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
January 2004, Week Four
Page Three
- January 29: Britain's Tory party officially accepts the conclusions of the Hutton report, but asks for a wider independent inquiry into the circumstances that led to Britain going to war with Iraq. In its statement, delivered by Michael Howard, it attacks what it calls a "cabal" of ministers, including PM Tony Blair. The Tories also criticize Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon for his role in the circumstances of the naming of Dr Kelly. "No one in the government can look back on this episode with pride," Howard says; "the nation will in due course deliver its verdict." Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy say Lord Hutton's inquiry had not been allowed to look into the "most fundamental question," which is why the UK went to war with Iraq. (BBC)
- January 29: While the BBC reels from the accusations leveled by the Hutton report, and the Blair administration celebrates its findings, much of the British press expresses its outrage and incredulity at what many are calling a "whitewash" by Lord Hutton. The right-wing Daily Mail writes that Hutton's report "does a great disservice to the British people. It fails to set its story in the context of the BBC's huge virtues and the government's sore vices." It continues more caustically: "We're faced with the wretched spectacle of the BBC chairman resigning while [administration communications director] Alastair Campbell crows from the summit of his dunghill. Does this verdict, my lord, serve the real interest of the truth?" The more left-wing Guardian writes, "BBC journalists must go on probing, must go on asking awkward questions -- and must go on causing trouble." The paper added Gilligan "got more right than he got wrong," in his report and that the BBC should ensure "there is no collective failure of nerve in the corporation." The Guardian reprints an interesting historical comment by journalist Rod Liddle: "Multifarious law lords have been asked to investigate the government over the years, and if anyone can name one where the government has not been exonerated pretty much entirely I would be interested. It happened back in 1963 with Lord Denning and Profumo and it's the same again." A commentary in the leftist Daily Mirror accuses Hutton of perpetuating an "establishment whitewash" that "stinks to high heavens." It "makes me feel physically sick, like a victim of a crime who knows that justice will never be done," the commentary reads.
- The Mirror also notes that while the BBC had been "shamed," the narrowness of Hutton's report "meant that the real issue -- the existence of weapons of mass destruction -- wasn't even touched on." The conservative Daily Express is equally as blunt: "Hutton's whitewash leaves questions unanswered." In a striking front-page item, the Independent leaves a white space where normally a photograph would be placed, and asks if the report was "an establishment whitewash." The paper calls Hutton's findings "curiously imbalanced" and said his report strengthened the case for an "independent inquiry into intelligence failures that took this country to an unjustifiable war." The British press is not the only source of criticism: Australia's Sydney Morning Herald writes: "Why does it come as no surprise that Lord Hutton took the stick to the BBC and its reporter Andrew Gilligan and in the process exonerated the Blair Government over the dossier justifying the war against Iraq? Because in the view of judges, and most other long-in-the-tooth lawyers, the media invariably is out of line, and if it makes a mistake, as Gilligan did, then the crucifixion is so much easier." Of Hutton's decision not to question the validity of the intelligence itself, the Morning Herald notes, "This had a rather surreal consequence because his report was all about whether Gilligan and the BBC were defective in the content and manner of the report about the sexed-up dossier, but the sexed-up dossier itself sat there throughout like a vestal virgin. Yet, as we know, the central claim in the dossier was sheer and utter nonsense, namely that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes of an order to use them. ...Hutton was quite content to let the wholesale spin and contortions of the Government go unadmonished, including the strategy presided over by Blair that saw the 'outing' of David Kelly."
- Expatriate American journalist Greg Palast, who writes for both the Guardian and the BBC, is angry: "[T]he future for fake and farcical war propaganda is quite bright indeed. ...So M'Lord Hutton has killed the messenger: the BBC. ...And now the second invasion of the Iraq war proceeds: the conquest of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Until now, this quasi-governmental outlet has refused to play Izvestia to any prime minister, Labour or Tory. As of today, the independence of the most independent major network on this planet is under attack. Blair's government is 'cleared' and now arrogantly sport their kill, the head of Gavyn Davies, BBC's chief...." Other media sources were less critical: the tabloid Sun says the report puts the spotlight on the BBC's "culture of sloppiness, incompetence and arrogance." Public reaction was quite strong as well. "It smacks of a whitewash, although this is probably very cynical," says one. "...There is still a lot for the government to answer and I can't believe they haven't fudged it. ...I am not convinced. The BBC have been given a hard time."
- Another response: "At the end of the day, the government isn't going to take the blame for Dr Kelly's death. Andrew Gilligan works for the BBC so it will be blamed for employing someone who has produced an inaccurate story." And a third: "The government knew the 45-minute claim was rubbish, but they went along with it because they wanted to stick with George Bush. The government will do almost anything to keep the US onside." Another: "There seems to be a huge amount of corruption at the top. They all look after themselves. I would rather trust the BBC than the politicians. Somebody had to be the scapegoat, and it looks like it was the BBC." And, "I don't think they [Hutton or the government] should put the responsibility for what happened on somebody else. I would always trust the BBC, to be honest, I'm not a big supporter of the government anyway. I don't think you'd find many people who would trust the government on this one, having gone to war and ignoring opinions." (CNN, Sydney Morning Herald, BBC, Greg Palast)
- January 29: Lord Hutton orders an immediate investigation into the leak of his report on the Iraq intelligence controversy to the British newspaper the Sun. The investigation will include the six parties to the inquiry who were given copies of his report 24 hours before publication, its printers and the inquiry team itself. (Ananova)
- January 29: Republican senator John McCain has departed from the Republican/Bush administration script by calling for an independent investigation into the intelligence failures surrounding the invasion of Iraq. The administration dismisses dismissed the proposal, saying the CIA is committed to reviewing the intelligence behind claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It also argues that the weapons search is not yet complete. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, a fellow Republican, has expressed frustration with those who suggest an outside investigation is needed before his committee has a chance to complete an inquiry now underway. McCain believes the public needs an assessment that won't be clouded by partisan division. He says he is seeking a full-scale look not only at apparently botched intelligence on Iraq's weapons capabilities, but also flawed estimations of Iraq, North Korea and Libya and the faulty assessments from other Western intelligence services. "I am absolutely convinced that one is necessary," McCain says, "because this is a very serious issue and we need to not only know what happened, but know what steps are necessary to prevent the United States from ever being misinformed again." Democratic presidential candidates John Edwards, John Kerry, and Howard Dean have also called for an independent investigation. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice continues to reiterate the administration's resistance to such an inquiry, saying that present efforts to learn the extent of Saddam's weapons arsenal are sufficient. When asked if she thought Americans have a legitimate concern about whether intelligence was manipulated to justify the decision to go to war, Rice replied, "The president's judgment to go to the war was based on the fact that Saddam Hussein for 12 years had defied UN resolutions" regarding his stock of weapons. She adds that the administration went to war because Hussein "had been considered a danger for a long time and it was time to take care of that danger." (USA Today)
- January 29: ABC News has obtained a list of prominent lawmakers and business leaders around the world who supposedly received lucrative oil contracts from Saddam Hussein in return for their supports. The document, discovered several weeks ago in the files of the Iraqi Oil Ministry in Baghdad, lists some 270 prominent individuals, political parties or corporations in 47 countries as being given Iraq oil contracts worth millions of dollars. All of the contracts were awarded from late 1997 until the war in March 2003. They were conducted under the aegis of the United Nations' oil-for-food program, which was designed to allow Iraq to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods. The US Treasury Department says that any American citizens found to be illegally involved could face prosecution. "You are looking at a political slush fund that was buying political support for the regime of Saddam Hussein for the last six or seven years," says financial investigator John Fawcett. Among those named was Indonesia President Megawati Sukarnoputri, an outspoken opponent of US-Iraq policy, who allegedly received a contract for 10 million barrels of oil, earning him about a $5 million profit. The son of the Syrian defense minister received 6 million barrels, according to the document, worth about $3 million. George Galloway, a British member of Parliament, was also on the list to receive 19 million barrels of oil, a $9.5 million profit. A vocal critic of the Iraq war, Galloway denies any involvement. "I've never seen a bottle of oil, owned one or bought one," he says. Tens of millions of barrels were awarded to Patrick Maugein, a close political associate and financial backer of French President Jacques Chirac. Maugein, individually and through companies connected to him, received contracts for some 36 million barrels. Chirac's office said it was unaware of Maugein's deals, which Maugein claims are perfectly legal. The single biggest set of contracts were given to the Russian government and Russian political figures, more than 1.3 billion barrels in all, including 92 million barrels to individual officials in the office of President Vladimir Putin. Another 1 million barrels were contracted to the Russian ambassador to Baghdad, 137 million barrels of oil were given to the Russian Communist Party, and 5 million barrels were contracted to the Russian Orthodox Church. Also on the list are the names of prominent journalists, two Iraqi-Americans, and a French priest who organized a meeting between the pope and former Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz. (ABC News)
- January 29: The US military says it is "sure" it will catch Osama bin Laden in 2004, perhaps within months, a spokesman declares Thursday, but Pakistan says it would not allow American troops to cross the border in search of the al-Qaeda leader. US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty's prediction about capturing bin Laden comes as the Army readies a spring offensive against Taliban and al-Qaeda holdouts. A US.official hinted the day before that the offensive might extend into Pakistan. "We have a variety of intelligence and we're sure we're going to catch Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar this year," Hilferty says. "We've learned lessons from Iraq and we're getting improved intelligence from the Afghan people." (AP/Fox News)
- January 29: Attorney General John Ashcroft says that President Bush would veto any attempt to roll back any provisions of the USA Patriot Act. Ashcroft tells Senate leaders that the changes proposed in the Senate's bipartisan Security and Freedom Ensured Act (SAFE) would "undermine our ongoing campaign to detect and prevent catastrophic attacks." Ashcroft says Bush will veto the bill if it reached his desk. The threat came a week after Bush, in his State of the Union address, urged Congress to reauthorize the Patriot Act before it expires in 2005. A few months earlier, Ashcroft embarked on a 32-city speaking tour in a bid to answer critics who contend the law threatens civil liberties and privacy rights. Ashcroft said the political offensive "reflects the stakes America has in the war on terror. When American lives are at stake, we need to have all the capacities to disrupt and to defeat terrorism that we've been successfully using over the last 28 months." The ACLU's Anthony Romero says that the veto threat shows that the Bush administration is on the defensive. The ACLU has filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging a key portion of the law, and 241 state and local governments also have gone on record opposing it. "The attorney general's attack on the SAFE Act shows how out of step the Bush administration is with growing national concern over the Patriot Act," Romero says. "Attorney General Ashcroft's response today is an unfortunate overreaction to a reasoned and measured effort to mend the Patriot Act," says the bill's co-sponsor, Democratic senator Richard Durbin. "I believe it is possible to combat terrorism and preserve our individual freedoms at the same time. This legislation restores the necessary checks and balances to the system." The bill would modify so-called "sneak and peek" search warrants that allow for indefinitely delayed notification when a person's property is searched, mandating such notice within a week's time. In addition, warrants for roving wiretaps used to monitor a suspect's multiple cell phones would have to make sure the target was positively identified and was present at the site being monitored before information could be collected. The legislation also would reinstate standards in place prior to passage of the Patriot Act regarding library and other business records by forcing the FBI to show it had reason to believe the person involved was a suspected terrorist or spy. The measure would impose expiration dates on nationwide search warrants and other Patriot Act terms, providing for congressional review. (San Francisco Chronicle)
- January 29: The liberal institute Center for American Progress documents numerous instances of Bush administration officials asserting that the threat posed by Hussein's Iraq was "imminent" or words to that effect, countering the administration's assertions that no one in the administration ever made any such charges: White House spokesman Scott McClellan recently saud, "some in the media have chosen to use the word 'imminent'. Those were not words we used." Some examples follow:
- Vice President Dick Cheney said on August 29, 2002, "Iraq is busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents, and they continue to pursue an aggressive nuclear weapons program. These are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale, developed so that Saddam Hussein can hold the threat over the head of any one he chooses. What we must not do in the face of this mortal threat is to give in to wishful thinking or to willful blindness."
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on September 18, 2002, "some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent -- that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons."
- Rumsfeld said on September 19, 2002, "No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."
- President Bush said on September 26, 2002, "This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined."
- Bush said on October 2, 2002, "The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency." On the same day, he says, "There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is."
- Bush said on October 7, 2002, "There are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists."
- Bush says on October 16, 2002, "The Iraqi regime is a serious and growing threat to peace."
- Bush said on November 28, 2002, "There is real threat, in my judgment, a real and dangerous threat to American in Iraq in the form of Saddam Hussein."
- Bush said on November 1, 2002, "I see a significant threat to the security of the United States in Iraq."
- Bush said on November 3, 2002, "Saddam Hussein is a threat to America."
- Rumsfeld said on November 14, 2002, "I would look you in the eye and I would say, go back before September 11 and ask yourself this question: Was the attack that took place on September 11 an imminent threat the month before or two months before or three months before or six months before? When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a month.... So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?"
- Bush said on November 23, 2002, "The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands."
- Bush said on January 3, 2002, "The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. ...Iraq is a threat, a real threat."
- Rumsfeld said on January 20, 2003, "Saddam Hussein possesses chemical and biological weapons. Iraq poses a threat to the security of our people and to the stability of the world that is distinct from any other. It's a danger to its neighbors, to the United States, to the Middle East and to the international peace and stability. It's a danger we cannot ignore. Iraq and North Korea are both repressive dictatorships to be sure and both pose threats. But Iraq is unique. In both word and deed, Iraq has demonstrated that it is seeking the means to strike the United States and our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction."
- When asked, "[I]s Saddam an imminent threat to U.S. interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?" White House communications director Dan Bartlett replied on January 26, 2003, "Well, of course he is."
- Rumsfeld said on January 29, 2003, "Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country. His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon, was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
- Cheney said on January 30, 2003, that Iraq poses "terrible threats to the civilized world" and that Iraq "threatens the United States of America."
- Cheney said on January 31, 2003 that Iraq is "a serious threat to our country, to our friends and to our allies."
- McClellan said on February 10, 2003, "This is about imminent threat."
- Bush said on March 16, 2003, "The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations."
- Bush said on March 19, 2003, "The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder."
- Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said on March 22, 2003, "It is only a matter of time before the Iraqi regime is destroyed and its threat to the region and the world is ended."
- Rumsfeld said on March 25, 2003, "The threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will be removed."
- Bush said on April 24, 2003, "We gave our word that the threat from Iraq would be ended."
- When asked on May 7, 2003, if Iraq was an "imminent threat," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer responded, "Absolutely."
- Bush said on July 2, 2003, "Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to the United States because we removed him, but he was a threat.... He was a threat. He's not a threat now."
- Bush said on July 17, 2003, "We ended the threat from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction."
- That same day, Scott McClellan said Iraq was "the most dangerous threat of our time."
- White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said on August 26, 2003, "There's no question that Iraq was a threat to the people of the United States." (Center for American Progress)
- January 29: The liberal news site Buzzflash interviews former senator and presidential candidate George McGovern. McGovern, a decorated veteran of World War II and a long-time advocate of peace, is contemptuous of the current administration's military background and escapades: "[O]ne thing that Richard Perle and Dick Cheney and George W. Bush have in common is that none of them have ever been near a combat scene. They're perfectly willing to send younger people -- other people's sons -- into war. They're very generous with that blood of the young men and women that they throw into combat so casually. But they've protected their blood and their limbs by never serving near a battlefield. That's true of the President. It's true of the Vice President. It's true of Perle and Wolfowitz -- that whole crowd of neo-conservatives that have the ear of the President. And it makes me furious to see people like that beating their chests on how patriotic they are, waving the flag, glorifying God, while young Americans are needlessly being sacrificed in wars that they have devised, not our troops. These theorists sit around dreaming up wars for young men to die in." Of the terrorist threat in Iraq, McGovern says, "The President keeps talking about the Iraqi terrorist danger. It's a danger because we have an American army in Iraq to be shot at by the guerillas and by the terrorists. If we had not gone in there militarily, I think in due course we could have worked out an arrangement with Iraq on a peaceful basis." Of the current situation facing the Iraqi people, he says, "Imagine living in a country where your house is bugged 24 hours, where you have no sanitary water, and where you don't have a job. It's a climate of desperation, and I tremble at the results it's going to produce. They're going to recruit increasing numbers of people to serve as sharpshooters and guerilla leaders and suicide bombers against our American troops. It's not the fault of our troops. It's the fault of Bush and Cheney, and Rumsfeld and this crowd that took us into this war." (Buzzflash)
- January 29: In a bitterly sarcastic editorial, Ted Rall lists the characteristics of some of the Bush administration's closest allies in its war against terrorism. First on his list is Saudi Arabia: "The country's evil monarchy financed 9/11, bans opposition parties and forces women to wear the abaya (identical to the Taliban's burqa) and doesn't even allow them to drive. According to Human Rights Watch, the Saudi Interior Ministry's General Directorate of Investigation subjects its political prisoners to 'sexual harassment by threat or the actual practice [of] inserting an iron rod in the rectum.' Bush says any dictator who runs 'rape rooms' deserves execution." Obviously this does not apply to Saudi Arabia. Next is Yemen: "The long-suffering citizens of Yemen crave liberation from dictator Ali Abdallah Salih, whose vile Central Security and Political Security Office stormtroopers murder civilians at random. When an opposition candidate for local office dared to speak up recently, Salih's CS-PSO goons beat him to a pulp, shaved his head and bulldozed his house." Fine allies. Next up, "those nasty little Gulf states: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates [that] are run by a bunch of slave-trafficking, election-banning, opponent-torturing, democracy-despising kings, emirs and sultans."
- Several former Soviet states are staunch allies in the war: "Of course, many republics of the former Soviet Unionb -- places like Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan -- are Saddam-style dictatorships still run by the same Communist Party thugs who oppressed people under a different flag pre-1991. They use the former KGB to spy on dissidents, who are found dead, clearly bearing the marks of torture, or are simply 'disappeared' entirely. In October, says HRW, Azerbaijan's president Ilham Aliyev 'carried out a well-organized campaign of [election] fraud. [There was] brutal and excessive force by police to suppress demonstrations, severely injuring at least 300 protesters, and killing at least one protester. Police arrested close to 1,000 people, including national leaders of the opposition, local opposition party members, activists from nongovernmental organizations, journalists, and election officials and observers who challenged the fraud. [There were] numerous cases of police torture -- through severe beatings, electric shocks, and threats of male rape against opposition leaders, particularly by the Organized Crime Unit of the Ministry of Interior.' Across the Caspian Sea in Uzbekistan -- yet another Central Asian country where oppressive leaders steal the nation's oil wealth while most people make do on $20 a month -- anti-corruption activist Ruslan Sharipov currently languishes in prison under the Uzbek regime's trumped-up sodomy charges. 'During the first days of his detention,' says Human Rights Watch, 'arresting officers threatened Sharipov with physical violence, including rape with a bottle.' Charming fellows, our allies in the war on terrorism. In neighboring Kazakhstan, independent journalist Lira Baiseitova published a story about Swiss bank accounts allegedly used by Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev to funnel stolen oil revenues. The next day, her 25-year-old daughter Leila 'disappeared.' One month later, she turned up dead in police custody. Cops said she had tried to hang herself--a standard 'cause' of death in Central Asian jails. And Turkmenistan's vicious Saparmurat Niyazov -- 'Grand Leader of All Turkmen' to his friends -- has a new bag. An edict issued November 2002 forces internal exile upon 'those people who have lost the respect of the nation, and who disturb the social tranquility with their bad behavior' -- i.e., those who aren't his friends." Of course, Bush won't face opprobrium from Niyazov -- like the other dictators and despotic regimes on this list, the Bush administration has worked very hard to keep friendly relationships with each and every one of them. (Yahoo! News)
- January 29: A New York Times news analysis lists Bush's "difficult and risky alternatives" for him to balance election-year politics with the need to overhaul US intelligence-gathering and analysis procedures. One senior Republican who is giving his advice to Bush's top advisors says, "They've made a pretty huge mess of it. They wove this giant story, based on intelligence assessments that in hindsight -- and this is hindsight, remember -- were wrong. It's exposed a huge problem in our intelligence gathering. But who wants to take that on in an election year? Or while you are fighting terrorists?" Although there's very little new in the analysis, it ends with a curious little tidbit about Vice President Cheney, whom it notes as being the only senior White House official still blustering about Iraqi WMDs. One White House official says after hearing Cheney's assertions about the so-called "mobile biological weapons units," "We'll have to get Cheney the new memo. As soon as we write it." (New York Times)
- January 29: A letter in the New York Times asks the simple question: how could Halliburton receive a contract for logistical services in Iraq two years ago (2001) if the government didn't already plan on invading that country? The letter writer, Susan Addelston, writes: "A spokesman for Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, claims that a contract for logistical services for troops in Iraq was awarded two years ago? Not only was our government overcharged for these services, as Halliburton now admits by repaying $6.3 million, but this contract also predates the invasion of Iraq by more than a year. How could a company get a contract for an event that had not yet taken place unless it surely knew that it would? Paul H. O'Neill, the former Treasury secretary, surely got it right when he claimed that almost from the inauguration the Bush administration was involved in planning to invade Iraq. This is another reason, perhaps, that Vice President Dick Cheney (chairman of Halliburton until 2000) doesn't want the content of his secret meetings with energy companies made public." (New York Times)
- January 29: Misconduct by the US Justice Department is imperiling the convictions of two Arabs accused of being part of a terrorist conspiracy. The convictions were obtained shortly after the 9/11 attacks, when two Arab immigrants were arrested in Detroit and found to have documents and material tying them in to planned attacks on a variety of US and foreign targets. The convictions are being challenged because of, among other things, statements made by Attorney General John Ashcroft that caused Ashcroft to be twice reprimanded for violating a judicial gag order. Additionally, US Attorney Richard Convertino, one of the main prosecutors of the case, is suspected of misconduct; he is accused of withholding evidence from the defense, threatening a defense lawyer with an unfounded criminal investigation, and arranging to reduce the sentence of an illegal immigrant on trial for drug charges in exchange for acting as an informant in the terrorism case. Convertino denies the charges and says he is being smeared by Justice Department officials. (AP/Houston Chronicle)
- January 29: The Hutton report notwithstanding, the family of David Kelly is still insistent that the British government take some responsibility for his death. Only weeks before Hutton published his report, the family sent him a devastating indictment of key government evidence, according to London's Evening Standard. And they urged him to conclude that officials and administration "spin doctor" Alastair Campbell were to blame for their treatment of the weapons expert, who apparently committed suicide after being publicly hounded for leaking information to the press. The family insists that Hutton chose to use documents that supported his contention that the BBC and Kelly were responsible for the problems with British intelligence, not the government, and ignored equally strong documentation of government collusion, deliberate misstatements, and persecution of Kelly. (London Evening Standard)
- January 29: State Attorney Barry Krischer accuses Florida's Attorney General Charlie Crist of impeding the investigation into the charges against Rush Limbaugh for political reasons. Krischer expected Crist's office to file the state's response to Limbaugh's appeal of a decision to unseal the commentator's medical records in the prescription fraud case. Crist's office pulled out of the appeal one hour before a Jan. 12 deadline imposed by the appeals court, according to Krischer's spokesman Mike Edmondson. "We obviously think that was to put us into a position so we could not respond," Edmondson says. A prosecutor from Krischer's office was able to file the brief in time. Joanne Carrin, spokeswoman for Crist, says the attorney general's office is not involved in the Limbaugh case. "We don't know what he is talking about," she says. "It sounds ridiculous." The accusation comes a day after Crist's office criticized Krischer for mischaracterizing advice it gave prosecutors last week regarding the release of plea negotiations in the Limbaugh case. Edmondson calls the letter from Assistant Attorney General Patricia Gleason "political." Krischer is a Democrat, Crist a Republican, and Limbaugh a conservative talk show icon. (Palm Beach Post)
Rice admits intelligence on Iraqi WMDs may have been wrong
- January 30: Bush NSA director Condoleezza Rice grudgingly admits that some of the intelligence gathered to support the war in Iraq may have been faulty. "I think that what we have is evidence that there are differences between what we knew going in and what we found on the ground," Rice admits. But she brushes aside calls for an independent inquiry into the intelligence in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq last March. Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, she says, was a dangerous man in a dangerous part of the world and it had been time to do something about the threat he posed. "When you are dealing with secretive regimes that want to deceive, you're never going to be able to be positive," Rice says. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari says he is sure Hussein possessed WMDs and is confident they could eventually be discovered. "I have every belief that some of these weapons could be found as we move forward," Zebari says. "They have been hidden in certain areas. The system of hiding was very sophisticated." (BBC, Reuters)
- January 30: Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are questioning the Bush administration's response to David Kay's revelations of faulty intelligence leading to war with Iraq. "Politically the president really needs to explain this to the American people," says Republican Ray LaHood, a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee who supported the Iraq war. "It undermines his ability to continue to talk to the American people about the war on terrorism." "When the president of the United States looks at you and tells you something, there should be some trust," says senator John Kerry, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination. Kerry, who voted for the resolution on sending US military units to Iraq, has said repeatedly that Bush lied to him and the entire country to gain support for the war. "We ought to ask for a full-scale investigation of exactly why our intelligence community," says fellow candidate and senator Joe Lieberman. A senior administration official says the White House is planning to review the intelligence after receiving the final report by Kay's staff. The official says the purpose would be not so much to detect failure as to draw lessons on "how to deal with highly secretive regimes. ...We all have a strong interest in knowing and comparing...what we thought before and what happened after," the official says. Kay's successor as chief weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, says he plans to change the focus from a hunt for illegal weapons to an investigation into how the weapons programs were dismantled. "The White House has to say more than 'we did the right thing,' and then stand by the intelligence agencies," says representative Peter King, a member of the House International Relations Committee. "They need to say, 'We did the right thing, but we will over the next several months look into what we need to do to improve the intelligence agencies.'" (Los Angeles Times)
- January 30: The World Economic Forum, held this year in Davos, Switzerland, is another opportunity for the world's community of nations to express its dismay to the US over Iraq. Columnist H.D.S. Greenway observes, "[T]he tension was less palpable at this year's forum [than in 2002]. Europeans realize that what was done in Iraq is done and that it is now in everybody's best interest to put that bitter divide behind them. But the wounds have not completely healed. There is still dismay over the American tendency toward unilateral action. There is dismay, too, over the inability of the United States to deliver security in Iraq, and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction has given credence to the strong doubts about American wisdom and even veracity. If Europeans realize that American primacy is something they have to live with, the reality of Iraq is forcing the Bush administration to climb down from its disdain of the United Nations and international cooperation. Thus sending the administration's archduke of anti-United Nations sentiment, Vice President Cheney, into the lions' den of Davos was a bold move. He put his best foot forward, but little in his speech to the forum convinced doubters that the Bush administration's doctrine of preemptive force would end anytime soon, even as the Bush administration begged for UN help with Iraqi elections. Nor did Cheney leave much hope that the United States was going to step up its efforts to secure a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Censure was reserved for the Palestinians in the vice president's rhetoric. When a questioner mentioned the ideas of Nobel laureate Shimon Peres, Cheney rapped the questioner's knuckles by saying: 'Mr. Sharon is the one we pay attention to at present.'
- "In much of the world beyond Europe, anti-Americanism is growing at an alarming and corrosive rate. President Bush seemed genuinely shocked when he heard this from moderate Muslim leaders in Bali last October. In visits to four Muslim countries last year I came away equally shocked at how the high regard in which the United States was once held is slipping away, even among those who are still our friends. Whether it be Cairo's council on foreign relations or Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, the distrust of the United States is noticeably high. Among those not predisposed to admire the United States, even America's good motives are misunderstood in the general climate of mistrust. Last month in Lahore, Pakistan, a two-day meeting of Muslim clerics to celebrate the centenary of Maulana Maududi, founder of Jamaat-I-Islami, speaker after speaker spoke of a Muslim world under attack and siege, saying that Bush's call for democracy was a cover for imperialistic designs to undermine Islam and spread Western culture. Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, who is in a life-and-death struggle with Islamic extremists in his own country, told the forum last week that 'there is a deep feeling of injustice, abandonment, hopelessness, powerlessness and a sense of deprivation' in the Muslim world. 'The fallout of this has been resignation and desperation.' In the opinion of many experts at Davos this year, the United States had not successfully addressed the root causes of terrorism: It has concentrated its efforts on military solutions, which run the risk of recruiting ever more terrorists." (Boston Globe)
- January 30: Former weapons inspector Scott Ritter details what is missing from the Hutton report. "[T]he Hutton findings have taken on an almost Alice in Wonderland aura," Ritter writes. "By focusing on a single news story broadcast by the BBC, Hutton has created a political smokescreen behind which Blair is seeking to distract the British public from the harsh reality that his government went to war based on unsustained allegations that have yet to be backed up with a single piece of substantive fact. Lord Hutton was in a position to expose this; he chose not to. It is left to the public, therefore, to carefully examine his report, looking not for what it contains but for what is missing." Ritter shows that Hutton all but ignored the secret "Operation Rockingham," an intelligence program buried inside the Defense Intelligence Staff, which dealt with Iraqi WMD and activities of the UN special commission (UNSCOM). While Hutton acknowledges that Rockingham managed the interaction between David Kelly, the weapons expert whose suicide led to the Hutton inquiry, and the UN, he looked no further. If he had, he might have made some connections between several areas of interest, including the possibility of the "shaping" of UN intelligence data by Rockingham to serve the policy objectives of its masters in the Foreign Office and the joint intelligence committee.
- Ritter notes that weapons expert David Kelly "became Rockingham's go-to person for translating the often confusing data that came out of UNCSCOM into concise reporting that could be forwarded to analysts in the British intelligence community, as well as to political decision-makers. Rockingham was in a position to know that, increasingly, the facts emerging from inside Iraq supported Baghdad's contention that there was no longer a biological weapons programme in Iraq, or any hidden biological weapons or agents. But this data received little or no attention inside Rockingham. Dr. Kelly was not only an active participant in the investigations in Iraq, but also a key player in shaping the findings to the British government. He was also one of the key behind-the-scenes advocates of the government position. For some time, the government had allowed him unfettered access to the press, where he spoke, often on the record, about his work with UNSCOM. Any probing of Rockingham by Lord Hutton would have exposed it for what it had become -- a big player in the shaping of information regarding Iraq's WMD inside the government and, through its media connections, in shaping public opinion as well." Instead, Hutton chose to focus on the BBC's role, thus becoming a participant in the coverup of government malfeasance instead of its exposer. "Given Rockingham's penetration of Unscom at virtually every level, there existed a seamless flow of data from Iraq, through New York, to London, carefully shaped from beginning to end by people working not for the UN security council, but for the British government," Ritter writes. "Iraq's guilt, preordained by the government, became a self-fulfilling prophecy that only collapsed when occupied Iraq failed to disgorge that which Rockingham, and the rest of the UK intelligence community, had said must exist." (Guardian)
- January 30: CBS News's Dick Meyer asks if the "stonewalling" from the Bush administration over Iraq's nonexistent WMDs will ever end; his answer is "probably not." If it does, Meyer notes, it will be because of three things: some administration officials are themselves in favor of an independent investigation into the intelligence "failures" that led to the war; the Hutton report in Britain that purports to exonerate Tony Blair of responsibility for his government's own lies and misinformation; and the small possibility that congressional Democrats may put aside their own internecine bickering "and force an independent investigation down the White House's clenched gullet." However, the possibility of a truly independent investigation is not strong: "The central obstacle remains the administration's considered commitment to a policy of stonewalling. Whether it's the Kean-Hamilton 9/11 Commission, the investigation of the leak that blew Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA cover, congressional intelligence committees' inquiries into Iraq or Vice President Cheney's energy deliberations, the approach of the 43rd president to open government is modeled on the 37th president, Richard Nixon. But the administration is fully equipped to pursue its political self-interest and they may come to believe that honest politics and policy may coincide here."
- Meyer, the editorial director of CBS News, concludes: "It is reckless and irresponsible for the administration to avoid such an inquiry. How will this administration or future administrations have credibility when they say to the American people, 'We believe -- fill in the blank: Syria, North Korea, al-Qaeda, Iran, Columbian cartels -- is a dire threat to the U.S. and we must act to protect ourselves.' I also think an independent investigation wouldn't mortally wound Mr. Bush's presidency in this term or in a second term if he should win one. Tony Blair is proving that this week. Ronald Reagan had the guts not to block Iran-Contra investigations and as damaging as they were, they didn't cripple his presidency, his legacy or any government agencies such as the CIA. But this administration is committed to stonewalling. It can't be shamed into allowing a real investigation. It will admit to no legitimate national security need for an investigation. It thinks credibility is a word for suckers and demagogues. And the administration seems to have no confidence it could weather an investigation and is immune to arguments that an inquiry is actually in its own best interests. So it's up to the Democrats and may be a few independent minded Republicans. Congressional Democrats have to look at every hardball tool in their arsenal -- filibusters, boycotts, lawsuits -- and find some way to force an investigation, even if its lousy election year politics for the party. And a smart, efficient and serious way to get the job done is expand the mandate of the Kean-Hamilton 9/11 Commission to include the Iraq war. It is, as the president always says, all part of one battle to protect the country from terrorism." (CBS News)
- January 30: A Guardian commentary calls the Hutton report a "whitewash," It says that Hutton's attempt to fix the blame for the Blair administration's lies and failures on the BBC is "absurd:" "Lord Hutton's damning report of the BBC is a whitewash. The result will create fear at the Today program, where there should be pride. As so many times before, they were there with a story that nobody else would touch. And I still cannot see why Gavyn Davies and Greg Dyke have had to resign. It flies in the face of reality, ripping all evidence to shreds. This is a theatre of the absurd. It has left everybody I know shaking their heads in disbelief and anger. Such a performance should make us all deeply nervous about the future of Britain. While Blair wishes to draw a line under the whole episode, I hope this doesn't happen. Sometimes a story will end up being told, no matter how many times they try to close the book." The writer, musician Thom Yorke, continues, "As Andrew Gilligan submitted to Hutton, why was the BBC singled out when other media reports questioned the intelligence as well? Why did [Blair communication director Alastair] Campbell suddenly give disproportionate attention to the Today program's story, after weeks of hoping it would go away? Campbell needed to deflect attention from an issue that stood to bring down the government. He had been told to construct a truth that would justify a 'pre-emptive' war against international law, while voices in the wings were whispering 'lies.' His response was unforgivable. He deliberately went on the offensive, choosing his favourite soft target, one that had dared to go beyond the embedded reporting of the war to show it in a less than flattering light. Campbell himself chose to become the story, using his indignation at such a slur on the government's 'integrity,' and so avoiding the substance of the accusation itself. He now claims the BBC, from the top down, did not tell the truth. In what way? It didn't check out the story? It seems, sir, your little story about WMD didn't check out either. Are we supposed to feel sorry for him after this sustained attack on his integrity? Nobody cares about his integrity; they just want to know why we went to war against international law on weak single-source intelligence. And are we supposed to feel sorry for Blair? He has made a very dangerous political mistake which endangers global stability and has sent thousands to their deaths. He tells us that he will be judged by his maker. Well, he certainly wasn't judged by Hutton, was he? It was entirely in the public interest to question the construction of this intelligence report.... That is what public service broadcasting should be about, serving no proprietor, not controlled by the state, and addressing the concerns of those who pay for its existence. This is exactly what the Today program did in this instance. So where was the mistake?" (Guardian)
- January 30: The New York Times exposes the lengths that Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton, has gone to in the past to avoid paying US taxes. Annual reports filed with the Securities Exchange Commission since the mid-90's, when Cheney took over as chief executive and began handling Halliburton's strategy for picking up government subsidies while avoiding government taxes, show Halliburton subsidiaries incorporated in such places as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Panama, Liechtenstein, and Vanuatu. Vanuatu is a tiny Pacific Island nation whose citizens subsist on farming and fishing, but whose capital city, Vila, is becoming well known as a corporate tax haven. In a 2000 SEC filing, Halliburton noted its subsidiary in Vanuatu, called Kinhill Kramer (Vanuatu) Ltd. Halliburton denies that its offshore subsidiaries are used to shift income out of the US, but that claim is specious at best. In 2002, according to a Halliburton spokesperson, "[a]fter foreign tax credit utilization, we paid just over $15 million to the IRS for our 2002 tax liability." $15 million is a laughable sum to Halliburton, and far, far lower than they would have paid if not for its offshore manipulations.
- The Times' Bob Herbert writes, "In the early 90's, when Mr. Cheney was defense secretary under the first President Bush, he hired the Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root to determine what military functions could be outsourced to private profit-making companies. Brown & Root came up with myriad ideas in a classified study and was handed a lucrative contract to implement its own plan. Mr. Cheney took over as chief executive of Halliburton in 1995, and the defense contracts just kept on coming. When he returned to government as vice president in 2001, no firm was better positioned than Halliburton to cash in on the billions of dollars in contracts that resulted from the war on terror and the conflict in Iraq. Halliburton is bound so intimately to the defense establishment it might as well be an adjunct to the military. (Mr. Cheney still receives deferred compensation from Halliburton but insists he has no role in the awarding of contracts.) Halliburton is an organization that has the reach of a multinational and the eyes of a Willie Sutton. Through its subsidiaries, it has done work with countries the US has accused of supporting terror. It was accused of overcharging the US government for work done in the 1990's, and in 2002 it agreed to pay a $2 million settlement in response to accusations that it had defrauded the government. The Pentagon is currently examining allegations that the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root overcharged the government by $61 million for gasoline imported into Iraq from Kuwait. Last week the company acknowledged that at least one employee had participated in a $6.3 million kickback deal with a Kuwaiti company. That money has reportedly been repaid to the government. What we have here is a private profit-making multinational company with no particular allegiance (other than contractual) to the US government. Nevertheless, through its powerful allies in the government, Halliburton enjoys extraordinary influence over national defense policies and has its own key to the national treasury. If it's at all grateful, it hasn't shown it. The US is at war. The government is running record deficits. Money is tight everywhere. But Halliburton won't even kick in its fair share. It continues to benefit from the nation's largesse, while scouring the world for places to shelter as much of its American riches as possible. (New York Times)
- January 30: Political columnist Don Williams predicts Dick Cheney will not run as Bush's 2004 vice-presidential candidate. Williams says Cheney will probably use health reasons as his rationale for leaving the ticket, but the real reason will be the raft of investigations and indictments that will catch up with him before the August convention. He writes, "And, if he doesn't resign, which would be an act of loyalty to his party and his supposed boss, he could be impeached. That's assuming big-time journalism does its job and connects all the dots that make up the ugly reality of Cheney's recent career activities." Williams cites the investigation into Halliburton's investment in Iranian oil fields under Cheney, investment specifically proscribed by US law; charges against Cheney related to multi-million dollar bribes by Halliburton subsidiary KBR to win a contract to build the $4 billion-plus Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas plant in the 1990s; kickbacks and overcharges connected to Halliburton's contracts in Kuwait and Iraq; shoddy and substandard treatment of US soldiers by Halliburton and KBR; Cheney's profiting from his ownership of Halliburton stock options and annual payments exceeding $150,000 from his former company; and Cheney's possible leak of information that compromised Defense Department operatives in statements made in defense of the Weekly Standard's debunked article connecting the Hussein regime to al-Qaeda. (Knoxville News-Sentinel)
- January 30: Father Andrew Greeley, the eminent Catholic theologian, writer, and sociologist, writes an editorial lambasting the cost of the Iraqi war to the US and the world in general. He predicts a miserable failure in Iraq similar to that of Vietnam, at a horrendous cost in Iraqi and US lives, and long-term damage to the Iraqi society and economy. Greeley writes, "We will leave behind not a democratic Iraq but another Shiite theocracy -- not quite as rigid, perhaps, as the one in Iran -- and the prospect of continuing conflict among Iraq's diverse tribes. Those who knew something about the Middle East warned that such an endgame was likely. Arab culture does not seem to be compatible with what Americans define as democracy. The war, it is clear by now, was unnecessary, ill-conceived, unjust and doomed to humiliating and costly failure. ...Most everyone in the world knows this truth except half of the American people, whose patriotism and fear of terrorism is superior to their perceptiveness." (Chicago Sun-Times)
- January 30: As part of the conservative assault on Presidential candidate John Kerry, Fox pundit Sean Hannity tells his audience that "[i]f he [Kerry] had his way and [sic] the CIA would almost be nonexistent." In reality, Kerry has supported $200 billion in intelligence funding over the past seven years -- a 50 percent increase since 1996. CGI documents seven Kerry votes between 1996 and 2002 authorizing the expenditures for the CIA. (CGI/Center for American Progress)
Taguba commission begins investigating Abu Ghraib torture stories
- January 31: Major General Antonio Taguba forms a commission to investigate prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. His report, presented on March 3, is a damning indictment of prisoner torture and abuse by US soldiers, CIA operatives, and private mercenaries. (Guardian)
- January 31: The Bush administration is considering endorsing the creation of an independent commission that would investigate whether the United States used faulty intelligence information when it decided to go to war in Iraq. The administration would only consider the formation of such a commission if it could choose the members. The decision to support such an independent commission is designed, in part, to deflect calls for an independent Congressional comission to investigate prewar intelligence, a potentially embarrassing issue that may dog Bush during his re-election campaign. (The House Intelligence Committee produced a report highly critical of the US intelligence community on September 28, but was careful to deflect any attention away from Bush's White House or the Pentagon. The Senate Intelligence Committee has a similar report still brewing. Both committees were steered by their Republican leadership away from any probes that might embarrass the White House or the Department of Defense.) Pat Roberts, the Republican chairman of the Senate committee, says that convening a blue-ribbon panel is important because "we're in danger now of seeing the politicization of the whole intelligence issue," echoing earlier complaints he has made of Democrats trying to make the investigation into a partisan issue. Roberts says such a panel would have to be bipartisan and include only recognized experts whose recommendations could "leapfrog" over the current debate and quickly tackle the issue of how to fix intelligence deficiencies. (AP/Chicago Sun-Times, Washington Post)
- January 31: The US is planning on sending a delegation to Iran, the first such visit by any official governmental representatives since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979. GOP Senator Arlen Specter says he hopes the visit, arranged in a meeting with Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, would lead to trips to Tehran by members of Congress and then by Bush administration officials. "They are showing some signs of wanting to improve relations," Specter says. "Now is a good time." Specter, who will send an assistant as part of the group, said he had consulted with a senior Bush administration official before taking up the subject with Ambassador Mohammed Javad Zarif at a dinner in the US Capitol. (AP/Chicago Sun-Times)
- January 31: Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who won a Silver Star in Vietnam for personal heroism, blasts Republicans for questioning Democrats' patriotism; meanwhile, Democrats and military veterans alike begin attacking President Bush for his own disreputable military record. Former senator Max Cleland, in introducing Kerry to the crowd at a South Carolina campaign rally, introduced Kerry as a combat leader, while accusing Bush of shirking his military duty during the Vietnam era. "We need somebody who has felt the sting of battle, not someone who didn't even complete his tour stateside in the Guard," said Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam, in a reference to allegations that Bush, who stopped flying with the Texas Air National Guard in 1972, did not fulfill the last two years of his military obligation. Cleland said that Kerry is "the one guy who can call his hand on the hypocrisy of a bunch of people that never went to war." (Cleland himself was tarred as a coward and a traitor by Republican opponent Saxby Chambliss in the 2002 elections; like Bush, Cheney, and so many other administration officials, Chambliss has never served in the military.)
- Kerry did not personally address Bush's military record, but instead took the opportunity to warn Republicans, "I have a message for those who try to challenge the Democrats and say to them, 'You're unpatriotic' or you're somehow stepping out of line if you question the United States or the policies of your country. I tell 'em, there's not a veteran here who doesn't know that what we fought for. And what we wished for -- even while we were serving -- was the right to question and that someone would question policies when they're wrong. When it's wrong, make it right." Other Democrats have also stepped up to criticize Bush's failure to complete his military service, including party chairman Terry McAuliffe, who says that Bush went AWOL in 1972. Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt accuses McAuliffe of trying to "perpetuate a completely false and bogus assertion." Holt insists, "The president was never AWOL." (Documentation of Bush's desertion from his service with the Texas Air National Guard is extensively noted elsewhere in this site.) A Buzzflash reader makes his formal complaint to the Defense Department over Bush's failure to serve public, and invites others to make similar complaints; the complaint can be found at the Buzzflash link below.) (Boston Globe. Washington Post, Buzzflash)
- January 31: Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council bans the Arab news channel Al-Jazeera from government offices and news conferences for one month. The ban on one of the most popular television news stations in the Middle East is punishment for the disrespect the station allegedly showed toward prominent Iraqis, according to a statement released by the council. It is the second such ban against Al-Jazeera since September. Al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout says, "it's yet another unfortunate situation. ...Al-Jazeera is trying to ascertain exactly what happened with a view to rectify the matter, because we believe its advantageous to the media as well as the governing council," Ballout said from Qatar, where Al-Jazeera is based. "All that Al-Jazeera wants is to do its job professionally." According to the council's statement, Al-Jazeera has shown "disrespect to Iraq and its people and harmed prominent religious and national figures." The statement lists senior Shi'ite clerics Mohsen al-Hakim and his sons Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim and Mohammed Mahdi al-Hakim as among those whose memory have been tarnished by Al-Jazeera. It also mentions Mustafa Barzani, the late father of Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani. The statement does not say when Al-Jazeera is supposed to have committed the offenses but regional news reports have cited the station's controversial program "The Opposite Direction," or "Ittigah al-Moakis." Adnan Pachachi, the council's current president, describes the ban as a warning to Al-Jazeera for what he said was a "very abusive" program. He told a news conference that he hoped Al-Jazeera would in the future refrain from such "inflammatory" material. (Toronto Globe and Mail)
- January 31: Republican representative Bob Ney says that an expert on the Middle East who appears regularly on the Fox News Channel, Alireza Jafarzadeh, has ties to an Iranian terrorist organization. Jafarzadeh retorts that his group's opposition to Iran's fundamentalist Muslim government doesn't make it a terrorist group. He doesn't mention that his group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, was added to the US terrorist list in 2002 because it has ties to Mujahedin-e Khalq, a terrorist organization that seeks to overthrow Iran's government. Jafarzadeh, who runs his own consulting firm, claims the Bush administration put his group on the terrorist list because the White House wants to improve ties with Iran; Ney says, "Now he's simply not telling the truth." Fox News officials refuses to comment; Jafarzadeh says he would continue to appear on the news network. Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) is a Marxist-Islamic organization created by children of college-educated Iranian merchants in the 1960s. The group resented the infiltration of Western culture during Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi's reign. MEK supported the 1979 takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran and fundamentalist revolution that overthrew the shah. But MEK turned against the regime in the 1980s and is now the largest Iranian dissident group. (Chillicothe Gazette)
- January 31: A judge orders a DNA test on Neil Bush to determine whether the child borne by his mistress, Maria Andrews, is his. Bush is in the process of divorcing his wife, Sharon, and is now engaged to Andrews. (AP/Miami Herald)
- Late January: Grover Norquist, the conservative Washington power broker, demands that the incoming Bush administration immediately outsource 850,000 civilian jobs, and follow those up by the outsourcing of state, county, and city jobs, the elimination of farm subsidies, the expansion of school vouchers, and the privatization of Social Security.(Frances Fox Piven)
"I just look at that man [Bush] and get perturbed, but I figure the true ugliness is inside, so the cross-eyed smug thing is nothing compared to what is going on in that little, twisted head of his."
– Rickie Lee Jones, January 5, 2004, Buzzflash
