THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER

Written and Compiled by Black Max

February 2007, Week One

Page Two

 

Brzezinski warns that Bush is manufacturing pretext for war with Iran, suggests that Bush may manufacture terrorist attack on US

• February 2: Former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski lambasts the Bush war in Iraq and warns that Bush's policies, leading to what he calls is an inevitable conflict with Iran, will be a immeasurable calamity for the US and the global community.

  War with Iran

  Brzezinsky testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He opposed the invasion of Iraq and has called the occupation a colossal foreign policy blunder. Today he calls the Iraq occupation a "war of choice" and "a historic, strategic and moral calamity." He says, "Undertaken under false assumptions, it is undermining America's global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America's moral credentials. Driven by Manichean principles and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability." He mocks Bush's rhetoric of a "decisive ideological struggle" against radical Islam as "simplistic and demagogic," and calls it a "mythical historical narrative" employed to justify a "protracted and potentially expanding war. ...To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy."
• Brzezinski's prediction of the upcoming calamity in Iran is chilling. He says it will be triggered by the "Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks, followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran, culminating in a 'defensive' US military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan." Without directly saying so, Brzezinski implies that Bush is quite capable of manufacturing a provocation, including a "terrorist attack" within the US, that he would use as a pretext for war. For someone of Brzezinski's stature and experience to make such a suggestion is astounding -- and as such, goes almost completely unreported in the US media.
• Brzezinski says that history provides circumstantial evidence of his warnings. He asks the congressional audience to remember back to January 2003, when Bush and Blair held a private meeting, and Bush spoke of his concerns that WMDs would not be found in Iraq. Therefore, he told Blair, another pretext for invading Iraq had to be found. Brzezinski says, "I'll just read you what this memo allegedly says, according to the New York Times: 'The memo states 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.' He described the several ways in which this could be done. I won't go into that...the ways were quite sensational, at least one of them. If one is of the view that one is dealing with an implacable enemy that has to be removed, that course of action may under certain circumstances be appealing. I'm afraid that if this situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate, and if Iran is perceived as in some fashion involved or responsible, or a potential beneficiary, that temptation could arise."
• Brzezinski also addresses the incredibly insular White House. "I am perplexed," he says, "by the fact that major strategic decisions seem to be made within a very narrow circle of individuals -- just a few, probably a handful, perhaps not more than the fingers on my hand. And these are the individuals, all of whom but one, who made the original decision to go to war, and used the original justifications to go to war."
• Even the Democrats in attendance fail to ask Brzezinski about his stark and provocative warnings. After the hearing, reporter Barry Grey asks Brzezinski about his remarks, and if he were accusing anyone in the White House of manufacturing a pretext for war with Iran. Brzezinski replies, "I'm saying the whole situation can get out of hand and all sorts of calculations can produce a circumstance that would be very difficult to trace." (WSWS, dotCommonweal [transcript of statement])

Profit data shows that Exxon, other oil companies deliberately depressed oil prices in order to influence November elections

• February 2: While oil giant ExxonMobil posted record profits in the fourth quarter of 2006, the corporation deliberately cut its profits in the month before the November 2006 elections in order to artificially depress gas prices.

  Oil profiteering and the "oiligarchy"

  Shell, Marathon, and ConocoPhillips did the same. It is likely that the oil corporations took this unusual step in order to influence the midterm elections on behalf of Republicans. The nonpartisan Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) is calling for Congressional investigations to determine whether Exxon and others manipulated the market to effect the election. FTCR notes that, despite the temporary and limited relief of election season pump prices, the record annual profits of Exxon and Shell show once again that last summer motorists were the victims of one of the greatest rip-offs of all time when gasoline prices topped $3 per gallon. The industry has long claimed that gasoline pump prices are attributable to external factors such as the price of crude oil, but the profit data, released today, make it clear that high gasoline prices are directly tied to oil company decisions. "The proof in Exxon's profit report is that oil companies are robbing Americans blind and that the companies can have tremendous influence over gasoline prices at any time they want simply by taking a little less in profits," says FTCR President Jamie Court. "That's a very different portrait than the industry paints of being captive to global economic forces. Congress needs to hold hearings and ask company executives under oath about whether Exxon's sudden profit drop in the fourth quarter was based on a political motivation and subpoena company documents to determine the root of the change." (Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights/CommonDreams)
• February 2: The debate raging over the non-binding resolution against the Iraq war in the Senate, and coming up in the House, are virtually meaningless except in a symbolic way, say critics of the efforts.

  Iraq war and occupation

  So far the Democratic leadership of both houses of Congress have sidestepped serious discussion of taking real measures to curtail Bush's war efforts, most notably cutting funding for the war. "Two years ago, it seemed pretty lonely. Now every politician wants to be seen on television saying something bad about President Bush's handling of the war," says Dr. Rusti Eisenstadt, an activist and professor of US history. "The key now is to get [Congress] to do something instead of hiding behind non-binding resolutions." Peace activists want Congress to come to grips with the need to cut funding for the war. "We are looking at a lot of things that are happening in the Congress right now, from a Senate resolution that opposes an escalation but will allow a war to continue, to other bills out there that talk about bringing the troops home and de-funding the war, but which George Bush can veto," says Nancy Lessing of the group Military Families Speak Out. "The one thing that we see that can end this war is if Congress votes no money on the appropriation that's going to come before them." Michael McPherson, the executive director for Veterans for Peace, is more straightforward. "Legislation is so that Congress has cover," he says. "The bottom line is that we want the troops to come home and we need it to be defunded. All the other stuff is just a game." Eisenstadt, the historian, reminds readers, "People forget that Congress did not vote to stop funding the war in Vietnam until after all the American troops had already left. Instead what happened was that every year more and more members of Congress voted against the war and that pressured President Richard Nixon to pull more and more troops out every year. When President Nixon took office, there were half a million US troops in Vietnam. By the end of his first term it was down to 35,000." (Inter Press Service/CommonDreams)
• February 2: The Pentagon has deliberately misrepresented how nonfatal casualties in Iraq are reported on its official government Web site, resulting in lower casualty counts that actually exist.

  Iraq war and occupation

  According to Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, deputy director of force health protection and readiness at the Defense Department, "[T]he previous method of tallying casualties was misleading and might have made injuries and combat wounds seem worse and more numerous than they really were." The Web site has now been altered, and shows no total whatsoever for nonfatal casualties. (New York Times/Raw Story)
• February 2: Despite a devastating report from the UN confirming that global warming is caused by manmade greenhouse gases, the Bush administration continues to refuse to agree to mandatory reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.

  Global warming and the environment

  Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman warns against "unintended consequences," including job losses, that he says might result if the government requires economy-wide caps on carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. "There is a concern within this administration, which I support, that the imposition of a carbon cap in this country would -- may -- lead to the transfer of jobs and industry abroad [to nations] that do not have such a carbon cap," Bodman says. "You would then have the US economy damaged, on the one hand, and the same emissions, potentially even worse emissions." Bush used the same economic reasoning when he rejected the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, an international treaty requiring 35 industrial nations to cut their global-warming gases by 5% on average below 1990 levels by 2012. The White House has said the treaty would have cost 5 million US jobs, an assessment few agree with. Bodman says, "Even if we were successful in accomplishing some kind of debate and discussion about what caps might be here in the United States, we are a small contributor to the overall, when you look at the rest of the world. And so it's really got to be a global solution." The United States each year contributes about a quarter of the world's greenhouse gases, though the share from China, India and other developing countries also is growing. Instead, Bodman touts vague, unspecified technological advances as working to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
• Democrats in Congress react angrily to Bush's continued denials, and have introduced over a half-dozen bills calling for some form of mandatory carbon controls. Even "independent" Democrat Joseph Lieberman, widely regarded as an administration lackey, takes umbrage at the White House's refusal to deal with the reality of global warming, saying, "This puts the final nail in denial's coffin." Democratic representative Edward Markey says he hopes it wouldn't take until Groundhog Day two years from now, when a new president is in the White House, to alter course in the United States. "It sounds like the Bush administration, having seen the very real shadow of scientific evidence of global warming, has chosen to go back into its hole of denial by saying that it will not support measures to reduce global warming and its disastrous affects on our economy and environment," Markey says.
• The former chairman of the UN's scientific panel responsible for evaluating the threat of global warming agrees. Robert Watson, now the World Bank's chief spokesman on global warming, says, "This report really provides strong weight behind those saying we need much stronger action" from the United States and other nations. (AP/Truthout)

"The Bush administration is doing to the whole world what it did to New Orleans as Katrina began to descend on the city. By altering scientific research on global warming to fit his political agenda and refusing to take necessary steps to protect the public, President Bush has aggravated an impending environmental, public health, and security crisis." -- Green Party co-chair Rebecca Rotzler, quoted by The Nation

"Congress must recognize the Bush administration's tampering with studies on global warming and other scientific research as an impeachable offense. Ever since Vice President Cheney initiated private meetings with oil company representatives to determine energy policy, the administration has placed the demands for corporate profits over urgent human and environmental needs." -- Green Party treasurer Jody Grage, quoted by The Nation

• February 2: Florida governor Charlie Crist announces that his state will abandon the controversial, easily-hacked touch-screen voting machines installed after the 2000 presidential election.

  Election fraud

  Instead, Florida will go entirely to paper ballots counted by scanning machines. The change will be made in time for the 2008 presidential elections. Voting experts say Florida's move, coupled with new federal voting legislation expected this year, could be the death knell for the paperless electronic machines. If, as expected, the Florida legislature approves the $32.5 million cost of the change, it would be the nation's biggest repudiation yet of touch-screen voting, which was widely embraced after the 2000 recount as a state-of-the-art means of restoring confidence that every vote would count. "Florida is like a synonym for election problems. It's the Bermuda Triangle of elections," says Warren Stewart, policy director of VoteTrust USA, a nonprofit group that has advocated optical scanners as more reliable than touch screens. "For Florida to be clearly contemplating moving away from touch screens to the greatest extent possible is truly significant." Other states are following suit. And Democratic House member Rush Holt intends to introduce legislation requiring all voting machines in the US to produce paper ballots that can verify their votes. "You should, when you go vote, be able to have a record of it," Crist says. "That's all we're proposing today. It's not very complicated; it is in fact common sense. Most importantly, it is the right thing to do." (New York Times/San Francisco Chronicle)
• February 2: Lewis Libby's defense team is fighting to keep his grand jury testimony about the leak of a CIA operative's name from being released and broadcast.

  Lewis Libby perjury trial

  Libby's grand jury testimony -- the sworn statements he gave investigators about his conversations with Dick Cheney and journalists -- is at the heart of his perjury trial. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald plans to play hours of recordings of that testimony in court next week to bolster his case that Libby lied and obstructed the investigation. Trial evidence is normally public and all exhibits in Libby's case have been made public so far. Even though Fitzgerald successfully fought to get Libby's full grand jury testimony admitted into evidence, Libby's attorneys say the audiotapes should not be released outside the courtroom. In the tapes, Libby discusses conversations he had regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, the wife of prominent Iraq war critic and former ambassador Joseph Wilson. Plame's identity was leaked to reporters in July 2003 by conservative columnist Robert Novak. Prosecutors have solid evidence showing that Libby learned Plame's identity from Cheney and discussed it with journalists. Libby says he forgot about his conversation with Cheney and, when he heard about Plame from NBC reporter Tim Russert weeks later, it struck him as new information. Libby's defense is, of course, a massive lie. (See related items throughout this site.) Fitzgerald says Libby concocted that story to protect himself from prosecution because repeating rumors from reporters is less serious than repeating sensitive information from Cheney.
• District Judge Reggie Walton worries that if the tapes are released, they would be broadcast throughout the media and sensationalize an already public trial. Attorneys for The Associated Press and more than a dozen other news organizations have filed court documents arguing that the tapes should be made public. "We do not believe the defendant can identify a single case from any jurisdiction in which the release of audio or videotape evidence has ever been held to render a trial unfair," the attorneys wrote. Libby's testimony is far less sensational, they wrote, than other tapes that have been released in court, such as 911 phone calls from inside the World Trade Center and FBI tapes from the Abscam investigation.
• On February 5, Walton rules that the audio tapes will be made public. (AP/Truthout, MSNBC ["Fact File"])
• February 2: The Washington Post's David Ignatius does some preliminary analysis on the motivations behind Lewis Libby's perjury regarding Valerie Plame Wilson.

  Lewis Libby perjury trial

  The key question behind the entire debacle is this, he writes: "Why was the White House so nervous in the summer of 2003 about the CIA's reporting on alleged Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Niger to build a nuclear bomb?" Ignatius's conclusion: "The White House was worried that the CIA would reveal that it had been pressured in 2002 and early 2003 to support administration claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and that in the Niger case, the CIA had tried hard to resist this pressure. The machinations of Cheney, Libby and others were an attempt to weave an alternative narrative that blamed the CIA."
• Ignatius covers some old ground and salts in some new suppositions. On July 11, 2003, he notes, then-CIA director George Tenet issued a public statement disclosing that the agency had tried to warn the White House off the Niger allegations. (See the July 2003 page for more details.) Ignatius observes, "In that sense, the Libby trial is about a cover-up that failed." After Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, who had gone to Niger to investigate the supposed uranium deal, and wrote an op-ed in early July 2003 that asked the devastating question, "Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?," the White House tried to rebut Wilson's criticism by leaking the fact that his wife worked at the CIA and had suggested sending him to Niger -- "as if the CIA connection somehow contaminated Wilson's allegations and made the White House less culpable," Ignatius writes.
• On February 13, 2002, a CIA briefer "tasked" on the uranium issue by Cheney wrote in a memo, "The VP was shown an assessment (he thought from DIA) that Iraq is purchasing uranium from Africa. He would like our assessment of that transaction and its implications for Iraq's nuclear program." The CIA briefer responded the next day with a comment that should have aroused skepticism on whether Iraq needed to buy any more uranium: Iraq already had 550 tons of "yellowcake" ore -- 200 tons of it from Niger. The CIA asked Wilson a few days later to go to Niger to investigate the claim. The pressure from Cheney's office is illustrated by Craig Schmall's statement to FBI investigators from January 2004 looking into the Plame leak. Schmall told the investigators, "I mentioned also to the agents that Libby was in charge within the administration (or at least the White House side) for producing papers arguing the case for Iraqi WMD and ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda, which explains Libby's and the Vice President's interest in the Iraq/Niger/Uranium case." CIA and State Department analysts were skeptical from the outset of the Niger allegations, which proved to be based on forged documents, and tried to warn the White House. A memo from Schmall to Eric Edelman, then Cheney's national security adviser, recalled: "CIA on several occasions has cautioned...that available information on this issue was fragmentary and unconfirmed." A memo from Carl Ford, then head of the State Department's intelligence bureau INR, noted that his analysts had found the Niger claims "highly dubious."
• Though Cheney's office and Pentagon neocons like Douglas Feith fought to have the Iraq-Niger allegation included in Secretary of State Colin Powell's infamous February 2003 UN speech on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the allegation was not included, according to Ford, "due to CIA concerns raised during the coordination regarding the veracity of the information on the alleged Iraq-Niger agreement." But despite CIA warnings, Bush referred to uranium purchases from Africa in his January 2003 State of the Union address, falsely attributing it to British sources, in the equally infamous "16 words" statement. Ignatius writes, "So we begin to understand why the White House was worried about the CIA in the summer of 2003: It feared the agency would breach the wall of silence about the claims regarding weapons of mass destruction. Robert Grenier, a CIA official who was the agency's Iraq mission manager, told colleagues that he remembered 'a series of insistent phone calls' that month from Libby, who wanted the CIA to tell reporters that 'other community elements such as State and DOD' had encouraged Wilson's Niger trip, not just Cheney. The bottom line? Grenier was asked in court last week to explain the White House's 2003 machinations. Here's what he said: 'I think they were trying to avoid blame for not providing [the truth] about whether or not Iraq had attempted to buy uranium.' Let me say it again: This trial is about a cover-up that failed." (Washington Post/Truthout)
• February 2: The neoconservative American Enterprise Institute is offering $10,000 to scientists and economists who will write articles disputing the findings of a new report by the UN on global warming.

  Global warming and the environment

  AEI is also offering additional payments and expense reimbursements. The report, due to be released on February 5 by UN's Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), is likely to give a bleak assessment of the damage to the future of the environment. (See the January 31 item for more information.) It is the culmination of four days of debate between more then 500 scientists at a closed-door meeting in Paris, who have been poring over the first review of the scientific evidence for global warming in six years. Ben Stewart of Greenpeace says angrily, "The AEI is more than just a think tank, it functions as the Bush administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the last throes of their campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the science; they lost on the moral case for action. All they've got left is a suitcase full of cash." (AFP/Yahoo! News, Guardian/Truthout)

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• February 3: Bush officials reluctantly acknowledge that they have no evidence to back up their belligerent claims that Iran is fomenting violence against US troops in Iraq.

  Iraq war and occupation

  Administration officials have long complained that Iran was supplying Shi'ite Muslim militants with lethal explosives and other materiel used to kill US military personnel. But despite several pledges to make the evidence public, the administration has twice postponed the release -- most recently, a briefing by military officials scheduled for last Tuesday in Baghdad. "The truth is, quite frankly, we thought the briefing overstated, and we sent it back to get it narrowed and focused on the facts," says national security advisor Stephen Hadley. Defense Secretary Robert Gates concedes that US officials can't say for sure whether the Iranian government is involved in assisting the attacks on US personnel in Iraq. "I don't know that we know the answer to that question," he says. Earlier this week, US officials acknowledged that they were uncertain about the strength of their evidence and were reluctant to issue potentially questionable data in the wake of the intelligence failures and erroneous assessments that preceded the US-led invasion of Iraq. "I and Secretary Rice and the national security advisor want to make sure that the briefing that is provided is absolutely accurate and is dominated by facts -- serial numbers, technology and so on," Gates says.
• Hadley adds that the administration wants to delay the release of evidence until after a key intelligence report on Iraq was unveiled, so that Americans could place the evidence in the context of the broader conflict. The report, the latest in a series of National Intelligence Estimates, was issued on February 2. It is grim in its assessment, concluding that Iraq is deteriorating and faces a bleak future that US efforts may do little to avert. The report downplays the role of Iran and Syria, another target of US criticism, in fomenting sectarian violence, while acknowledging that Iranian involvement "intensifies" the conflict. "The involvement of these outside actors is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq's internal sectarian dynamics," says the report, compiled by experts from the nation's 16 intelligence agencies. Few doubt that Iran is working to increase its influence inside Iraq, but many of its beneficiaries have been political groups that also are allied with the United States. So far, the Bush administration has provided virtually no evidence that the government of Iran is directly supporting militant Shi'ite groups. In a major speech on Iraq on January 10, Bush accused Iran of "providing material support for attacks on American troops" and vowed to "seek out and destroy" weapon transport networks. Since then, Air Force officials have said they are planning new missions that could include flights along the Iran-Iraq border aimed at disrupting weapons shipments. Iranian officials have challenged the Americans to produce evidence of their charges; though Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Iraq, has pledged to do so, that evidence is not yet forthcoming.
• Gates continues to softpedal the increasing likelihood of a US strike against Iran, telling reporters, "The president has made clear, the Secretary of State has made clear, I've made clear...we are not planning for a war with Iran."
• Former secretary of state Madeline Albright says to a Senate committee, "It would be interesting to know why the [administration's] statements have gotten more bellicose. It would be interesting to know why there are aircraft carriers in the region. We have learned the hard way what happens when this administration decided on a policy without putting its assumptions to the test of legislative scrutiny and informed debate." Gary Sick, a leading expert on Iran, says of Bush's confrontational tactics with Iran, "It's a high risk strategy...and does have the possibility of actually making things worse."
• A senior U.S. intelligence official acknowledges that the administration faces a hard sell. "The administration is between a rock and a hard place here," he says. "On one hand, they have to convince people here and abroad that this time they're telling the truth and they've got the goods, which won't be easy. And a lot of our friends in the region, like the Saudis and the Israelis and the Lebanese, are nervous and want us to get tough with Iran." (Los Angeles Times/CommonDreams, McClatchy/Truthout)
• February 3: Faced with an enormous Congressional spending bill left over from the previous Republican Congressional leadership (see the related items from December 2006 and earlier items), the Democratic leaders in Congress respond by stripping millions in pork spending from the budget, in the process removing literally thousands of earmarks inserted by individual lawmakers.

  Congressional Democrats

  More than $10 billion is included for such programs as health care for wounded Iraq war veterans, Pell grants for students and housing vouchers for the poor, and for 500 additional health research grants. Democrats save two vital Census Bureau initiatives that Republicans had tried to kill: the running survey of the effect of government programs on the poor and disabled, and the testing of new technology needed for the 2010 census. The New York Times observes, "This bill has been the subject of much GOP whining about the additions for such thinks as helping wounded Iraq vets and health care and about the limited time allowed for debate. Let them whine! The GOP dominated 109th abrogated their responsibility to pass the 2007 budget in a shameful move to bog down the Democratic dominated 110th in a fiscal morass. While this bill may leave much to be desired, Democrats cut a lot of pork, kept budgetary spending from increasing for the first time since the Republican Revolution of 1994, included some needed social measures, and did it all in record time. If you remember, when the GOP was angry with Clinton, they refused to pass a budget, missed the Feb. 15 deadline, and allowed the government to grind to a halt. The Democrats could have done the same thing to embarrass Bush and the GOP, but they put the country first." (New York Times/Politics Plus)

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• February 4: Three retired American military officials warn that the US should not attack Iran, writing in a letter published in Britain's Sunday Times that such a move would have "disastrous consequences" for security in the Middle East and also for coalition forces in Iraq.

  War with Iran

  They write that the crisis over tehran's nuclear program must be resolved through diplomacy, and urge Washington to start direct talks with Iran. The three signatories are Lieutenant General Robert Gard, a former military assistant to the US defense secretary; General Joseph Hoar, a former commander-in-chief of US Central Command; and Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan, a former director of the Center for Defense Information. "As former US military leaders, we strongly caution against the use of military force against Iran," the authors write. "A strategy of diplomatic engagement with Iran would serve the interests of the US and the UK and potentially could enhance regional and international security." The three retired military officials add that "the British government has a vital role play in securing a renewed diplomatic push and making it clear that it will oppose any recourse to military force." (BBC/CommonDreams)
• February 4: Even the authors of the Bush plan to "win" in Iraq by escalating the American troop presence there acknowledge that their strategy has little chance of success, according to administration officials.

  Iraq war and occupation

  The planners acknowledge that the strategy depends on a series of rapid and dramatic political and economic reforms that are unlikely to happen. Instead, the officials say that the likely failure of the plan will result in a repeat of last year's unsuccessful Baghdad offensive, when efforts to consolidate military gains with lasting stability on the ground did not work. This time, they acknowledge, there will be no second chance.
• The planners do not believe that Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki is up to the task and committed to spearheading what the administration foresees as a fundamental realignment of Iraqi politics; whether al-Maliki's Shi'ite-dominated government and its sluggish financial bureaucracy will part with $10 billion for rapid job creation and reconstruction, at least some of it directed to sectarian opponents; and whether the US military and State Department can calibrate their own stepped-up reconstruction assistance to push for action without once again taking over. The pessimistic NIE released days earlier (see above item) confirms these deep doubts about the Iraqi government being willing or able to do what is needed to make the new offensive work. It noted that "the absence of unifying leaders among the Arab Sunni or Shi'a with the capacity to speak for or exert control over their confessional groups limits prospects."
• The foundation of the strategy is well-worn, with a track record of failure. US policy since the March 2003 invasion has been to use American military might, money and know-how to foster a peaceful Iraq with a unified government and a solid economy. The strategy incorporates major elements of last year's "clear, hold and build" plan, whose "hold and build" parts never got off the ground and whose "clear" element enjoyed only short-term success. And again, the Bush planners have failed to provide a contingency plan in case this strategy fails.
• The strategy's political component centers on replacing deepening Sunni-Shi'ite-Kurdish divides with a new delineation between "extremists" and "moderates." Moderates are defined as those of all religious and political persuasions who eschew violence in favor of safety and employment. With the help of outside Iraq experts, the administration has compiled lists of active and still-untapped moderates around the country. "They wondered could I give them some [names] from the provinces or anywhere" from which to construct a new political base, recalls one think-tank expert called to the State Department in December. But the NIE shows that Iraq's reservoir of such people, especially trained technocrats and entrepreneurs, has been drained as they have fled the country in droves.
• Some administration officials argued for engineering Iraqi government under al-Maliki's Shi'ite coalition partner, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and Iraqi vice president Adel Abdul Mahdi. They closely examined the makeup of Iraq's 275-seat parliament, where a no-confidence vote requires only a simple majority. Al-Maliki's Dawa party is part of the Hakim-led United Iraqi Alliance, the largest Shi'ite group, with 130 seats. Making a strong case for SCIRI, some argued that the Iraqis themselves were so fed up with al-Maliki that a different governing coalition is possible with realigned Sunni and Kurdish elements. This view found proponents in the White House and Pentagon, and it extended into parts of the normally more cautious State Department. Al-Maliki, whose Dawa party holds 12 seats in the parliament, is seen as unwilling to separate voluntarily from his existing power base, dominated by the violent and unruly Baghdad-based Jaish al-Mahdi militia, also known as the Mahdi Army, of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. With a new coalition, the Alliance would not need Sadr's 30 seats. SCIRI's own militia, the Badr Organization, is seen as more cohesive, "an actual organization with command and control" that might be integrated into the Iraqi military, according to one State Department official. The administration has charged that both the Sadr and Badr militias receive assistance from Iran. But officials regularly note that Badr forces have not attacked the US military and that SCIRI has voiced equal opposition to Iranian and US domination.
• Several officials say they believe that Hakim's backers in the Bush administration have been seduced by his forceful demeanor and Abdul Mahdi's fluent English. And while many emphasize the importance of a single, visible Iraqi leader, others have said it is a mistake to personalize the policy in one Shi'ite actor. For now, the administration is going with al-Maliki. "We judge that Maliki does not wish to fail in his role," National Intelligence Council Chairman Thomas Fingar told Congress in a tepid endorsement recently. "He has some, but not all, of the obvious requirements for success." Besides, replacing al-Maliki would be politically difficult. Many experts believe that the administration's effort to build a new political center, supported by "moderate" Sunni allies in the region that fear Shi'ite Iranian expansion, such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, is hopelessly outdated. "Our struggle may be between moderates and extremists," Brookings Institution scholar Martin Indyk said last month. "Their struggle is between Sunnis and Shi'as."
• On the economic front, where the United States has already invested more than $38 billion, the administration has asked for $538 million to keep current programs running and has proposed an additional $1.2 billion for new initiatives that it says will receive long-term Iraqi funding. The Iraqi government has a significant surplus of monies not spent, due to a combination of violent attacks on previous projects, sectarian favors, inefficient and overly cautious officials, rampant corruption, and a complex bureaucracy -- much of it installed by the United States under the post-invasion Coalition Provisional Authority. Getting approval for reconstruction expenditures in the past, observes one US official, has been like "pushing wet spaghetti." The surplus, which is kept in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, now totals $12.5 billion. Al-Maliki has publicly agreed to spend $10 billion of it on reconstruction and jobs. Whereas Iraq was overrun with US venture capitalists and private concerns more interested in skimming millions in profits than getting anything done -- and still is -- the State and Agriculture Departments are now sending experts to assist the Iraqi ministries and augment the US-staffed provisional reconstruction teams in Baghdad and around the country. But this will likely engender a repeat of the mistakes of the past, when the United States oversaw virtually every part of the Iraqi government, and undermine the goal of turning the country over to the Iraqis themselves. "It's the same old problem as in 2003," says one official. "The same impatience that if they can't do it we'll step in and do it. There is a bit of that creeping into this dialogue." (Washington Post/Truthout)
• February 4: The US is taking over responsibility for military matters in Afghanistan from its former sharing plan with NATO, in a tacit acknowledgement that the strategies employed in that country since late 2001 have not succeeded in eradicating the Taliban and terrorist forces from that beleagured nation.

  War in Afghanistan

  The US, which has just doubled its forces in Afghanistan by extending tours of duty, fears a vicious spring offensive from the resurgent Taliban. While Bush officials have demanded that NATO allies send more troops to Afghanistan, only Britain and Poland have committed to sending more troops, and France is removing its special forces troops entirely. "From the beginning, the United States did not put sufficient forces in Afghanistan in order to prevent a counter-insurgency from resurging," says Sean Kay, an international security expert and professor of international relations at Ohio Wesleyan University. "NATO continues to suffer from this -- there are simply not enough troops to carry on a successful counter-insurgency campaign in the south. As the Taliban get further entrenched, the public there gets further drawn into their grip. And when we don't have enough troops to accomplish the mission, those that are taking risks do not have adequate reinforcements other than heavy airpower, which when applied doesn't exactly fit into a successful hearts and minds strategy." (Reuters/Truthout)
• February 4: Iranian diplomat Jalal Sharafi is snatched from a Baghdad neighborhood by two carloads of uniformed men who force him into one of their vehicles.

  War with Iran

  Many Iraqis believe Sharafi was not kidnapped by insurgents, but by Iraqi -- or perhaps US -- forces. The incident threatens to escalate into a major diplomatic crisis for Iraq's fragile Shi'ite-dominated government. Iran accuses the US of kidnapping or arresting Sharafi, the second secretary at the Iranian embassy, and says it holds the US responsible for Sharafi's safety. The US denies any role in Sharafi's disappearance. It is hard to know which government has less credibility. "We don't really know a whole lot about it at this point," says White House spokesman Tony Snow. "We know that the Iraqi government is investigating." The Iraqi government is keeping mum on the entire incident."
• Besides American forces or, possibly, private contractors, the possibilities as to who kidnapped Sharafi are many -- Iraqi commandos, rogue Iraqi security personnel, Sunni insurgents, or criminals seeking ransom money. Some Shi'ite lawmakers say the abduction was staged by an Iraqi commando unit that reports directly to the US command, an allegation strongly denied by US spokesmen. What is known is that the second car in the kidnapping was disabled by gunfire from Iraqi police, and the four gunmen inside were arrested. The day after their arrest, uniformed Iraqis appear at the police station, flash government badges, and take the four into custody, ostensibly for transfer to another lockup. Instead, the four have disappeared, and no one knows where they are or who the uniformed officials are. Shiite lawmakers say they believe Sharafi was detained in an intelligence operation carried out by the Iraqi Special Operations Command, an elite unit under the direct supervision of the US military, again an allegation denied by the US military.
• The Baghdad neighborhood of Karradah is an unlikely venue for an assault on an Iranian diplomat. Heavily Shi'ite, it is a stronghold of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a major Shi'ite party with close ties to Iran. SCIRI was founded in Iran in 1982 by Iraqi Shi'ite militants who fled Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime. Iran's Revolutionary Guards organized and trained SCIRI's armed wing, the Badr Brigade, which fought alongside Iranian soldiers in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. (Washington Post)
• February 4: An increasing number of American soldiers in Iraq view the entire Iraq occupation, and the plans to transform Iraq into a Western-friendly democracy, as a lost cause.

  Iraq war and occupation

  Army Lieutenant Antonio Hardy says, "To be honest, it's going to be like this for a long time to come, no matter what we do. I think some people in America don't want to know about all this violence, about all the killings. The people back home are shielded from it; they get it sugar-coated." Soldiers interviewed across east Baghdad, home to more than half the city's 8 million people, say the violence is so out of control that while a surge of 21,500 more American troops may momentarily suppress it, the notion that US forces can bring lasting security to Iraq is misguided. "What is victory supposed to look like? asks Sergeant Herbert Gill. "Every time we turn around and go in a new area there's somebody new waiting to kill us. Sunnis and Shi'ites have been fighting for thousands of years, and we're not going to change that overnight. ...Once more raids start happening, they'll [insurgents] melt away. And then two or three months later, when we leave and say it was a success, they'll come back." Private Zach Clauser says, "We can go get into a firefight and empty out ammo, but it doesn't accomplish much. This isn't our war -- we're just in the middle." Sergeant Chance Oswalt adds, "They can keep sending more and more troops over here, but until the people here start working with us, it's not going to change."
• The officers are more optimistic. Lieutenant Colonel Dean Dunham, the deputy commander of the 2nd Infantry's 2nd Brigade, says If there's enough progress during the next four to six months, "we can look at doing provincial Iraqi control, and we can move US forces to the edge of the city." Major Christopher Wendland, a senior staff officer for Dunham's brigade, says he thinks there's a good chance that by late 2007 American troops will have handed over most of Baghdad to Iraqi troops. "I'm actually really positive," he says. "We have an Iraqi army that's actually capable of maintaining once we leave." But, Wendland adds, "We have to have momentum...or else it could all fall like a house of cards."
• Not all the officers express the same optimism. Lieutanant Tim Evers agrees with Gill, saying, "When we first got here it was, 'Let's put up schools, let's work on a power plant' -- but you can't do that without security, and security here is crap. They keep trying different crap and it doesn't work.... They're talking about the inkblot method, and doing that you secure a small area, but the rest is still bad." The inkblot method involves the Iraqi army controlling the violence, allowing economic and political progress will follow in the safest areas, accompanied by infrastructure improvement, then spread outward. "Inkblotting" has been relatively successful in some isolated parts of Iraq, such as Tal Afar on the Syrian border, but in most areas it's failed to halt the bloodshed for any length of time. Like many of his colleagues, Oswalt is bitter. "All of our friends who have been killed by [roadside bombs] and snipers, it's like there's no justice for it -- it's just another body bag filled," he says. "The guys who died just trying to stay alive and get home, they'll be forgotten. No one will remember their stories." Specialist Elmer Beere says, "It's kind of relentless and pointless. It'll be the same thing going on here, no matter what we do." (McClatchy/CommonDreams)
• February 4: As noted above, Bush's proposed 2008 budget would sharply increase Medicare premiums, forcing more middle-income Medicare recipients to pay higher prices for doctor visits and prescription drugs.

  Medicare and Medicaid cuts; health care

  Democrats immediately denounce the proposals. "This is exactly the wrong approach," says Senator Hillary Clinton, who cites the proposals as evidence of what she calls "the president's misplaced priorities." And Democratic representative Pete Stark describes the Medicare and Medicaid proposals as "declaring war" on the poor and on Democrats. Administration officials say that Bush would ask Congress to squeeze more than $70 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over five years, in an attempt to rein in soaring budget deficits. The actual budget documents show that the real figure is much larger: $101.5 billion of savings over five years. Bush's budget includes legislative proposals that would save $78.6 billion over the next five years, taken from government subsidies for both Medicare and Medicaid. And Bush intends to propose changes in federal regulations to save $22.9 billion more over the next five years. The Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides health care for indigent children, will also suffer severe cuts, prompting Democratic senator Max Baucus to say, "Simply put, Congress must do more to fund the Children's Health Insurance Program than the president suggests here." In addition, the budget adds no new spending for biomedical research, slashes proposed health services block grants to states, and an 18% cut in the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps poor Americans pay their heating bills. (New York Times/Truthout, AP/Truthout)
• February 4: During the first quarter of 2006, the Department of Veterans Affairs treated 20,638 Iraq veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder.

  US veterans

  Currently the DVA has a backlog of 400,000 cases. A returning soldier has to wait an average of 165 days for a VA decision on initial disability benefits, and an appeal can take up to three years. An American Medical Association assesment finds that of over 220,000 military personnel returning from Iraq, nearly 20% -- nearly 44,000 -- suffers from significant mental health problems. And repeated tours of duty increase the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder by 50%. But instead of these soldiers receiving the treatment they need, too often they are harassed and punished for seeking help for psychological problems triggered by their service in Iraq. A number of the traumatized soldiers' supervisors have acknowledged the callous treatment. A recent national study by the Government Accountability Office found that most of the troops who show signs of PTSD were not referred to mental health professionals, despite Pentagon claims that providing support to emotionally wounded soldiers is a "top priority."
• Tens of thousands of Vietnam veterans did not receive critically needed PTSD treatment, and as a result because alcoholics, drug addicts, and/or committed suicide. Authors Andrew Weaver and Ray McGovern, a minister and a former CIA analyst respectively who are both advocates for veterans, write, "The American people must actively advocate and demand appropriate treatment for veterans who have been psychologically wounded by war." (Baltimore Sun/Truthout)
• February 4: Republican senator and leading presidential candidate John McCain may have set the record for a nationally known politician contradicting himself: 47 seconds.

  John McCain

  On ABC's This Week, McCain tells host George Stephanopoulos that it is unrealistic to expect the escalation strategy to change the situation in Iraq in "a few months," saying, "Took us a long time to get in the situation we're in, and to say that -- and somehow assume that in a few months, that things are going to get all better I think is not realistic." 47 seconds later, McCain says that we will indeed know if the escalation strategy is working "in a few months." Stephanopoulos asks, "You say it's all in. How long are you going to give it to work?" to which McCain replies, "I think in the case of the Iraqi government cooperating and doing what's necessary, we can know fairly well in a few months." (ABC/Think Progress [link to video])
• February 4: Dick Armey, the former Republican House Majority Leader who now heads the conservative activist group Freedomworks, as well as works as a Washington lobbyist, once publicly supported Bush's policies in Iraq.

  Iraq war and occupation

  In October 2002, Armey gave an emotional speech to the House that helped convince his colleagues to authorize Bush to invade Iraq. But Armey now has a great deal of criticism both for the Bush policies in the Middle East, and towards Republicans in general.
• In a Q&A with reporter Dave Montgomery, Armey first lets fly at his fellow Republicans, saying they lost Congress in November 2006 because "[t]hey forgot their priorities, they became insecure. At the very time the Democrats were trying to win elections by pretending to be us, our guys were pretending to be them." He also blames corrupt Republicans like his former House colleague and his successor as minority leader, Tom DeLay, for damaging the party's credibility, saying that DeLay became a liability to the GOP: "I'm amazed at the number of people who tell me this. I have my own understandings and feelings about Tom DeLay. ... I don't believe he's a good person and I don't believe he is a person who should have been in public office. I don't like sneaky, conniving people. I don't like people who get behind closed doors and contrive against other people. [DeLay] has had -- what's the word I want? -- an aggressive tendency to create the opportunity to do back-door, behind-the-door, closed-door, dark-room contrivances against people. I just consider that unacceptable." To reclaim Congress, which Armey says will be a tough chore, he recommends that the Republicans "prove to the American people that they really are the small government conservatives the Democrats are pretending to be." He reluctantly, and tentatively, predicts that Democratic senator Hillary Clinton will win the presidency in 2008, calling her a "skillful, able politician" but warns that her husband Bill Clinton could "screw it up in a day" for her. "She's walking around with a ton of dynamite in her hip pocket." Armey says that Republican frontrunner John McCain is looking like "old news," and believes McCain's Senate colleague, Chuck Hagel, "might [soon] look a lot better."
• Of George W. Bush, he says, "I've said over the years that every president either ends up a pleasant surprise or a bitter disappointment. And we haven't had a pleasant surprise since Ronald Reagan. I don't see how anybody can look at the Bush presidency and say this was a success in public policy terms." As in 2002, Armey is still torn on the Iraq occupation: "I'm not sure that it was the right thing to do. You might say removing Saddam from power was a right thing to do. Maybe it was, but was that necessarily then our responsibility to do that? And was it our responsibility to do that by invading a country that had in no way declared any war on us?" Of his vote to authorize Bush to invade Iraq, he says, "I'm not happy about it. The resolution was a resolution that authorized the president to take that action if he deemed it necessary. Had I been more true to myself and the principles I believed in at the time, I would have openly opposed the whole adventure vocally and aggressively. I had a tough time reconciling doing that against the duties of majority leader in the House. I would have served myself and my party and my country better, though, had I done so." (McClatchy News)
• February 4: Brent Budowsky, an aide to former Democratic senator Lloyd Bentsen, who helped Bentsen write the law prohibiting the willful disclosure of covert CIA officers, writes that the Lewis Libby trial is really about Dick Cheney and his status as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in a White House scheme that involved disclosing the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson.

  Lewis Libby perjury trial

  Budowsky writes that the trial has proved that Cheney "was so deeply involved and obsessed with discrediting Joe Wilson that the impact and implications are enormous and underestimated. The Vice President was choreographer of the attack on Wilson. He acted as though he was the deputy White House political director and the deputy White House press secretary. He was organizing meetings, drafting talking points and assigning which staff would talk to which reporter. This is not what Vice Presidents do. This is more than an attack on his enemy Wilson. Most of us who have had high government positions have faced these situations, and launching a counter-attack could have been done far more discreetly and professionally." Budowsky writes that Cheney, Libby, and Karl Rove launched their attack with never a thought to the damage it would do to national security: "The minute the Vice President, Libby and Rove knew Valerie Plame worked at the CIA in a bureau that insiders would know immediately was highly sensitive that without any doubt triggered red lights, immediately.
• Budowsky observes, "When we were writing the original indentities protection law, not one of us could have ever imagined that identity disclosers would be high officials in the US government. The law was aimed at people very hostile to the US who were acting in a manner that helped the KGB. It was unthinkable to all of us that anyone involved in these disclosures, felonious or not, would be high in the US government. Anyone who goes on television and says otherwise is a liar. Why? My theory, with substantial evidence to back it up, is that the danger of Joe Wilson was not the damage that Wilson's view did to the Administration policy. It was the danger that Wilson's work would unravel a long-term, well-planned, highly deceptive campaign that preceded Wilson's involvement to deceive the country to drive us to war."
• Budowsky predicts that the trial will end in a plea bargain that will result in Libby "flipping," and testifying against Cheney. He believes that Libby's defense, that his memory failed him on his outing of Plame and his assertion that he was the fall guy for the White House, "will only anger and inflame the judge and jury. It is no defense to say that others might have committed similar or related crimes and that is the impression this argument created." If Cheney testifies, which is not yet certain (editor's note: neither Cheney nor Libby end up testifying), then Cheney's testimony will be explosive. "The prosecutor and jury will compare what Cheney said in the deposition, what facts emerged in the trial and Cheney's testimony at trial. Do not be surprised if the word pardon appears in the press, though the reaction would be as strong as the Saturday Night Massacre in the Nixon years." And Budowsky makes an unexpected assertion: "[W]hat will shock people will be when the Senate Intelligence Committee releases its report on pre-war intelligence, which was covered up by the committee's Republican leaders before the elections. The Senate report will, I predict, show major deceptions that well preceded the events in the Wilson case. This will put the whole case in context. It will turn the spotlight on the misrepresentations prior to Wilson, that will explain the obsessive attack of Cheney and Libby against Wilson." (Consortium News)

---

• February 5: The International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran has set up over 300 centrifuges in two uranium enrichment units at its underground Natanz complex.

  Iran's nuclear program

  Bush officials claim that the centrifuges prove Iran's intent to build nuclear weapons, but Iranian officials say the new developments are merely to further Iran's attempt to build nuclear power plants. The IAEA says it cannot be sure if the centrifuges are to be used for weapons or power plants. Regardless of the Iranians' intent, the centrifuges are a direct challenge to the UN Security Council, which late last month imposed limited sanctions targeting programs and individuals linked to tehran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs and warned of stricter penalties within 60 days unless Iran freezes enrichment. David Albright, the former UN nuclear inspector whose Institute for Science and International Security tracks Iran's nuclear activities, says Iran is likely capable of hooking up 300 to 500 centrifuges a month, allowing it to reach its goal of a 3,000-machine linkup this year. Such an operation could be used to produce fissile material for two bombs a year, but Albright, like other analysts, say that it could take longer as the Iranians have had only limited success in running the machines for prolonged periods without breakdowns in aboveground tests at Natanz. Albright says Iran could opt to create a large stockpile of low-enriched uranium which it could then use to "break out" and re-enrich to weapons grade at any time. The International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates that Iran is two to three years away from having the capacity to build a nuclear weapon; the outgoing head of US national intelligence, John Negroponte, has said Iran could take as long as four years. (AP/ABC News)
• February 5: Senate Republicans successfully block both a vote and even a debate on the Democrats' attempt to bring a non-binding resolution criticizing Bush's troop escalation to the floor for discussion.

  Iraq war and occupation

  Democrats need 60 votes to stop the Republicans from blocking the debate, but the vote to bring the measure to the floor was 49-47 in favor -- 11 short. Democrats had thought they has a dozen Republicans on board with the resolution, but many of those Republicans, who had told the Democrats they would support the resolution, turn and vote against it when the vote comes around. Moments after the Republicans block the debate, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who spearheaded the blocking tactics, calls the block merely a "bump in the road" and says he and other GOP senators "welcome the debate and are happy to have it." So happy that they bring debate to a screeching halt.
• Democrats had abandoned their own, more critical resolution to join, or so they believed, with Republicans who had indicated their support for a watered-down resolution written by John Warner. The revised resolution expresses the Senate's opposition to the troop increase but would vow to protect funding for the troops. The resolution does not include the Democratic language saying the Bush plan is against the national interest, but it also drops an earlier provision by Warner suggesting Senate support for some additional troops. However, when it comes time to vote, Warner, Chuck Hagel, and other Republicans break their word and vote against the resolution they had helped craft. "Independent" Democrat Joseph Lieberman crosses party lines to vote with the Republican bloc. Lieberman says, "There is a world beyond Pennsylvania Avenue that is watching and listening. For the Senate to take up a symbolic vote of no confidence on the eve of a decisive battle is unprecedented, but it is not inconsequential. It is an act which, I fear, will discourage our troops, hearten our enemies, and showcase our disunity. And that is why I will vote against cloture."
• A disappointed Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, responds, "We must heed the results of the November elections and the wishes of the American people. ...The American people do not support escalation. Last November, voters made it clear they want a change of course, not more of the same. The president must hear from Congress, so he knows he stands in the wrong place, alone. ...We've seen politics in this war before. Politics gave us the 'Mission Accomplished' banner. Politics gave us a Vice President who said the insurgency was in its 'last throes.' Politics gave us a Defense Secretary who promised America the enemy was just a few 'dead-enders' who would be stamped out in days. We've had enough politics. Four years into this war, what we need is a strategy that will succeed in Iraq." Fellow Democrat Dick Durbin adds, "If the Republicans want to stand by their president and his policy, they shouldn't run from this debate. If they believe we should send thousands of our young soldiers into the maws of this wretched civil war, they should at least have the courage to stand and defend their position." Debbie Stabenow adds, We are now in a situation where the minority has voted down the ability of us to go to a resolution, or multiple resolutions dealing with Iraq, which we are all so concerned with. Open and honest debate about the execution of this war is not only what our soldiers expect, it is what they deserve." And Tom Matzzie of the liberal PAC MoveOn says, "When most Americans oppose the Bush escalation plan, and when a solid bipartisan majority of senators has agreed on a resolution expressing that opposition, it is outrageous that a handful of senators would stand in the way."
• The resolution isn't even the more highly critical one originally submitted by Democrats, but a watered-down version, critical of Bush's Iraq policy but supporting Bush's status as commander-in-chief, proposed by Republican John Warner.
• Liberal blogger Markos Moulitsas Zuniga reminds his readers of Chuck Hagel's tough rhetoric on the Iraq debate, and the resolution, two weeks ago: "This is a very real, responsible addressing of the most divisive issue in this country since Vietnam. Yes, sure, it's tough. Absolutely. And I think all 100 senators ought to be on the line on this. What do you believe? What are you willing to support? What do you think? Why were you elected? If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes. This is a tough business. But is it any tougher, us having to take a tough vote, express ourselves and have the courage to step up on what we're asking our young men and women to do? I don't think so. When I hear, on both sides of this argument, impugning motives and patriotism to our country, not only is it offensive and disgusting but it debases the whole system of our country and who we are. My goodness. Can't we debate the most critical issue of our time, out front, in front of the American people? They expect it. Are we so weak, we can't do that?" Moulitsas responds, "Let's try this 'logic' thing out: Hagel says refusing to debate Iraq is 'weak.' Hagel voted to refuse debate on Iraq. Therefore, Hagel is 'weak.' Time for him to go sell shoes."
• Moulitsas is equally caustic towards Hagel's fellow Republican senator, John Sununu, calling him "spineless." Sununu came out repeatedly against the Bush troop escalation before the vote, saying that the situation in Iraq can improve without additional troops if the Iraqi government takes more responsibility by deploying more of its own troops to improve security, develops a revenue sharing plan for oil profits and gives Sunnis a greater voice in the government. Sununu welcomed a Senate debate on the issue on February 4, and said of the Warner resolution that it "is more consistent with my own views although I have not committed to vote for or against any proposal or amendment." Instead, Sununu reverses himself today and votes against the resolution, thusly voting for Bush's escalation. Spineless, indeed. (CBS News, Independent/CommonDreams, Washington Post/Truthout, Raw Story, Daily Kos, Daily Kos, Reuters/Yahoo! News)
• February 5: Democratic senator Russ Feingold excoriates his fellow Democrats for refusing to play "hardball" on Bush's Iraq policy, criticizing them for spending time debating non-binding resolutions when they could, and in Feingold's opinion should, be pursuing tougher options.

  Iraq war and occupation

  Feingold says, "This is an important moment to see if we're going to try and end this war. Frankly, I'm disappointed that Democrats are playing it safe on this one. We need to play hardball on this. We're gonna have to take the lead on this issue and we're gonna need to tie this place up as long as it takes," describing what he sees as a fear and timidity in his colleagues who now hold a slight majority in the Senate. "The problem is a whole lot of middle-of-the-road Democrats who refuse to pull the trigger, who refuse to do what needs to be done. Even people who voted against the war [seem afraid]. It requires courage. It requires brinksmanship." He says the advice of the "media consultants" and "power structure in Washington" has led fellow Democrats to believe they'll be criticized if they withhold funding for a war they previously supported. These Washington insiders previously supported the war themselves, he says, and are now terrified about what would happen if their clients -- many of whom who have now admitted their initial support for the war was a mistake -- now take a tough stand to undo that mistake. "They want their cake and to eat it too since they voted for the war," he says. "They're trying to have it both ways. That has to end because Americans are dying unnecessarily. Too many of my colleagues are trying to massage this and have it both ways. That has to end."
• Feingold is especially critical of former senator and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who he says "masquerading" as a critic of the war, but whose proposal so far only calls for refusing to fund the proposed Bush troop escalation in Iraq. Of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Feingold offers a mix of praise and criticism, saying he has "some problems with the way [Reid] has handled this" but calling Reid a "tough guy." He hopes that after today's Senate loss, Reid will "go home and think over what they did to us today" and come back ready to fight the Republicans straight up. As for himself, Feingold says, "I can't go home knowing that there are Wisconsin men and women who are going to die unnecessarily because we refused to do the right thing." (BradBlog, MSNBC/Crooks and Liars [link to video])
• February 5: Jurors in the Lewis Libby perjury trial listen to approximately eight hours of Libby's grand jury testimony in 2004.

  Lewis Libby perjury trial

  Libby testified to the grand jury that he largely "could not recall" several details of conversations he had with Dick Cheney and others regarding former ambassador Joseph Wilson, the war critic who accused the administration of twisting intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. Libby says he did remember his boss, Cheney, telling him in June 2003 that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. But Cheney said it in "sort of an offhand manner, as a curiosity," Libby testified to the grand jury. Presiding US District Judge Reggie Walton rules that after the grand jury tapes are heard in his courtroom, they will be released to the media.
• One particularly startling moment in the trial comes when, on the audiotapes, Libby seems to assert that Bush also expressed interest in smearing former ambassador Joseph Wilson. (See the January 29, 2007 item for more information.) Bush's interest was sparked by a May 2003 report by the New York Times's Nicholas Kristof, who first revealed Wilson's trip to the public. According to MSNBC's David Shuster, "It was a Kristof article in May of 2003 which first got the White House thinking about Ambassador Wilson, because it talked about an ambassador's trip, which essentially undercut the State of the Union speech. Libby was asked about the president's interest and he said, yes, that's what my notes signals, but Libby then went on to testify he never discussed the president's interest with the vice president, nor did Libby speak about it with President Bush. He went on to testify that he only heard about the president's interest from a senior staff meeting. Of course, we don't know if Libby was telling the truth, but it was certainly a tantalizing bit of testimony." In March 2004, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald elicited testimony from Libby about Bush's knowledge of the campaign to discredit Wilson. Fitzgerald asked Libby, referring to a note from a conversation about a statement on Wilson made by then-CIA Director George Tenet, "Does this say, 'The president is comfortable?'" Libby replied, "Yes." Libby went on to say that Stephen Hadley, then the deputy national security advisor, told him that the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's WMDs should be "leaked" in order to bolster the administration's case for war with Iraq. Fitzgerald asked Libby, "Did anyone say it was OK to leak the NIE that week?" and Libby responded, "I had already talked to [New York Times reporter] Judith Miller, with the President's approval." (MSNBC ["Fact File"], MSNBC/Raw Story [link to video])
• February 5: The lawyers for Lewis Libby are fighting to keep special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald from introducing two key pieces of evidence that Fitzgerald says will help convince the jury that Libby deliberately lied to federal investigators about how and when he discovered the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson and whether he leaked the information to reporters.

  Lewis Libby perjury trial

  The two pieces of evidence are not classified documents or sensitive national security reports; they are two Washington Post articles, from October 4 and 12, 2003, that Fitzgerald's investigators obtained from Libby's personal files. The articles in question, written by Post reporters Walter Pincus and Mike Allen, are damaging to Libby's defense, Fitzgerald says, because they contain specific passages that Libby had underlined concerning the harm caused by Plame's identity becoming public and the possibility that whoever was responsible for the leak may have violated a federal law. Fitzgerald says the articles with the underlined passages prove Libby feared he was responsible for the damage to national security the leak caused and therefore concocted a story about learning Plame's identity and work with the CIA from NBC's Tim Russert in order to save his job. Libby claims not to have found the articles until he was preparing for his first interview with FBI agent Deborah Bond on October 14, 2003. The articles and other documents show Libby was actually told Plame's name and her employment status with the CIA by Cheney far earlier than the July 2003 timeframe Libby maintains he first learned about her from Russert. Libby's defense is that he was wrapped up with more pressing issues, such as the war in Iraq and national security, and innocently forgot that Cheney had told him about Plame on numerous occasions in June and July 2003. Fitzgerald says the articles in question established a motive for Libby to lie to Bond because the substance of the news reports was damning.
• Libby's attorneys say the articles will prejudice the jury, and they have filed a motion seeking to block Fitzgerald from introducing them into evidence. The defense argues that the articles contain numerous references to Plame's "clandestine" status, and if introduced into evidence they will lead the jury to believe that Libby is guilty of leaking classified information, a charge Libby is not under indictment for. But Fitzgerald says the articles are relevant to his case in order to establish what Libby's state of mind was when he testified, not to establish the "truth" about whether or not Plame worked in a covert capacity. Defense lawyer William Jeffress calls the introduction of the articles a "trick" that would be "so prejudicial to the defense, I don't think we would ever be able to recover. ...These articles cannot possibly go into evidence to the jury. No instruction to just not consider them for their truth could possibly overcome the prejudice." Fitzgerald disagrees, telling Judge Reggie Walson, "It's not a trick to offer evidence that goes right to the heart of the issue: Mr. Libby's state of mind." Fitzgerald continues, "[There is] an article [Libby] printed on October 4 [2003], ten days before his FBI interview, that is in his file, indicating that there could be damage" that resulted from the Plame leak. "And I just think it's a trick to stand up there and say there is no motive to lie because all the evidence that shows he had a motive to lie comes from his own file. The jury is entitled to know what was in [Libby's] head and this was in his head and in his file. It's direct proof as what he had in mind when he made up a story that says, you know what, I forgot everything that came from the vice president." He adds, "I think in opening [Libby attorney Theodore] Wells said it is stupid for the government to claim [Libby] would put this on Mr. Russert. But it's not stupid if what you are looking at is a fear that you may have, whether he did it deliberately or screwed up, but your fear that you may be involved in something that is a big mess in terms of law, in terms of politics, and in terms of getting yourself fired."
• If submitted into evidence, the articles will back up testimony Bond gave on February 1 about her interviews with Libby in October and November 2003. Bond testified that the story Libby told about learning Plame's CIA status first from Russert and then later discovering through his own handwritten notes that it was Cheney who actually told him about Plame wasn't believable from the outset. Bond testified that Libby told her he received a call from Cheney on either June 10 or 11, 2003, "alerting him that Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus intended to write an article for the paper scheduled to be published on June 12, 2003," about Wilson's claims that the White House manipulated pre-war Iraq intelligence. "Mr. Libby told us the conversation with the vice president was in regard to an upcoming article being written...for the newspaper for June 12, [2003]," Bond testified. "Mr. Libby told us that during the telephone conversation with the vice president, that the vice president told him that the former ambassador's wife worked in the CP division of the CIA. Mr. Libby explained that the CP stood for counter-proliferation." Libby told Bond that he forgot about the conversation he had with Cheney in June 2003, and that when Russert told him about Plame a few weeks later, it was as if he had heard the information about her for the first time.
• Bond explains Libby's amazing mental lapse: "It was not until early October 2003 when he was searching through his documents for this investigation that he realized that he had actually learned about the former ambassador's wife working at the CIA [from Cheney] in June 2003." She adds that Libby also told her in a second interview on November 26, 2003, that while aboard Air Force II a week or so before Novak unmasked Plame's identity in his column, Libby and Cheney discussed telling the media that Plame worked for the CIA and was married to Wilson. "Mr. Libby said that he went to the vice president's cabin and...there was some discussion of whether or not they should report to the press that Ambassador Wilson's wife worked at the CIA," she says. (Truthout)

"I'm not accusing you of committing a crime [in the Plame CIA leak]. But there are serious questions here, and you owe the nation not legalisms, but that 'stiff dose of truth' If you continue to stonewall, then you don't belong in office and you should resign." -- New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof to Dick Cheney, quoted by Editor and Publisher

Deputy Attorney General says Bush can ignore the law if he likes

• February 5: Towards the end of House Judiciary Committee hearings on Bush's extensive use of "signing statements" to indicate that he will refuse to obey legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by himself, Deputy Attorney General John Elwood makes the astonishing claim that Bush can choose not to obey the law if he disagrees with it.

  "Unitary executive"

  While major media coverage was going on, Elwood and his cohort, Georgetown law professor Nicholas Rosenkranz, were circumspect, acknowledging that Bush's signing statements have no legal standing and telling the committee, falsely, that Bush has obeyed to the letter each law he has signed, even if he added a "signing statement" maintaining his right not to obey sections of that law. Elwood even says that if Bush were to act contrary to the original law, he would notify Congress that he was doing so.
• But towards the end of the hearings, when only committee members and a few hard-core bloggers and observers remain, Elwood suddenly changes his stance. Democrat Artur Davis notes that Bush's violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was a case in which the media, not the Bush administration, had informed Congress of Bush's illegal activity. Bush has openly admitted to flaunting the FISA laws, and has based his refusal to obey the law on his signing statements. (Bush has also asserted that laws prohibiting torture, along with a Constitutional ban, need not be followed by US government officials; Bush continues to oversee the building of permanent military bases in Iraq even though Congress banned the practice; and Bush has refused to include budget requests for the Iraq war in his current budget proposals even though Congress passed a bill requiring that by 2008 the Iraq War budget be part of the standard budget.) Davis asks whether Elwood believes that if Bush thinks a law is unconstitutional, he should not follow it. Elwood's answer: "Yes." Davis, an Alabama representative, then says that Alabama once had a governor once who thought letting black people vote was unconstitutional. "How is that different from the president's position?" Davis asks. Elwood admits that governors are subject to federal law. Davis asks whether presidents are subject to federal law as well, and Elwood makes the equally astonishing claim that a president only need follow federal law if the Supreme Court has ruled on the issue. Elwood refuses to answer a question asking if the the president's interpretive power exceeds Congress's.
• David Swanson, one of the blogger/reporters at the hearing, sums up Elwood's position: "This president believes that laws passed by Congress can be overturned by the president. Only after the Supreme Court has ruled on each point of law is the president obliged to obey and properly execute. So, why have a Congress at all? Its sole function would seem to be the appointment and impeachment of Supreme Court justices. We should be able to at least cut back on its budget if that's all it has to do."
• At the end of the hearing, Democrat Keith Ellison asks why, if they have no legal standing, signing statements should exist at all. Rosenkranz replies that they importantly instruct the Congress in the president's interpretation of the law. Ellison asks, "Does the signing statement in any way alter the law?" and Rosenkranz admits they do not. "So why not do a press release instead?" Ellison asks. Both Rosenkranz and Ellison admit, grudgingly, that a press release would essentially serve the same function.
• Swanson notes that every Republican member of the committee who speaks during the hearing defends Bush's use of signing statements. Former congressman Mickey Edwards says he is shocked by the number of people on the committee who could not get beyond their party affiliation. "The Constitution is beyond party. I'm really disturbed by this," Edwards says. (Truthout)
• February 5: In what economist Paul Krugman calls "the Green-Zoning of America," Bush has recently implemented two obscure executive action that, in Krugman's words, create "a supersized version of the 19th-century spoils system."

  Bush administration's contempt for democracy

  An executive order mandates that each federal agency contain a "regulatory policy office run by a political appointee," a change that "strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts," according to tne New York Times. And the Times also reports that the rapid growth of federal contracting is fed "by a philosophy that encourages outsourcing almost everything government does." These actions were taken by Bush to ensure that a properly conservative agenda permeates every action taken by the US government.
• The practice is based on a January 2001 manifesto from the conservative Heritage Foundation, titled "Taking Charge of Federal Personnel." Krugman writes, "The manifesto's message, in brief, was that the professional civil service should be regarded as the enemy of the new administration's conservative agenda. And there's no question that Heritage's thinking reflected that of many people on the Bush team." The Heritage report was blunt: politics must take precedence over expertise, writing that the new administration "must make appointment decisions based on loyalty first and expertise second." The Heritage report also mandated a huge increase in private outsourcing of government functions, what it called "contracting out as a management strategy." Costs might be reduced (though they are not), but more desirably, the total number of civil servants would be slashed. Krugman observes, "The Bush administration energetically put these recommendations into effect. Political loyalists were installed throughout the government, regardless of qualifications. And the administration outsourced many government functions previously considered too sensitive to privatize: yesterday's Times article begins with the case of CACI International, a private contractor hired, in spite of the obvious conflict of interest, to process cases of incompetence and fraud by private contractors. A few years earlier, CACI provided interrogators at Abu Ghraib."
• Krugman writes, "The ostensible reason for politicizing and privatizing was to promote the conservative ideal of smaller, more efficient government. But the small-government rhetoric was never sincere: from Day 1, the administration set out to create a vast new patronage machine. Those political appointees chosen for their loyalty, not their expertise, aren't very good at doing their proper jobs -- as all the world learned after Hurricane Katrina struck. But they have been very good at rewarding campaign contributors, from energy companies that benefit from lax regulation of pollution to pharmaceutical companies that got a Medicare program systematically designed to protect their profits. And the executive order described by the Times will make it even easier for political appointees to overrule the professionals, tailoring government regulations to suit the interests of companies that support the GOP -- or to give lucrative contracts to people with the right connections."
• Krugman concludes, "What's truly amazing is how far back we've slid in such a short time. The modern civil service system dates back more than a century; in just six years the Bush administration has managed to undo many of that system's achievements. And the administration still has two years to go." (New York Times/Truthout)
• February 5: Hundreds of millions of government documents were declassified on December 31, 2006.

  Secrecy of Bush administration

  The documents include 270 million pages of FBI files, including material covering everything from the Cuban Missile Crisis to government surveillance of antiwar and civil rights activists in the '60s and '70s. Researchers and archivists considered the declassification a "Cinderella moment." But none of the documents have been actually released yet. As of mid-February, the documents are still not available.
• In 2003, with great fanfare, Bush signed an executive order that clearly stated that government documents over 25 years old "shall be automatically declassified whether or not the records have been reviewed," which many took to mean they would be available to the public. But, as is so often the case with Bush, what is promised is not always reality. The executive order does not provide for the documents to be automatically made public. In the words of the Justice Department, the policy of automatic declassification means that the material must be "reviewed for declassification, exemption, and/or referral to other government agencies." Furthermore, it provides for nine areas of exemption and, beyond that, laws such as the Privacy Act can present numerous obstacles that ensure many documents will remain secret indefinitely.
• Some of the exemptions outlined in Bush's order appear reasonable enough. For example, if an agency head determines that declassification would "reveal information that would assist in the development or use of weapons of mass destruction." But others, such as the exemption for information that would reveal "an intelligence source or method," can be easily abused to keep embarrassing information secret. The FBI has often claimed this exemption for information obtained through wiretaps, which, of course, is one of their standard "sources and methods."
• Another exemption provided by Bush's order regards information obtained from foreign governments, a stumbling block that journalist Jon Wiener often encountered in his 23-year battle to obtain John Lennon's government surveillance files. When Lennon's remaining 10 FBI files were finally released last month, Wiener notes that they did not reveal any sensitive intelligence that would have compromised an allied government. Instead, he says, they "contained only innocuous information about Lennon's antiwar activities in London in 1971 that had always been publicly known."
• Catherine Nielsen, FOIA coordinator at the National Security Archive, a Washington-based nonprofit that seeks to educate the public on the secret history of US foreign policy, says that it is "hard to say" how many of the exemptions are legitimate and how many are designed to maintain undue secrecy relating to official misconduct. And worse for many researchers, the huge number of newly declassified documents and the backlog at the National Archives means that many of the documents will not be processed and released for years. Even before the recent release, there were already approximately 400 million pages of documents that the National Archives has yet to release. Hampering their efforts is a chronic understaffing problem, which was only exacerbated by budget cuts last year. Despite this backlog, Bill Leonard, director of Information Security Oversight Office at the National Archives, says the new policy is generally a positive development, and notes that "the specter of declassification" has already forced various agencies to release documents that otherwise would still be secret. (in These Times)
• February 5: Political pundit and Time columnist Joe Klein has recently become a new member of the Orwellian "I was never for the Iraq war, except when I was" brigade.

  Iraq war and occupation

  On February 4, Klein once again staked out his position, saying of John McCain and his support for the Iraq occupation, "I disagreed with him about going to war in 2003...." Except Klein didn't. In February 2003, he told Meet the Press's Tim Russert, "This is a really tough decision. War may well be the right decision at this point. In fact, I think it -- it's -- it-it probably is." Klein explained why the invasion of Iraq was the "right war," saying, "Because sooner or later, this guy has to be taken out. Saddam has -- Saddam Hussein has to be taken out.... The message has to be sent because if it isn't sent now, if we don't do this now, it empowers every would-be Saddam out there and every would-be terrorist out there." Meanwhile, along with his easily-refuted claim that he has always opposed the war, Klein attacks "the liberal left" and "the leftists" for their own, presumably less principled, opposition, saying in January 2007 that he abhorred "the left wing tendency to assume every US military action abroad is criminal." Even then, he said, "The fact that I've been opposed to the Iraq war ever since this 2002 article in Slate just makes it all the more aggravating." And yesterday he complimented McCain on his own "consistency" on the war, saying, "McCain, whether you agree with him or not, has been entirely consistent about the war." (Arianna Huffington provides multiple links to sources showing how McCain himself has flip-flopped on the war -- apparently Klein doesn't even know what the word "consistent" means.) Huffington writes, "There were many great journalists who had the courage to stand up against the pro-war fever that swept the country in the run-up to the war. They deserve our praise and our gratitude. But Joe Klein is not among them, no matter how hard he insists that he is." (Huffington Post [multiple sources])

 

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