THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
December 2006
Week Two
- December 8: The Saudi government denies it, but the Iraq Study Group report states that private Saudi citizens are funnelling millions of dollars to Sunni insurgents in Iraq, with much of the money being used for weapons.
Iraq war and occupation
The ISG learned of the funding through a number of interviews with key Iraqi officials, from government representatives to the truck drivers who have carried boxes of cash into Iraq for the insurgents. Two high-ranking Iraqi officials say that most of the Saudi money comes from private donations, called zaqat, collected for Islamic causes and charities. Some Saudis appear to know the money is headed to Iraq's insurgents, but others merely give it to clerics who channel it to anti-coalition forces. The Iraqis say that money has been pouring into Iraq from Saudi Arabia since the Iraq invasion toppled the Sunni-controlled regime of Saddan Hussein in March 2003. Last month, the New York Times reported that a classified US government report said Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency had become self-sufficient financially, raising millions from oil smuggling, kidnapping and Islamic charities. The report did not say whether any money came from Saudi Arabia. Last week, a Saudi who headed a security consulting group close to the Saudi government, Nawaf Obaid, wrote in the Washington Post that Saudi Arabia would use money, oil and support for Sunnis to thwart Iranian efforts to dominate Iraq if American troops pulled out. The Saudi government denied the report and fired Obaid. (AP/Yahoo! News) - December 8: Bush's White House dismisses ISG chairman James Baker's appeal that his group's recommendations be largely adopted as a whole, and says that Bush is considering a number of proposals for a change in course in Iraq.
Iraq war and occupation
Most Democrats and a few Republicans are pressuring Bush to announce a major change in his war policy, and some are expressing their frustration at Bush's obstreporousness. "Someone has to get the message to this man," says Senator Harry Reid, the incoming majority leader. Reid has praised the work of the ISG. In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on December 7, Baker urged Congress to accept most if not all of the report's 79 recommendations as part of a comprehensive strategy and said Bush should do the same. "I hope we don't treat this as a fruit salad, and say, 'I like this but I don't like that,'" Baker said. But White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the ISG report would be considered along with internal reviews being conducted by the Pentagon, the State Department and the National Security Council. Bush says he hopes to outline a shift in policy by Christmas, but says two key recommendations -- talks with Syria and Iran, and pullbacks of troops by early 2008 -- are not going to be considered. The latest polls show that only 27% of Americans support Bush's war policies. Bush intends to meet with senior Pentagon and State Department officials next week, along with outside experts on Iraq. For Democrats, who take over Congress in January, rhetoric isn't enough. "The time for change is now and is apparent to the American people," says incoming House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Senator Richard Durbin says when he heard Bush speak, Bush didn't seem to reject the report outright, "[b]ut when he talked about his approach to Iraq, there was no indication of a change in basic strategy. He talked about changing some tactics." (Reuters/Yahoo! News) - December 8: As noted above, Democrats and Republicans alike are frustrated with Bush's reaction to the recently released ISG report and his reluctance to accept any recommendations from the report.
Iraq war and occupation
In separate meetings with Bush, several Democrats stress the critical need for his administration to revamp its Iraq policy, though they don't expect him to embrace all 79 recommendations made this week by the panel. In his meetings with Congressional Democrats, Bush says he discussed "the need for a new way forward in Iraq...and we talked about the need to work together on this important subject." But Democrats aren't convinced by Bush's bipartisan rhetoric. "I just didn't feel there today, the president in his words or his demeanor, that he is going to do anything right away to change things drastically," says incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "He is tepid in what he talks about doing. Someone has to get the message to this man that there have to be significant changes." - Bush is astonishing many listeners by comparing himself to former president Harry Truman, who launched the Truman Doctrine to fight communism, got bogged down in the Korean War and left office unpopular. Bush says that "in years to come they realized he was right and then his doctrine became the standard for America," according to incoming Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin. "He's trying to position himself in history and to justify those who continue to stand by him, saying sometimes if you're right you're unpopular, and be prepared for criticism." Durbin says that he challenged Bush's comparison, and reminded Bush that Truman had the NATO alliance behind him and negotiated with his enemies at the United Nations. That is what the ISG is recommending now, Durbin told Bush -- work more with allies and negotiate with adversaries on Iraq. Apparently Bush felt that Durbin was challenging his authority. According to Durbin, Bush "reacted very strongly. He got very animated in his response" and emphasized that he is "the commander in chief."
- Former White House advisers to George H.W. Bush are keenly disappointed and concerned about the current Bush's initial reaction to the report. They consider him rather dismissive of the group's conclusions. "We have a classic case of circling the wagons," says a former adviser to the elder Bush. "If President Bush changes his policy in Iraq in a fundamental way, it undermines the whole premise of his presidency. I just don't believe he will ever do that."
- Bush was more in control of himself with the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of 44 conservative House Democrats united primarily on fiscal conservatism. Bush apparently was feeling them out to see if their political agenda could dovetail with his. But even they stressed that they expect to see him revamp Iraq policy. House member Mike Ross says, "Obviously, he was most passionate in defending his position on Iraq. But we made it clear to him that the American people are ready for a new direction in Iraq. I think he's open to that. Maybe not all 79, but I think you'll see some of the recommendations from the Iraq Study Group implemented in the coming months."
- Two of the core recommendations -- opening broad-based negotiations with other countries to solicit their assistance with Iraq, including Iran and Syria, and significantly reducing the number of US troops in Iraq in a relatively short period of time -- have been dismissed by Bush. Bush may be playing to his conservative base in his reluctance to embrace the report, as many leading conservatives have expressed strong opposition to many of the group's recommendations, especially the idea of opening talks with Iran and Syria. Dan Schnur, a Republican strategist in California, says the conservative reaction "may give the White House a little bit more political security to not embrace the entire report. That would have been much harder to do had there been broader bipartisan support for the panel's recommendations." But the conservatives find themselves in the minority among all Americans. Dissatisfaction with Bush's handing of Iraq has reached an all-time high of 71%, according to a new AP-Ipsos poll. A strong majority favors withdrawal of US troops, with 60% favoring a six-month deadline. (McClatchy, US News and World Report/Yahoo! News)
House Ethics Committee lets Foley, GOP off hook
- December 8: In a shocking but unsurprising development, the House Ethics Committee declares that former House Representative Mark Foley, the Florida Republican who has admitted stalking underage male pages over the Internet, violated no House rules during his decade of pursuing young boys while a Congressman.
Mark Foley scandal
No rules had been broken and no one should be punished, neither Foley nor the senior Republican leaders and their aides who failed to protect the teenagers vulnerable to his advances. The committee report calls Foley a "ticking time bomb" for his sexual come-ons to male pages, and harshly criticizes outgoing House Speaker Dennis Hastert, saying that Hastert knew about Foley's activities months before he acknowledged learning of Foley's X-rated e-mails. It concludes that Hastert lied about not recalling warnings from two other House Republican leaders. Hastert says he is pleased that the committee found "there was no violation of any House rules by any member or staff," and continues to lie about his and his fellow Republicans' knowledge and participation in Foley's predations, saying once again that no evidence has surfaced showing that anyone in the House knew about Foley's salacious instant messages and e-mails before the scandal went public. - In addition, the Justice Department says that it will probably not prosecute Foley; prosecutors have had difficulty establishing probable cause of a crime. The barrier in getting past the probable cause threshold is the statute on transmitting obscene materials to minors. Under federal law, the age of minors receiving obscene materials is 16.
- Not only is that an astonishing lie, but the committee itself, which was obviously reluctant to find any evidence that might lead to any sort of condemnations or censorings, concludes that Hastert's own chief of staff, Scott Palmer, was told about Foley's inappropriate conduct in 2002 or 2003, a finding based on testimony from Foley's former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham. Overall, the evidence shows that "concerns began to arise about Rep. Foley's interactions with pages or other young male staff members" shortly after he took office in 1995, according to the committee report. One female staff member was so alarmed by Foley's behavior towards the pages that she began "shadowing" Foley when he was around the pages. The report, prepared by a four-member subcommittee, describes "a disconcerting unwillingness to take responsibility for resolving issues regarding Foley's conduct." Lawmakers and aides "failed to exercise appropriate diligence and oversight" regarding the interactions between Foley and pages. The report adds that it discovered a pattern of conduct on the part of many individuals "to remain willfully ignorant of the potential consequences" of Foley's conduct. Although the committee recommends no punishments, it says the evidence would have subjected Foley to discipline if he had not resigned and thus removed himself from the House's jurisdiction. Foley refused to testify before the committee, and the committee chose not to pursue the issue.
- The report continues, "The weight of the evidence supports the conclusion that Speaker Hastert was told, at least in passing, about the e-mails by both Majority Leader [John] Boehner, R-Ohio, and Rep. [Tom] Reynolds, R-N.Y., in spring 2006." Reynolds is the House GOP campaign chairman; Shimkus is the chairman of the House Page Board. Boehner testified that he recalled Hastert telling him the matter "has been taken care of." A Reynolds aide testified that the campaign chief told her he was late for an appearance because he had to "go see the speaker" about Foley. Speculating on the reason for Republicans' reluctance to act, the committee said: "Some may have been concerned that raising the issue too aggressively might have risked exposing Rep. Foley's homosexuality.... There is some evidence that political considerations played a role in decisions that were made by persons in both parties." Currently both federal and state authorities are pursuing criminal investigations into Foley's conduct. One witness, Jeff Trandahl, was the House clerk, and when word of suggestive e-mails surfaced a year ago. He approached Shimkus, the head of the page board. Trandahl testified that he characterized Foley as a "ticking time bomb."
- One of the more shocking revelations in the report is that Republican House member Jim Kolbe, the only openly gay Republican in Congress, was accused by a former page of deliberately suppressing sexually explicit e-mails from Foley. After receiving the e-mail, which included a reference to the size of Foley's genitals, the former page revealed the e-mail to his parents. Together they forwarded the e-mail to Kolbe, the former page's sponsor. Foley later e-mailed the boy with an apology for making him "feel uncomfortable, but Kolbe denies ever receiving the specific e-mail from Foley, just a general complaint from the former page without any specifics or allegations of impropriety. The commission decides to give Kolbe the benefit of the doubt. Interestingly, the former page says that Kolbe told him after Foley's resignation, "it is bes[t] that you don't even bring this up with anybody.... [T]here is no good that can come from it if you actually talk about this. The man [Foley] has resigned anyway." After several stories hit the press, Kolbe accused the former page of revealing information to the Washington Post, an accusation the former page denies. Kolbe, himself under investigation for his own interactions with House pages, refused to fully testify to the commission, citing the ongoing investigations. Because the FBI is investigating Kolbe, and because he is retiring from Congress as of today, the commission says that, because Kolbe "will no longer be within the Committee's jurisdiction...the Investigative Subcommittee does not recommend further investigative or disciplinary proceedings by the House against Rep. Kolbe."
- Democrats had a passing involvement in the Foley scandal, the report finds. One Democratic aide, Matt Miller, had possession of suggestive computer messages written by Foley, and passed them along to reporters as well as a communications aide at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
- Politics were even more a consideration for Democrats than Republicans, with House leaders collaborating to cover up the scandal as long as possible. After Foley resigned, Shimkus told another Republican member of the Page Board, Shelley Moore Capito, why he never informed the Democratic member of the board, Dale Kildee, about Foley. Shimkus said, "Dale's a nice guy, but he's a Democrat, and I was afraid it would be blown out of proportion." The investigation was overseen by Republicans Doc Hastings (the chairman of the committee) and Judy Biggert, and Democrats Howard Berman and Stephanie Tubbs Jones. The 89-page report was released on the final full day of the Congress, meaning that any changes in the rules or in the page program must wait until lawmakers return to the Capitol in January.
- As can be expected, most of the media's response is quite negative. The Washington Post wants to know exactly what "would it take for the House ethics committee to hold a lawmaker or a staff member accountable?" While "the panel did a good job laying out the disturbing facts of the case [and] and how lawmakers and staff failed to do nearly enough to find out about or fix the problem, the committee "declined to hold even a single individual responsible for any misstep." The Post observes, "It's true, as the report said, that not 'every error in judgment' is a violation of House rules. ...But if not every error in judgment is a violation, the ethics committee's approach seems to be that no error, however egregious, is. ...The ethics committee concluded that none of this rose to the level of conduct that, in the words of the relevant rule, failed to reflect creditably on the House. This conclusion fails to reflect creditably on the ethics committee."
- The New York Times is angrier and less understanding. "Watching our elected leaders in action, it's not surprising that Americans wonder if there is any limit to the crass misbehavior that members of Congress are willing to tolerate from their colleagues to protect their privileges and hold on to their own jobs," the Times says. "The House ethics committee answered that question yesterday with a resounding 'No.'" The opinion piece calls the committee's report "a 91-page exercise in cowardice." "The report's authors were clearly more concerned about protecting the members of the House than the young men and women under their charge in the page program," the Times says. "And they made absolutely no effort to define the high standard of behavior that should be required of all members of Congress and their staffs." Of its conclusion that no one violated any House rules, the Times writes, "But even after all that, the report said that none of this amounted to the sort of behavior that might discredit the House of Representatives and thus violate ethics rules. The committee, which never heard from Mr. Foley, did not call for disciplinary action against current members of the House or their staffs. The committee said those who have already left, like Mr. Foley, were no longer its problem. The panel's justification for inaction is a breathtaking exercise in sophistry: 'the requirement that House members and staff act at all times in a manner that reflects creditably on the House does not mean that every error in judgment or failure to exercise greater oversight or diligence' is a violation." Not every error or failure is a violation by any means, the Times writes, "but certainly the ones that lead to an elected official's sexually stalking teenage boys while his colleagues turn a blind eye or cover it up should be. We'd set the bar at least there. Apparently, it's too high for the House."
- However, the far-right editorial page of the Wall Street Journal is perfectly content with the report, calling it "fair and sensible."
- Some Republicans are whispering that those who dodged a bullet only did so because the committee purposely fired above their heads. Roll Call's John Bresnahan quotes one unnamed "Republican insider" with ties to Hastert who called the report a "shrewd political document" that carefully criticized only members and staff who were leaving power. "They kicked people who don't care anymore," the source told Bresnahan. "Hastert doesn't care, and the other guys don't care either.... This doesn't hurt them at all." Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), calls the report a "whitewash" and adds, "House ethics committee has proven itself yet again to be entirely incapable of investigating wrongdoing by Members of Congress." Sloan says that at the very least members and their staffs violated Rule 23 of the House ethics rules, which reads in part that "A member...officer or employee of the House shall conduct himself at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House." Sloan says, "All you have to do is anthing wrong and you violated Rule 23." And while the report illustrates "that a fair number of people knew about Foley's behavior and didn't do anything, the committee just said 'everybody had bad judgment,' but they found basically no wrongdoing."
- In the wake of the decision, incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she and other Democrats are forming a bipartisan panel to decide whether the House needs an independent ethics committee that isn't beholden to House members. "There is no question that the ethics process in the last couple of years has lost the confidence of the American people," she says. "I'm hopeful that it's possible that we can have an outside entity that will restore that confidence." In the Senate, a group of senators, including Republican Susan Collins, Democrat Russ Feingold, and independent Joseph Lieberman, say they want to reintroduce legislation creating an Office of Public Integrity to oversee ethics violations by lawmakers. The Republican leadership of the Senate led the fight to defeat a similar measure last year. (AP/Yahoo! News, AP/Las Vegas Sun, US House Ethics Committee [full report], Washington Post, New York Times, TPM Muckraker, ABC News, Raw Story, ABC News, AP/CREW)
- December 9: While the Bush administration has dismissed most of the recommendations from the report recently issued by the Iraq Study Group, it has enthusiastically adopted one item from the report: the slogan.
Iraq war and occupation
Bush officials have chosen the report's own title, "A New Way Forward," for their revamped marketing strategy for the occupation of Iraq. The decision is all too typical of the administration, with a vaunted change in the public relations and marketing strategies being touted as real change in the policies. - Some new, or newer, ideas are under consideration. Bush's national security team, called his "war cabinet" by some officials, is deciding how best to secure Baghdad, perhaps by using a fresh infusion of troops from either US forces not already deployed, a combination of US and Iraqi forces, or all Iraqi troops. Officials are also considering whether to reach out to other nations to help settle the Iraqi situation, whether or not to drastically scale back the military mission to focus exclusively on the hunt for terrorists, and a new marketing attempt to win back the hearts and minds of Iraq's warring factions. Bush will announce his "new way forward" in a speech scheduled to take place before Christmas.
- Bush's response to the ISG report has been to praise its independence and bipartisanship while ignoring much of its criticisms and recommendations. He has left the attacks on the reports and its authors to other conservative voices and media pundits. Bush has also says he wants to consider the ISG's recommendations in the light of several other Iraqi policy reviews. At least three, by the Pentagon, the State Department, and the White House National Security Council, are still underway.
- Progressive pundit Arianna Huffington sums up the sour feelings of many outside the White House about yet another remarketing campaign for the same old disastrous war. While the New York Times notes that "[a]dministration officials say their preliminary review of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group's recommendations has concluded that many of its key proposals are impractical or unrealistic" -- not grasping the irony surrounding the impracticality and lack of realism embraced by the Bush administration's current policies -- but the administration was quick to embrace the new slogan. Huffington writes, "Of course, that's been the problem during this entire fiasco -- the substitution of rhetoric for policy -- the belief, even at this late date, that reality can be changed simply by changing the language used to describe it. Bush makes a big show of his religious faith, but what's truly impressive is his incredible faith in the power of PR, and, accordingly, his lack of faith in the American people. ...It's not about losing and winning, but, rather, about 'losing' and 'winning,' which are very, very different things. So now we're going from 'Stay the Course' to 'New Way Forward.' Will that change anything? Not likely. But, in Bush's mind, it'll buy him some time, at least until the next slogan." (AP/Yahoo! News, Huffington Post)
- December 9: Saudi King Abdullah opens the annual summit of Gulf leaders with a warning that the Arab world is on the brink of exploding because of conflicts in the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Lebanon.
Middle East unrest
"Our Arab region is besieged by a number of dangers, as if it was a powder keg waiting for a spark to explode," he tells his fellow Gulf State leaders, gathered in Riyadh for a two-day meeting. The Palestinians are reeling from "a hostile and ugly occupation" by Israel while the international community watches their "bloody tragedy like a spectator," Abdullah says. But "most dangerous for the [Palestinian] cause is the conflict among brethren," he says, referring to the differences between Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah faction and the Islamist Hamas movement that have blocked the formation of a unity government. In Iraq, "a brother is still killing his brother," Abdullah says of the killings between the Sunni Arab former elite and the ruling Shi'ite majority. He also warns that Lebanon, which was rocked by civil war in 1975-1990, risked sliding into renewed civil strife as a result of the current standoff between pro- and anti-Syrian camps. "In Lebanon, we see dark clouds threatening the unity of the homeland, which risks sliding again into...conflict among the sons of the same country," he says. The meeting involves the heads of state of the various Gulf Cooperation Council members, which includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. It is the first time in years that all six rulers have attended the bloc's year-end summit. Gulf Arab leaders are also concerned about Shi'ite Iran's growing role in Iraq and its standoff with the West over Tehran's nuclear program, although GCC Secretary General Abdulrahman al-Attiyah says the GCC states do not feel threatened by the Islamic republic. "The United States talks openly of the danger of Iranian military activity in the region, but our countries do not feel threatened by Tehran. Iranian officials assure us that their nuclear program is peaceful," Attiyah says. A GCC source says that "Gulf states are worried by the possibility of a US-Iranian confrontation" over Tehran's nuclear ambitions, and adds that "a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would create environmental dangers" for the region. During their summit, GCC leaders will also discuss steps toward economic integration, chiefly moves to establish a common market by 2007 and launch a monetary union and a single currency by early 2010. (AFP/Yahoo! News)
- December 10: Secretive talks are underway among major partners in Iraq's ruling coalition to oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki amid discontent over his failure to quell raging violence.
Iraq war and occupation
The talks are aimed at forming a new parliamentary bloc that would seek to replace the current government, a voting bloc that would likely exclude supporters of the Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a vehement opponent of the US military presence. The new alliance would be led by senior Shi'ite politician Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, who met with Bush last week. Al-Hakim, however, is not expected to be the next prime minister because he prefers the role of powerbroker, staying above the grinding day-to-day running of the country. A key figure in the proposed alliance, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, has left to meet with Bush three weeks ahead of his original schedule. "The failure of the government has forced us into this in the hope that it can provide a solution," says Omar Abdul-Sattar, a lawmaker from al-Hashemi's Iraqi Islamic Party. "The new alliance will form the new government." No new leader has yet been agreed on, but another strong candidate is Iraq's other vice president, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, a Shi'ite who was al-Hakim's choice for the prime minister's job before al-Maliki emerged as a compromise candidate and won. Al-Maliki is perceived as vulnerable, too compliant with more hardline Shi'ite groups and militias such as al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, and no longer having the trust of the US government. Al-Maliki is said to be livid at the attempt to unseat him. "We know what's going on and we will sabotage it," says an aide to al-Maliki. A senior aide to al-Sadr says the proposed alliance was primarily designed to exclude the cleric's backers and they will resist. Al-Sadr's supporters have been among al-Maliki's strongest backers, ensuring his election as prime minister. Relations have recently frayed, however, with the 30 Sadrist lawmakers and five Cabinet ministers boycotting the government and parliament to protest al-Maliki's meeting with Bush in Jordan. The al-Sadr aide says recent contacts with the office of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, spiritual leader of most Iraqi Shi'ites, indicated the Iranian-born al-Sistani was not averse to replacing al-Maliki. - Al-Hakim's SCIRI, along with the parliament's Kurdish bloc and al-Hashemi's Islamic party, are likely to be the major powers of the new alliance. Independent lawmakers are also expected to join. Al-Hashemi's Islamic party says it will not join any future government unless it has a real voice. Mahmoud Othman, a prominent Kurdish lawmaker and a sharp government critic, says talks on a new parliamentary alliance were initiated early this year, abandoned and recently resumed. "This government must offer a remedy for all the problems we have in Iraq or publicly announce that it's unable to do so," says Othman, who is close to the negotiations. "The question of confidence in this government must be reconsidered," Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni Arab, tells legislators. "Why should we continue to support it? For its failure?" (AP/Yahoo! News)
- December 10: Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, says the recently released report by the Iraq Study Group offers dangerous recommendations that will undermine his country's sovereignty.
Iraq war and occupation
The report is, he says, "insult to the people of Iraq" insamuch as it recommends deadlines for achievement of certain goals. "If you read this report, one would think that it is written for a young, small colony that they are imposing these conditions on," says Talabani. "We are a sovereign country." The presidency is a largely ceremonial post, with little real power in the government headed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite, but Talabani is one of the strongest voices for his people, the Arab Kurds of Iraq. Talabani is the most senior government official to take a stand against the Iraq Study Group report, which has come under criticism from leaders of the governing Shi'ite and Kurdish parties. Talabani says the report "is not fair, is not just, and it contains some very dangerous articles which undermine the sovereignty of Iraq and the constitution." Talabani strongly opposes the recommendation for a de-Ba'athification law that would allow thousands of officials from the ousted Ba'ath Party to return to their jobs. He also criticizes the idea of embedding thousands more US troops into Iraqi units for training purposes: "It is not respecting the desire of the Iraqi people to control its army and to be able to rearm and train Iraqi forces under the leadership of the Iraqi government," he says. An aide to al-Maliki says the Iraqi leader has reservations about the report but has yet to form a detailed response. Representatives of Iraq's third major religious group, Sunni Arabs, say they agree with the report's grim assessment of the problems in Iraq, but not with the report's recommendations. Kurds have been the strongest critics so far of the report and Talabani says he backs a statement by the president of the Kurdish region who objects to recommendations on sharing the oil wealth, reinstating Saddam loyalists in their old government jobs and giving Iraq's neighbors a role in efforts to end the violence. However, Talabani says he has already made contact with officials in Syria and Iran in hopes of gaining help for his fragmenting country. - Meanwhile, Syria warns that the United States will face hatred and failure in the Mideast if the White House rejects the report's recommendations -- probably the best way to get Bush officials to dig in and refuse to budge on their refusal to seriously consider the report's recommendations. Syria's ruling party's Al-Baath newspaper urges Bush to take the Iraq Study Group's report seriously because it will "diminish hatred for the U.S. in region. ...But if it failed to pick up the positive signals either in the report or in the Syrian welcome of what the report has contained, it would remain drowned in the quagmire and the situation in the region and the entire world would remain unstable." (AP/Yahoo! News)
- December 10: Former attorney general John Ashcroft makes strong, and apparently baseless, accusations against the last enemy combatant imprisoned inside the US, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri.
Terrorism detainees and "enemy combatants"
Four years after al-Marri's detention, government officials have still not decided what, if any, threat he poses to American citizens. Ashcroft has an answer. According to Ashcroft's new book Never Again, al-Marri was sent to the United States a day before the 9/11 attacks to plan strikes on West Coast targets, including the tallest building in Los Angeles, the US Bank building (formerly the Library Tower). Citing 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was captured and interrogated, Ashcroft writes. "I believe KSM had planned to use Al-Marri to help facilitate this next wave of attacks focused on Los Angeles." This is the first time any US official has directly linked al-Marri to the West Coast attacks that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden allegedly hoped would follow the East Coast attacks. The problem with Ashcroft's allegations is that no federal law enforcement officials know anything about it. Three senior FBI officials say they are mystified by Ashcroft's assertions, and court documents alleging that al-Marri, a US-educated citizen of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, has deep ties to al-Qaeda makes no mention of any role in an assault on the West Coast. - The FBI officials say the West Coast plot was broken up by arrests overseas that did not involve al-Marri. They say al-Marri was sent to the United States as an al-Qaeda "sleeper agent" and was not assigned to prepare an attack on any specific target. With his wife and five children, they said al-Qaeda leaders hoped he could reside unnoticed in Peoria, Illinois, where he had once lived and attended school. "He was never given any assignment," says one of the officials familiar with government intelligence on the West Coast plot. "KSM may have considered him as an operative, but that's about it." He says that Ashcroft's contention "might still be a possibility," but acknowledges that they have no evidence of such. Al-Marri's defense lawyers have repeatedly called on the government to either charge him with a crime or set him free, saying his endless solitary confinement at a Navy brig next to Charleston violates the founding principles of American jurisprudence. But twice this year different federal judges in South Carolina have denied their request and ruled that the Bush administration can continue to legally, and indefinitely, hold al-Marri as an enemy combatant. His attorneys have appealed; seeking to block an appeals decision that might go against them, government prosecutors now say they may bring al-Marri before a military tribunal similar to those planned for Mohammed and other detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Al-Marri's lawyers are furious that Ashcroft is making such public and unsupported allegations against their client, allegations that have never been brought up in court. The attorneys theorize that Ashcroft is trying to make al-Marri appear evil to support his own Justice Department policy of endlessly incarcerating enemy combatants. "He's all spit and no sidewalk," says defense lawyer Andrew Savage. Law professor Jonathan Hafetz, assisting with al-Marri's defense, is equally dismissive of Ashcroft's claims: "If they have that evidence, they should present it," he says. "Put up or shut up." Although Mohammed has identified al-Marri as an al-Qaeda sleeper agent, when Mohammed testified in the 2006 trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, and gave detailed evidence about the West Coast plot, he did not name al-Marri as a co-conspirator. "This guy [al-Marri] was never named by KSM as being in the Library Tower plot," says one of the Washington officials. "But he was put on the radar by KSM as a guy who was here stateside as a potential operator." Al-Marri's lawyers say any statements from Mohammed should be discounted because Mohammed was tortured into talking. Al-Marri should be released now, Hafetz says, because "you can't hold somebody based on a statement from a guy who was water-boarded."
- Al-Marri was arrested in December 2001 in Peoria, while studying for his graduate degree in computer science at Bradley University. FBI agents found evidence that appeared to link him to al-Qaeda, but he was held on minor bank-card and credit-card fraud charges. He was preparing for trial when Mohammed was arrested in March 2003 and began talking. Three months later, in June 2003, the Bush administration abruptly designated Al-Marri an enemy combatant and moved him from a jail in Illinois to the Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina. The two judges who upheld the enemy combatant designation based their rulings on a partially declassified summary from Jeffrey Rapp, a senior defense intelligence officer. The summary says "multiple intelligence sources" confirmed al-Marri was sent to the United States to explore how to hack into computer systems and disrupt US financial systems. It describes al-Marri as a man devoted to al-Qaeda, who had trained with the terrorist network, versed himself in poisons and chemical weapons, talked frequently with a terrorist financier, and kept bin Laden speeches and lists of jihad websites on his computer. "He met personally with Osama bin Laden and other known al-Qaeda members," Rapp concluded, "and volunteered for a martyr mission or to do anything else that al-Qaeda requested." Al-Marri's lawyers dispute the charges and say the evidence, which largely remains classified and unseen, does not prove their client's guilt. (Los Angeles Times)
- December 10: Centrist commentator Juan Williams indulges in a rare moment of candor when he tells viewers of Fox News Sunday that listening to the warmongering rants from hawks like his fellow guest, neoconservative William Kristol, makes him want to scream.
Conservative media slant
Kristol, demanding that more troops be sent to Iraq, says during the discussion, moderated by Brit Hume, "[S]ome of the Republicans are going wet or squishy...." Hume then says of Bush, "if the political support ebbs away at the rate that it's going -- it will be very difficult indeed and it will also leave the insurgents with the idea that all they gotta do is wait for this guy to leave office and they're going to be in the land of mild and honey in Iraq and will run the place...." Williams has had enough. "Squishy, impatient, you know, they'll be in the land of milk and honey? The insurgents will be. What do you imagine, an American administration is coming in, Republican or Democrat, after President Bush that's just going to lay down and run away like scared little --" Hume cuts in with the patronizing rejoinder, "It will not be phrased that way. but if you listen, listen, Juan, it's very simple." Williams finally lets loose: "This is really -- I tell you sometimes i just want to scream. You guys have been going on since this thing began. I mean, you don't give credit to people, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, Barbara Lee, people who said from the start this is a mistake. You put 'em down. Now it's everybody's a surrender monkey or impatient or squeamish or weak. Why can't you say, hey, there's a real problem in Iraq?" (Fox News/Crooks and Liars)
Arctic ice to be gone in 30 years; calamitous climate change to follow
- December 11: A team of leading climatologists, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says that the Arctic ice is melting so fast that the North Pole will be in the open sea within 30 years.
Global warming and the environment
The melting is caused primarily by carbon emissions, known colloquially as "greenhouse gases." Some ice would still be found on coastlines, notably Greenland and Ellesmere Island, but the rest of the Arctic Ocean, including the pole, would be open water. In between 30 and 50 years, they conclude, summer sea ice will have vanished from almost the entire Arctic region. But the British Antarctic Survey's Chris Rapley, head of the project, believes the findings are already out of date and over-optimistic. Rapley says a recent study suggests emissions are rising far faster than in 2000, when the climatologists' data was primarily collected, and ice-loss will be resultingly more speedy. "The study findings may be an underestimate of when the Arctic summer ice might be all gone," says Rapley. "It could well be their assumptions are more optimistic than they might be." The effect on the Arctic ecology will be devastating. Polar bears will be driven into extinction, and other wildlife, including seals, will suffer. The traditional lifestyle of the Inuit peoples, or Eskimo, will be ravaged. But oil companies are already planning for explorations of the newly ice-free areas to tap into possible new reserves, and entertainment companies are considering the option of cocktail cruises over the North Pole. "We have already witnessed major losses in sea ice, but our research suggests that the decrease over the next few decades could be far more dramatic than anything that has happened so far," says Professor Marika Holland, who led the UN study. "These changes are surprisingly rapid. As the ice retreats, the ocean transports more heat to the Arctic and the open water absorbs more sunlight, further accelerating the rate of warming and leading to the loss of more ice. This is a positive feedback loop with dramatic implications for the entire Arctic region." - And new data presented at a conference hosted by the American Geophysical Union suggests that by 2040, Arctic ice might be gone for good. Mark Serreze, an Arctic Sea ice specialist with the University of Colorado, says, "We had always thought, that at least in the early stages of climate warming, that the Arctic sea ice would recover in the autumn. After all even with the globally warmed world, winter happens in the Arctic, we'll still have refreeze of that ice. But what we're starting to see is that winter ice is not recovering any more. We see that at the end of November we have two-million square kilometres less ice than we should have in a typical year." Daily Kos science specialist "DarkSyde" writes, That much melt water spreading over parts of the the Arctic Ocean could shut down the North Atlantic Conveyor," the system of ocean currents that feed the North Atlantic. "The last time that happened, it may have sent western Europe into a brief but intense ice age marked by a notable pulse of extinction across every clade on record. In addition, this phenomenon could also signal that the permafrost ringing the Arctic Circle is melting, which would release prodigious amounts of trapped methane, a potent greenhouse gas." Such environmental changes would be truly calamitous. (Sunday Times, Australian Broadcasting Company, Daily Kos)
- December 11: Bush hears blunt and dismal assessments of his handling of Iraq from a group of military experts as part of his touted "listening tour," a carefully packaged and choreographed set of meetings with various military and civilian experts designed to give him input for his aforementioned "New Way Forward" in Iraq.
Iraq war and occupation
Although the three retired generals and two academics were highly critical of Bush's Iraq policies, they share Bush's skepticism over the recommendations of James Baker's Iraq Study Group. In particular, the experts disagree with the ISG's plans to reduce the number of US combat troops in Iraq and to reach out for help to Iran and Syria. - Bush began his "listening tour" by meeting with his Secretary of State and closest policy advisor, Condoleezza Rice, and other State Department officials, where he was briefed on reconstruction and regional diplomatic efforts in Iraq. The military experts meet with Bush, Vice President Cheney and about a dozen aides for more than an hour. The experts agree with the ISG that Bush must review his national security team, which many have characterized as part of the problem. "I don't think there is any doubt in his mind about how bad it is," says a source close to the experts. One participant in the discussion says flatly, "All of us said they have failed, that you need a new team," fueling rumors that Bush and his new defense secretary, Robert Gates, may replace Marine general Peter Pace as the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The group disagrees on the key issue of whether to send more troops to Iraq, with retired general John Keane arguing that several thousand additional soldiers could be used to improve security in Baghdad, and others expressing doubt about that proposal. But the five agree in telling Bush that the Army and Marine Corps both need to be bigger, and also need bigger budgets.
- White House officials emphasize that although the experts have given a bleak assessment, they still believe the situation in Iraq is "winnable." Bush calls the experts' advice "an important component of putting together a new way forward in Iraq."
- The meeting with the experts will be followed by a December 12 videoconference with military commanders, and then a meeting with Iraq's vice president, Tariq al-Hashemi. On December 13, Bush will meet with outgoing defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and another group of military experts. But as of yet, Bush's rhetoric on the Iraqi war and occupation has not changed. "Iraq is a central component of defeating the extremists who want to establish safe haven in the Middle East, extremists who would use their safe haven from which to attack the United States," he says. "This is really the calling of our time, that is, to defeat the extremists and radicals." Conspicuously absent from any of the meetings are any voices calling for any sort of timed withdrawals, or anyone who might criticize the rationale behind the March 2003 invasion. Most of today's experts have in the past recommended that troop levels be increased. (Washington Post)
- December 11: The fight over classified information in the Lewis Libby/CIA leak case is essentially over, with a judge's ruling ensuring that the dispute will not derail the prosecution's case against Libby.
Lewis Libby perjury trial
Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is accused of lying to investigators about his conversations with reporters that allegedly outed undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. Libby has attempted to bring the trial to a halt by threatening to disclose classified information about terrorist threats and foreign nuclear programs, ostensibly to support his defense that he had more pressing issues on his mind than outing Plame. Prosecutors had accused Libby of demanding so much sensitive information that the government could not safely release it -- which would have possibly led to a dismissal -- but US District Judge Reggie Walton appears to have resolved that dispute. Walton has accepted special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's proposal to limit the details Libby and his attorneys can discuss. The ruling helps keep the trial on track for next month. That could still be delayed, however, if Cheney and Bush aide Karl Rove claim they cannot testify because of separation-of-powers issues. While the case hinges on whether Libby knowingly lied about his conversation regarding Plame, testimony could offer a behind-the-scenes look at how the Bush administration handled intelligence and criticism in its march to war. Plame believes the administration leaked her name to reporters as retribution for her husband's criticism of prewar intelligence. Nobody has been charged with the leak, though the Bush administration has promised for years to find and prosecute the perpetrator. (Washington Post) - December 11: CNN's Jeff Greenfield fires what appears to be the first shot in a conservative attack against Democratic senator and possible presidential candidate Barack Obama, attacking Obama, not over his policies, but over his sartorial similarities to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Conservative smear campaigns
Conservative pundits and bloggers have already tried to make hay out of Obama's middle name -- Hussein -- but have attracted little attention outside of the enclaves of the far right, but Greenfield expands the attack onto the national airwaves. Greenfield describes what he calls "the classic Obama look...business casual, a jacket, a collared shirt, but no tie." After comparing Obama's dress style to John Kerry (country club casual) and George W. Bush (a homage to Ronald Reagan), Greenfield says, "But, in the case of Obama, he may be walking around with a sartorial time bomb. Ask yourself, is there any other major public figure who dresses the way he does? Why, yes. It is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who, unlike most of his predecessors, seems to have skipped through enough copies of GQ to find the jacket-and-no-tie look agreeable. And maybe that's not the comparison a possible presidential contender really wants to evoke." Greenfield even evokes the coincidence in names: "Now, it is one thing to have a last name that sounds like Osama and a middle name, Hussein, that is probably less than helpful." He concludes, "But an outfit that reminds people of a charter member of the axis of evil, why, this could leave his presidential hopes hanging by a thread. Or is that threads?" Talking Points Memo host Josh Marshall says simply, "Not the first connection I would have thought of. You?" The eminent Columbia Journalism Review is more direct, calling Greenfield's comments "character assassination." The media watchdog site Daily Howler compares Greenfield's bit to the media attacks on Al Gore's "earth tones" in 2000. Greenfield later claims that he was just making a joke, and that he is floored anyone would have taken his apparent comedy routine seriously. He then blames Marshall and other bloggers, whom he says have too much time on their hands and too much bandwidth to fill. - Even such an antagonistic explanation might be more acceptable if it were not for CNN's subsequent December 12 juxtaposition of Obama, in split screen, with first Saddam Hussein and then with Osama bin Laden. CNN reporter Jeanne Moos is obviously trying to be humorous; she begins her segment with Obama's own words, "I mean, it would be one thing if my name was 'John Hussein Smith.' When you're already starting with 'Barack Obama...'" But the split screens with Obama-Hussein and Obama-bin Laden are ripe for political misuse. TPM Cafe contributor Eric Kleefield writes, "It makes you wonder if the ad man for GOP Senator Saxby Chambliss -- who unseated Max Cleland with ads linking him to the two -- is working for CNN now."
- Jeffrey Feldman, a specialist in the political use of language, writes that the attacks are part of what he calls the "GOP smear gangs" and their efforts to short-circuit any possibility of Obama running for president in 2008. Feldman writes, "The biggest threat to the American political system are the Republican, authoritarian smear gangs that use private money to wage PR smear attacks against Americans in politics. In the 2000 Presidential campaign, John McCain was attacked by these smear gangs when he threatened to beat George W. Bush in the primaries. In 2004, these same smear gangs took down John Kerry, accusing him of lying about his military service. After speaking out against the Bush White House's lies on Iraq, Joe Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame Wilson were assaulted by these same GOP smear gangs. And there are many more instances where Republican gangs ride into our political system on the backs of millions in private money and silence dissent with fear and threats. The more a candidate speaks out against the radical right, the more ferocious these smear gangs campaign against them. ...The basis of the gang attack [against Obama]? Repeat Obama's middle name 'Hussein' as a tactic for convincing Americans that Barack Obama is a covert terrorist. No matter what your view on Barack Obama as a presidential candidate (I am only beginning to look at the field of candidates for '08), Americans simply cannot allow these immoral Republican smear gangs to ride roughshod over our electoral system -- threatening and intimidating as they go."
- Feldman cites blog posts by conservatives as the opening salvos in a huge smear campaign, which he describes as "[a] whisper campaign accusing Barack Obama of being a Muslim who converted to Christianity just to pretend he was an infidel, so he could get his hands on the US nuclear codes and blow up America. Barack Obama, in other words -- according to this Republican gang smear campaign -- is a terrorist sleeper cell." Before the reader dismisses this as mere hysteria from ignorant right-wing bloggers that no one bothers to read, and as paranoia on the left, remember that the 2004 Swift Boat campaign against Kerry started in just this fashion, with equally ludicrous allegations. (CNN/Talking Points Memo [link to video], Talking Points Memo [links to video], TPM Cafe, Frameshop)
