAM had had one from the beginning, the next President wouldn't be in quite the pickle he's going to be in, figuring it out.

Truly sad that this crew in the White House are willing to sacrifice the troops they say they support (all except Giuliani of course.) And for what?

Tax cuts for the wealthy.

Finishing what Bush I didn't.

The fantasy of what being a "War President" would do for poll numbers.

Who Dares To Say: OBL Tape is a "Little Gift"?

I was talking to my mom yesterday, and she was wondering about the political impact of the OBL tape.

We agreed there were two schools of thought (neither of which I claim to be completely accurate, just representative) :

1. Tape reminds us of fear; and scares us about changing "horses mid-stream." God, I hate that phrase by now. Moreover, tape makes American people want to leap to the defense of our current leader in the face of this guy's taunts. Helps Bush.

2. Tape reminds us that Bush abandoned the hunt for bin Laden to go into Iraq. And gee, doesn't bin Laden look healthy and secure? And BTW: if you think about it, isn't bin Laden counting on the American people feeling as described in school of thought #1, Bush getting re-elected, and therefore his #1 recruitment tool staying around? Helps Kerry.

I don't think either option is really going to happen. But what I DO think would influence people, if they heard about it in any mainstream media programming, is the fact that Bush advisers are practically giddy over the appearance of the tape, going so far as to call it a "little gift."

And as blogger Matt Yglesias said: if an administration believes that increased fear of terrorism improves their political standing, what incentive have they to reduce the fear of terrorism?

Makes you sick, doesn't it? And is perfect ammunition for a backlash.

Source: The Moderate Voice commenting on the NY Daily News story.

Transcript of OBL's Video

The US mainstream media is only showing sound bites of this, so if you're interested, here's the entire transcript.

It's pretty easy to say we don't care what a terrorist murderer says.

And I certainly don't like it. Especially the whole "Let's blame Israel" (who has been under attack and defending its very existence since its inception) BS.

But, it IS going to provide some insight into the mess we're in, and into the enemy's mind.

More on Al Qa Qaa

It boggles my mind. It truly does. These explosives disappear.

BushCo's first response: "nuh uh, they did not."

BushCo's second response: "it's the troops' fault."

Seriously.

Can you just imagine if a Kerry rep said what Rudy Giuliani said?

I like, as I usually do, Wes Clark's statement on it.

I love how BushCo has tried to excoriate Kerry for daring to criticize Bush on Al Qa Qaa...saying he jumped to conclusions. Well, even Dick Cheney is backing off, as it's becoming clearer that, despite what that unbesmirchable source that is the Drudge Report says, those explosives were there.

Love, love, LOVE Wesley Clark

Can he be Secretary of State, please, can he?

Or, with this quote, perhaps he's really gunning for Secretary of Defense.

Took him 3 days, but Bush finally addresses Al Qa-Qa

And his response? Why, John Kerry is denigrating our troops of course.

No, dude...just you and your band of incompetents at the top of the command food chain.

Here's a little recap at Talking Points Memo.

Congressman Tim Ryan on Why the Draft Rumor Persists

Pretty impassioned speech. Pretty great indictment of all things Bush.

Here.

Whatever happened to...

Abu Ghraib?

It was the subject that "dared not speak its name" during the debates.

We got to hear abut war and terrorism; we got to hear about abortion, stem cells, gay marriage; we got to hear about health care, jobs and taxes.

But we didn't get to hear about the issue that made most Americans feel most ashamed this year.

Why did no one ask Bush to explain...just so we could hear him, once again, pretend this was only the actions of a "few bad apples"?

Why did no one ask Kerry what he might have done differently to prevent such occurrences?

Why did no one ask Bush if he really thought the Geneva Conventions weren't always applicable or might be irrelevant? If he read the memos on it? If he didn't think perhaps someone a little higher up from the Pentagon ought to bear some responsibility?

And why didn't someone ask Kerry how he would have reacted differently if such a scandal had broken on his watch?

Well, it was post-debates, but I guess the Washington Post did ask some questions, and only Kerry has responded. Here's the full story.

And the excerpt that matters most:

""We will abide by a principle long enshrined in our military manuals," says the Kerry statement: "That America does not treat prisoners in ways we would consider immoral and illegal if perpetrated by the enemy on Americans."

We get letters: comments from the crowd

Interesting email I received the other day:

"Mr. Bush is doing a terrible job of getting the terrorists that threaten America. He named his 22 most wanted terrorists 3 years ago, and he promised "They will be stopped, and they will be punished ... we expect results". He's only gotten 3 of the 22. The other 19 are still out there preparing for the next strike.

When, after 3 years, a coach has won 3 and lost 19, it's time to bring in a new coach."

Now I've used the CEO analogy myself...you know when someone has spent 4 years screwing up, you find someone else to come in and clean up the mess.

But I'm liking this coach analysis too. You'd think we'd be at least as unsentimental and unforgiving of a president who rushed us to war with incorrect information and then can't think of a single thing he'd do differently.

File It Under: I Didn't Know That!

Interesting post on how it's against military code to "use contemptuous words" against the President, among others.

So, do we think soldiers might be a tad more honest when they're talking to a Michael Moore about how they feel about the war, than when they're talking to Bush?

We do.

Republican Congressman Quotes Krugman!

In coming to the painful conclusion that our invasion of Iraq was a mistake, retiring Republican Congressman Doug Bereuter has written a lengthy and thoughtful piece in the Lincoln Star-Journal. It's probably no coincidence that he takes such a strong stand, and that he's retiring.

And he quotes liberally from Paul Krugman...the right-wing's whipping boy.

Check it out here.

I Know It Makes Me Unpatriotic, but...

I do kind of care how we treat prisoners.

I do have this apparently naive, childlike belief that Americans are true and fair and just and decent, and care far more about human rights than most other countries.

It was bad enough that no one has been held accountable for Abu Ghraib except the lowest level soldiers they could find.

But, now there's evidence that we continue to detain prisoners outside the knowledge or bounds of the Int'l Red cross, and that we threaten to send them off to countries that perform even the most heinous tortures.

And I'm sorry if it makes me some bleeding heart, unpatriotic person, but I think it's wrong. I don't think our bar should be set so low that we're noble as long as we don't behead people. (Thanks, Donald Rumsfeld for outlining America's new principles.)

Read it at Cnn.com.

Kerry: Naive? No. Bush: a Failure!

Oh, so Kerry won't be able to pull together a more substantial international coalition than Bush?

You heard it even from the moderators in the debate, so-called-liberal-media mavens that they were.

Well, how about this news from Germany, then?

Who's the naive one now? And who's the pessimist?

Dubya on both counts.

Our military as political pawns? I am very sad today.

The Moderate Voice continues to do at least me the service of consolidating reactions from around the blogger world regarding top stories.

Today he's posting on an LA Times story that contends that the Bush Administration is purposely holding off on major military actions in Iraq until after the election in November.

And he doesn't shy away from bringing up that "other" war, Vietnam, and from posting reactions from both sides of the political spectrum.

And this story simply makes me very sad. Sad because I have no doubt that politics is determining how the pawns who are our military are being played, no doubt that this was true from the time that BushCo ignored their own military leaders' advice about troop numbers etc. back before the invasion.

And sad that there is still such cognitive dissonance in this country that people cannot truly open their eyes and associate the mess we are in with the man who is responsible.

Republicans and Independents: Imagine how you would have felt had the same sequence of events happened under Clinton's watch. Imagine the cries of incompetence, hell...of evil that would have ensued.

I don't happen to be one of those who think Bush is only a stupid puppet. He has a strategy that involves believing himself to be placed in power by God. The rest is just details to him. He should be held accountable...and fired this November.

Back in Love with Krugman

Not that I feel out of love, or that my brain crush faded...well, okay, it faded a little. I was seduced by newer, younger sources of insightful political reporting and/or commentary like Pandagon and Electoral Vote.com.

But Krugman was always there, delivering his sharp, honest and unflinching essays as per usual at the NY Times.

Yesterday's is no exception. Read "Ignorance Isn't Strength" here.

Or the entire text is in the extended entry:

Ignorance Isn't Strength
By PAUL KRUGMAN
NY Times
Published: October 8, 2004

I first used the word "Orwellian" to describe the Bush team in October 2000. Even then it was obvious that George W. Bush surrounds himself with people who insist that up is down, and ignorance is strength. But the full costs of his denial of reality are only now becoming clear.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have an unparalleled ability to insulate themselves from inconvenient facts. They lead a party that controls all three branches of government, and face news media that in some cases are partisan supporters, and in other cases are reluctant to state plainly that officials aren't telling the truth. They also still enjoy the residue of the faith placed in them after 9/11.

This has allowed them to engage in what Orwell called "reality control." In the world according to the Bush administration, our leaders are infallible, and their policies always succeed. If the facts don't fit that assumption, they just deny the facts.

As a political strategy, reality control has worked very well. But as a strategy for governing, it has led to predictable disaster. When leaders live in an invented reality, they do a bad job of dealing with real reality.

In the last few days we've seen some impressive demonstrations of reality control at work. During the debate on Tuesday, Mr. Cheney insisted that "I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11." After the release of the Duelfer report, which shows that Saddam's weapons capabilities were deteriorating, not advancing, at the time of the invasion, Mr. Cheney declared that the report proved that "delay, defer, wait wasn't an option."

From a political point of view, such exercises in denial have been very successful. For example, the Bush administration has managed to convince many people that its tax cuts, which go primarily to the wealthiest few percent of the population, are populist measures benefiting middle-class families and small businesses. (Under the administration's definition, anyone with "business income" - a group that includes Dick Cheney and George Bush - is a struggling small-business owner.)

The administration has also managed to convince at least some people that its economic record, which includes the worst employment performance in 70 years, is a great success, and that the economy is "strong and getting stronger." (The data to be released today, which are expected to improve the numbers a bit, won't change the basic picture of a dismal four years.)

Officials have even managed to convince many people that they are moving forward on environmental policy. They boast of their "Clear Skies" plan even as the inspector general of the E.P.A. declares that the enforcement of existing air-quality rules has collapsed.

But the political ability of the Bush administration to deny reality - to live in an invented world in which everything is the way officials want it to be - has led to an ongoing disaster in Iraq and looming disaster elsewhere.

How did the occupation of Iraq go so wrong? (The security situation has deteriorated to the point where there are no safe places: a bomb was discovered on Tuesday in front of a popular restaurant inside the Green Zone.)

The insulation of officials from reality is central to the story. They wanted to believe Ahmad Chalabi's promises that we'd be welcomed with flowers; nobody could tell them different. They wanted to believe - months after everyone outside the administration realized that we were facing a large, dangerous insurgency and needed more troops - that the attackers were a handful of foreign terrorists and Baathist dead-enders; nobody could tell them different.

Why did the economy perform so badly? Long after it was obvious to everyone outside the administration that the tax-cut strategy wasn't an effective way of creating jobs, administration officials kept promising huge job gains, any day now. Nobody could tell them different.

Why has the pursuit of terrorists been so unsuccessful? It has been obvious for years that John Ashcroft isn't just scary; he's also scarily incompetent. But inside the administration, he's considered the man for the job - and nobody can say different.

The point is that in the real world, as opposed to the political world, ignorance isn't strength. A leader who has the political power to pretend that he's infallible, and uses that power to avoid ever admitting mistakes, eventually makes mistakes so large that they can't be covered up. And that's what's happening to Mr. Bush.

E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com

An Iraq reporter's unvarnished truth

Online on the Internet: A Wall Street Journal reporter based in Iraq wrote a few friends a personal email, exposing just how bad things are there.

Those friends told two friends, and so on and so on. Now, as it spread, there were doubters. There were people who thought it was a hoax...that's how bad the letter made thins sound over there. Worse than even what we are (now) famously seeing on our TV screens.

So the reporter finally publicly confirmed, yes that was the email written.

Read it yourself here.

Will the new CIA Report on Iraq be THE killing blow?

It just seems so devastating to the Bush crowd to me.

It proves they were wrong. Not just wrong about WMDs, but wrong about the efficacy of the past decade of sanctions and inspections etc. In their desperate effort to reject all tactics Clintonian, they rushed into a bad, wrong war.

And what's worse. What truly seems to be the nail in the coffin to me, is their inability to concede on even a small point to regain some authority on larger points.

I mean what the HELL was Cheney talking about in the debate about the chemical plant making Ricin in Iraq????No, sir. They did NOT find any evidence of that. That boggled my mind completely.

Source: NY TimesEditorial.

Full text in extended entry:

The Verdict Is In
NY Times Editorial
Published: October 7, 2004

Sanctions worked. Weapons inspectors worked. That is the bottom line of the long-awaited report on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, written by President Bush's handpicked investigator.

In the 18 months since President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, justifying the decision by saying that Saddam Hussein was "a gathering threat" to the United States, Americans have come to realize that Iraq had no chemical, nuclear or biological weapons. But the report issued yesterday goes further. It says that Iraq had no factories to produce illicit weapons and that its ability to resume production was growing more feeble every year. While Mr. Hussein retained dreams of someday getting back into the chemical warfare business, his chosen target was Iran, not the United States.

The report shows that the international sanctions that Mr. Bush dismissed and demeaned before the war - and still does - were astonishingly effective. Mr. Hussein hoped to get out from under the sanctions, and the report's author, Charles Duelfer, loyally told Congress yesterday that he thought that could have happened. But his report said the Iraqis lacked even a formal strategy or a plan to reconstitute their weapons programs if it did.

For months, administration officials have tried to deflect charges that they invaded Iraq under false pretenses and have urged critics to wait for Mr. Duelfer's verdict on the weapons search. The authoritative findings of his Iraq Survey Group have now left the administration's rationale for war more tattered than ever. It turns out that Iraq destroyed all stockpiles of illicit weapons more than a decade ago and had no large-scale production facilities left after 1996, seven years before the invasion. This was a matter of choice by Saddam Hussein, who desperately wanted an end to sanctions and feared that any weapons programs, if discovered by inspectors, would only keep them in place.

Even after U.N. inspectors left Iraq in 1998, a period when Western intelligence experts assumed the worst might be happening, the Hussein regime made no active efforts to produce new weapons of mass destruction. The much-feared nuclear threat - that looming mushroom cloud conjured by the administration to stampede Congress into authorizing an invasion - was a phantom. Mr. Duelfer found that even if Iraq had tried to restart its defunct nuclear program in 2003, it would have needed years to produce a nuclear weapon.

Since any objective observer should by now have digested the idea that Iraq posed no imminent threat to anyone, let alone the United States, it was disturbing to hear President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney continue to try to justify the invasion this week on the grounds that after Sept. 11, 2001, Iraq was clearly the most likely place for terrorists to get illicit weapons. Even if Mr. Hussein had wanted to arm groups he could not control - a very dubious notion- he had nothing to give them.

Administration officials will no doubt point to sections of the report citing evidence that front companies were supplying Iraq with banned materials, and that Iraq had money and expertise that could be used to make weapons. They will also point to Mr. Duelfer's speculation that support for the sanctions was eroding. But nothing in the voluminous record provides Mr. Bush with the justification he wanted for a preventive war because the weapons programs did not exist. And as the war continues to bog down, the power of nonviolent international sanctions looks more muscular every day.

Using the "Lie" word

Some people think it's Counter-productive to accuse the bush Administration of lying.

I don't think so.

Here's why: Bush & Co constantly make the point that Kerry looked at the same intelligence that they did and concluded that it was worth giving the President the authority to use force, and therefore he voted "for" the war.

But as numerous stories, the most recent being a long expose in the NY Times, make clear:

The Administration had intelligence that the Congress did not. And it was intelligence that refuted their claims about Saddam's imminent WMD capabilities.

And this intelligence was withheld so that they could mislead this country into war. Mislead Congress; mislead the American people, probably mislead the few allies they could get to join our "coalition."

The Daily Kos points out one of the most germane paragraphs of the Time article here.

The entire text of the article is in the extended entry. (It is loooong.):

How the White House Embraced Disputed Arms Intelligence
By DAVID BARSTOW, WILLIAM J. BROAD and JEFF GERTH
NY Times
Published: October 3, 2004

In 2002, at a crucial juncture on the path to war, senior members of the Bush administration gave a series of speeches and interviews in which they asserted that Saddam Hussein was rebuilding his nuclear weapons program. Speaking to a group of Wyoming Republicans in September, Vice President Dick Cheney said the United States now had "irrefutable evidence" - thousands of tubes made of high-strength aluminum, tubes that the Bush administration said were destined for clandestine Iraqi uranium centrifuges, before some were seized at the behest of the United States.

Those tubes became a critical exhibit in the administration's brief against Iraq. As the only physical evidence the United States could brandish of Mr. Hussein's revived nuclear ambitions, they gave credibility to the apocalyptic imagery invoked by President Bush and his advisers. The tubes were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs," Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, explained on CNN on Sept. 8, 2002. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

But almost a year before, Ms. Rice's staff had been told that the government's foremost nuclear experts seriously doubted that the tubes were for nuclear weapons, according to four officials at the Central Intelligence Agency and two senior administration officials, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity. The experts, at the Energy Department, believed the tubes were likely intended for small artillery rockets.

The White House, though, embraced the disputed theory that the tubes were for nuclear centrifuges, an idea first championed in April 2001 by a junior analyst at the C.I.A. Senior nuclear scientists considered that notion implausible, yet in the months after 9/11, as the administration built a case for confronting Iraq, the centrifuge theory gained currency as it rose to the top of the government.

Senior administration officials repeatedly failed to fully disclose the contrary views of America's leading nuclear scientists, an examination by The New York Times has found. They sometimes overstated even the most dire intelligence assessments of the tubes, yet minimized or rejected the strong doubts of nuclear experts. They worried privately that the nuclear case was weak, but expressed sober certitude in public.

One result was a largely one-sided presentation to the public that did not convey the depth of evidence and argument against the administration's most tangible proof of a revived nuclear weapons program in Iraq.

Today, 18 months after the invasion of Iraq, investigators there have found no evidence of hidden centrifuges or a revived nuclear weapons program. The absence of unconventional weapons in Iraq is now widely seen as evidence of a profound intelligence failure, of an intelligence community blinded by "group think," false assumptions and unreliable human sources.

Yet the tale of the tubes, pieced together through records and interviews with senior intelligence officers, nuclear experts, administration officials and Congressional investigators, reveals a different failure.

Far from "group think," American nuclear and intelligence experts argued bitterly over the tubes. A "holy war" is how one Congressional investigator described it. But if the opinions of the nuclear experts were seemingly disregarded at every turn, an overwhelming momentum gathered behind the C.I.A. assessment. It was a momentum built on a pattern of haste, secrecy, ambiguity, bureaucratic maneuver and a persistent failure in the Bush administration and among both Republicans and Democrats in Congress to ask hard questions.

Precisely how knowledge of the intelligence dispute traveled through the upper reaches of the administration is unclear. Ms. Rice knew about the debate before her Sept. 2002 CNN appearance, but only learned of the alternative rocket theory of the tubes soon afterward, according to two senior administration officials. President Bush learned of the debate at roughly the same time, a senior administration official said.

Last week, when asked about the tubes, administration officials said they relied on repeated assurances by George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, that the tubes were in fact for centrifuges. They also noted that the intelligence community, including the Energy Department, largely agreed that Mr. Hussein had revived his nuclear program.

"These judgments sometimes require members of the intelligence community to make tough assessments about competing interpretations of facts," said Sean McCormack, a spokesman for the president.

Mr. Tenet declined to be interviewed. But in a statement, he said he "made it clear" to the White House "that the case for a possible nuclear program in Iraq was weaker than that for chemical and biological weapons." Regarding the tubes, Mr. Tenet said "alternative views were shared" with the administration after the intelligence community drafted a new National Intelligence Estimate in late September 2002.

The tubes episode is a case study of the intersection between the politics of pre-emption and the inherent ambiguity of intelligence. The tubes represented a scientific puzzle and rival camps of experts clashed over the tiniest technical details in secure rooms in Washington, London and Vienna. The stakes were high, and they knew it.

So did a powerful vice president who saw in 9/11 horrifying confirmation of his long-held belief that the United States too often naïvely underestimates the cunning and ruthlessness of its foes.

"We have a tendency - I don't know if it's part of the American character - to say, 'Well, we'll sit down and we'll evaluate the evidence, we'll draw a conclusion,' " Mr. Cheney said as he discussed the tubes in September 2002 on the NBC News program "Meet the Press."

"But we always think in terms that we've got all the evidence,'' he said. "Here, we don't have all the evidence. We have 10 percent, 20 percent, 30 percent. We don't know how much. We know we have a part of the picture. And that part of the picture tells us that he is, in fact, actively and aggressively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons."

Joe Raises the Tube Issue

Throughout the 1990's, United States intelligence agencies were deeply preoccupied with the status of Iraq's nuclear weapons program, and with good reason.

After the Persian Gulf war in 1991, arms inspectors discovered that Iraq had been far closer to building an atomic bomb than even the worst-case estimates had envisioned. And no one believed that Saddam Hussein had abandoned his nuclear ambitions. To the contrary, in one secret assessment after another, the agencies concluded that Iraq was conducting low-level theoretical research and quietly plotting to resume work on nuclear weapons.

But at the start of the Bush administration, the intelligence agencies also agreed that Iraq had not in fact resumed its nuclear weapons program. Iraq's nuclear infrastructure, they concluded, had been dismantled by sanctions and inspections. In short, Mr. Hussein's nuclear ambitions appeared to have been contained.

Then Iraq started shopping for tubes.

According to a 511-page report on flawed prewar intelligence by the Senate Intelligence Committee, the agencies learned in early 2001 of a plan by Iraq to buy 60,000 high-strength aluminum tubes from Hong Kong.

The tubes were made from 7075-T6 aluminum, an extremely hard alloy that made them potentially suitable as rotors in a uranium centrifuge. Properly designed, such tubes are strong enough to spin at the terrific speeds needed to convert uranium gas into enriched uranium, an essential ingredient of an atomic bomb. For this reason, international rules prohibited Iraq from importing certain sizes of 7075-T6 aluminum tubes; it was also why a new C.I.A. analyst named Joe quickly sounded the alarm.

At the C.I.A.'s request, The Times agreed to use only Joe's first name; the agency said publishing his full name could hinder his ability to operate overseas.

Joe graduated from the University of Kentucky in the late 1970's with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, then joined the Goodyear Atomic Corporation, which dispatched him to Oak Ridge, Tenn., a federal complex that specializes in uranium and national security research.

Joe went to work on a new generation of centrifuges. Many European models stood no more than 10 feet tall. The American centrifuges loomed 40 feet high, and Joe's job was to learn how to test and operate them. But when the project was canceled in 1985, Joe spent the next decade performing hazard analyses for nuclear reactors, gaseous diffusion plants and oil refineries.

In 1997, Joe transferred to a national security complex at Oak Ridge known as Y-12, his entry into intelligence work. His assignment was to track global sales of material used in nuclear arms. He retired after two years, taking a buyout with hundreds of others at Oak Ridge, and moved to the C.I.A.

The agency's ability to assess nuclear intelligence had markedly declined after the cold war, and Joe's appointment was part of an effort to regain lost expertise. He was assigned to a division eventually known as Winpac, for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control. Winpac had hundreds of employees, but only a dozen or so with a technical background in nuclear arms and fuel production. None had Joe's hands-on experience operating centrifuges.

Suddenly, Joe's work was ending up in classified intelligence reports being read in the White House. Indeed, his analysis was the primary basis for one of the agency's first reports on the tubes, which went to senior members of the Bush administration on April 10, 2001. The tubes, the report asserted, "have little use other than for a uranium enrichment program."

This alarming assessment was immediately challenged by the Energy Department, which builds centrifuges and runs the government's nuclear weapons complex.

The next day, Energy Department officials ticked off a long list of reasons why the tubes did not appear well suited for centrifuges. Simply put, the analysis concluded that the tubes were the wrong size - too narrow, too heavy, too long - to be of much practical use in a centrifuge.

What was more, the analysis reasoned, if the tubes were part of a secret, high-risk venture to build a nuclear bomb, why were the Iraqis haggling over prices with suppliers all around the world? And why weren't they shopping for all the other sensitive equipment needed for centrifuges?

All fine questions. But if the tubes were not for a centrifuge, what were they for?

Within weeks, the Energy Department experts had an answer.

It turned out, they reported, that Iraq had for years used high-strength aluminum tubes to make combustion chambers for slim rockets fired from launcher pods. Back in 1996, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency had even examined some of those tubes, also made of 7075-T6 aluminum, at a military complex, the Nasser metal fabrication plant in Baghdad, where the Iraqis acknowledged making rockets. According to the international agency, the rocket tubes, some 66,000 of them, were 900 millimeters in length, with a diameter of 81 millimeters and walls 3.3 millimeters thick.

The tubes now sought by Iraq had precisely the same dimensions - a perfect match.

That finding was published May 9, 2001, in the Daily Intelligence Highlight, a secret Energy Department newsletter published on Intelink, a Web site for the intelligence community and the White House.

Joe and his Winpac colleagues at the C.I.A. were not persuaded. Yes, they conceded, the tubes could be used as rocket casings. But that made no sense, they argued in a new report, because Iraq wanted tubes made at tolerances that "far exceed any known conventional weapons." In other words, Iraq was demanding a level of precision craftsmanship unnecessary for ordinary mass-produced rockets.

More to the point, those analysts had hit on a competing theory: that the tubes' dimensions matched those used in an early uranium centrifuge developed in the 1950's by a German scientist, Gernot Zippe. Most centrifuge designs are highly classified; this one, though, was readily available in science reports.

Thus, well before Sept. 11, 2001, the debate within the intelligence community was already neatly framed: Were the tubes for rockets or centrifuges?

Experts Attack Joe's Case

It was a simple question with enormous implications. If Mr. Hussein acquired nuclear weapons, American officials feared, he would wield them to menace the Middle East. So the tube question was critical, yet none too easy to answer. The United States had few spies in Iraq, and certainly none who knew Mr. Hussein's plans for the tubes.

But the tubes themselves could yield many secrets. A centrifuge is an intricate device. Not any old tube would do. Careful inquiry might answer the question.

The intelligence community embarked on an ambitious international operation to intercept the tubes before they could get to Iraq. The big break came in June 2001: a shipment was seized in Jordan.

At the Energy Department, those examining the tubes included scientists who had spent decades designing and working on centrifuges, and intelligence officers steeped in the tricky business of tracking the nuclear ambitions of America's enemies. They included Dr. Jon A. Kreykes, head of Oak Ridge's national security advanced technology group; Dr. Duane F. Starr, an expert on nuclear proliferation threats; and Dr. Edward Von Halle, a retired Oak Ridge nuclear expert. Dr. Houston G. Wood III, a professor of engineering at the University of Virginia who had helped design the 40-foot American centrifuge, advised the team and consulted with Dr. Zippe.

On questions about nuclear centrifuges, this was unambiguously the A-Team of the intelligence community, many experts say.

On Aug. 17, 2001, weeks before the twin towers fell, the team published a secret Technical Intelligence Note, a detailed analysis that laid out its doubts about the tubes' suitability for centrifuges.

First, in size and material, the tubes were very different from those Iraq had used in its centrifuge prototypes before the first gulf war. Those models used tubes that were nearly twice as wide and made of exotic materials that performed far better than aluminum. "Aluminum was a huge step backwards," Dr. Wood recalled.

In fact, the team could find no centrifuge machines "deployed in a production environment" that used such narrow tubes. Their walls were three times too thick for "favorable use" in a centrifuge, the team wrote. They were also anodized, meaning they had a special coating to protect them from weather. Anodized tubes, the team pointed out, are "not consistent" with a uranium centrifuge because the coating can produce bad reactions with uranium gas.

In other words, if Joe and his Winpac colleagues were right, it meant that Iraq had chosen to forsake years of promising centrifuge work and instead start from scratch, with inferior material built to less-than-optimal dimensions.

The Energy Department experts did not think that made much sense. They concluded that using the tubes in centrifuges "is credible but unlikely, and a rocket production is the much more likely end use for these tubes." Similar conclusions were being reached by Britain's intelligence service and experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency, a United Nations body.

Unlike Joe, experts at the international agency had worked with Zippe centrifuges, and they spent hours with him explaining why they believed his analysis was flawed. They pointed out errors in his calculations. They noted design discrepancies. They also sent reports challenging the centrifuge claim to American government experts through the embassy in Vienna, a senior official said.

Likewise, Britain's experts believed the tubes would need "substantial re-engineering" to work in centrifuges, according to Britain's review of its prewar intelligence. Their experts found it "paradoxical" that Iraq would order such finely crafted tubes only to radically rebuild each one for a centrifuge. Yes, it was theoretically possible, but as an Energy Department analyst later told Senate investigators, it was also theoretically possible to "turn your new Yugo into a Cadillac."

In late 2001, intelligence analysts at the State Department also took issue with Joe's work in reports prepared for Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Joe was "very convinced, but not very convincing," recalled Greg Thielmann, then director of strategic, proliferation and military affairs in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

By year's end, Energy Department analysts published a classified report that even more firmly rejected the theory that the tubes could work as rotors in a 1950's Zippe centrifuge. These particular Zippe centrifuges, they noted, were especially ill suited for bomb making. The machines were a prototype designed for laboratory experiments and meant to be operated as single units. To produce enough enriched uranium to make just one bomb a year, Iraq would need up to 16,000 of them working in concert, a challenge for even the most sophisticated centrifuge plants.

Iraq had never made more than a dozen centrifuge prototypes. Half failed when rotors broke. Of the rest, one actually worked to enrich uranium, Dr. Mahdi Obeidi, who once ran Iraq's centrifuge program, said in an interview last week.

The Energy Department team concluded it was "unlikely that anyone" could build a centrifuge site capable of producing significant amounts of enriched uranium "based on these tubes." One analyst summed it up this way: the tubes were so poorly suited for centrifuges, he told Senate investigators, that if Iraq truly wanted to use them this way, "we should just give them the tubes."

Enter Cheney

In the months after Sept. 11, 2001, as the Bush administration devised a strategy to fight Al Qaeda, Vice President Cheney immersed himself in the world of top-secret threat assessments. Bob Woodward, in his book "Plan of Attack," described Mr. Cheney as the administration's new "self-appointed special examiner of worst-case scenarios," and it was a role that fit.

Mr. Cheney had grappled with national security threats for three decades, first as President Gerald R. Ford's chief of staff, later as secretary of defense for the first President Bush. He was on intimate terms with the intelligence community, 15 spy agencies that frequently feuded over the significance of raw intelligence. He knew well their record of getting it wrong (the Bay of Pigs) and underestimating threats (Mr. Hussein's pre-1991 nuclear program) and failing to connect the dots (Sept. 11).

As a result, the vice president was not simply a passive recipient of intelligence analysis. He was known as a man who asked hard, skeptical questions, a man who paid attention to detail. "In my office I have a picture of John Adams, the first vice president," Mr. Cheney said in one of his first speeches as vice president. "Adams liked to say, 'The facts are stubborn things.' Whatever the issue, we are going to deal with facts and show a decent regard for other points of view."

With the Taliban routed in Afghanistan after Sept. 11, Mr. Cheney and his aides began to focus on intelligence assessments of Saddam Hussein. Mr. Cheney had long argued for more forceful action to topple Mr. Hussein. But in January 2002, according to Mr. Woodward's book, the C.I.A. told Mr. Cheney that Mr. Hussein could not be removed with covert action alone. His ouster, the agency said, would take an invasion, which would require persuading the public that Iraq posed a threat to the United States.

The evidence for that case was buried in classified intelligence files. Mr. Cheney and his aides began to meet repeatedly with analysts who specialized in Iraq and unconventional weapons. They wanted to know about any Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda and Baghdad's ability to make unconventional weapons.

"There's no question they had a point of view, but there was no attempt to get us to hew to a particular point of view ourselves, or to come to a certain conclusion," the deputy director of analysis at Winpac told the Senate Intelligence Committee. "It was trying to figure out, why do we come to this conclusion, what was the evidence. A lot of questions were asked, probing questions."

Of all the worst-case possibilities, the most terrifying was the idea that Mr. Hussein might slip a nuclear weapon to terrorists, and Mr. Cheney and his staff zeroed in on Mr. Hussein's nuclear ambitions.

Mr. Cheney, for example, read a Feb. 12, 2002, report from the Defense Intelligence Agency about Iraq's reported attempts to buy 500 tons of yellowcake, a uranium concentrate, from Niger, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee report. Many American intelligence analysts did not put much stock in the Niger report. Mr. Cheney pressed for more information.

At the same time, a senior intelligence official said, the agency was fielding repeated requests from Mr. Cheney's office for intelligence about the tubes, including updates on Iraq's continuing efforts to procure thousands more after the seizure in Jordan.

"Remember," Dr. David A. Kay, the chief American arms inspector after the war, said in an interview, "the tubes were the only piece of physical evidence about the Iraqi weapons programs that they had."

In March 2002, Mr. Cheney traveled to Europe and the Middle East to build support for a confrontation with Iraq. It is not known whether he mentioned Niger or the tubes in his meetings. But on his return, he made it clear that he had repeatedly discussed Mr. Hussein and the nuclear threat.

"He is actively pursuing nuclear weapons at this time," Mr. Cheney asserted on CNN.

At the time, the C.I.A. had not reached so firm a conclusion. But on March 12, the day Mr. Cheney landed in the Middle East, he and other senior administration officials had been sent two C.I.A. reports about the tubes. Each cited the tubes as evidence that "Iraq currently may be trying to reconstitute its gas centrifuge program."

Neither report, however, mentioned that leading centrifuge experts at the Energy Department strongly disagreed, according to Congressional officials who have read the reports.

What White House Is Told

As the Senate Intelligence Committee report made clear, the American intelligence community "is not a level playing field when it comes to the competition of ideas in intelligence analysis."

The C.I.A. has a distinct edge: "unique access to policy makers and unique control of intelligence reporting," the report found. The Presidential Daily Briefs, for example, are prepared and presented by agency analysts; the agency's director is the president's principal intelligence adviser. This allows agency analysts to control the presentation of information to policy makers "without having to explain dissenting views or defend their analysis from potential challenges," the committee's report said.

This problem, the report said, was "particularly evident" with the C.I.A.'s analysis of the tubes, when agency analysts "lost objectivity and in several cases took action that improperly excluded useful expertise from the intelligence debate." In interviews, Senate investigators said the agency's written assessments did a poor job of describing the debate over the intelligence.

From April 2001 to September 2002, the agency wrote at least 15 reports on the tubes. Many were sent only to high-level policy makers, including President Bush, and did not circulate to other intelligence agencies. None have been released, though some were described in the Senate's report.

Several senior C.I.A. officials insisted that those reports did describe at least in general terms the intelligence debate. "You don't go into all that detail but you do try to evince it when you write your current product," one agency official said.

But several Congressional and intelligence officials with access to the 15 assessments said not one of them informed senior policy makers of the Energy Department's dissent. They described a series of reports, some with ominous titles, that failed to convey either the existence or the substance of the intensifying debate.

Over and over, the reports restated Joe's main conclusions for the C.I.A. - that the tubes matched the 1950's Zippe centrifuge design and were built to specifications that "exceeded any known conventional weapons application." They did not state what Energy Department experts had noted - that many common industrial items, even aluminum cans, were made to specifications as good or better than the tubes sought by Iraq. Nor did the reports acknowledge a significant error in Joe's claim - that the tubes "matched" those used in a Zippe centrifuge.

The tubes sought by Iraq had a wall thickness of 3.3 millimeters. When Energy Department experts checked with Dr. Zippe, a step Joe did not take, they learned that the walls of Zippe tubes did not exceed 1.1 millimeters, a substantial difference.

"They never lay out the other case," one Congressional official said of those C.I.A. assessments.

The Senate report provides only a partial picture of the agency's communications with the White House. In an arrangement endorsed by both parties, the Intelligence Committee agreed to delay an examination of whether White House descriptions of Iraq's military capabilities were "substantiated by intelligence information." As a result, Senate investigators were not permitted to interview White House officials about what they knew of the tubes debate and when they knew it.

But in interviews, C.I.A. and administration officials disclosed that the dissenting views were repeatedly discussed in meetings and telephone calls.

One senior official at the agency said its "fundamental approach" was to tell policy makers about dissenting views. Another senior official acknowledged that some of their agency's reports "weren't as well caveated as, in retrospect, they should have been." But he added, "There was certainly nothing that was hidden."

Four agency officials insisted that Winpac analysts repeatedly explained the contrasting assessments during briefings with senior National Security Council officials who dealt with nuclear proliferation issues. "We think we were reasonably clear about this," a senior C.I.A. official said.

A senior administration official confirmed that Winpac was indeed candid about the differing views. The official, who recalled at least a half dozen C.I.A. briefings on tubes, said he knew by late 2001 that there were differing views on the tubes. "To the best of my knowledge, he never hid anything from me," the official said of his counterpart at Winpac.

This official said he also spoke to senior officials at the Department of Energy about the tubes, and a spokeswoman for the department said in a written statement that the agency "strongly conveyed its viewpoint to senior policy makers."

But if senior White House officials understood the department's main arguments against the tubes, they also took into account its caveats. "As far as I know," the senior administration official said, "D.O.E. never concluded that these tubes could not be used for centrifuges."

A Referee Is Ignored

Over the summer of 2002, the White House secretly refined plans to invade Iraq and debated whether to seek more United Nations inspections. At the same time, in response to a White House request in May, C.I.A. officials were quietly working on a report that would lay out for the public declassified evidence of Iraq's reported unconventional weapons and ties to terror groups.

That same summer the tubes debate continued to rage. The primary antagonists were the C.I.A. and the Energy Department, with other intelligence agencies drawn in on either side.

Much of the strife centered on Joe. At first glance, he seemed an unlikely target. He held a relatively junior position, and according to the C.I.A. he did not write the vast majority of the agency's reports on the tubes. He has never met Mr. Cheney. His one trip to the White House was to take his family on the public tour.

But he was, as one staff member on the Senate Intelligence Committee put it, "the ringleader" of a small group of Winpac analysts who were convinced that the tubes were destined for centrifuges. His views carried special force within the agency because he was the only Winpac analyst with experience operating uranium centrifuges. In meetings with other intelligence agencies, he often took the lead in arguing the technical basis for the agency's conclusions.

"Very few people have the technical knowledge to independently arrive at the conclusion he did," said Dr. Kay, the weapons inspector, when asked to explain Joe's influence.

Without identifying him, the Senate Intelligence Committee's report repeatedly questioned Joe's competence and integrity. It portrayed him as so determined to prove his theory that he twisted test results, ignored factual discrepancies and excluded dissenting views.

The Senate report, for example, challenged his decision not to consult the Energy Department on tests designed to see if the tubes were strong enough for centrifuges. Asked why he did not seek their help, Joe told the committee: "Because we funded it. It was our testing. We were trying to prove some things that we wanted to prove with the testing." The Senate report singled out that comment for special criticism, saying, "The committee believes that such an effort should never have been intended to prove what the C.I.A. wanted to prove."

Joe's superiors strongly defend his work and say his words were taken out of context. They describe him as diligent and professional, an open-minded analyst willing to go the extra mile to test his theories. "Part of the job of being an analyst is to evaluate alternative hypotheses and possibilities, to build a case, think of alternatives," a senior agency official said. "That's what Joe did in this case. If he turned out to be wrong, that's not an offense. He was expected to be wrong occasionally."

Still, the bureaucratic infighting was by then so widely known that even the Australian government was aware of it. "U.S. agencies differ on whether aluminum tubes, a dual-use item sought by Iraq, were meant for gas centrifuges," Australia's intelligence services wrote in a July 2002 assessment. The same report said the tubes evidence was "patchy and inconclusive."

There was a mechanism, however, to resolve the dispute. It was called the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee, a secret body of experts drawn from across the federal government. For a half century, Jaeic (pronounced jake) has been called on to resolve disputes and give authoritative assessments about nuclear intelligence. The committee had specifically assessed the Iraqi nuclear threat in 1989, 1997 and 1999. An Energy Department expert was the committee's chairman in 2002, and some department officials say the C.I.A. opposed calling in Jaeic to mediate the tubes fight.

Not so, agency officials said. In July 2002, they insist, they were the first intelligence agency to seek Jaeic's intervention. "I personally was concerned about the extent of the community's disagreement on this and the fact that we weren't getting very far," a senior agency official recalled.

The committee held a formal session in early August to discuss the debate, with more than a dozen experts on both sides in attendance. A second meeting was scheduled for later in August but was postponed. A third meeting was set for early September; it never happened either.

"We were O.B.E. - overcome by events," an official involved in the proceedings recalled.

White House Makes a Move

"The case of Saddam Hussein, a sworn enemy of our country, requires a candid appraisal of the facts," Mr. Cheney said on Aug. 26, 2002, at the outset of an address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention in Nashville.

Warning against "wishful thinking or willful blindness," Mr. Cheney used the speech to lay out a rationale for pre-emptive action against Iraq. Simply resuming United Nations inspections, he argued, could give "false comfort" that Mr. Hussein was contained.

"We now know Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons," he declared, words that quickly made headlines worldwide. "Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon. Just how soon, we cannot really gauge. Intelligence is an uncertain business, even in the best of circumstances."

But the world, Mr. Cheney warned, could ill afford to once again underestimate Iraq's progress.

"Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop 10 percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail."

A week later President Bush announced that he would ask Congress for authorization to oust Mr. Hussein. He also met that day with senior members of the House and Senate, some of whom expressed concern that the administration had yet to show the American people tangible evidence of an imminent threat. The fact that Mr. Hussein gassed his own people in the 1980's, they argued, was not sufficient evidence of a threat to the United States in 2002.

President Bush got the message. He directed Mr. Cheney to give the public and Congress a more complete picture of the latest intelligence on Iraq.

In his Nashville speech, Mr. Cheney had not mentioned the aluminum tubes or any other fresh intelligence when he said, "We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons." The one specific source he did cite was Hussein Kamel al-Majid, a son-in-law of Mr. Hussein's who defected in 1994 after running Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. But Mr. Majid told American intelligence officials in 1995 that Iraq's nuclear program had been dismantled. What's more, Mr. Majid could not have had any insight into Mr. Hussein's current nuclear activities: he was assassinated in 1996 on his return to Iraq.

The day after President Bush announced he was seeking Congressional authorization, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, traveled to Capitol Hill to brief the four top Congressional leaders. After the 90-minute session, J. Dennis Hastert, the House speaker, told Fox News that Mr. Cheney had provided new information about unconventional weapons, and Fox went on to report that one source said the new intelligence described "just how dangerously close Saddam Hussein has come to developing a nuclear bomb."

Tom Daschle, the South Dakota Democrat and Senate majority leader, was more cautious. "What has changed over the course of the last 10 years, that brings this country to the belief that it has to act in a pre-emptive fashion in invading Iraq?" he asked.

A few days later, on Sept. 8., the lead article on Page 1 of The New York Times gave the first detailed account of the aluminum tubes. The article cited unidentified senior administration officials who insisted that the dimensions, specifications and numbers of tubes sought showed that they were intended for a nuclear weapons program.

"The closer he gets to a nuclear capability, the more credible is his threat to use chemical and biological weapons," a senior administration official was quoted as saying. "Nuclear weapons are his hole card."

The article gave no hint of a debate over the tubes.

The White House did much to increase the impact of The Times' article. The morning it was published, Mr. Cheney went on the NBC News program "Meet the Press" and confirmed when asked that the tubes were the most alarming evidence behind the administration's view that Iraq had resumed its nuclear weapons program. The tubes, he said, had "raised our level of concern." Ms. Rice, the national security adviser, went on CNN and said the tubes "are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs."

Neither official mentioned that the nation's top nuclear design experts believed overwhelmingly that the tubes were poorly suited for centrifuges.

Mr. Cheney, who has a history of criticizing officials who disclose sensitive information, typically refuses to comment when asked about secret intelligence. Yet on this day, with a Gallup poll showing that 58 percent of Americans did not believe President Bush had done enough to explain why the United States should act against Iraq, Mr. Cheney spoke openly about one of the closest held secrets regarding Iraq. Not only did Mr. Cheney draw attention to the tubes; he did so with a certitude that could not be found in even the C.I.A.'s assessments. On "Meet the Press," Mr. Cheney said he knew "for sure" and "in fact" and "with absolute certainty" that Mr. Hussein was buying equipment to build a nuclear weapon.

"He has reconstituted his nuclear program," Mr. Cheney said flatly.

But in the C.I.A. reports, evidence "suggested" or "could mean" or "indicates" - a word used in a report issued just weeks earlier. Little if anything was asserted with absolute certainty. The intelligence community had not yet concluded that Iraq had indeed reconstituted its nuclear program.

"The vice president's public statements have reflected the evolving judgment of the intelligence community," Kevin Kellems, Mr. Cheney's spokesman, said in a written statement.

The C.I.A. routinely checks presidential speeches that draw on intelligence reports. This is how intelligence professionals pull politicians back from factual errors. One such opportunity came soon after Mr. Cheney's appearance on "Meet the Press." On Sept. 11, 2002, the White House asked the agency to clear for possible presidential use a passage on Iraq's nuclear program. The passage included this sentence: "Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used in centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."

The agency did not ask speechwriters to make clear that centrifuges were but one possible use, that intelligence experts were divided and that the tubes also matched those used in Iraqi rockets. In fact, according to the Senate's investigation, the agency suggested no changes at all.

The next day President Bush used virtually identical language when he cited the aluminum tubes in an address to the United Nations General Assembly.

Dissent, but to Little Effect

The administration's talk of clandestine centrifuges, nuclear blackmail and mushroom clouds had a powerful political effect, particularly on senators who were facing fall election campaigns. "When you hear about nuclear weapons, this is the national security knock-out punch," said Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon who sits on the Intelligence Committee and ultimately voted against authorizing war.

Even so, it did not take long for questions to surface over the administration's claims about Mr. Hussein's nuclear capabilities. As it happened, Senator Dianne Feinstein, another Democratic member of the Intelligence Committee, had visited the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna in August 2002. Officials there, she later recalled, told her they saw no signs of a revived nuclear weapons program in Iraq.

At that point, the tubes debate was in its 16th month. Yet Mr. Tenet, of the C.I.A., the man most responsible for briefing President Bush on intelligence, told the committee that he was unaware until that September of the profound disagreement over critical evidence that Mr. Bush was citing to world leaders as justification for war.

Even now, committee members from both parties express baffled anger at this possibility. How could he not know? "I don't even understand it," Olympia Snowe, a Republican senator from Maine, said in an interview. "I cannot comprehend the failures in judgment or breakdowns in communication."

Mr. Tenet told Senate investigators that he did not expect to learn of dissenting opinions "until the issue gets joined" at the highest levels of the intelligence community. But if Mr. Tenet's lack of knowledge meant the president was given incomplete information about the tubes, there was still plenty of time for the White House to become fully informed.

Yet so far, Senate investigators say, they have found little evidence the White House tried to find out why so many experts disputed the C.I.A. tubes theory. If anything, administration officials minimized the divide.

On Sept. 13, The Times made the first public mention of the tubes debate in the sixth paragraph of an article on Page A13. In it an unidentified senior administration official dismissed the debate as a "footnote, not a split." Citing another unidentified administration official, the story reported that the "best technical experts and nuclear scientists at laboratories like Oak Ridge supported the C.I.A. assessments."

As a senior Oak Ridge official pointed out to the Intelligence Committee, "the vast majority of scientists and nuclear experts" in the Energy Department's laboratories in fact disagreed with the agency. But on Sept. 13, the day the article appeared, the Energy Department sent a directive forbidding employees from discussing the subject with reporters.

The Energy Department, in a written statement, said that it was "completely appropriate" to remind employees of the need to protect nuclear secrets and that it had made no effort "to quash dissent."

In closed hearings that month, though, Congress began to hear testimony about the debate. Several Democrats said in interviews that secrecy rules had prevented them from speaking out about the gap between the administration's view of the tubes and the more benign explanations described in classified testimony.

One senior C.I.A. official recalled cautioning members of Congress in a closed session not to speak publicly about the possibility that the tubes were for rockets. "If people start talking about that and the Iraqis see that people are saying rocket bodies, that will automatically become their explanation whenever anyone goes to Iraq," the official said in an interview.

So while administration officials spoke freely about the agency's theory, the evidence that best challenged this view remained almost entirely off limits for public debate.

In late September, the C.I.A. sent policymakers its most detailed classified report on the tubes. For the first time, an agency report acknowledged that "some in the intelligence community" believed rockets were "more likely end uses" for the tubes, according to officials who have seen the report.

Meanwhile, at the Energy Department, scientists were startled to find senior White House officials embracing a view of the tubes they considered thoroughly discredited. "I was really shocked in 2002 when I saw it was still there," Dr. Wood, the Oak Ridge adviser, said of the centrifuge claim. "I thought it had been put to bed."

Members of the Energy Department team took a highly unusual step: They began working quietly with a Washington arms-control group, the Institute for Science and International Security, to help the group inform the public about the debate, said one team member and the group's president, David Albright.

On Sept. 23, the institute issued the first in series of lengthy reports that repeated some of the Energy Department's arguments against the C.I.A. analysis, though no classified ones. Still, after more than 16 months of secret debate, it was the first public airing of facts that undermined the most alarming suggestions about Iraq's nuclear threat.

The reports got little attention, partly because reporters did not realize they had been done with the cooperation of top Energy Department experts. The Washington Post ran a brief article about the findings on Page A18. Many major newspapers, including The Times, ran nothing at all.

Scrambling for an 'Estimate'

Soon after Mr. Cheney's appearance on "Meet the Press," Democratic senators began pressing for a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, terrorism and unconventional weapons. A National Intelligence Estimate is a classified document that is supposed to reflect the combined judgment of the entire intelligence community. The last such estimate had been done in 2000.

Most estimates take months to complete. But this one had to be done in days, in time for an October vote on a war resolution. There was little time for review or reflection, and no time for Jaeic, the joint committee, to reconcile deep analytical differences.

This was a potentially thorny obstacle for those writing the nuclear section: What do you do when the nation's nuclear experts strongly doubt the linchpin evidence behind the C.I.A.'s claims that Iraq was rebuilding its nuclear weapons program?

The Energy Department helped solve the problem. In meetings on the estimate, senior department intelligence officials said that while they still did not believe the tubes were for centrifuges, they nonetheless could agree that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons capability.

Several senior scientists inside the department said they were stunned by that stance; they saw no compelling evidence of a revived nuclear program.

Some laboratory officials blamed time pressure and inexperience. Thomas S. Ryder, the department's representative at the meetings, had been acting director of the department's intelligence unit for only five months. "A heck of a nice guy but not savvy on technical issues," is the way one senior nuclear official described Mr. Ryder, who declined comment.

Mr. Ryder's position was more alarming than prior assessments from the Energy Department. In an August 2001 intelligence paper, department analysts warned of suspicious activities in Iraq that "could be preliminary steps" toward reviving a centrifuge program. In July 2002 an Energy Department report, "Nuclear Reconstitution Efforts Underway?", noted that several developments, including Iraq's suspected bid to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger, suggested Baghdad was "seeking to reconstitute" a nuclear weapons program.

According to intelligence officials who took part in the meetings, Mr. Ryder justified his department's now firm position on nuclear reconstitution in large part by citing the Niger reports. Many C.I.A. analysts considered that intelligence suspect, as did analysts at the State Department.

Nevertheless, the estimate's authors seized on the Energy Department's position to avoid the entire tubes debate, with written dissents relegated to a 10-page annex. The estimate would instead emphasize that the C.I.A. and the Energy Department both agreed that Mr. Hussein was rebuilding his nuclear weapons program. Only the closest reader would see that each agency was basing its assessment in large measure on evidence the other considered suspect.

On Oct. 2, nine days before the Senate vote on the war resolution, the new National Intelligence Estimate was delivered to the Intelligence Committee. The most significant change from past estimates dealt with nuclear weapons; the new one agreed with Mr. Cheney that Iraq was in aggressive pursuit of the atomic bomb.

Asked when Mr. Cheney became aware of the disagreements over the tubes, Mr. Kellems, his spokesman, said, "The vice president knew about the debate at about the time of the National Intelligence Estimate."

Today, the Intelligence Committee's report makes clear, that 93-page estimate stands as one of the most flawed documents in the history of American intelligence. The committee concluded unanimously that most of the major findings in the estimate were wrong, unfounded or overblown.

This was especially true of the nuclear section.

Estimates express their most important findings with high, moderate or low confidence levels. This one claimed "moderate confidence" on how fast Iraq could have a bomb, but "high confidence" that Baghdad was rebuilding its nuclear program. And the tubes were the leading and most detailed evidence cited in the body of the report.

According to the committee, the passages on the tubes, which adopted much of the C.I.A. analysis, were misleading and riddled with factual errors.

The estimate, for example, included a chart intended to show that the dimensions of the tubes closely matched a Zippe centrifuge. Yet the chart omitted the dimensions of Iraq's 81-millimeter rocket, which precisely matched the tubes.

The estimate cited Iraq's alleged willingness to pay top dollar for the tubes, up to $17.50 each, as evidence they were for secret centrifuges. But Defense Department rocket engineers told Senate investigators that 7075-T6 aluminum is "the material of choice for low-cost rocket systems."

The estimate also asserted that 7075-T6 tubes were "poor choices" for rockets. In fact, similar tubes were used in rockets from several countries, including the United States, and in an Italian rocket, the Medusa, which Iraq had copied.

Beyond tubes, the estimate cited several other "key judgments" that supported its assessment. The committee found that intelligence just as flawed.

The estimate, for example, pointed to Iraq's purchases of magnets, balancing machines and machine tools, all of which could be used in a nuclear program. But each item also had legitimate non-nuclear uses, and there was no credible intelligence whatsoever showing they were for a nuclear program.

The estimate said Iraq's Atomic Energy Commission was building new production facilities for nuclear weapons. The Senate found that claim was based on a single operative's report, which described how the commission had constructed one headquarters building and planned "a new high-level polytechnic school."

Finally, the estimate stated that many nuclear scientists had been reassigned to the A.E.C. The Senate found nothing to back that conclusion. It did, though, discover a 2001 report in which a commission employee complained that Iraq's nuclear program "had been stalled since the gulf war."

Such "key judgments" are supposed to reflect the very best American intelligence. (The Niger intelligence, for example, was considered too shaky to be included as a key judgment.) Yet as they studied raw intelligence reports, those involved in the Senate investigation came to a sickening realization. "We kept looking at the intelligence and saying, 'My God, there's nothing here,' " one official recalled.

The Vote for War

Soon after the National Intelligence Estimate was completed, Mr. Bush delivered a speech in Cincinnati in which he described the "grave threat" that Iraq and its "arsenal of terror" posed to the United States. He dwelled longest on nuclear weapons, reviewing much of the evidence outlined in the estimate. The C.I.A. had warned him away from mentioning Niger.

"Facing clear evidence of peril," the president concluded, "we cannot wait for the final proof - the smoking gun - that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

Four days later, on Oct. 11, the Senate voted 77-23 to give Mr. Bush broad authority to invade Iraq. The resolution stated that Iraq posed "a continuing threat" to the United States by, among other things, "actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability."

Many senators who voted for the resolution emphasized the nuclear threat.

"The great danger is a nuclear one," Senator Feinstein, the California Democrat, said on the Senate floor.

But Senator Bob Graham, then chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said he voted against the resolution in part because of doubts about the tubes. "It reinforced in my mind pre-existing questions I had about the unreliability of the intelligence community, especially the C.I.A.," Mr. Graham, a Florida Democrat, said in an interview.

At the Democratic convention in Boston this summer, Senator John Kerry pledged that should he be elected president, "I will ask hard questions and demand hard evidence." But in October 2002, when the Senate voted on Iraq, Mr. Kerry had not read the National Intelligence Estimate, but instead had relied on a briefing from Mr. Tenet, a spokeswoman said. "According to the C.I.A.'s report, all U.S. intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons," Mr. Kerry said then, explaining his vote. "There is little question that Saddam Hussein wants to develop nuclear weapons."

The report cited by Mr. Kerry, an unclassified white paper, said nothing about the tubes debate except that "some" analysts believed the tubes were "probably intended" for conventional arms.

"It is common knowledge that Congress does not have the same access as the executive branch," Brooke Anderson, a Kerry spokeswoman, said yesterday.

Mr. Kerry's running mate, Senator John Edwards, served on the Intelligence Committee, which gave him ample opportunity to ask hard questions. But in voting to authorize war, Mr. Edwards expressed no uncertainty about the principal evidence of Mr. Hussein's alleged nuclear program.

"We know that he is doing everything he can to build nuclear weapons," Mr. Edwards said then.

On Dec. 7, 2002, Iraq submitted a 12,200-page declaration about unconventional arms to the United Nations that made no mention of the tubes. Soon after, Winpac analysts at the C.I.A. assessed the declaration for President Bush. The analysts criticized Iraq for failing to acknowledge or explain why it sought tubes "we believe suitable for use in a gas centrifuge uranium effort." Nor, they said, did it "acknowledge efforts to procure uranium from Niger."

Neither Energy Department nor State Department intelligence experts were given a chance to review the Winpac assessment, prompting complaints that dissenting views were being withheld from policy makers.

"It is most disturbing that Winpac is essentially directing foreign policy in this matter," one Energy Department official wrote in an e-mail message. "There are some very strong points to be made in respect to Iraq's arrogant noncompliance with U.N. sanctions. However, when individuals attempt to convert those 'strong statements' into the 'knock-out' punch, the administration will ultimately look foolish - i.e., the tubes and Niger!"

The U.N. Inspectors Return

For nearly two years Western intelligence analysts had been trying to divine from afar Iraq's plans for the tubes. At the end of 2002, with the resumption of United Nations arms inspections, it became possible to seek answers inside Iraq. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency immediately zeroed in on the tubes.

The team quickly arranged a field trip to the Nasser metal fabrication factory, where they found 13,000 completed rockets, all produced from 7075-T6 aluminum tubes. The Iraqi rocket engineers explained that they had been shopping for more tubes because their supply was running low.

Why order tubes with such tight tolerances? An Iraqi engineer said they wanted to improve the rocket's accuracy without making major design changes. Design documents and procurement records confirmed his account.

The inspectors solved another mystery. The tubes intercepted in Jordan had been anodized, given a protective coating. The Iraqis had a simple explanation: they wanted the new tubes protected from the elements. Sure enough, the inspectors found that many thousands of the older tubes, which had no special coating, were corroded because they had been stored outside.

The inspectors found no trace of a clandestine centrifuge program. On Jan. 10, 2003, The Times reported that the international agency was challenging "the key piece of evidence" behind "the primary rationale for going to war." The article, on Page A10, also reported that officials at the Energy Department and State Department had suggested the tubes might be for rockets.

The C.I.A. theory was in trouble, and senior members of the Bush administration seemed to know it.

Also that January, White House officials who were helping to draft what would become Secretary Powell's speech to the Security Council sent word to the intelligence community that they believed "the nuclear case was weak," the Senate report said. In an interview, a senior administration official said it was widely understood all along at the White House that the evidence of a nuclear threat was piecemeal and weaker than that for other unconventional arms.

But rather than withdraw the nuclear card - a step that could have undermined United States credibility just as tens of thousands of troops were being airlifted to the region - the White House cast about for new arguments and evidence to support it.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asked the intelligence agencies for more evidence beyond the tubes to bolster the nuclear case. Winpac analysts redoubled efforts to prove that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Africa. When rocket engineers at the Defense Department were approached by the C.I.A. and asked to compare the Iraqi tubes with American ones, the engineers said the tubes "were perfectly usable for rockets." The agency analysts did not appear pleased. One rocket engineer complained to Senate investigators that the analysts had "an agenda" and were trying "to bias us" into agreeing that the Iraqi tubes were not fit for rockets. In interviews, agency officials denied any such effort.

According to the Intelligence Committee report, the agency also sought to undermine the I.A.E.A.'s work with secret intelligence assessments distributed only to senior policy makers. Nonetheless, on Jan. 22, in a meeting first reported by The Washington Post, the ubiquitous Joe flew to Vienna in a last-ditch attempt to bring the international experts around to his point of view.

The session was a disaster.

"Everybody was embarrassed when he came and made this presentation, embarrassed and disgusted," one participant said. "We were going insane, thinking, 'Where is he coming from?' "

On Jan. 27, the international agency rendered its judgment: it told the Security Council that it had found no evidence of a revived nuclear weapons program in Iraq. "From our analysis to date," the agency reported, "it appears that the aluminum tubes would be consistent with the purpose stated by Iraq and, unless modified, would not be suitable for manufacturing centrifuges."

The Powell Presentation

The next night, during his State of the Union address, President Bush cited I.A.E.A. findings from years past that confirmed that Mr. Hussein had had an "advanced" nuclear weapons program in the 1990's. He did not mention the agency's finding from the day before.

He did, though, repeat the claim that Mr. Hussein was trying to buy tubes "suitable for nuclear weapons production." Mr. Bush also cited British intelligence that Mr. Hussein had recently sought "significant quantities" of uranium from Africa - a reference in 16 words that the White House later said should have been stricken, though the British government now insists the information was credible.

"Saddam Hussein," Mr. Bush said that night, "has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide. The dictator of Iraq is not disarming."

A senior administration official involved in vetting the address said Mr. Bush did not cite the I.A.E.A. conclusion of Jan. 27 because the White House believed the agency was analyzing old Iraqi tubes, not the newer ones seized in Jordan. But senior officials in Vienna and Washington said the international group's analysis covered both types of tubes.

The senior administration official also said the president's words were carefully chosen to reflect the doubts at the Energy Department. The crucial phrase was "suitable for nuclear weapons production." The phrase stopped short of asserting that the tubes were actually being used in centrifuges. And it was accurate in the sense that Energy Department officials always left open the possibility that the tubes could be modified for use in a centrifuge.

"There were differences," the official said, "and we had to address those differences."

In his address, the president announced that Mr. Powell would go before the Security Council on Feb. 5 and lay out the intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs. The purpose was to win international backing for an invasion, and so the administration spent weeks drafting and redrafting the presentation, with heavy input from the C.I.A., the National Security Council and I. Lewis Libby, Mr. Cheney's chief of staff.

The Intelligence Committee said some drafts prepared for Mr. Powell contained language on the tubes that was patently incorrect. The C.I.A. wanted Mr. Powell to say, for example, that Iraq's specifications for roundness were so exacting "that the tubes would be rejected as defective if I rolled one under my hand on this table, because the mere pressure of my hand would deform it."

Intelligence analysts at the State Department waged a quiet battle against much of the proposed language on tubes. A year before, they had sent Mr. Powell a report explaining why they believed the tubes were more likely for rockets. The National Intelligence Estimate included their dissent - that they saw no compelling evidence of a comprehensive effort to revive a nuclear weapons program. Now, in the days before the Security Council speech, they sent the secretary detailed memos warning him away from a long list of assertions in the drafts, the intelligence committee found. The language on the tubes, they said, contained "egregious errors" and "highly misleading" claims. Changes were made, language softened. The line about "the mere pressure of my hand" was removed.

"My colleagues," Mr. Powell assured the Security Council, "every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions."

He made his way to the subject of Mr. Hussein's current nuclear capabilities.

"By now," he said, "just about everyone has heard of these tubes, and we all know there are differences of opinion. There is controversy about what these tubes are for. Most U.S. experts think they are intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges used to enrich uranium. Other experts and the Iraqis themselves argue that they are really to produce the rocket bodies for a conventional weapon, a multiple rocket launcher."

But Mr. Powell did not acknowledge that those "other experts" included many of the nation's most authoritative nuclear experts, some of whom said in interviews that they were offended to find themselves now lumped in with a reviled government.

In making the case that the tubes were for centrifuges, Mr. Powell made claims that his own intelligence experts had told him were not accurate. Mr. Powell, for example, asserted to the Security Council that the tubes were manufactured to a tolerance "that far exceeds U.S. requirements for comparable rockets."

Yet in a memo written two days earlier, Mr. Powell's intelligence experts had specifically cautioned him about those very same words. "In fact," they explained, "the most comparable U.S. system is a tactical rocket - the U.S. Mark 66 air-launched 70-millimeter rocket - that uses the same, high-grade (7075-T6) aluminum, and that has specifications with similar tolerances."

In the end, Mr. Powell put his personal prestige and reputation behind the C.I.A.'s tube theory.

"When we came to the aluminum tubes," Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said in an interview, "the secretary listened to the discussion of the various views among intelligence agencies, and reflected those issues in his presentation. Since his task at the U.N. was to present the views of the United States, he went with the overall judgment of the intelligence community as reflected by the director of central intelligence."

As Mr. Powell summed it up for the United Nations, "People will continue to debate this issue, but there is no doubt in my mind these illicit procurement efforts show that Saddam Hussein is very much focused on putting in place the key missing piece from his nuclear weapons program: the ability to produce fissile material."

Six weeks later, the war began.

This article was reported by David Barstow, William J. Broad and Jeff Gerth, and was written by Mr. Barstow.

Why is No One Bringing Up 'Wag the Dog' now?

Is it just me, or is anyone else wondering why the day after a debate where Bush tanked, they launch a major offensive in Iraq?

God know such questions dogged Clinton.

It's that same old thing: every time Kerry gets some momentum this Administration issued a terror warning. It's just that now it seems like they've kicked it up a notch.

Bush Has Been Coming Out With Some Doozies

Okay. I am really trying to avoid the "how can people even think of voting for this Bozo?" attitude. I am trying, because I don't think it's productive.

But lately Bush has been coming out with some statements that boggle my mind. And if they don't boggle anyone's mind...I'm at a loss.

Check them out in the extended entry:

The guy has a strategy: never publicly apologize; never publicly admit error; never publicly waver...all while privately flip-flopping time and time again. (Check out our Flyer on George Bush: Flip-flopper-in-Chief, if you don't believe me.)

So, doozy #1: in answer to critics expressing skepticism about the state of the nation of Iraq, Bush comes up with the whole "hey I hear Iraq has a better numbers on the whole right track/wrong track thing than in this country!"

First of all...really? You follow the polls, Mr. I-Don't-Follow-Polls?

Second...really? You want to advertise that little factoid if it's true? We, in the Land of Opportunity, the last remaining super-power, the biggest economy in the world...we feel less optimistic than people living in a war-torn nation? A nation where Donald Rumsfeld opines that if 25% of the citizens can't vote in a January election...due to rampant violence...than "so be it...nothing's perfect"??? Americans feels that pessimistic about your leadership? I just don't know if I'd be trumpeting that fact. That's all. That's just me.

Doozy #2: In the spirit of no regrets, Bush doesn't regret making his expensive and widely mocked landing on an aircraft carrier declaring "Mission Accomplished." Really? Even tough you made that declaration when only 150 of our troops had died, and over 900 have died since then? Really?

Doozy #3: When asked if senior adviser (and purported Machiavelli) Karl Rove knew in advance about the release of the fallacious Swift Boat Lying Liars ads (which would be in clear violation of election rules) Bush simply said "Not to my knowledge."

Really? You didn't find that out when all the stink about the ads was going on? You didn't call him in your office and make sure he had nothing to do with that...since it was a violation after all?

No, I'm sure you wanted plausible deniability. Don't ask; don't tell.

I'm just boggled if no one cares about this stuff.

Kerry Hitting Hard on the War

And it's starting to stick.

First Kerry started stepping up his attacks on how Bush handled the war.

Then bloggers on the left-hand side of the spectrum started posting in support of Kerry's contentions...and since they're not running for office they can be a bit more impolite.

Now even the mainstream media may finally be willing to stop confusing namby-pamby-ness with objectivity, and may finally be willing to talk about facts vs. fiction.

Lots of stuff to read that should make you feel energized:

John kerry's speech in Philly yesterday: even though no one seems to be pressuring George Bush for a plan for Iraq, Kerry's got one.

The Political Animal on Bush's FantasyLand approach to Iraq

Slacktivist on why eality matters, and why the mainstream media ought to say so

Richard Cohen on dying for a lie

Two articles from Paul Krugman on facing the Iraq reality

The Washington Post finally using strong language to describe anything about Kerry (headline=Kerry Blasts Iraq Diversion)

SF Chronicle Analyzes Kerry on Iraq

Conclusion? He's not a flip-flopper.

But perhaps if he would be one, he would look less like a flip-flopper. Sort of like George Bush.

The article highlights two very important points that I have made before:

1. Those who say a vote for the resolution to give Bush the authority to use force equalled a vote in support of invasion are re-writing history for their convenience. Even Bush himself at that time pitched the resolution as a way to insure peace.

2. Those who mock Kerry's statement that he voted for the $87B before he voted against it are being disingenuous and hoping nobody actually reviews the record. kerry did vote in favor of a bill, that would appropriate the $87B for the war effort, but pledge to pay for it by rolling back tax cuts for those that made over $300K. He voted against the eventual bill that appropriated those funds, but did so simply by increasing our deficit. Look, Tom De Lay said the most important thing in war time is tax cuts. Was that the philosophy during WW II? I don't think so. And it shouldn't be the philosophy no either.

Source: SF Chronicle article

Kerry on Iraq

Everyone says Kerry voted to "go to war", and when you point out that he voted to give authority, to give the president some leverage, you hear that old "nuance" charge, like you're just being an apologist and/or crazy.

Well, I guess Dubya has been known to apply some nuance at times too. Check out this exchange during a photo op the day before he sent the referenced resolution to Congress for the vote. [Emphasis mine.]

Q Mr. President, are you going to send Congress your proposed resolution today? And are you asking for a blank check, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: That will be part of the resolution, the authorization to use force. If you want to keep the peace, you've got to have the authorization to use force. But it's -- this will be -- this is a chance for Congress to indicate support. It's a chance for Congress to say, we support the administration's ability to keep the peace. That's what this is all about.

Thanks to MediaMatters.org for once again highlighting the truth in a world where the media likes to confuse presenting two sides of a story with being balanced and objective. Even when one side of the story is simply untrue.

Sounds like perhaps Kerry's mistake (and lots of other folks) was taking Bush at his word. My, we've learned how foolish that is haven't we?

Who Can Answer the Unanswered Questions?

Well, Dubya, I think that would be YOU!

It's so nice to be validated by nationally syndicated columnists.

I have been getting nauseated recently over Dubya's ridiculous statements about his Guard service:

"There are a lot of questions and they need to be answered."

Yes, just as people have wanted YOU to answer them for the last decade, dude.

Oh, and by the way, I didn't see Bush falling all over himself to get the questions answered about his campaign's connections to those lying liars, the Swift Boat Veterans for Lies.

Anyway, EJ Dionne from the WaPo is singing my tune here.

A WaPo article that seems pretty balanced

Amidst all of the hulabaloo surrounding the 60 Minutes memos, the Washington Post has an article that attempts to be fairly balanced.

Here's why it IS balanced:

It goes beyond the issue of the memos, and continues to raise the questions about Bush's service that the memos are part of. Dan Rather's point is well-taken...everyone cares so much about these memos? Why don't people care half so much about the unanswered questions on Bush's Guard service.

Here's why the article is NOT balanced:

It brings up all of the questions surrounding the memos, but does not present the responses to those questions. Most challenges regarding the typography and formatting have been addressed at this point. And I'm not sure you can resolve the he said, she said nature of the family vs. the co-worker.

Still, you can read it for yourself here.

Now if only the people would listen

Despite various admissions over time that Saddam Hussein had no connection to the events of 9/11, an unfortunately large percentage of the American public continues to believe he did.

Why?

Because certain members of this Administration, and unfortunately the TOP 2 members, continue to mislead that he did.

Now, Colin Powell is once again admitting that there is no connection. And I like what the kerry campaign's response was here.

Iraq and Afghanistan are a mess; that's the truth

Bush can talk all he wants about deposing Saddam and "liberating" people that may some day have elections.

Meanwhile both Afghanistan and Iraq are a mess, and getting messier every day. And I don't just mean the violence and terorism that is ongoing. I mean the scary fact that fundamentalist types are gaining more and more traction with the people there.

I guess the Taliban in Afghanistan is no huge surprise. But we've created a monster (or perhaps a martyr) in this guy Sadr in Iraq.

Sources: Just read 'em and weep...and work on getting us some new leadership.

Washington Post article on people marching in the streets for Sadr.
NY Times article on how rebels control vast and critical portions of Iraq.
NY Times article on one more Iraqi pipeline being attacked.

Well, as long as you're setting the bar that high

Disgusting and appalling quote from Donald Rumsfeld:

"Does it [the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib] rank up there with chopping someone's head off on television?" he asked. "It doesn't."

All well and good and true...but is that the bar we have now set for behavior of the United States military?

Is that the best we should expect from ourselves...not to sink to the depravity and inhumanity of public beheadings?

Is that what you were hoping Rumsfeld's response would be? And does that give you confidence that this scandal, which demeaned us in our own eyes and in the eyes of the world, won't happen again?

Me either.

Abu Ghraib Reminder

Just in case it had slipped your mind, the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal may have been superseded in the news by Ronald Reagan's death, but investigation into it is still ongoing.

and despite evidence pointing to awareness, knowledge and even direction coming from very high up in the chain of command (can you say Rummie?) it looks like it's going to be the little guys that bear the responsibility.

The New York Times provides a very succinct recap of how much went wrong there, and why someone a little higher up than Private England ought to be held responsible here.

Full text in extended entry.

No Accountability on Abu Ghraib
New York Times
Published: September 10, 2004

After months of Senate hearings and eight Pentagon investigations, it is obvious that the administration does not intend to hold any high-ranking official accountable for the nightmare at Abu Ghraib. It was pretty clear yesterday that Senator John Warner's well-intentioned hearings of the Armed Services Committee are not going to do it either.

James Schlesinger, who was picked by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to head a civilian investigation of Abu Ghraib and seems determined to repay the favor, gave unhelpful testimony that included an incredible statement that there was no policy "that encourages abuse." He told that to the same senators who had heard earlier from a panel of generals that the Central Intelligence Agency was still refusing to account for its practice of hiding dozens of prisoners from the Red Cross. Mr. Rumsfeld personally approved that violation of the Geneva Conventions and other international treaties on at least one occasion.

At the hearing, Mr. Warner asked Mr. Schlesinger and Harold Brown, another former secretary of defense, to be specific about their report's talk of "institutional and personal responsibility at higher levels." Neither man had any intention of doing that.

Senator John McCain, who was a prisoner of war in the Vietnam era, asked Mr. Schlesinger with evident exasperation: "Isn't there some accountability? Isn't there some responsibility?" Mr. Schlesinger managed to come up with the colonel who read the first Red Cross report on the abuse of prisoners in late 2003 and decided that it was not credible. As for high-ranking officers and civilians, he intoned, "careers will be negatively affected."

Senator Edward Kennedy tried again. He read a list of naval officers fired for minor infractions committed by those under their command and asked why the same high standards of responsibility should not apply to, say, Mr. Rumsfeld. Mr. Schlesinger, who had earlier offered the bizarre theory that "what constitutes 'humane treatment' lies in the eye of the beholder," replied that "it's more complicated" when it came to holding a high-ranking politician accountable. He said a man like Mr. Rumsfeld must be judged on his "full performance."

We agree, enthusiastically. And with due respect to Mr. Warner - who has bravely continued his hearings and seems willing to keep going for months more - the answers are in.

Mr. Rumsfeld gave President Bush the legal advice that led to the president's famous memo declaring that the United States could, at his discretion, suspend the Geneva Conventions in the "global war on terror," and that prisoners with the newly minted designation of "unlawful combatants" were not entitled to the conventions' protections. Mr. Rumsfeld authorized the use of brutal interrogation techniques at the prison in Guantánamo Bay, some of which he later rescinded. His war plans left the Army without enough forces to face the uprising that followed Mr. Bush's ludicrously premature "mission accomplished" photo-op. Those policies - which commanders were afraid to challenge - left 97 untrained military police guarding some 7,000 Iraqis at Abu Ghraib who were not considered prisoners of war.

Mr. Rumsfeld's staff sent the chief Guantánamo Bay jailer to Iraq. There, he gave Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was under immense pressure from Washington to get intelligence on the Iraqi insurgency, a rundown on how the military forced information out of prisoners at Guantánamo. General Sanchez used that briefing, and the logic of the president's memo on unlawful combatants, to authorize the use of dogs and other illegal interrogation methods. He later tried to rescind the order, but every investigation has shown that the notion that the rules had changed was already widespread in Iraq, as well as at American military prisons in Afghanistan.

Most broadly, Mr. Rumsfeld, along with Attorney General John Ashcroft, has led the administration's efforts to justify the use of brutal interrogation techniques in the name of fighting terrorism.

Late in the day of hearings, Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, offered a wry observation on how Mr. Rumsfeld's future had become wrapped up in Mr. Bush's campaign. "I guess we'll get the real answer to that after the election," he said.

Perhaps so, but that will be a year after the Red Cross first told the Army that prisoners were being brutalized at military detention centers all over Iraq, especially at Abu Ghraib. The American public, and the rest of the world, should not have to wait that long.

One More Thing on 60 Minutes

Did anyone else notice how the White House Communications guy seemed to be so nervous.

His whole face looked like it was trembling, seriously.

You'd think this was a guy who was used to being on TV.

It all looked liked those classic signs of someone lying: strained, frozen smile, trembling lips and twitching eyes.

When Dan Rather asked Ben Barnes if it weighed on his conscience...that was a question they'll be asking a lot of people supporting Bush some day.

And some will have the honesty of a Ben Barnes or a David Brock and admit that they did wrong.

Bush Then; Bush Now

Just finished watching the Ben Barnes segment on 60 Minutes.

Look, can we just agree on this:

George W. Bush was a callow youth. Got into Yale by being a "legacy" enrollee. He was a frat boy, and a rather snarky one at that. This was a guy who came from money, and not just money...power. And not just financial power, but political power.

Like a lot of guys his age, there was no way he wanted to go to Vietnam. Unlike a lot of guys his age, his dad was a Congressman. He got into the National Guard. For some amount of time he seemed to take it kind of seriously, but at some point his dad wanted him to go help on a campaign, or to get him further away from trouble and with the arrogance of his class, he and his dad figured there was nothing wrong with having "other priorities" than actually carrying out his National Guard obligations.

Let's just face it. The guy did not show up. Not for his physical exam, not for training. And his excuses for it are malarkey. He just knew he didn't have to. Nothing was going to happen to him for skipping out, and nothing did.

His life continues. MBA at Harvard. Party animal. Businessman who can't run a successful business. Was it due to his substance problem? Who knows.

Later, he becomes essentially an inside trader. Again, why? Because he knew he could. Just like Martha Stewart thought she could. Just like the conversation I had to day with some friends wondering if they should sell stock based on some tidbits they got from someone else.

His life goes on. At around age 40, he has a literal 'come to Jesus' moment, becomes born-again and quits the substance abuse.

Let's recap: callow, unaccomplished guy who pushes on what he can get away with, and does get away with it.

And NONE of that is why I am working so hard to make sure he is not re-elected.

None of it. Sure it speaks to his character. But there's a great song by Jill Sobule called "Heroes."

Key lyric: "Why are all our heroes so imperfect?"

So, Dubya sounds like a jerky young guy.

But what I care about is: he's a terrible, terrible leader. He has bad policies, principles with which I disagree, and methods I abhor.

Now. Today. In this century.

Great Blogger Analysis of Bush Convention Speech

Matt Yglesias does an excellent job of analyzing the portions of Bush's Convention speech that dealt with War, both on Iraq and terrorism.

Here is an excerpt to whet your appetite:

"The president proposed $87 billion in funding for the troops and for reconstruction. John Kerry voted for a proposal to finance this by rescinding some of Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. The president said that if such a bill passed, he would veto it. Kerry said that if the bill came up without the amendment, he would vote against it. So Kerry's position is this -- we should only spend the money if we have the money to spend in our treasury. Bush's position is this -- we should only spend the money if doing so does not imperil the fortunes of the highest income Americans; moreover, I plan to use this as a bludgeon with which to beat up my political opponents by lying about their records."

As long as you're bringing up military service

Read this article.

And then tell me again how the Bush campaign and its surrogates manage to have the unmitigated gall to make an issue of the quality of Kerry's military service...and get away with it?

Let's Not Forget...

August was the most dangerous month yet for our military troops, with a significant increase in deaths and injuries.

A lot of platitudes and promises are nice, but the team in place now is the team who has bungled this war (both on Iraq and on terrorism) from start to finish.

All I know is that it is an illogical argument to say...hey we're the guys who screwed up, but to keep things stable you should keep us here to continue screwing up.

This is one case where sticking with "the devil you know" has fatal consequences.

We need a new direction, some new ideas, and most definitely a new leader.

The Russian School Siege in its Second Day

I cannot begin to understand this no matter how many pundits I read.

These terrorists in Russia, making a rational, planned decision to take over a school full of children...for political purposes?

What kind of target are children? What do these children represent? What have they even had the chance to do to you?

And whose sympathy will you garner? Who will listen to your grandiose positions and statements now? I cannot imagine that the most radical of the radicals could support this act, let alone regular people like me.

We can all breathe many sighs of relief that our shores have been spared terrorist attacks since 9/11, but the rest of the world, unfortunately, is the target and has been the target, since then.

I have nothing pithy to say about this, but I wanted to express that I am thinking of this situation...it's hovering in the back of my mind since I first read about it.

I'm not the most religious person in the world. I can't really claim to be "praying" for a safe outcome...for the children...screw their captors...I am certainly fervently hoping for it.

You Were Wondering How Low They'd Go Perhaps?

Well, here's your answer.

How can the Republicans not see that they are throwing into question every military person's Purple Hearts when they do this?

Sick.

And prime material for a backlash, I would imagine.

Just a question...

I'm no military expert, so I'm throwing this question out there.

Bush has played the Swift Boat Smears thing brilliantly, letting it gain momentum out there for weeks before doing two things:

1. Equating the dishonest and dishonorable Swift boat ads with MoveOn ads that draw conclusion Bush doesn't like from the facts, therefore throwing it right back at Kerry to "join him" in condemning ALL such ads.

2. Hitting that nice note of humility with Matt Lauer, admitting Kerry was heroic and that he didn't think Kerry lied. All while saying he "served his country" in his way.

My question is this: Bush says, "I would have gone if my unit had been called up", but isn't it true that as a National Guardsman he had absolutely NO chance of being called up for overseas service? Isn't this current War on Iraq the first time in the modern era that National Guardsman (normally tasked with protecting the homeland while the military is away) have been sent for extended overseas tours?

If I'm way off-base, email me at blogger@sccdp.org.

A Great Op-Ed in the Times

Larry Heinemann is an author and a Vietnam vet who has written a column that put a lump in my throat.

He boils it down to something pretty simple. Lots of stuff went on in Vietnam, and soldiers responded in lots of different ways when they returned.

But John Kerry saved that man's life that day, and those 'Actions Speak Louder Than Medals'.

Entire text is in the extended entry:

As a bonus, read this column. It must be called hearsay (from the wife of another one of the Swift Boat commanders who never made it home from Vietnam.) BUt it's a powerful story nonetheless.

And read this column by Bob Herbert too.

I'm hoping a backlash is coming against these unscrupulous and dishonorable tactics, and that columns such as these will lead the way.

When Actions Speak Louder Than Medals
By LARRY HEINEMANN

Published: August 27, 2004
New York Times

Chicago — When I came back from Vietnam, I always thought that the next argument was going to be between those who went overseas and those who stayed at home. But it turns out that the big argument now is between those veterans who thought the war was right and those who didn't. And further, it is amazing to me that the argument should revolve around medals and Purple Hearts and honorable service.

The plain fact is that in Vietnam medals were handed out like popcorn, right down to the Good Conduct Medal and the Rifle Sharpshooter Badge, particularly among career-minded officers and NCO's. Ticket-punching lifers, we called them with all the derision that the phrase implies; they seemed more interested in tending their precious careers than anything else.

I know officers who were given the Bronze Star for simply being in country (the ultimate in merit badges). An Air Force pilot told me that his commanding officer suggested that he write himself up for a Distinguished Flying Cross on no particular account, and that he, the commander, would sign it. To his credit, my friend did not do so. By the same token, a writer friend of mine keeps his Bronze Star to prove to his children and grandchildren that despite what they may hear about Vietnam, he acted the way an adult is supposed to act, with compassion and grit, and that if he is not especially proud of his service in Vietnam, he's not ashamed of it, either.

Regardless of career ambitions, there were officers and NCO's who understood the unvarnished reality of the war, and made no bones about it. When I left Fort Knox, Ky., for Vietnam in 1967, the sergeant (a full-blood Navajo Indian) called me into his office and told me flat out, "Remember, Heinemann, this is not a white man's war." After I'd been in country seven or eight months, a lieutenant with a degree in history took over our platoon. He gathered us young sergeants around him and said that our job was to make sure that everyone got home in one piece. We told him that his was a very good plan and how could we help.

The awards for Purple Hearts were mostly initiated by the medical staff. A wound is hard to fake, and you didn't put in for a Purple Heart, it was given to you whether you wanted one or not, or deserved it. And anyone who went looking for a Purple Heart was called "John Wayne," and avoided like the plague.

The veterans who seem eager to go after John Kerry remind me of the guys who thought, and perhaps still think, that the war was a right and righteous undertaking, and ultimately winnable. But to say that we could have won the war is the same as saying that we didn't fill our hearts with enough hate. Remember: we were not pleasant people, down where the rubber met the road, so to speak, and the war was not a pleasant business. John Kerry wasn't the only veteran to come back from the war spiritually exhausted and morally outraged - ready, willing and able to denounce his own government for its conduct of the war. Well before the end of my tour in March 1968, most everyone around me knew the war to be a fool's errand, but if there was any antiwar sentiment it didn't get much more sophisticated than the vast and colorful repertoire of curses you cannot repeat in a family newspaper.

But we knew what we saw, we knew what we did, and we knew what we had become. Soldiering, the downward path to wisdom to be sure. In 1971, when John Kerry sat before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the essence of his message was exact: many a mean thing was done, sir, from the Oval Office on down, and in the spirit of meanness. We love our nation dearly, but oppose this terrible war. Our country seems to have forfeited its moral authority, and that makes our hearts sore.

And all these years later - the name-calling and nitpicking about wounds suffered and medals earned and honorable service aside - the important matter is that, when push came to shove, Lieutenant Kerry turned his boat around and drove back into a firefight to fetch an Army Green Beret out of the river. I know that if it had been me in the water, I would surely remember the man's name, the look on his face, and the reach of his arm for the rest of my life; I would be sure to tell my grandchildren about him.

Larry Heinemann is the author of "Paco's Story," which received the National Book Award, and a forthcoming memoir about his experiences in Vietnam.

Kos' Productive Day

Read the stats about our troop deaths in Iraq.

Really. Read them.

Tell me you believe that number would be as high if we had a different president.

Tell me that the number in 2004 would exceed the number in 2003 if we had a different president.

And tell me it was worth it.

Especially while Osama Bin Laden is free somewhere.

And he must be laughing.

Fine Column from a Republican

No, really!

Actually this guy very succinctly illustrates how damaging and disrespectful all of this Vietnam talk has become...not just to the obvious target, John kerry, but to those who are dragged down into the mud on behalf of their party.

And he is a Republican. Read it here.

Cost of War Ticker

Sent to me by a fine, active Democrat who regularly sends email to a list of interested people, keeping them up to date on the important issues in this campaign. I do this too...every 2 weeks.

Do you?

Anyway, here is a link to a ticker that is keeping track of the ever escalating cost of the War in Iraq. In case you let it slip your mind.

It blows me away. And while you're trying to wrap your head around what such a big number really means? Think about:

After-school and Head Start programs
Health care...for example, for reservists and National Guardsman
Homeland security...funds for more first responders; funds for more inspections

I could go on, but you get the point.

I know I said it was the last, but...

OK, I'm sorry, I know I said that this entry would be the last on the Swift Boat pseudo-controversy. But, really, how can I not comment on yet another link between the Bush campaign and the Swift Boat Lying Liars?

Bush's top campaign lawyer? Also an adviser for the Not-So-Swift Boat Delusionists. He's now resigned from the Bush campaign. This comes after Bush's top veteran affairs adviser turns out to be directly linked to the Swift Boat Hallucinators.

Hmmmm.

And can I once again point out IT IS THE HYPOCRISY.

No, it is not illegal for this guy to have worked for both organizations. What is appalling is the arrogant, hypocritical behavior of BushCo. Oh, noooo, we know nothing about it; we have no connections...it's a completely independent thing...no links whatsoever.

Give the American people some credit and tell the truth for once.

Can we all stop taking these guys even the tiniest bit seriously now? Come on. And can we now start taking Bush to task for being a liar (again)? Can we stop pussyfooting around and admit that our sitting President will not stop at lies, will not stop at besmirching characters falsely, will not stop at deflection to untrue and irrelevant BS to distract from the real issues?

Sources:
Associated Press article
Washington Post article
New York Times article

My Last Post on the Swift Boat Thing

At least I certainly hope so.

BoingBoing provides a telling graphic from the NY Times on the connections between the Swift Boat Veterans for ( the bought and paid-for version of the) Truth and the Bush campaign.

It's here.

Hopefully...enough said.

Ouch! A Short But Painful Ad from the Kerry Site

How John McCain can stomach campaigning for Bush is beyond me.

And even more so when you see this ad.

Bush's only recourse when faced with a direct comparison of his Vietnam War activities vs. his opponents' is to smear their service, to impugn their characters. And he will do this to Democrats and Republicans alike.

It is vicious. It is wrong. It is LIES. And more lies are being exposed every day.

He did it to McCain. He is doing it to Kerry. And despite protestations to the contrary, his campaign is directly tied to and involved with this latest scurrilous anti-Kerry group.

Don't let him get away with it.

And don't believe the hype (that hopes to be self-fulfilling) that this crap is working.

Keep spreading the word. And keep trying, as Kerry is, to focus this race back on the issues.

In case you needed more...

In case you still had any doubts about whether the Swift Boat Veterans for (the-bought-and-paid-for-version-of-the) Truth had credibility issues, here is one more article that punches holes in their scurrilous charges:

8/19/04 Washington Post article

John Kerry: A Fighter

I'm so happy Kerry is firmly answering back to all of the ridiculousness surrounding his service.

And trying to turn attention back where it belongs: on what the two candidates plan to do about our problems NOW.

Most people will find this excerpt the best part of the speech he made yesterday:

"“Thirty years ago, official Navy reports documented my service in Vietnam and awarded me the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Thirty years ago, this was the plain truth. It still is. And I still carry the shrapnel in my leg from a wound in Vietnam...

I’m not going to let anyone question my commitment to defending America—then, now, or ever. And I’m not going to let anyone attack the sacrifice and courage of the men who saw battle with me."

But the part I actually think is more important is in the extended entry:

It's great that Kerry is standing up and defending himself. Absolutely necessary.

But what is just as great and just as important is that he try to take control of the conversation back and turn it back on to the exact thing Bush doesn't want to talk about:

Hi record.

Here's the part I appreciated:

"The situation in Iraq is a mess. That is the President’s responsibility and he owes the American people an answer.

Well, just saying the job is getting done doesn’t make it so.  My friends, let me tell you when the job will be done."

And Kerry also needs to obliterate this notion that the Republicans have some sort of monopoly on patriotism and values. And he does a good job of that with this:

"For four years, we've heard a lot of talk about values.  But values are not just words.  They're what we live by. They're about the choices we make, the causes we champion, and the people we fight for."

Amen.

I Guess Republicans Have To Retire To Speak the Truth

A retiring Republican congressman, Rep. Doug Bereuter, has sent a letter to his constituents decrying the War on Iraq, and in particular how it has been executed by the Bush Administration.

This was a guy who supported Dubya and the War back in 2002. While he stops short of accusing Bush outright of lying to justify the War, he leaves open that that may be a yet unproved reality.

It's damning stuff. it's exactly what we, the Democrats, and our candidate, John Kerry, have been saying.

And you can bet he is sacrificing some post-Congressional payback from his Party to make this very public statement.

Remember, in their world dissent=disloyalty. He's sealed his fate, but done so with an act of truth and honor.

Read the entire story in the extended entry:

Aug. 18, 2004  |  Lincoln, NE.

-- A top Republican congressman has broken from his party in the final days of his House career, saying he believes the U.S. military assault on Iraq was unjustified and the situation there has deteriorated into "a dangerous, costly mess."

"I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action," Rep. Doug Bereuter wrote in a letter to his constituents.

"Left unresolved for now is whether intelligence was intentionally misconstrued to justify military action," he said.

Bereuter is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He is stepping down after 13 terms to become the president of the Asia Foundation effective September 1.

The letter, sent to constituents who have contacted him about the war, was reported by the Lincoln Journal Star in its Wednesday editions.

In 2002, Bereuter had spoken out in support of a House resolution authorizing the president to go to war.

President Bush has continued to argue the war was justified because Saddam represented a threat to the United States, his neighbors and the people of Iraq.

In addition to "a massive failure or misinterpretation of intelligence," Bereuter said the Bush administration made several other errors in going to war despite warnings about the consequences.

"From the beginning of the conflict, it was doubtful that we for long would be seen as liberators, but instead increasingly as an occupying force," he said. "Now we are immersed in a dangerous, costly mess, and there is no easy and quick way to end our responsibilities in Iraq without creating bigger future problems in the region and, in general, in the Muslim world."

Bereuter said as a result of the war, "our country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened."

Lincoln City Council member Jeff Fortenberry, a Republican, is facing off against Democratic state Sen. Matt Connealy to replace Bereuter said.

Bereuter declined to answer questions Wednesday about the letter. His spokesman Alan Feyerherm said the congressman "feels the letter speaks for itself."

It's Not Nuance, People; It's Fact

I am pretty amazed at how we, the People, are letting the media and the Republicans treat us like very stupid people.

And I want we, the Democrats, to push back.

Let's not let them own the issues; let's not agree that something is nuanced or a flip-flop, when it is nothing of the kind.

Take a look at a few examples in the extended entry:

For example: Leave No Child behind sounded like a good idea, and worth the federal funding that as supposed to be associated with it. But surprise, Bush's budget didn't come through with that funding, so a greater burden was being placed on the states than they could handle. Now the good idea becomes a bad idea. Counterproductive.

Is that a difficult thing to grasp? Was that so nuanced? I don't think so.

Here's another one: The Patriot Act was passed in short order and shortly after 9/11. After a few years in practice, it's clear there are some parts of the bill that go too far, encroaching on our civil liberties. So, the idea is to amend, not repeal, the Act, making it more clear and less open for abuse.

Again, seems reasonable right?

Now, the infamous Iraq War issue. First the vote that everyone keeps talking about was not a resolution to declare war or to invade right now. It was a vote to give the President the negotiating power, the authority to threaten that kind of use of force should Saddam continue to refuse to comply with the UN resolutions.

And then Bush proceeded to, I will say it, lie to justify the immediate need to go to war.

So, does Kerry think a president should have the authority he voted for/ yes, he does, mostly because he would want that authority himself as President. does he think Bush used that authority appropriately, wisely and well? No way.

Here's an online article from Slate that goes through Kerry's comments on this issue one by one, including the ones the RNC is using (albeit edited and out of context) in their negative ads. it's a must-read:

August 12 Slate article

So if you're with anyone or hear anyone who pulls out the old flip-flop argument...don't stay silent. Push back.

Excellent Washington Post editorial

Pretty concise dismissal of the recent smear attacks by the Swift Boat Veterans for [their paid-for version of the] Truth.

And one could hardly accuse the Post of being all pro-kerry partisan here. In fact I think the editorial is a bit too hard on him and diminishes his service.

But, the bottom line is that they dismiss the smear attacks and their perpetrators.

Check it out here

Sensitivity

The level of discourse in this country has just descended to new lows. Cheney's fixation on the word "sensitive" in a lengthy statement by Kerry on how he would wage a better war really bugs me.

It's like he is some jock in a locker room snapping his towel at anyone not meeting his standard of macho BS.

And it further emphasizes what Clinton said on the Daily Show: "Democrats win when people think", so at all costs the Republicans are trying to prevent the people from thinking, and trying to constantly mock anyone who does appear to be thinking. And mock those of us who can listen and understand more than ONE WORD of a sentence.

Well, don't take it from me. Take it from my other hero, General Wesley Clark. I really dig how Kerry's team is not taking a single smear or slam sitting down. They are at the ready to respond. Read Clark's statement here.

Why Iraq May Not Be the End...

Iraq is experiencing renewed violence. Or perhaps, to be more accurate, I should say that Iraq is experiencing such escalated levels of violence that the media is forced, kicking and screaming, to report on it. A death or two a day isn't worth reminding us about after all.

And in the midst of that, someone from the Dept. of Defense has an op-ed in the Post this morning.

Joshua Micha Marshall of the Talking Points Memo blog not only provides links to this op-ed, but a concise summary of why this column is important.

Bottom line: Those of us who abhor this Administration's headlong and, to our minds, unjustified rush into War with Iraq tend to attribute it to incompetence or a fixation on Iraq specifically. Marshall's interpretation of the column is that the War on Iraq as a terrorist nation is actual strategy, not incompetence, fixation or error.

And when you read the column, you see that this strategy can be used to justify any number of preemptive and offensive military actions. Iraq doesn't have to be the end, in other words. And probably won't be.

Read both the column and Marshall's analysis. Both worth it.

Lies, lies & continued lies

This is an absolute must-read piece of investigative journalism, of course conducted outside the mainstream media.

The standard excuse given for Bush misleading this country into war is that "everyone believed that Iraq had WMD", France, the UN etc. So yes, we may have been mistaken (they hardly admit that even today) but we couldn't take the chance.

This article gives an incredible timeline of exactly how well BushCo knew that the WMD info was not valid. This article not only demonstrates that Bush was mistaken as he made the case for war, but knew it. He lied to lead this country into a war of choice and preemption.

How are they weasling out of this?

And if you're so aggravated that even that isn't enough: volunteer...help get out the vote. Start here.

Gasp! No! Bush's Military Records Mysteriously Destroyed!?

AND WE'RE FINDING THIS OUT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????????

OK, I don't think this makes me a conspiracy theorist, but come on, really? This is how this plays out? After the brou-ha-ha that occurred in 2000 over the issue. After the firestorm that Michael Moore lit earlier this year...after all that.

Only now do they say, "Oops, sorrry. probably should have mentioned this before. Those records got burned up in 1996 or 1997." You don't know? A bunch of sensitive military records, including those of the sitting Governor of Texas, were destroyed, and you can't pinpoint the year it happened?

But here's what I love. The AP and Reuters story? Pretty much neutral. Bending over backwards to not draw any of even the most obvious conclusions. CNN? You can't even FIND the story on their web site.

The BBC story, on the other hand? Put the word "destroyed" as in 'military records destroyed' in quotation marks! Made me LOL.

Sources:
7/9/04 Associated Press story
7/9/04 Reuters story
7/9/04 BBC story

Our Troops getting the Short End of the Stick

I'm not even going to argue about cutting combat pay, or reducing medical benefits for veterans and reservists or any of that stuff.

How about just stretching our troops so thin that we have no National Guard guarding our nation? How about extending the tours of thousands of troops who thought they were almost done? And how about this latest item, calling up reservists who haven't even been in any kind of training since they left the service. Not even the weekend per month/2 weeks per year that regular reservists do?

And we're supposed to get excited that Bush managed to broker a deal to get NATO to help train Iraqi troops? Whoopee.

The fact is we need NATO to help out, and they are NOT going to help out the discredited Bush who continues to offend the other member nations of NATO with his arrogance and attitude.

For those who say who cares about cooperating with international organizations like the UN or NATO? I'd say the families of these Guard members and reservists and troops with extended tours probably care! A lot.

The Iraq Hand-over

Today's 'Daily Mislead' from Misleader.org is a good one.

It exposes the unpleasant cloud behind the sovereignty hand-over silver lining.

Check it out.

Apparently, we already refused to abide by an Iraqi judge's order regarding one of our prisoners, and took the guy back to Abu Ghraib. So much for sovereignty.

Make sure people understand that, far from Bush "keeping his word" and "achieving his goals", he is setting up our troops to be on the receiving end of more hostility and anger

Great Link to a Great Story About Patriotism

Well, a different kind of patriotism.

Read about one soldier's mother who is inviting the press to take pictures and film of the return of her dead solider son's casket.

Since the Administration's rationale for their ban on such recording is "deference to the privacy of the grieving families", there's not a thing they can say about it.

Read about a different kind of patriot here.

More Thoughts on Fahrenheit 911

It occurred to me that there are two reasons that even right-wingers, if they can calm down and stop shouting for even a moment, will appreciate the message of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911."

The first reason is that this movie brings back the events of 9/11 itself and reminds us that we were attacked and that we have our own civilian victims to fight for. It actually reminds us of what IS worth fighting for. Or fighting against. The point is not JUST that we shouldn't be in Iraq, but that we SHOULD be going after Bin Laden and Al Qaeda and devoting more resources to that.

The second reason is that the film generally honors our troops. Yes, he does show you some clips of troops talking that will chill you, but the point he makes is that war does that to people, and we need to weigh it carefully before sending young men and women into it. But he shines a light on our wounded troops, which you won't hear anyone talking about, even as they have self-serving TV specials listing the names of the dead. And he shines a light on the sacrifice of their families.

And he rightly asks us to consider more carefully before sending our volunteer army into battle.

But I think he makes a case that there IS a battle to be fought that would be just.

Doesn't seem that radical and leftist to me.

DON'T Let This Story Get Buried

3974 get cialis online from this site http://www.cialis.owns1.com

Noonday in the Shade
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: June 22, 2004
In April 2003, John Ashcroft's Justice Department disrupted what appears to have been a horrifying terrorist plot. In the small town of Noonday, Tex., F.B.I. agents discovered a weapons cache containing fully automatic machine guns, remote-controlled explosive devices disguised as briefcases, 60 pipe bombs and a chemical weapon — a cyanide bomb — big enough to kill everyone in a 30,000-square-foot building.

Strangely, though, the attorney general didn't call a press conference to announce the discovery of the weapons cache, or the arrest of William Krar, its owner. He didn't even issue a press release. This was, to say the least, out of character. Jose Padilla, the accused "dirty bomber," didn't have any bomb-making material or even a plausible way to acquire such material, yet Mr. Ashcroft put him on front pages around the world. Mr. Krar was caught with an actual chemical bomb, yet Mr. Ashcroft acted as if nothing had happened.

Incidentally, if Mr. Ashcroft's intention was to keep the case low-profile, the media have been highly cooperative. To this day, the Noonday conspiracy has received little national coverage.

At this point, I have the usual problem. Writing about John Ashcroft poses the same difficulties as writing about the Bush administration in general, only more so: the truth about his malfeasance is so extreme that it's hard to avoid sounding shrill.

In this case, it sounds over the top to accuse Mr. Ashcroft of trying to bury news about terrorists who don't fit his preferred story line. Yet it's hard to believe that William Krar wouldn't have become a household name if he had been a Muslim, or even a leftist. Was Mr. Ashcroft, who once gave an interview with Southern Partisan magazine in which he praised "Southern patriots" like Jefferson Davis, reluctant to publicize the case of a terrorist who happened to be a white supremacist?

More important, is Mr. Ashcroft neglecting real threats to the public because of his ideological biases?

Mr. Krar's arrest was the result not of a determined law enforcement effort against domestic terrorists, but of a fluke: when he sent a package containing counterfeit U.N. and Defense Intelligence Agency credentials to an associate in New Jersey, it was delivered to the wrong address. Luckily, the recipient opened the package and contacted the F.B.I. But for that fluke, we might well have found ourselves facing another Oklahoma City-type atrocity.

The discovery of the Texas cyanide bomb should have served as a wake-up call: 9/11 has focused our attention on the threat from Islamic radicals, but murderous right-wing fanatics are still out there. The concerns of the Justice Department, however, appear to lie elsewhere. Two weeks ago a representative of the F.B.I. appealed to an industry group for help in combating what, he told the audience, the F.B.I. regards as the country's leading domestic terrorist threat: ecological and animal rights extremists.

Even in the fight against foreign terrorists, Mr. Ashcroft's political leanings have distorted policy. Mr. Ashcroft is very close to the gun lobby — and these ties evidently trump public protection. After 9/11, he ordered that all government lists — including voter registration, immigration and driver's license lists — be checked for links to terrorists. All government lists, that is, except one: he specifically prohibited the F.B.I. from examining background checks on gun purchasers.

Mr. Ashcroft told Congress that the law prohibits the use of those background checks for other purposes — but he didn't tell Congress that his own staff had concluded that no such prohibition exists. Mr. Ashcroft issued a directive, later put into law, requiring that records of background checks on gun buyers be destroyed after only one business day.

And we needn't imagine that Mr. Ashcroft was deeply concerned about protecting the public's privacy. After all, a few months ago he took the unprecedented step of subpoenaing the hospital records of women who have had late-term abortions.

After my last piece on Mr. Ashcroft, some readers questioned whether he is really the worst attorney general ever. It's true that he has some stiff competition from the likes of John Mitchell, who served under Richard Nixon. But once the full record of his misdeeds in office is revealed, I think Mr. Ashcroft will stand head and shoulders below the rest.  

Other Sources:

WLBT.com story

St. Augustine record story on domestic terrorism

A UPI Commentary on the Justice Dept. silence on this story

CBS News initial story

Ron Reagan Continues His Rampage!

Buy Viagra, Cialis or Levitra prescription from online pharmacy:

Viagra prescription
Buy Levitra
Buy Cialis

What Jon Stewart Sounds Like On a Soapbox

Buy Viagra, Cialis or Levitra prescription from online pharmacy:

Viagra prescription
Buy Levitra
Buy Cialis

There's a disgusting new term in the political lexicon, "The Bush Doctrine." This is basically defined as his decision that we can go after anyone, anywhere, including preemptively, if they have not only executed any terrorist acts, but have supported, harbored, funded, or otherwise abetted terrorists.

I find the term disgusting, not because I find the idea of going after terrorists disgusting, but simply because it's another way the Republicans are brilliant at framing discussions and creating language. Calling it a Doctrine gives it legitimacy and gives us the impression that this is some well-planned, thoroughly strategized policy...after the fact of course. We're supposed to imagine it being read about in history class years down the road by our grandchildren.

Last night Stewart 's guest was the Stephen Hayes, author of a book called "The Connection" which tries to bolster the claim that Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were connected...a connection that "endangered America."

And the author freely admitted that he could hardly claim to have proof. Every connection cited was only loosely supported by evidence. But Hayes' claim was that it was better to act on that and prevent another terrorist attack than to do nothing to prevent one.

And again the problem is in falling for this digital analysis. It's '1' or '0'. It's Black or White. It's one or the other. How about we don't preemptively go to war on shaky evidence AND we don't just sit there and do nothing either?

Anybody want to explore those possibilities?

But I digress, what about Jon Stewart, you're asking?

Jon Stewart has had many a right winger on his show, and has managed to keep his cool, even as his questions have gotten more and more pointed over the weeks and months.

Last night he expressed that the real concern over this "Doctrine" was that it was setting a standard for preemption, and that the problem with Iraq being the first war fought under such a doctrine, is that the evidence and case that the Administration built is so weak, and that don't you think the first time out, you'd want to be sure?

Hayes tried to say that "it's not unreasonable" to go after people who threaten your country. Stewart replied with this concise deconstruction of the argument:

"It's not unreasonable, but it's not the point. The point is: I'll list four things:

Here's the problem with your doctrine: you can't tell me what country I just named. And that's a problem when you're talking about war."

Exactly.

At least for a moral nation.

Like America is, even if her current leadership is not.

Sketchy details emerging on US attack on Falluja

Speaking of shame.

Although details are still "sketchy"...meaning did we shoot the missiles from a helicopter or a plane, according to one report...apparently we fired on the town of Falluja, resulting in 20 civilian deaths, so far, and extensive damage to homes in the neighborhood. Sounds similar to the attack on the wedding party a couple of months back (which by the way kind of died as a story didn't it?)

Although the US is not yet commenting, the BBC is theorizing that the motivation behind the attacks was that "here have also been reports that Jordanian-born al-Qaeda suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - blamed for several bomb attacks - is hiding there."

I know it's really naive of me, but I'm wishing life was more like the movies. If we think that guy is there, where are the special ops dudes, all in black, rappelling down the sides of building to surgically extricate the baddie from his bed?

Sources: BBC News
Associated Press

We can only be heartsick right now

The situation in the Middle East seems so out of control.

And the barbarism we are faced with, suicide bombers, beheadings and the like, so hard to watch. I know I went to the web site with Nicholas Berg's execution, but could not watch it.

The news about Paul Johnson is heart-breaking. For his family surely. But for anyone. For everyone.

And it's just one of too many stories.

I blogged a couple of months ago that I just wanted something to go right over there. Even if it meant Bush capitalized on it. Even if it improved his approval numbers.

But that was before Abu Ghraib. And Nicholas Berg. And Paul Johnson.

I'm still wishing for it.

I believe such change for the better will only really come when we get John Kerry in office, but I'd be happy to settle for any crumb of good news now.

Al Franken Exposing the LIARS!

If you don't already listen to Al Franken's show on AirAmerica, you should...and you can via the Internet since the local radio station isn't up & running yet.

Today he is just skewering the Administration over this report that there were no appreciable links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and the Administration's response to that report.

Response #1: Yes there are, yes there are...Mom!!!!!! The 9/11 Commission is teasing meeeeee. [Editor's Note: Okay, that's not from Al, that's me...extrapolating, embellishing...OK just making it up.]

Response #2: Well, their report is accurate, but we never said Al Qaeda and Saddam were collaborating and worked together on 9/11. Naughty press, bad press for implying that.

This is where Al is going to town playing sound clips of Bush, Cheney and the gang saying EXACTLY that. REPEATEDLY.

Man, I bet this Administration HATES modern communications technology. No wonder they are so anti-science. Technological advances are making it SO much harder to lie to the people than it used to be.

Debunking the Saddam/Al Qaeda Link

You gotta hand it to BushCo.

They have a strategy and they stick right to it. That strategy is to lie loud and proud, to stick to that lie no matter what evidence arises to refute it, and you can be sure that a large portion of folks will still believe it. More people will hear your repeated lie than will hear the new reports of its inaccuracy.

Today's example is the alleged connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam, which, if you recall, was used to justify shifting attention to Iraq as part of the War on terror (and to appropriate funds allocated to Afghanistan...where is the independent prosecutor on this one?)

Back in September Bush actually admitted they had no "conclusive" evidence of such a connection.

But in the last couple of days he and Dick Cheney have decided now would be a good time to revive the lie. Loud & proud.

Problem is, not only is there no "conclusive" evidence to support their claim, there is actual evidence that refutes it. This turns their "assumption" or "speculation" or "intuition" or "direct line from God" into...say it with me...a LIE.

Another LIE.

Here is the link to the Associated Press story on that lie.

And that link includes links to the actual full report issued by the Commission, in case you don't trust the interpretation of the media.

Text of the article is in the extended entry:

9/11 Panel Says Iraq Rebuffed Bin Laden
By HOPE YEN
WASHINGTON (AP) - The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks found ``no credible evidence'' of a link between Iraq and al-Qaida in attacks against the United States, contradicting President Bush's assertion that such a connection was among the reasons it was necessary to topple Saddam Hussein.
In a report based on research and interviews by the commission staff, the panel said that Osama bin Laden explored possible cooperation with Saddam even though he opposed the Iraqi leader's secular regime.
A senior Iraqi intelligence official reportedly met with bin Laden in 1994 in Sudan, the panel found, and bin Laden ``is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded.''
``There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida also occurred after bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship,'' the report said. ``Two senior Bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al-Qaida and Iraq.''
As recently as Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney asserted that Saddam had ``long-established ties'' with the terrorist network.

In making the case for war in Iraq, Bush administration officials frequently cited what they said were Saddam's decade-long contacts with al-Qaida operatives. They stopped short of claiming that Iraq was directly involved in the Sept. 11 attacks but critics say Bush officials left that impression with the American public.

The commission's report was released at the beginning of the panel's final two-day hearing on the development of the Sept. 11 plot and the emergency response by the Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. air defenses.

``We're going to talk about the evolution of al-Qaida and how they moved from one type of organization in the late 1980s to a more fast-acting, poisonous organization in the 1990s, more spread out and dispersed,'' Democratic commissioner Timothy Roemer said before the hearing.

``We'll be looking at the timeline as to whether or not we had an opportunity to deflect any of the airliners, and how decisions were made by the highest people in government,'' he said.

In its report, the commission reiterated an oft-repeated warning by the Bush administration, saying al-Qaida remains poised to attack the United States in a devastating chemical, biological or ``dirty bomb'' attack.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the terror group has become much more dispersed, with less funding following the arrests or deaths of key financiers. But the group has learned to operate on much smaller sums than the estimated $30 million spent annually prior to Sept. 11, 2001, the report said.

``Al-Qaida is actively striving to attack the United States and inflict mass casualties,'' the report said. The report noted in particular the group's ``ambitious'' biological weapons program and efforts in 1994 to purchase uranium.

``Al-Qaida and other extremist groups will likely continue to exploit leaks of national security information in the media, open-source information on techniques such as mixing explosives, and advances in electronics,'' it said.

In the preliminary report, the commission points to a series of attacks on the United States or its allies as early as 1992 that U.S. intelligence would determine by the late 1990s were linked to bin Laden or his terror group.

They included a December 1992 explosion outside two hotels in Aden, Yemen; the October 1993 killing of 18 U.S. soldiers in Mogadishu, Somalia; a November 1995 car bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and the June 1996 explosion at the Khobar Towers apartment complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

Bin Laden's ties to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a failed plot to blow up commercial aircraft in 1994 in Manila, Philippines, are unclear, but they offered significant warning signs that Islamic terrorists were intent on demolishing American symbols and inflicting mass casualties, the panel said.

``What is clear is that these plots were major benchmarks in the evolving Islamist threat to the United States and foreshadowed later attacks that were indisputably carried out by al Qaeda under bin Laden's direction,'' the report stated.

Scheduled to testify Wednesday were field agents from the FBI and CIA, as well as Patrick Fitzgerald, a former attorney in New York who prosecuted alleged terrorists in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.

Other key findings from the commission:

A month after the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors, U.S. investigators learned that two senior al-Qaida operatives were involved. The one detail that could not be clearly determined at the time was whether bin Laden directly ordered the attack; that was not ascertained until April 2003.

No convincing evidence shows that al-Qaida received state-sponsored financial support, although some governments such as Saudi Arabia may have ``turned a blind eye'' to the group's fund-raising activities.

Bin Laden decided he wanted to attack the United States by 1992, and worked meticulously in building an organizational structure of senior operatives and a broader Islamic army from terror groups throughout Africa and the Mideast.

The commission, facing a July 26 deadline for a final report, is winding down its 1 1/2-year investigation after interviewing more than 1,000 witnesses, including President Bush and Cheney, and reviewing more than 2 million documents.

Several commissioners have told The Associated Press that drafts of the final report detail the many communication gaps and missteps by FBI and intelligence officials in detecting the plot. But they said the drafts refrain from placing blame on individuals in the Bush and Clinton administrations to avoid charges of partisanship.

The Trouble with Protesting Too Much

For once a little BushCo scandal is refusing to die. The Halliburton "no-bid" billion dollar contract in Iraq has been lingering around for months and as every new piece of information floats to the surface I'm thinking two things:

1. In this particular case, Cheney may NOT have been all that guilty
and
2. But he's so guilty on other things that he protested too much, rather than telling the truth, and this may be the one that takes him down.

That's irony for ya.

See, it's sounds totally plausible that the Pentagon might want to award this contract to Halliburton, and might want to check with the White House and Cheney's office to make sure that it wouldn't cause any undesired political fall-out.

But Cheney didn't say that, nor did he add that he didn't want to interfere with the experts procuring these services, and that NOT giving a contract to the most qualified company for political reasons would be as detrimental as giving a contract to a company that's NOT the most qualified for political reasons.

Instead he claimed no knowledge, no heads up...and went even further and said only long-time procurement personnel, not political appointees, worked on the deal.

And that's a lie. And that makes him look real bad. And it makes me think his guilty conscience made him take his tall tales just too far. So far that they'd be easy to refute.

Here's the NY Times story. Full text is in the extended entry:

White House Officials and Cheney Aide Approved Halliburton Contract in Iraq, Pentagon Says
By ERIK ECKHOLM

Published: June 14, 2004

In the fall of 2002, in the preparations for possible war with Iraq, the Pentagon sought and received the assent of senior Bush administration officials, including the vice president's chief of staff, before hiring the Halliburton Company to develop secret plans for restoring Iraq's oil facilities, Pentagon officials have told Congressional investigators.

The newly disclosed details about Pentagon contracting do not suggest improper political pressures to direct business to Halliburton, the Houston-based company that Vice President Dick Cheney once led.

But they raise questions about assertions by Mr. Cheney and other administration officials that he knew nothing in advance of the Halliburton contracts and that the decisions were made by career procurement specialists, without involvement by senior political appointees.

Kevin Kellems, a spokesman for the vice president, had no immediate comment on the new disclosures.

As American forces stormed into Iraq in March 2003, Halliburton's role as an inside planner put it in place to receive, without open competition and in the shrouds of classified war planning, the major contract to carry out the oil strategy it secretly wrote months earlier. The deal yielded $2.4 billion in revenue. These oil and other war-related contracts with Halliburton, an oil services company, have been contentious because of accusations of overcharging and waste, and because Mr. Cheney was formerly the company's chief executive.

On the oil-field pacts, the Pentagon officials said they had not been pressured by political leaders to choose Halliburton, which they regarded as best qualified of the few companies that could do such a task. Rather, these officials said, they had sought to notify senior administration officials to ensure that they did not object to the politically delicate plan.

In November 2002, a Pentagon energy group led by Michael H. Mobbs, a political appointee and adviser to Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense, gave Halliburton a $1.9 million "task order," under another contract, to develop secret contingency plans for the Iraqi oil industry.

The proposal was had been described at a meeting in late October of the Deputies Committee, a foreign policy body. Participants included the deputy national security adviser, deputy secretaries of state and defense, deputy director of central intelligence and I. Lewis Libby, Mr. Cheney's chief of staff.

Pentagon officials, including Mr. Mobbs, provided the new details of the oil contracting to staff members of the House Committee on Government Reform at a June 8 briefing.

In a letter faxed Sunday to Mr. Cheney and given to reporters, Representative Henry A. Waxman, the minority leader of the panel, asked him for all records of his office's communications on the oil contracts and for records of Deputies Committee meetings where the Halliburton deals had been discussed.

"These new disclosures appear to contradict your assertions that you were not informed about the Halliburton contracts," Mr. Waxman, Democrat of California, wrote. "They also seem to contradict the administration's repeated assertions that political appointees were not involved in the award of the contracts to Halliburton."

Appearing on the NBC News program "Meet the Press" on Sept. 14, 2003, Mr. Cheney said, "And as vice president, I have absolutely no influence of, involvement of, knowledge of in any way, shape or form of contracts led by the Corps of Engineers or anybody else in the federal government." He referred to the Army Corps of Engineers, which has managed oil infrastructure contracts.

Asked if he had been aware of Halliburton's noncompetitive awards, Mr. Cheney said, "I don't know any of the details of the contract because I deliberately stayed away from any information on that."

Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said of Iraq contracting in a news conference last October: "The decisions are made by career procurement officials. There's a separation, a wall, between them and political-level questions when they're doing the contracts."

On March 8, 2003, the Pentagon chose Halliburton to carry out the plan for strengthening Iraqi oil production. Mr. Cheney has denied any role in this contract, but critics have asked about a Pentagon memorandum that described the plans as "coordinated" with his office.

The administration revealed the contract later that month, describing it as mainly a deal to put out oil-well fires. Pentagon officials later revealed that it was much broader, and could involve billions of dollars. But they promised that it would be temporary and would be superseded by competitively bid contracts.

After repeated delays, the competitive contracts were awarded on Jan. 16, providing $800 million to the Parsons Corporation of Pasadena, Calif., to help operate Iraq's northern fields, and $1.2 billion to Halliburton to work in the southern fields.

More on the Incorrect Terrorism Data

I'm going to put on my conspiracy theorist hat here.

Oh, I'm not theorizing that they released an ill-researched and constructed report to boost Bush's numbers...I don't even consider that a theory. That seems obvious.

But now my theory is that this will be the avenue to Colin Powell's exit.

Just like George Tenet, a Clinton appointee, took the fall for the 9/11 Commission findings, Colin Powell, more of an outsider that anyone else in Bush's inner circle, will be exiting based on this revelation.

I'm guessing he won't even mind. He's already stained his legacy by standing by and doing, well, very little indeed, while the Bush crowd has bungled every last detail of our foreign policy. This may be his best chance to go crawl into some corner, lick his wounds, and figure out how to reaing some of his dignity and credibility...if that's possible at this point.

Source: cnn.com

This is CLASSIC Bush...Lie until you're believed

You know how the polls show that people think Bush is doing a pretty poor job on the economy, and a pretty poor job in Iraq, but somehow he pulls out positive numbers on the "war on terrorism"?

We could discuss first how it's a little ironic that Bush is always desperately trying to link Iraq to the war on terrorism. These poll numbers are therefore showing that people aren't buying it, but they don't blame him for trying to make that link.

What I'm interested to see though if people will hear about the new numbers on terrorism...or should I say the newly accurate numbers...and alter their view on Bush?

Haven't heard about this latest little 'oops' from BushCo? Oh, it's a tiny little thing really. See the State Department released a report in April claiming that incidences of terrorism were way down in 2003, validating Bush's claim that he was making progress in the war on terrorism. So what's the problem? Well, let me quote the Associated Press item: "Instead, the number of incidents and the toll in victims increased sharply"

Read all about it in the extended entry:

See, the State Department issued a report on 4/29/04, touting the reduction in terrorism across the globe. It was used as evidence that Bush was winning that war and to change course would result in a less safe world.

Well, as it turns out...well, let me just quote some actual Administration officials:

"the facts that we had were wrong" according to Richard A. Boucher, State Department spokesman.

and

"Among the mistakes was that only part of 2003 was taken into account." as per Mr. Boucher.

See, according to our esteemed Secretary of State himself, Colin Powell (who will forever stain his legacy by being to wussy to resign) "...the errors were partly the result of new procedures for collecting data. I can assure you it had nothing to do with putting out anything but the most honest, accurate information we can. Errors crept in that, frankly, we did not catch here."

But this wasn't political manipulation, no sir. This was just complete incompetence.

I'll say it one more time...in the real world people get fired for incompetence. When is someone going to be held accountable for all of this stuff?

Recent News: "Backdoor Draft"??

John Kerry caused a little firestorm last week when he equated the extension of tours for countless military personnel, including reservists, to a "backdoor draft."

Well, the Washington Post might not be ready to call it that exactly, but they're certainly taking Bush to task for the same action in an editorial today.

While Bush tries to equate his war with WW II or the Cold War to give it legitimacy, he has refused to invest or ask Americans to sacrifice to help our country meet this goal.

He wants to fight these battles without eliminating tax cuts, without increasing spending and certainly without mentioning the 'D' word (at least until after the election I'm sure.)

So it falls upon the backs of our volunteer military. They have seen their tours extended and seen troops shifted from Korea and seen troops spread thin all over.

It makes me nervous, and it makes me feel we are left less protected than ever.

Read the entire editorial in the extended entry:

Mr. Bush's Mismatch

Saturday, June 12, 2004; Page A20

THE VOLUNTEER ARMY expects to bear the brunt of danger on behalf of the country in any war. But when failed leadership turns volunteers into conscripts, soldiers have every right to feel misused. President Bush has compared the war against terrorism to the 20th-century struggles against totalitarianism and communism, calling it "the great challenge of our time." But he has refused to adjust his policies to those stakes. And the first casualty of this crippling disconnect between rhetoric and reality is the U.S. Army.

The latest evidence of institutional strain was the Army's recent announcement that thousands more troops will be ordered to extend their duty well beyond their expected discharge dates. Soldiers, including reservists, whose units are deployed or redeployed to Iraq or Afghanistan will be expected to complete those tours of one year or more and an additional 90 days, even if they would have been scheduled for release months earlier. The Army is doing this for the same reason it extended the Iraq deployments of units that were supposed to have been sent home, depleted its force in South Korea and even explored sending an elite training regiment into combat: It's short of troops.

The president's failure to adequately staff the armed forces is just one way in which he fails his own commitment to what he called this week "the imperative of our age." The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, changed Mr. Bush's view of the world, but he never adjusted his fiscal strategy; he continues to reduce the tax burden on the wealthy and leave the government without adequate resources for the fight. He has yet to invest the funds and energy, on a scale appropriate to an existential struggle, in public diplomacy, Arab-language training, foreign student exchanges, nuclear materials control and many other ventures that are key to eventual victory. And he has yet to acknowledge that the downsized military he favored in 2000 is no longer suitable in 2004.

The reason for this failure -- whether an unwillingness to face the political consequences of demanding sacrifice, or an inability to let go of cherished views on military transformation, tax cuts and the like -- matters less than the consequences. We support Mr. Bush's "vision of dignity and freedom in every culture," but he undermines the cause and feeds only cynicism when he refuses to match the tools to the task. More immediately he places an unfair burden on those in uniform and their families.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

Continuing problems in Iraq...reading between the lines

Another Iraqi official was assassinated yesterday, and reading between the lines of official statements regarding the situation in Iraq is very revealing.

Find out why in the extended entry:

First, let's look at how it happened:

"Kubba was mortally wounded when gunmen drove up behind his car in the city's Azimiyah district and opened fire, Foreign Ministry spokesman Thamir al-Adhami said. The assailants then passed the stricken vehicle and fired a second time, the spokesman said. Kubba's driver escaped injury, but Kubba died in a hospital."

My question: Sounds a little fishy that in all of that hail of bullets from behind and in front the driver escaped injury. A little collusion perhaps?

Let's remind ourselves how the US government has tried to harden us in advance to such events:

"U.S. authorities had warned of escalating violence in the run-up to the sovereignty transfer as insurgents seek to undermine public confidence in the new administration. The Americans hope that the establishment of a sovereign Iraqi government will take the steam out of the insurgency, allowing security to improve so that balloting for an elected administration can be held by the end of January."

In other words, we are so NOT in control over there. And we're just sitting around hoping it gets better because we haven't a clue what else to do. After all trying to lay siege on insurgents in Fallujah was an utter failure.

Not only that, but as much as we're touting elections in January, we're pretty much admitting above that they couldn't be held if the situation doesn't improve. Thus, we're giving even more incentive to certain groups to continue their destabilizing activities.

Finally I'm confused by this statement:

"Although the Iraqis will run their own affairs after June 30, about 150,000 U.S. and other coalition troops will remain in the country to held improve security under a U.N. resolution approved unanimously by the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.

"I don't think you're going to see much difference on July 15 than you saw on January 15,'' Kimmitt said. "We will not be pulling out of the cities. We will not be relocating. We certainly would like to see more and more Iraqi security forces at the lead.''

First, I think it's so nice of the media to continue using terms like "U.S. and other multinational forces" and "U.S. and other coalition troops" when we all damn well know it's 90% on our shoulders. Talk about doing the Administration's PR for them!

Second, wasn't a big part of the recently approved resolution focused on defining sovereignty for Iraq as including the right to tell our forces to go home?

Now MAYBE Kimmit is just speaking under the assumption that they would never do that. But it still seems a bit presumptuous to me.

Lastly, this same article briefly reviews the background and current situation in the aforementioned Fallujah.

And it epitomizes our crappy circumstances. We basically have our hands tied now because the original justifications given for invading were inaccurate and the people now do not want us there. (The Iraqi AND American people I might add, let alone the rest of the world.)

Therefore we cannot simply go "medieval" on any Iraqi area because every civilian affected is an outrage to the world. The deaths of our four civilian workers in Fallujah have gone unavenged, and the city is in the hands of religious hard-liners.

In the end, every misery now stems from fundamental mistakes and mis-judgements made before going in.

I wish I knew the solution, although it's certainly not my job to.

But speaking of jobs, I will say yet again: sometimes when someone has proven incompetent and unable to adapt their game plan to meet new or changing variables...you simply fire them.

Hey, another "historical document" comes to light!

Remember the infamous Presidential Daily Briefing that warned of Al Qaeda preparing to strike the US, but was called a "historical document" by Condi Rice and every other administration parrot?

Well, apparently that line worked so well they're trotting it out again.

Read on in the extended entry:

The latest historical document is the memo prepared by White house counsel that addresses when torture is not really torture. Or, no, actually it IS torture, but it's okay to carry out if you tell us to, Mr. President.

Here's an excerpt from the Washington Post article:

"An Aug. 1, 2002, memo from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, addressed to Gonzales, said that torturing suspected al Qaeda members abroad "may be justified" and that international laws against torture "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogation" conducted against suspected terrorists.

The document provided legal guidance for the CIA, which crafted new, more aggressive techniques for its operatives in the field. McClellan called the memo a historic or scholarly review of laws and conventions concerning torture. "The memo was not prepared to provide advice on specific methods or techniques," he said. "It was analytical."

How long are the American people going to let this Administration get away with treating us like we are IDIOTS?????

Hopefully only as long as November 2nd.

Lots of helpful guidelines to get away with torture

OK, I understand there are things that go on in war that I just don't want to know about.

I understand that innocent people have always fallen victim during wars.

And that's why the callous & cavalier right-wing response to some issues amazes me.

Read all about it in the extended entry:

Amazing response #1: It doesn't matter that we were, at worst, misled into the War on Iraq, and at best, simply mistaken

If you're going to accept both our own military casualties and the existence of civilian casualties, don't you think it matters that the cause of the war be just and that we go to war carefully, and with good, solid, "vetted" reasons?

I do.

Amazing response #2: The abuses of Abu Ghraib are being made too much of and were just the acts of a perverse few

Well, I, for one, wasn't born yesterday. And the recent revelations about Justice Department memorandums explaining why the president could authorize torture without it being prosecutable as torture clearly implicate the entire chain of command up to and including Bush.

Those right-wing talk radio hosts were trying to call Al Gore crazy for his insistence in his recent speech that the responsibility and accountability goes all the way up the military food chain.

He's not looking so crazy now, is he fellas?

And I guess it only matters if you care to hold America to a higher standard than your average dictatorship.

I do.

Source on internal memos: Washington Post

The problem with our strained foreign relations

I won't claim to be an expert, but I'm seeing the bitter fruits of Bush's unilateralism in the latest UN negotiations.

The US is bending to requests from non-coalition nations, such as France and Russia. Fine. Good. I had a real problem with Bush's inability to use diplomacy and his obstinate intransigence.

However, what are we getting in return for this "bending"?

As far as I can tell, all we're getting is a 'Yes' vote.

But no movement is being made to help with forces from other nations, "peacekeeping" or not. Condi Rice is already lowering our expectations that the fact that the UN will go along with our resolution on Iraqi will not mean that other nations will start to pitch in in Iraq.

So, this is hardly a diplomatic victory.

And it shows how badly we weakened our negotiating position by trying to go it alone, and then realizing that we could not and needed our former allies assistance.

I continue to believe that only a new leader will be able to garner new support, both political and practical, from our former close allies.

Source: NY Times 6/8/04

George Tenet Takes the Fall

George Tenet resigns for personal reasons:

Taking the fall for Rumsfeld, Rice and others?

Easy sacrificial lamb, especially since he was a Clinton appointee?

Fired for being described by Al Gore as a good man and good friend?

Overcome with guilt at not trying harder to interrupt Bush's 08/01 vacation?

So far there are only brief news items on all the major sites. No major commentary yet. So I thought I'd throw out my theories first!

Any other ideas out there?

Quick Question: When will violence NOT increase?

I'm getting a little sick of the Bush Administration citing every development in Iraq as a reason for violence to increase "in the short term."

Can any of them answer when violence will not increase?

We've had violence there for over a year...exactly what is short term about that?

Are you just so completely out of control over there that you will grasp at any straw to try to explain the chaos?

Maybe it's just me, but I'm sick of "progress" equalling increased violence.

Discussion: The Traditional Conservatives as Bush Critics

I've already written about my shock & dismay to find a Pat Buchanan article with which I wholeheartedly agreed.

Now, I'm nodding my head in agreement to George Will!!! What next? Hell freezing over? Pigs flying?

Basically Will is saying in this morning's Washington post column that Bush's efforts in Iraq are driven by ideology and are unsustainable nor supportable.

I agree with much of what he says, but also think he performs some mental contortions to avoid laying too much blame at Bush's feet directly.

So while, as a traditional conservative, he can't help but be disturbed by Bush, as a Republican he can't bring himself to totally eviscerate his Party's nominee.

So, he's pretty smart, but not very brave.

Read more in the extended entry:

Will makes a start by comparing Thomas Jefferson, idealist vs. Alexander Hamilton, prosaic realist. This puts Will in the position of keeping this Jefferson vs. Hamilton analogy up throughout the column, to Jefferson's detriment I must say.

But only because of the one thing I didn't like about Will's column: his reluctance to blame George Bush and his actions directly, not just his staff. And to do that, he ends up blaming Jeffersonian ideals.

Will thinks Bush's speech last week showed Bush, in "an agreeably prosaic frame of mind, turning U.S. policy in Iraq in a direction for which Americans are ready."

Apparently Hamilton bucked the trend and refused to speak in idealistic and optimistic language, preferring stark realism, even skepticism.

But it's not the having of ideals that is the problem here, it is having ideals that don't reflect the country's mindset. And it's not turning ideals into action plans that is the problem, but rather not having fully considered plans, and poorly executing the plans you have.

Will does make the following interesting point:

"Some say that U.S. policy toward Iraq primarily needs a military success akin to what saved Lincoln politically when things were going badly in 1864 -- the capture of Atlanta. But what Iraq event could be analogous? And remember: The general who marched, as the song says, "from Atlanta to the sea" did so using tactics that anticipated the "total war" of the next century. Are we ready to do that in Iraq?

He's right. I don't think we, as a people, have the stomach anymore for a "Great" war. We are too globally plugged in and connected.

During World War II, the US killed thousands upon thousands of civilians, men, women & children, with little compunction or aftershocks back home. But very very few Americans likely had day-to-day contact with or access to information about actual Germans or actual Japanese. We never had to think, "they're just like us."

And I'm sure most people would say it is just about as important to dismantle terrorists as it was to dismantle the Nazis, but we imagine that in 60 years that somehow technology should have advanced enough that we can do so without the loss of innocent lives or destruction of property.

The terrorists, on the other hand, seem quite capable of demonizing the West the way we used to demonize the Japanese or Germans. And they will attract a steady stream of recruits with their ideology. And since their military goals, for now, are destabilization and unpredictability, they can achieve that with their relatively small army.

Bush, on the other hand, as the leader of a "superpower" nation has more lofty military goals...regime change, nation building etc. You need (contrary to what Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz wanted to admit) massive forces to accomplish such broad goals.

So, Bush may have the ideological dedication that, in fact, the terrorists have. But unlike the terrorists, who need their army of fanatics and a few Saudi financiers behind them, Bush would need his nation behind him. And his nation may, as Will suggests, be in a Hamiltonian frame of mind!

But I'm not as ready as Will to associate Bush's ideals with Jeffersonian ideals. And even if they were, here's where competent execution of such ideals comes into play. And Will puts himself in the position of having to somewhat blame Jeffersonian ideals just to avoid saying that Bush and his crew aren't fit to either promote ideals or execute on more prosaic tasks.

Nonetheless, Will is part of a growing number of conservatives, from Buchanan to Friedman, who are willing to question, even criticize, the Bush White house and its activities.

Will provides a great quote from Kansas Republican Pat Roberts. Roberts, chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee and another traditional conservative says:

"We need to restrain what are growing U.S. messianic instincts -- a sort of global social engineering where the United States feels it is both entitled and obligated to promote democracy -- by force if necessary. . . . Liberty cannot be laid down like so much AstroTurf."

Sounds a lot like my favorite quote of the moment seen fro the other side:

Freedom and dignity spring from within the human heart. They are not imposed. And inside the human heart is where the impetus for political change must be generated.
-Wesley Clark

Will mentions a book, "Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet" that depicts the Bush cabinet as a group of people who think the only rationale for a large military in the post-Cold War world is to actively spread and promote our (or more accurately, their) ideals.

Perhaps we could focus less on spreading our ideals, and more on helping the will and well-being of people in other nations prevail, even if it doesn't agree exactly with our will.

Soapbox: In Praise of Independence, even if it's Republican

Amongst all of the Rush Limbaugh's talking about "blowing off steam" or Sen. Inhofe being "outraged over the outrage" when it comes to Abu Ghraib, it's only fair to point out some saner, more reasonable republican voices.

I'm not saying I'd vote for these guys, but I can admire their willingness to buck the ultra-right-wing trend. I've already mentioned John McCain. And Although I think Rep. Lindsay Graham is a bit of an ass in some respects, he certainly was willing to tell Dick Cheney to back off and let Congress do their job and investigate Abu Ghraib.

Now a Washington Post story on Sen. John Warner highlights his independent streak, and his willingness to continue digging into this scnadal, at the risk of pissing off the right-wing leadership.

What do these guys, McCain, Graham and Warner, have in common? They have served in our military.

Perhaps it is such men who take it most personally when the reputation of our armed forces is besmirched, and it doesn't matter to them if it comes from within or without...the problem must be eradicated.

And I will give them credit for it.

GREAT LINK: Al Gore's Incredible Speech

You, go Gore!!!!

Man, he is speaking right to ME!!!

I have been blathering on for months to anyone who will listen or read about how this administration is tearing away at the soul of America, is destroying everything we stand for...not only to our own citizens, but to the world.

Maybe because the guy isn't running for president he feels free to:

-Call Bush and his cronies incompetent
-Call them, further, dishonest
-Call them power-hungry
-And to call for accountability...real accountability

Gore is on fire, is righteously indignant, and is, most of all RIGHT!

You can get a link to both the video and the audio in the extended entry:

Link to the video on C-SPAN

Link to an audio clip

Forgot to Mention One Thing

I forgot, in my ranting last night, to rant abut one more thing:

Can you believe the way Bush still tries to tie Iraq to 9/11 and Al Qaeda's terrorist methods?

He can't say it directly, of course, since even he's admitted they have found no link between Saddam and Al Qaeda. But the concluding segment of last night's speech was all about trying to weave it all together into one big ball of stuff to fear and let him take care of.

But it's a smart move, given the number of people who still believe that Saddam had something to do with 9/11.

Soapbox: That's it? That's Your Big, Reassuring Plan?

Okay, I missed seeing Bush's speech, which is just as well, because the very sight of him or sound of his voice makes me nauseated. But I have read the recap, and the upshot seems to be that he listed 5 things they're gonna do, any day now.

And my problem is that none of them seem anything more than the obvious things that everyone has been talking about for months. And more than that, he didn't offer anything more detailed, anything to convince the country he has a plan, not just an outline of a plan...oh sorry, perhaps I should say an outline of a list of actionable items, right?

Let's discuss in detail in the extended entry, shall we?

Step #1: Handing over authority to a sovereign Iraqi government

Um, yeah. But remember in the infamous press conference, when he wasn't really sure what kind of entity we would be handing it over to? So, I guess today the administration proposed what that entity should look like. A president and a prime minister. 2 Vice Presidents, and six of one and half dozen of the other cabinet ministers. But here we are, 5 weeks away, and that a hell of a lot of positions to fill with God knows who. Am I just being picky here?

Step #2: Establishing security

You think? Hey, have we NOT been trying to establish security up until now? Come to think of it, how are you going to find 3 dozen folks who want to be part of this sovereign entity when we can't seem to keep them from getting blown up? This reminds me of when we "stepped up" efforts to find Osama, which was supposedly our #1 priority already. I also liked this little nugget:

"In some cases, the early performance of Iraqi forces fell short. Some refused orders to engage the enemy. We've learned from these failures and we've taken steps to correct them."

There's something chilling about the abstract language chosen. Basically the Iraqi refused to shoot on their own people, I guess. I wonder what "corrections" were in order?

Oh, and I find the following statement pretty disingenuous:

"If commanders need more troops, Bush said, "I will send them."

I'm sorry, but haven't the military types been saying from the beginning we need more troops there? So, exactly when does "will" kick in for Bush?

Step #3: Continuing to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure

Am I the only one seeing this as a reassuring message to Halliburton and his other contract-winning cronies? Just to make sure they know that a healthy part of the extra billions of dollars he's asking for will go to them!

And here's where he throws in a little bone about Abu Ghraib (which I understand he can't pronounce correctly, but we already know that he massacres the English language, so why freak out that he can't handle a little "furr'ner" talk?)

His big grand gesture? Hey guys, we going to knock down this prison...and build you a bright shiny NEW prison. The symbolism is awesome. "La plus ca change, la plus c'est la meme chose" huh? (That's "the more things change, the more they stay the same" for those of you less Frenchy-pretentious than I!)

Step #4: Encouraging more international support

This is another one that just blows my mind. You mean like every reasonable person begged you to do from the beginning? You gonna claim ownership of this idea now, Dubya? Oh, according to him, I'm so sorry, they've gone to the UN every step of the way. Perhaps. But I think usually it fosters good relations to go to them before, and then to actually listen to their input and perhaps even work together towards agreed upon goals. I guess that makes me a weak, little liberal girly-girl, huh?

Or maybe not. Maybe Bush is looking a little weak having to go back and beg for UN help when he was all cocky, or should I say 'cock and bull', about not needing it.

And by the way, when you've managed to belittle and denigrate just about every other nation except the UK, exactly what is your plan to re-engage. Who are you going to send on the grand world tour to line up our allies?

Gee, he is sending Colin Powell. That properly conveys the placating but pointless nature of this belated and insincere "reaching out" to the international community. This is the guy they have so marginalized and kept out of the loop, that he was telling the Congressional Black Caucus that they wouldn't be asking for more money for Iraq on the very morning the request for $25 billion was submitted!

Step #5: Moving toward a national election in Iraq that "will bring forward new leaders empowered by the Iraqi people"

I'm only going to say this: what would Dubya know about honest national elections?

Bush then closes with a lot of inspiring yakety-yak. But not before dropping this pearl:

"I sent American troops to Iraq to defend our security, not to stay as an occupying power. I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, not to make them American."

Yeah? I thought you sent troops, preemptively, proactively (not defensively) to eliminate the imminent threat posed by Saddam's amassing of weapons of mass destruction.

That didn't turn out to be such a great reason, huh? Gotta think of a new way to spin it. Good job.

If I sound more feisty than usual, it's because I'm infuriated by the big lot of nothing we heard tonight, and I'm petrified that the American people will heave a collective sigh of relief, thinking that it's been really hard to deal with all of the disturbing things we've seen lately, and wouldn't it be so much nicer to just believe he's got it all under control?

Well, as hard as he may be trying to pat you on the head and tell you not to worry your pretty little head about it, the fact is we have had months and months of such fine, forthright-sounding words.

There was nothing new here tonight. Am I the only one who has sat through a big company meeting in the high tech world and heard this well-worn phrase:

"Execution is everything"

It's well-worn because it's true. Shut up and get something actually done. Bush's words are too little, too late, and are backed up with nothing!

He is finally talking to the American people only because his poll numbers are pathetically low. When he was popular, he didn't call; he didn't write. He wouldn't give us the time of day. But now that he wants something from us (like our vote) all of a sudden he's offering to carry our books home from school.

I hope you see through it, and I hope you help everyone around you to see through it too!

Recent News: Yet another insider slams the Bush handling of the War in Iraq

Retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, former U.S. commander in the Middle East, seems to be on a mission. On the TV show circuit and in a new book, he basically reads the Bush White House the riot act. He slams them for:

-Flawed strategy & lack of planning
-Unnecessary alienation of our allies
-Purposely sending too few troops into Iraq
-Creating a dangerous distraction from real threats

Here's a particularly strongly-worded quote:

"In the lead-up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw, at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence, and irresponsibility; at worst, lying, incompetence, and corruption."

Just add him to the growing chorus of both military types and insider government officials who express similar criticism.

The only question is when will there be some accountability? I say the accountability will be fully assigned in November, when we kick the whole incompetent and immoral bunch out of Washington.

Here's a link to the Washington Post story.

Great Link: The Cold War vs. the War on Terrorism

One phenomenon in the blogosphere is you start to have blogs quoting blogs quoting blogs.

But, it' all just leveraging the immediacy and interactivity of the Internet (not to mention the alliteration, huh?)

While browsing the various blogs that I read I found this brief entry from the 'Political Animal' blog, now supported by the Washington Monthly (WM).

It actually comments on (and provides the link to) a great article in this month's issue of the WM by my personal preference for Veep choice, Wes Clark.

His point: that the fall of the Soviet Union came to fruition during the Reagan years, but it was 40 years of strategy that got us to that point. And one of the most important factors? Showing a desirable alternative to communist rule that would spur discontent and desire for change from within.

If our government sullies the appeal of our reasonable and desirable alternative form of government by flouting international law, repressing our own citizens and others, and maintaining an attitude that they are entitled to behave as they like with little regard for the checks and balances our Constitution ensures, then we will have blown our opportunity to effect change in the Middle East as we were able to in Eastern Europe.

Seems eminently logical to me. Check it out.

Helpful Link: Kerry finally speaking out on Iraq War

It's a common strategy to send surrogates out with highly negative messages about the competition, while a candidate stays somewhat above the fray.

This is what the Bushies did with Kerry and his anti-war activities (since Bush himself would hardly have a leg to stand on there.)

And this weekend Wes Clark, Ted Kennedy and James Carville were all over the air waves associating the abuses at Abu Ghraib directly to the attitude from the very top of the command chain (i.e. the Commander-in-Chief) that the Geneva Conventions could be ignored at our convenience.

But for those of you were were longing for Kerry himself to slam Bush on this topic, he came through yesterday...showing the cojones I want him to show and telling it like it is.

Check it out in the Washington Post.

(And we can all wonder why so-called-liberal NY Times didn't even BOTHER to cover this major statement on Iraq from Kerry.)

Full text is in the extended entry. And there's some extra info in the article, like one more example of how the Bush campaign has no qualms about out and out lying about our candidate and his statements.

Full Text:

Kerry Assails Bush on Iraq
Senator Says War Is 'Mismanaged'

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 13, 2004; Page A01

ORLANDO, May 12 -- Sen. John F. Kerry, breaking momentarily from his cautious approach to turmoil in Iraq, blasted President Bush on Wednesday for running an "extraordinarily mismanaged and ineptly prosecuted war" and strongly suggested Bush is partly to blame for abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.

"They dismiss the Geneva Conventions, starting in Afghanistan and Guantanamo, so that the status of prisoners both legal and moral becomes ambiguous at best," the senator from Massachusetts told radio host Don Imus.

In his most expansive comments on U.S. mistreatment of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib, the presumptive Democratic nominee said this amounts to "major failures in command."

Asked if Kerry is assessing partial blame to Bush in the prison scandal, Rand Beers, a Kerry foreign policy adviser, said in an interview, "Undoubtedly, that kind of ambiguity, yes, is a failure of leadership."

Kerry proposed two immediate changes: Oust Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and delay court-martial hearings for Americans charged with mistreating the prisoners.

"I think it's sort of a panicked move to try to display to the Arab world and others that we are going to, you know, do things immediately," Kerry said of impending hearings. "But I think you have to think of morale of the military and the chain of command."

Kerry said dismissing Rumsfeld during wartime would not hinder efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he offered up a few candidates to replace the defense secretary: GOP Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and John W. Warner (Va.) and Democratic Sen. Carl M. Levin (Mich.), a staunch war critic.

"If America has reached a point where only one person has the ability in our great democracy to manage the Pentagon and to continue or to put in place a better policy even, we're in deeper trouble than you think," Kerry said. "I don't accept that. I just don't accept that. I think that's an excuse. The fact is that we need a change in policy."

Kerry's latest comments come as the Democratic candidate wrestles with how aggressively to criticize the president at a sensitive moment when much of the world is watching the U.S. reaction to the prison scandal. Since pictures of the abused prisoners were plastered on television screens worldwide, Kerry has carefully avoided talking about the issue, for the most part. The candidate has held only one news conference in the past 31/2 weeks, in part to limit questions about Iraq. On Tuesday, he brushed aside several questions about the prisoners.

After learning that an American in Iraq was decapitated by men claiming al Qaeda affiliation, Kerry avoided any mention of Bush in his statements about the killing and struck a bipartisan, patriotic tone.

"I think it will harden the resolve of a lot of Americans to make certain terrorists won't get away with it, even as we move to address obvious problems that have existed in Iraq," he told reporters late Tuesday.

Some Democrats worry that Kerry is not saying enough about Iraq, which allows Bush and his allies to set the agenda and the tone of the debate. In Washington, Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill said the senator would continue to speak out on Iraq but would not be pressured into doing so, given how rapidly the story is unfolding.

"We're watching this, we're trying to find out as much about this as possible," she said, "but we're not going to rush into commenting on a national crisis."

The Bush campaign has repeatedly accused the senator of "politicizing" Iraq. Bush-Cheney chairman Marc Racicot told reporters Wednesday that Kerry is relentlessly "playing politics" and exploiting tragedy for political gain.

Racicot, for instance, told reporters that Kerry suggested that 150,000 or so U.S. troops are "somehow universally responsible" for the misdeeds of a small number of American soldiers and contractors. Racicot made several variations of this charge. But Kerry never said this, or anything like it.

As evidence, Racicot pointed to the following quote Kerry made at a fundraiser on Tuesday: "What has happened is not just something that a few a privates or corporals or sergeants engaged in. This is something that comes out of an attitude about the rights of prisoners of war, it's an attitude that comes out of America's overall arrogance in its policy that is alienating countries all around the world."

What Racicot did not mention was that Kerry preceded this remark by saying, "I know that what happened over there is not the behavior of 99.9 percent of our troops."

Kerry has spent the week talking about health care, but as he has focused on domestic issues other Democrats have rushed in to help shape the Iraq debate -- and often taking it in a direction different from Kerry's. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), a top Kerry supporter who opposed the war, criticized the administration so harshly this week that Kerry distanced himself from the remarks.

"On March 19, 2004, President Bush asked, 'Who would prefer that Saddam's torture chambers still be open?' " Kennedy said. "Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management: U.S. management."

Kerry told Imus: "He's my friend and I respect him, but I don't agree with the framing of that."

As Kerry continued his campaign swing, his advisers were making the case that Bush's $70 million ad campaign had failed to knock Kerry out of the race and that, compared with Al Gore four years ago, the Massachusetts senator is in solid shape to compete with Bush in the fall.

Armed with a series of slides showing current and past polling data nationally and in battleground states, Kerry's top advisers told editors and reporters at The Washington Post that the Bush campaign had mistakenly assumed a huge financial advantage at the beginning of March would allow it to dictate the terms of the race and shape perceptions of Kerry. Instead, they said, Kerry and Bush continue to run roughly even in national polls.

Cahill said the campaign decided at the end of the primaries, when Bush had $110 million in the bank and Kerry had barely $2 million, to spend March and April fundraising, and that the payoff was $43 million raised in March and an estimated $25 million or more in April. "We decided to step back and try to level the playing field financially," she said.

Staff writer Dan Balz in Washington contributed to this report.

Recent News: More details to come in prison abuse scandal

There is a lengthy article in the New Yorker detailing a timeline and chain of events around the prison abuse scandal in Iraq. There are also descriptions of pictures of further abuses that have not yet been made public.

What this article makes clear is that Rumsfeld is hardly a "superb" Secretary of Defense, but rather someone who seems clearly negligent and almost willfully so.

If you are faint-hearted, I wouldn't recommend reading this article. It is appalling and will make you feel sick and ashamed.

The New Yorker article on the failure up the entire chain of command.

Recent News: There's more than a military mess in Iraq

We have all been transfixed of late by the ever more disturbing military situation in Iraq. From the apparently spreading dissent and insurgency to the sobering revelation that our own troops may have abused Iraqi prisoners, the news about this "concluded" war is enough to keep you up at night.

Leave it to my favorite columnist these days, Paul Krugman of the NY Times, to give me even more to worry about.

Today's column talks about the other actions we're taking in Iraq: the actions dealing with their economy. And how it's a disturbing mix of cronyism, privatization of the most sensitive governmental responsibilities and sheer refusal to look outside favorite economic theories and deal with Iraqi reality.

Here's the link, and the full text is in the extended entry:

Battlefield of Dreams
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: May 4, 2004
Last November the top economist at the Heritage Foundation was very optimistic about Iraq, saying Paul Bremer had just replaced "Saddam's soak-the-rich tax system" with a flat tax. "Few Americans would want to trade places with the people of Iraq," wrote the economist, Daniel Mitchell. "But come tax time next April, they may begin to wonder who's better off." Even when he wrote that, the insurgency in Iraq was visibly boiling over; by "tax time" last month, the situation was truly desperate.

Much has been written about the damage done by foreign policy ideologues who ignored the realities of Iraq, imagining that they could use the country to prove the truth of their military and political doctrines. Less has been said about how dreams of making Iraq a showpiece for free trade, supply-side tax policy and privatization — dreams that were equally oblivious to the country's realities — undermined the chances for a successful transition to democracy.

A number of people, including Jay Garner, the first U.S. administrator of Iraq, think that the Bush administration shunned early elections, which might have given legitimacy to a transitional government, so it could impose economic policies that no elected Iraqi government would have approved. Indeed, over the past year the Coalition Provisional Authority has slashed tariffs, flattened taxes and thrown Iraqi industry wide open to foreign investors — reinforcing the sense of many Iraqis that we came as occupiers, not liberators.

But it's the reliance on private contractors to carry out tasks usually performed by government workers that has really come back to haunt us.

Conservatives make a fetish out of privatization of government functions; after the 2002 elections, George Bush announced plans to privatize up to 850,000 federal jobs. At home, wary of a public backlash, he has moved slowly on that goal. But in Iraq, where there is little public or Congressional oversight, the administration has privatized everything in sight.

For example, the Pentagon has a well-established procurement office for gasoline. In Iraq, however, that job was subcontracted to Halliburton. The U.S. government has many experts in economic development and reform. But in Iraq, economic planning has been subcontracted — after a highly questionable bidding procedure — to BearingPoint, a consulting firm with close ties to Jeb Bush.

What's truly shocking in Iraq, however, is the privatization of purely military functions.

For more than a decade, many noncritical jobs formerly done by soldiers have been handed to private contractors. When four Blackwater employees were killed and mutilated in Falluja, however, marking the start of a wider insurgency, it became clear that in Iraq the U.S. has extended privatization to core military functions. It's one thing to have civilians drive trucks and serve food; it's quite different to employ them as personal bodyguards to U.S. officials, as guards for U.S. government installations and — the latest revelation — as interrogators in Iraqi prisons.

According to reports in a number of newspapers, employees from two private contractors, CACI International and Titan, act as interrogators at the Abu Ghraib prison. According to Sewell Chan of The Washington Post, these contractors are "at the center of the probe" into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. And that abuse, according to the senior defense analyst at Jane's, has "almost certainly destroyed much of what support the coalition had among the more moderate section of the Iraqi population."

We don't yet know for sure that private contractors were at fault. But why put civilians, who cannot be court-martialed and hence aren't fully accountable, in that role? And why privatize key military functions?

I don't think it's simply a practical matter. Although there are several thousand armed civilians working for the occupation, their numbers aren't large enough to make a significant dent in the troop shortage. I suspect that the purpose is to set a precedent.

You may ask whether our leaders' drive to privatize reflects a sincere conservative ideology, or a desire to enrich their friends. Probably both. But before Iraq, privatization that rewarded campaign contributors was a politically smart move, even if it was a net loss for the taxpayers.

In Iraq, however, reality does matter. And thanks to the ideologues who dictated our policy over the past year, reality looks pretty grim.  

More Clark supporting Kerry

This time on CNN:

Supporting Kerry, while managing to slam Bush on Iraq a good bit too. Always nice.

Clark does a great job cutting through the BS and not letting this so-called-liberal-media person re-direct the blame onto Kerry for what the Bush campaign clearly started.

Here's an excerpt:

CLARK: I think John Kerry is doing a great job in helping the American people understand who he is, and one of the things people will learn about Kerry, this is a guy who will fight back. This is not a man who is indecisive or ineffectual. He does take strong positions, and he works to get those positions adopted, and he fights back. It's just one of the reasons why I think John Kerry will be a great President.

Read more of the exchange in the extended entry:

 
WOODRUFF: With me now, retired General Wesley Clark, who has been watching these pictures coming in from Fallujah. General, I want to ask you about Iraq, before we get into some of the politics. You've heard John McCain, who is worried about how things are going over there, we need more troops, and we cannot fail, meaning the United States cannot fail. What has to happen in Iraq?
CLARK: Well, I think we do have to finish the problem with Fallujah. And, I would advocate that we finish it, if they're not going to negotiate, that we finish this with force. We do it quickly, not slowly, not drawn-out. Put sufficient up troops there, and I don't think there are sufficient troops there, based on what I'm reading in the press, to actually do the job, finish the job, get it over with.
Get rid of the bad news. You've got to work Najaf separately. It should be negotiated, brokered, and let Sustani and the Shia leadership handle it. The most important thing to think about is what happens after the 30thof June. I know we've got to get there, but think about this, Judy. After the 30th of June, what is it that our military is supposed to do there? What's the mission? It's not defense, it's not attack. What is it? We're not policemen. We cannot police Iraq.
WOODRUFF: Keep the peace? Keep the country secure?
CLARK: Well, sure, but, I mean, what does that mean? Do we do house-to-house searches? We've already got Saddam Hussein, and we know that there are no weapons of mass destruction. We're there at the sufferance of the Iraqi people. When they say it's time to go, whether or not they have the democracy we want them to have, I think we're going to end up recognizing that we can't stay.
WOODRUFF: So, at this point, I just asked John McCain, are you optimistic or not? You talk to people at the Pentagon, you have sources. What do you hear? Are you optimistic?
CLARK: This mission has been in trouble since the beginning. And, I hope that it will lurch through, because I think, just as John McCain said, that the consequences of a catastrophic failure in that mission, and a sudden, abrupt US withdrawal is devastating. We can't afford to fail. There should be no mistake about it. This Administration has been playing politics with this mission from the beginning. In part by setting the June 30th date, by not knowing what it was, by cutting the standards, by not putting enough forces in there to do the job, we need the forces in there that are necessary.
WOODRUFF: Speaking of politics, John McCain says both sides need to stop all this talk about Vietnam, stop criticizing. You wrote this Op/Ed piece in the New York Times today. There is so much at stake, aren't both campaigns bound to talk about the national security experience of both of these candidates?
CLARK: We're in the phase of the campaign year where people are trying to define John Kerry. This is an effort by the Republican party to define him. This just happens to be the latest, in an effort to create an impression about him in the eyes of the American people. This is what happens in politics, it's an ugly part of the Republican attack machine. I think we oughta be talking about the issues.
WOODRUFF: But the White House says all they're talking about is John Kerry's record on defense, and where he differs from President Bush on defense policy questions. They say the questions about the ribbons and medals comes from elsewhere.
CLARK: Well, I think it's very clear from Karen Hughes, and other people, they're speaking out and feeding the machine. I think John Kerry has a very strong record of defense, and service. I think he'll be a very good President, a decisive leader, I think he'll be a strong leader who can bring this country together. I think the American people are tired of the bickering and attack machine coming out of the White House. They want to hear the issues discussed!
WOODRUFF: But on this current back and forth, General Clark, there are
Democrats who are John Kerry allies who say he should just drop it, he's the one coming back and bringing up Vietnam over the past few days. Get over your anger, it's clear you're upset about this, move on, don't let yourself be goaded into this debate by the Republicans.
CLARK: I don't think John Kerry has been goaded into this debate. He has a great deal of pride in his service, and I think Americans should share some of that pride. He served in Vietnam honorably and heroically. He did his duty, he protested. That was also part of his duty, as he saw it! I think it's a great record of achievement, and he has every right to be angry about the way the attack machine is trying to smear him, and I think he should defend himself. I think the people who need to be called off are the Republican attack dogs.
WOODRUFF: So you don't think he's doing himself harm by continuing to respond to all of this.
CLARK: I think John Kerry is doing a great job in helping the American people understand who he is, and one of the things people will learn about Kerry, this is a guy who will fight back. This is not a man who is indecisive or ineffectual. He does take strong positions, and he works to get those positions adopted, and he fights back. It's just one of the reasons why I think John Kerry will be a great President.

Wes Clark weighs in on Kerry's Service

I was a Clark supporter prior to his withdrawal from the race, and one of the things I admire about him is his willingness to tell it like he sees it, without a lot of mincing of words.

Clark is above all else an honorable guy. As such, and as a General and life-long military guy, I think his opinion on the ridiculous Bush attempt to smear Kerry's past service to his country is instructive and significant.

Today's Op-Ed piece in the NY Times makes it clear the Administration and its flacks do not have a leg to stand on when criticizing Kerry on this count.

See the entire article here or in the extended entry:

Medals of Honor
By WESLEY K. CLARK

Published: April 28, 2004

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.

When John Kerry released his military records to the public last week, Americans learned a lot about Mr. Kerry's exceptional service in Vietnam. They also learned a lot about the Republican attack machine.

The evaluations were uniformly glowing. One commander wrote that Mr. Kerry ranked among "the top few" in three categories: initiative, cooperation and personal behavior. Another commander wrote, "In a combat environment often requiring independent, decisive action, Lt. j.g. Kerry was unsurpassed." The citation for Mr. Kerry's Bronze Star praises his "calmness, professionalism and great personal courage under fire."

In the United States military, there's no ideology — there are no labels, Republican or Democrat — when superiors evaluate a man or woman's service to country. Mr. Kerry's commander for a brief time, Grant Hibbard, now a Republican, gave Mr. Kerry top marks 36 years ago.

Now the standards are those of politics, not the military. Despite his positive evaluations, Mr. Hibbard recently questioned whether Mr. Kerry deserved one of his three Purple Hearts.

In the heat of a political campaign, attacks come from all directions. That's why John Kerry's military records are so compelling; they measure the man before his critics or his supporters saw him through a political lens. These military records show that John Kerry served his country with valor, and that those who served with him and above him held him in high regard. That's honor enough for any veteran.

Yet the Republican attack machine follows a pattern we've seen before, whether the target is Senator John McCain in South Carolina in 2000 or Senator Max Cleland in Georgia in 2002. The latest manifestation of these tactics is the controversy over Mr. Kerry's medals.

John Kerry was awarded three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star for his service in Vietnam. In April 1971, as part of a protest against the war, he threw some ribbons over the fence of the United States Capitol.

Republicans have tried to use this event to question his patriotism and his truthfulness, claiming he has been inconsistent in saying whether he threw away his medals or ribbons. This is no more than a political smear. After risking his life in Vietnam to save others, John Kerry earned the right to speak out against a war he believed was wrong. Make no mistake: it is that bravery these Republicans are now attacking.

Although President Bush has not engaged personally in such accusations, he has done nothing to stop others from making them. I believe those who didn't serve, or didn't show up for service, should have the decency to respect those who did serve — often under the most dangerous conditions, with bravery and, yes, with undeniable patriotism.

Wesley K. Clark, a former Democratic presidential candidate, was commander of NATO forces from 1997 to 2000.

Helpful Link: Release of Kerry's war recrods

Here's a story about Kerry's war record that should quiet those detractors stupid enough to make this an issue, given Bush's "service."

The Yahoo Story also contains a link to the records as posted on Kerry's own web site.

Enjoy.

Ummm...does this qualify as "irony"?

The NY Times quoting Paul Bremer in Iraq:

With no sign of a breakthrough in talks with rebels in Falluja and Najaf, the leader of the American occupation appeared to move closer on Sunday to a military showdown, saying that the rebels' failure to submit to American demands would require decisive action against those who "want to shoot their way to power."

Am I the only one who finds that statement incredibly ironic? And not in an Alanis-Morissette-no-that's-just-unlucky-not-ironic kind of way, but that real way, because there is a stark incongruity between Bremer expressing America's outrage over the insurgents' "shooting their way to power" and America's own "shock & awe" campaign only 1 year early.

Discussion: Iraq and Vietnam...is the analogy valid?

I'm no expert, but as always Paul Krugman from the New York Times impresses me with his analysis. His answer? In some ways yes, in some ways no, and in some way? Even worse!

The link is here:

The Vietnam Analogy
By PAUL KRUGMAN

But since NY Times articles go away after a week, the entire text is in the extended entry.

As always, when you appreciate someone's work, emailing them to let them know is a great idea. Makes sure the Times keeps him around for a long, long time. His email is at the bottom of the article in the extended entry.

The Vietnam Analogy
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: April 16, 2004

Iraq isn't Vietnam. The most important difference is the death toll, which is only a small fraction of the carnage in Indochina. But there are also real parallels, and in some ways Iraq looks worse.

It's true that the current American force in Iraq is much smaller than the Army we sent to Vietnam. But the U.S. military as a whole, and the Army in particular, is also much smaller than it was in 1968. Measured by the share of our military strength it ties down, Iraq is a Vietnam-size conflict.

And the stress Iraq places on our military is, if anything, worse. In Vietnam, American forces consisted mainly of short-term draftees, who returned to civilian life after their tours of duty. Our Iraq force consists of long-term volunteers, including reservists who never expected to be called up for extended missions overseas. The training of these volunteers, their morale and their willingness to re-enlist will suffer severely if they are called upon to spend years fighting a guerrilla war.

Some hawks say this proves that we need a bigger Army. But President Bush hasn't called for larger forces. In fact, he seems unwilling to pay for the forces we have.

A fiscal comparison of George Bush's and Lyndon Johnson's policies makes the Vietnam era seem like a golden age of personal responsibility. At first, Johnson was reluctant to face up to the cost of the war. But in 1968 he bit the bullet, raising taxes and cutting spending; he turned a large deficit into a surplus the next year. A comparable program today — the budget went from a deficit of 3.2 percent of G.D.P. to a 0.3 percent surplus in just one year — would eliminate most of our budget deficit.

By contrast, Mr. Bush, for all his talk about staying the course, hasn't been willing to strike anything off his domestic wish list. On the contrary, he used the initial glow of apparent success in Iraq to ram through yet another tax cut, waiting until later to tell us about the extra $87 billion he needed. And he's still at it: in his press conference on Tuesday he said nothing about the $50 billion-to-$70 billion extra that everyone knows will be needed to pay for continuing operations.

This fiscal chicanery is part of a larger pattern. Vietnam shook the nation's confidence not just because we lost, but because our leaders didn't tell us the truth. Last September Gen. Anthony Zinni spoke of "Vietnam, where we heard the garbage and the lies," and asked his audience of military officers, "Is it happening again?" Sure enough, the parallels are proliferating. Gulf of Tonkin attack, meet nonexistent W.M.D. and Al Qaeda links. "Hearts and minds," meet "welcome us as liberators." "Light at the end of the tunnel," meet "turned the corner." Vietnamization, meet the new Iraqi Army.

Some say that Iraq isn't Vietnam because we've come to bring democracy, not to support a corrupt regime. But idealistic talk is cheap. In Vietnam, U.S. officials never said, "We're supporting a corrupt regime." They said they were defending democracy. The rest of the world, and the Iraqis themselves, will believe in America's idealistic intentions if and when they see a legitimate, noncorrupt Iraqi government — as opposed to, say, a rigged election that puts Ahmad Chalabi in charge.

If we aren't promoting democracy in Iraq, what are we doing? Many of the more moderate supporters of the war have already reached the stage of quagmire logic: they no longer have high hopes for what we may accomplish, but they fear the consequences if we leave. The irony is painful. One of the real motives for the invasion of Iraq was to give the world a demonstration of American power. It's a measure of how badly things have gone that now we're told we can't leave because that would be a demonstration of American weakness.

Again, the parallel with Vietnam is obvious. Remember the domino theory?

And there's one more parallel: Nixonian politics is back.

What we remember now is Watergate. But equally serious were Nixon's efforts to suppress dissent, like the "Tell It to Hanoi" rallies, where critics of the Vietnam War were accused of undermining the soldiers and encouraging the enemy. On Tuesday George Bush did a meta-Nixon: he declared that anyone who draws analogies between Iraq and Vietnam undermines the soldiers and encourages the enemy.  

E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com

Important Link: the newly-release 8/6/01 PDB

For those of you living in a cave, the 8/6/01 Presidential Daily briefing (PDB) is the one entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" that Richard Clarke feels should have been the catalyst for immediate action and Condoleeza Rice says was primarily a "historical document."

The White House, after much urging, has finally released the text of said memo.

Here is the link to the Memo.

Having read it, I am again struck by the disingenuous take on it by the Administration. I am willing to agree that 75% of the memo IS a historical recap of Al Qaeda's activities and intention regarding attacking the US, however, it leads up to the following concluding statements:

"We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a xxxxxxxxxx service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar 'Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA (news - web sites) and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.

My read on those 3 paragraphs is this:

1. We've gotten these crazy stories about plans for a hijacking that we can't confirm exactly.
2. But things are going on that would be consistent with plans for such an attack.
3. So, we, the FBI, who is submitting this report, want you to know that we, the FBI, are doing lots and lots of important stuff to follow up on these stories.

So I'll reiterate that I'm willing to say the Bush Administration made a judgment call that the ongoing self-reported FBI activities were sufficient. Just don't kid a kidder and tell me you had no clue.

The actual full text of the PDB is in the extended entry:

Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the U.S. Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan (news - web sites) in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to xxxxxxxxxxx service.

An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an xxxxxxxxxx service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.

The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Ladin's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI (news - web sites) that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack.

Ressam says Bin Ladin was aware of the Los Angeles operation.

Although Bin Ladin has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Ladin associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.

Al-Qa'ida members — including some who are US citizens — have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two al-Qa'ida members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our Embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Ladin cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a xxxxxxxxxx service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar 'Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA (news - web sites) and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.

Soapbox: Here's what I wanted Rice to say

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: it may be quite necessary for the 9/11 Commission to thoroughly investigate what happened before 9/11, but it isn't going to make a whit of difference in the 2004 Presidential Election.

You are never going to get any significant number of people to believe that the Bush Administration knew something like 9/11 was gong to happen, and did nothing.

This Monday morning quarterbacking is good for one thing: to try to make improvements to how the US handles intelligence moving forward.

However, what does get my goat about the Bush Administration is their behavior post-9/11. The deception and disingenuousness approached true cover-up proportions...and totally unnecessarily. It may be their downfall that they simply cannot admit error or misjudgment. And to avoid that admission they are willing to deceive, to engage in character assassination, to interfere with appropriate investigation of process and policy.

Don't tell me a brief titled "Osama Bin Laden determined to attack inside the US' was a historical document.

Don't tell me that a memo only contained "a line or two" about Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the US, so it was hardly like being informed at all.

Don't tell me that said memo said there were sleeper cells, but didn't say we should "do anything about them."

That just makes the Administration sound like a bunch of lawyers trying to get off on a technicality.

And given the stakes, it's a lot more serious than the old joke about Clinton's definition of the word "is."

Here's what I wish Condi Rice had said on Thursday:

"Yes, we knew that Al Qaeda was a threat. We were informed about their activities, and we tried to prioritize addressing that threat amongst the many other threats to this nation. We made judgments about where we needed to focus our energies and our manpower. We made these decisions every day. And in hindsight, we certainly wish we had prioritized differently. In hindsight we are truly sorry we didn't. But given the information we had and our analysis of that information, we did what we thought was right, and what we thought was best for the country and its security. We were wrong about that, and all we can do is try to use what we know now to make our country safer moving forward."

Would that have been so hard? Would that have hurt their pride so much? Would that have looked weak or spineless or given ground to in the polls?

I don't think so.

Recent News: Bad to worse in Iraq

I don't know about you, but as much as I want a change in administration, and as much as all of their mis-steps and mistakes make it likelier that they will get tossed out on their ear, I am starting to really hope they do SOMETHING right in Iraq.

ANYTHING.

But stop the mounting list of casualties, PLEASE.

I believe only a change in Administration will really solve the problem, maybe this Administration could get started on some smart tactics that will help?

Perhaps they could take a few suggestions from John Kerry's Plan for Peace NOW, to lay the groundwork for him post-Inauguration.

Get the link to his plan and to Talking Points on National Security in the extended entry.

Here's the link to John Kerry's Plan for Peace in Iraq

And here's a link to the Santa Clara County Democratic Party's Talking Points on National Security

Quick Comment: Richard Clarke on "The Daily Show"

Like many Americans, I now find I can only stomach getting my TV news from Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show." If you are not watching this gem, get yourself a TiVo and watch it every night! It's practically a duty for Democrats.

Tonight Jon had Richard Clarke on the show, and I would just like to say that my first impression of Clarke remains my lasting impression:

This is not a guy who seems like a partisan parrot (for either side) perpetuating a party line.

This is not a guy who seems like a big ham, seeking attention and fame like some reality show contestant.

This is not a guy who seems particularly disgruntled or embittered or dissatisfied with his lot in life.

This is a life-long public servant (who wisely fears that young people will stop going into public service the more they see those who dare to disagree being pilloried.)

I remain impressed with Clarke, and find him reasonable and credible.

But, don't get me started on Condi, Donald & Dick.

I find myself in the odd position...of agreeing with Pat Buchanan?

4231 Keep it up! Try Viagra once and youll see. http://viagra.levitra-i.com

Here is a link to Buchanan's article, with the text in full below.

While I can understand Israel's action to take out Hamas leader Yassin last week, I have to agree with Buchanan that it may not have served either their or our long-term interests to do so as they did.

But I really found myself agreeing with Buchanan's closing paragraphs positing that Bush's actions are actually creating a generation of future terrorists in the Arab world. We have created a bigger, broader monster, instead of corraling the one we were already dealing with.

Posted on Fri, Mar. 26, 2004

Killing a paraplegic with a missile makes Israel and U.S. less secure

By Pat Buchanan

``Israeli has a right to defend itself,'' said President Bush. And against whom was Israel defending itself?

A half-blind and deaf paraplegic being wheeled out of a mosque after prayers, Sheik Ahmed Yassin was struck by a missile that blew him to pieces. In assassinating the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, Ariel Sharon used a U.S. Apache helicopter gunship. In Islamic eyes, we are accomplices.

Protests erupted instantly in Iraq. Ayatollah al-Sistani, the Shiite leader on whom we depend for a peaceful transfer of power in Iraq, was enraged: ``This morning, the occupying Zionist entity committed an ugly crime against the Palestinian people by killing one of their heroes, scholar-martyr Ahmed Yassin.''

Sharon's defenders say the sheik had sanctioned terror attacks. Why did the Israelis not then seize him, expose his complicity in murder, and put him in prison, as they had before? Why convert this crippled old sheik into a martyr-saint? Why enhance the prestige of Hamas?

Has the killing made Israel more secure? If so, why were Israeli buses deserted all week? Has it made us more secure? Why were travel advisories issued to Americans in the Middle East? Why are U.S. embassies shutting down? How does inflaming the Islamic world advance Bush's goal of persuading the world that Islam is not America's enemy?

President Bush must begin to realize that his blind solidarity with Sharon, who has shown himself contemptuous of America's interests in the larger region, is among the greatest crosses we have to bear in the war on terror.

A year after the fall of Baghdad, Bush's men are boasting of his triumphs -- the overthrow of the Taliban, the liberation of Iraq, not one act of terror on U.S. soil in two years. But consider the war from bin Laden's vantage point.

The murderous strike of 9/11 electrified America-haters, but produced blowback and near total disaster for bin Laden. In weeks, Bush had united a great coalition, smashed the Taliban and almost finished Osama himself at Tora Bora. Then came Iraq.

Here Bush played straight into bin Laden's hand. By attacking a prostrate Arab nation that played no role in 9/11, we united Arab and Islamic peoples in hatred of America. We shattered alliances and ignited a guerrilla war.

According to a Pew poll, U.S. prestige in the Muslim world has never been lower. Bush is widely detested. In Pakistan, 65 percent of the people hold Osama in high regard, while 8 percent are positive on Bush. We are losing the hearts and minds of the Islamic young, creating a spawning pool out of which future terrorists will emerge.

PAT BUCHANAN is a syndicated columnist and former presidential candidate.

Recent news: Another insider decrying the Bush White House on terrorism and the War

How many White House insiders and independent investigators equal critical mass? First, Paul O'Neill, a Republican, appointed by Bush; then Hans Blix, the UN's weapons inspector, then George Tenet, current CIA Director, now Richard Clarke, a 30-year intelligence veteran who has served under both Democratic and Republican Presidents.

These men are among a chorus of people validating the claims I first read in Al Franken's "Lies & the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" that the Clinton Administration turned over lots of evidence to indicate Al Qaeda was going to strike the US, and a plan to deal with it that was pretty much ignored. And that Bush is obsessed with Iraq as the root of all evil.

Despite the PR spin that is already hard at work discrediting these gentlemen, it's hard to picture these rather sober gentlemen as attention-seeking, activist Democratic flacks.

You'd think the Reps would take them at least as seriously as they do Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh.

I'm just curious as to how many separate insiders need to tell essentially the same story before it gains traction in the minds of the American people.

Bottom line: Yes, we're there now. We need to focus on the plan to extricate ourselves causing the least damage. BUT looking at the past does matter because we should judge whether the group of people who screwed it up in the first place are the right people to devise and execute such an exit plan.

Links to more info on the stories these four gentlemen are telling are in the extended entry.

And if you want to read more details about how Bush is failing on our national security, you can find a great list of specifics in the National Security tab above (or at this link):

SCC DP on National Security

The run-down on Richard Clarke's appearance on 60 Minutes last night

The run-down on Paul O'Neill's's appearance on 60 Minutes in January

Hans Blix on WMDs in the Washington Post

and

Here's a blogger who very nicely collected various media outlet's coverage of George Tenet's testimony before the 9/11 Commission, so I don't have to!

Marking the Anniversary of the Start of the War

Tomorrow it is one year since we invaded Iraq.

Apparently we did so using faulty information about the imminent threat that Saddam Hussein posed. And more disturbingly, apparently at least some of our leaders were pretty hip to the fact that the info was faulty.

The logical assumption is that Bush and crew really wanted to go in there and depose Hussein (a very imminent threat to his own people for years) and leveraged whatever tools they could to do it...including, sadly, deception.

But our big problem now is how to get out. Where is the plan? How are we going to really combat world terrorism, if we cannot diminish the resources we're spending in Iraq?

And most importantly: why didn't these guys devise this plan before we went in there. Did they really think they'd waltz in, depose Saddam, and waltz out? Actually, yes, I think they did.

We, as Democrats, need to do more than point out the obvious here. We need to propose a plan.

If you click on the National Security tab above from the main web site, you will find links to the Democratic Party platform on various national security issues. Here is a link as well:

Democratic Party on National Security

And here is a link to John Kerry's statements on a plan for an Iraqi peace:

John Kerry on Iraq

Bush's Guard Service in Question

Democrats Say President Shirked His Duty in 1972
Washington Post, Feb. 3, 2004, p. A8

In recent days, a one-year gap in President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service during the height of the Vietnam War has been raised by Democrats.

While none of the presidential candidates has directly criticized Bush's service, some Democrats, including Democratic National Committee Chairman Terence R. McAuliffe, have accused the president of shirking his military duties in 1972, when Bush transferred to an Alabama unit. McAuliffe on Sunday called Bush "AWOL," or "absent without leave," during that period.

View entire article.

Scathing Report on the Iraq War

8364 ok you can play online poker at this address : http://www.play-online-poker.greatnow.com

The following is a two paragraph excerpt and a few sentences about
the dollar cost of the war and puplic support for that cost from the
report to the Army War College called "Bounding the Global War on
Terrorism," by Dr. Jeffrey Record, who joined the Strategic Studies
Institute in August 2003 as Visiting Research Professor. He is a
professor in the Department of Strategy and International Security at
the US Air Force's Air War College in Montgomery, Alabama. He also
has extensive Capitol Hill experience, serving as Legislative
Assistant for National Security Affairs to Senators Sam Nunn and
Lloyd Bentsen, and later as a Professional Staff Member of the Senate
Armed Services Committee. Dr. Record received his Doctorate at the
Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

The full report may be viewed at:
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pubs/2003/bounding/bounding.htm

and an article in the Washington Post may be view at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8435-2004Jan11.html

"In conflating Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda,
the administration unnecessarily expanded the GWOT [Global War on
Terrorism] by launching a preventive war against a state that was not
at war with the United States and that posed no direct or imminent
threat to the United States at the expense of continued attention and
effort to protect the United States from a terrorist organization
with which the United States was at war. Opponents of preventive war
against Iraq, including former national security advisers Brent
Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski and former secretary of state
Madeleine Albright, made a clear distinction between the character,
aims, and vulnerabilities of al-Qaeda and Iraq, correctly arguing
that the al-Qaeda threat was much more immediate, dangerous, and
difficult to defeat. They feared that a war of choice against Iraq
would weaken a war of necessity against al-Qaeda by distracting
America's strategic attention to Iraq, by consuming money and
resources much better applied to homeland defense, and, because an
American war on Iraq was so profoundly unpopular around the world,
especially among Muslims, by weakening the willingness of key
countries to share intelligence information so vital to winning the
war on al-Qaeda.

"Strategically, Operation IRAQI FREEDOM was not part of the GWOT;
rather, it was a war-of-choice distraction from the war of necessity
against al-Qaeda. Indeed, it will be much more than a distraction if
the United States fails to establish order and competent governance
in post-Saddam Iraq. Terrorism expert Jessica Stern in August 2003
warned that the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad was "the
latest evidence that America has taken a country that was not a
terrorist threat and turned it into one." How ironic it would be that
a war initiated in the name of the GWOT ended up creating "precisely
the situation the administration has described as a breeding ground
for terrorists: a state unable to control its borders or provide for
its citizens' rudimentary needs." Former Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) director of counterterrorism operations and analysis, Vincent
Cannistraro, agrees: "There was no substantive intelligence
information linking Saddam to international terrorism before the war.
Now we've created the conditions that have made Iraq the place to
come to attack Americans.""

* * *

"The dollar cost of maintaining U.S. forces in Iraq is currently
running at $4 billion per month,. . .."

* * *

"[In late summer 2003,] Sixty percent of those polled said that the
estimated occupation cost of $1 billion per week was too high and
believed it should be reduced."

* * *

"A late October, Washington Post-ABC poll revealed, for the first
time, that a majority--51%--of Americans disapproved of the way the
administration was handling Iraq."