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 2007, Week Four
Page Two
"Iraq was put under occupation, which was an idiot decision." -- Iraqi vice president Adel Abdul Mahdi, January 25, quoted by Reuters
- January 25: Dick Cheney exerted "constant" pressure on the Republican former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee to stall an investigation into the Bush administration's use of flawed intelligence on Iraq, according to the panel's Democratic chairman, Jay Rockefeller.
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
Rockefeller charges Bush of running an illegal program by ordering eavesdropping on Americans' international e-mails and telephone communications without court-issued warrants. Rockefeller says that it is "not hearsay" that Cheney, a leading proponent of invading Iraq, pushed the former chairman, Senator Pat Roberts, to drag out the probe of the administration's use of prewar intelligence. "It was just constant," Rockefeller says of Cheney's interference. He adds that he knew that the vice president attended regular policy meetings in which he conveyed White House directions to Republican staffers. Republicans "just had to go along with the administration," says Rockefeller. Roberts' chief of staff, Jackie Cottrell, blames Democrats for the investigation remaining incomplete more than two years after it began, even though Democrats had little control of the scope and duration of the investigation. "Senator Rockefeller's allegations are patently untrue," says Cottrell. "The delays came from the Democrats' insistence that they expand the scope of the inquiry to make it a more political document going into the 2006 elections. Chairman Roberts did everything he could to accommodate their requests for further information without allowing them to distort the facts. And Roberts's former staff director, Bill Duhnke, adds, "I'm not aware of any effort by the vice president, his staff or anyone in the administration to influence the speed at which the committee did its work." - But the evidence shows that Rockefeller's accusations are accurate. The panel, under Roberts, released a report in July 2004 that lambasted the CIA and other US intelligence agencies for erroneously concluding that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was concealing biological, chemical and nuclear warfare programs. The report failed to address any interference or input from the Bush administration. That portion of the investigation was labeled "Phase II," which Roberts promised to conclude swiftly and completely. Instead, Roberts refused to push the investigation. As Roberts concluded his term as Intelligence Committee chairman, the panel had only published two of five Phase II reports, and Democratic members of the committee accused Roberts and the panel's other Republicans of deliberately dawdling and refusing to aggressively pursue the report. Rockefeller recalls that in November 2005, the then-minority Democrats employed a rarely used parliamentary procedure to force the Senate into a closed session to pressure Roberts to complete Phase II. "That was the reason we closed the session. To force him" to complete the investigation, he says. The maneuver did not work.
- Now that Rockefeller is in charge of the committee, the investigation is once again proceeding with alacrity. The most potentially controversial of the three Phase II reports being worked on will compare what Bush and his top lieutenants said publicly about Iraq's weapons programs and ties to terrorists with what was contained in top-secret intelligence reports. In the two reports released under Roberts in September, the panel said that the administration's claims of ties between Saddam and al-Qaeda were false and found that administration officials distributed exaggerated and bogus claims provided by an Iraqi exile group with close ties to some senior administration officials. Rockefeller says it is important to complete the Phase II inquiry. "The looking backward creates tension, but it's necessary tension because the administration needs to be held accountable and the country...needs to know," he says.
- Rockefeller says that he and the senior Republican member of the committee, Christopher Bond, have put the frictions behind them and agree that the committee should press the administration for documents it's withholding on its domestic eavesdropping program and detainee programs. Under the eavesdropping program, the National Security Agency monitored Americans' international telephone calls and e-mails without court warrants if one party was a suspected member or supporter of al-Qaeda or another terrorist group. Rockefeller charges that Bush violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to obtain permission to eavesdrop on Americans from a secret national security court. "For five years he's has been operating an illegal program," he says, adding that the committee wants the administration to provide the classified documents that set out its legal argument that Bush has the power to wiretap Americans without warrants. (McClatchy News/Contra Costa Times)
- January 25: Dick Cheney's spokeswoman Catherine Martin testifies in the trial of Lewis Libby that she told Libby and Cheney both that former ambassador Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was a CIA employee weeks earlier than Libby has said he first learned it from NBC's Tim Russert.
Lewis Libby perjury trial
The prosecution also presents new details about the depth of involvement Cheney had in leaking Plame's identity. Cheney and other White House officials, including Libby, planned to discredit Wilson, who had debunked White House claims that Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Niger, by outing Plame and accusing Wilson of being sent to Niger by his wife. Martin testifies that Cheney was the one coordinating the media campaign to out Plame and vilify Wilson, prompted by Wilson's blistering July 6, 2003 op-ed and his same-day appearance with Russert on Meet the Press. Martin, who says that both Cheney and Libby were "intensely interested" in both Wilson and Plame, testifies that Cheney "dictated" media talking points to her, including direct quotes from the National Intelligence Estimate, which had been declassified without her knowledge. And jurors learn that Libby was directed by Cheney to speak directly to reporters, bypassing the normal communications staff in the office of the vice president. Martin testifies that Cheney also wanted to tell reporters that US intelligence agencies concluded in a formal National Intelligence Estimate in October 2002 that Iraq did seek uranium, an assertion that flatly contradicted the facts. Additionally, Martin says that Cheney called the CIA while in her presence to ask about Plame's identity, and spoke to CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, who confirmed that Plame was a CIA agent and that Wilson went to Niger at the behest of the agency. She says Cheney ordered her to get all the facts out, but she did not think Plame's role was part of the story she had to tell. "It didn't seem appropriate or helpful for us to get that out," she testifies. "It gave me some explanation" of the affair, but "we didn't need it as a talking point." - Martin recalls a senior staff meeting at the White House where Stephen Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, blew up angrily after noting that he had received a query from Andrea Mitchell of NBC. Mitchell had heard that the White House was blaming the CIA for causing the president to inaccurately say in his State of the Union address that the British government had confirmed Iraq's efforts to buy uranium in Africa. Martin says that Libby earlier had taken on the task of speaking with Mitchell about that issue. But at the July meeting in the White House, she said that Hadley made a point of turning around and looking at her, as of to signify he knew she was Mitchell's source. Martin denies that she was Mitchell's source. She adds that after the meeting, Hadley privately upbraided her for talking to Mitchell.
- She also notes that she, along with Libby and Hadley, wrote the early 2004 admission by CIA director George Tenet having Tenet take the blame for the bogus claim in Bush's January State of the Union address that Iraq was seeking nuclear material in Africa. After "delicate" talks, Tenet agreed to say the CIA "approved" the claim and "I am responsible" -- but even that disappointed Martin, who had wanted Tenet to make the false claim that "we did not express any doubt about Niger."
- The point of Martin's testimony is clear: that Libby (along with other White House operatives like Karl Rove, but Rove is not on trial here) was working diligently to compile information on Wilson, and Plame, when little was as yet publicly known about it. In the process, Libby told Martin that Plame was a CIA official. The defense tries, unsuccessfully, to paint the Plame reference as a meaningless snippet of irrelevant information, but Martin's testimony demonstrates that Libby was intensely engaged in a campaign to rebut Wilson's charge that the Bush administration had rigged the case for war by misrepresenting the prewar intelligence, and that Libby had even requested to see transcripts of cable news shows covering the controversy, most notably Chris Matthews' Hardball program on MSNBC. David Corn writes, "Consequently, a juror could well conclude that information regarding Valerie Wilson's CIA employment was important to Libby and registered with him."
- One tidbit of testimony is particularly telling. According to Martin's notes, she wrote in 2004 that Cheney's best bet to, in her words, "control message" on Iraq was to appear on Tim Russert's NBC broadcast, Meet the Press. "I suggested we put the vice president on 'Meet the Press,' which was a tactic we often used," she testifies. "It's our best format." Martin's entire testimony is proof of the methodologies used by the Bush administration in controlling "spin" and massaging the media message. As the Washington Post's Dana Milbank writes, "Relatively junior White House aides run roughshod over members of the president's Cabinet. Bush aides charged with speaking to the public and the media are kept out of the loop on some of the most important issues. And bad news is dumped before the weekend for the sole purpose of burying it. "Fewer people pay attention to it late on Friday," she says. "Fewer people pay attention when it's reported on Saturday." Ironically, Martin says in her testimony that she couldn't understand why reporters didn't have faith in her office's pronouncements.
- Martin's testimony is illuminating about the reasons why then-White House press secretary Scott McClellan promised, falsely, that Libby was not involved in outing CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson. After McClellan had vouched for Bush strategist Karl Rove's innocence, Libby asked Martin, "Why don't they say something about me?" Martin replied, "You need to talk to Scott." On jurors' monitors are images of Martin's talking points, some labeled "on the record" and others "deep background." She walks the jurors through how the White House coddles friendly writers and freezes out others. To deal with the Wilson controversy, she hastily arranged a Cheney lunch with conservative commentators. And when New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof first wrote about the Niger affair, she explains, "we didn't see any urgency to get to Kristof [because] he frankly attacked the administration fairly regularly." She explains that Hadley shielded White House spokesmen from the Niger controversy. "Everybody was sort of in the dark," she explains. "There had been a decision not to have the communicators involved." But Martin, encouraged by Libby, secretly advised Libby and Cheney on how to respond. She put Meet the Press at the top of her list of "Options" but noted that it might appear "too defensive." Next, she proposed "leak to Sanger-Pincus-newsmags. Sit down and give to him." This meant that the "no-leak" White House would give the story to the New York Times's David Sanger, the Washington Post's Walter Pincus, or Time or Newsweek. Option 3: "Press conference -- Condi/Rumsfeld." Option 4: "Op-ed." Martin is a bit embarrassed about the "leak" option, considering the case itself is about a press leak. "It's a term of art," she says. "If you give it to one reporter, they're likelier to write the story."
- In a discussion between the lawyers for both sides and Judge Reggie Walton, with the jury out of the courtroom, Walton tells Libby's lawyers that he will not allow them to continue asserting Libby's "memory defense" if Libby himself fails to testify. "I will not permit the defense to argue the memory defense at closing if Mr. Libby does not testify," says Walton. (MSNBC ["Fact File"], International Herald Tribune, MSNBC, Washington Post. The Nation)
- January 25: During the Libby trial, the now-declassified INR memo from June 10, 2003 detailing the Joseph Wilson visit to Niger in 2002 is introduced into evidence.
Lewis Libby perjury trial
The memo confirms -- in flat contradiction to what many conservatives have alleged -- that everything Wilson said about the Nigerans, and about the circumstances surrounding his trip to Niger, is true. According to the INR memo, Wilson met with two key former Nigerien officials: former Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki and former Minister of Energy and Mines Boucar Mai Manga. The INR memo records that Wilson supported the INR position that the embassy was quite capable of reporting on this matter without his intervention. Wilson did not Joe was not advocating to go to Niger and his wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was not in the meeting when this issue came up. (She had only introduced him at the start of the meeting.) The CIA ultimately prevailed and sent Joe to Niger. In coordination with the US Ambassador to Niger, Wilson agreed to meet with only former officials who were knowledgeable about the uranium program. According to the INR memo, Mayaki told Wilson he had rebuffed an effort in June of 1999 to arrange a meeting with the Iraqis because he supported the US sanctions. He said, "[I]f there had been any rogue state during his tenure, he would have seen the contract." Manga said, "[T]here were no sales outside of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since the mid-1980s." He went on to tell Wilson that the uranium was tightly controlled and accounted for from the time it is mined until the time it is loaded onto ships. - There is nothing in this report to support the notion that Iraq had succeeded evading UN sanctions and purchased large quantities of yellowcake uranium. Republicans on the Senate have attempted for years to mislead the American people in their July 2004 SSCI report. Former CIA agent Larry Johnson writes, "After you read the following report could you brief the President of the United States that Iraq had acquired yellowcake uranium and had restarted its nuclear program? No way in hell! That's why Cheney and Libby were so intent on trying to shut up Joe Wilson. He told the truth." (No Quarter/Daily Kos, No Quarter [PDF of the unclassified INR memo itself])
- January 25: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says that when she pressed Bush to explain just how the troop escalation will make things better in Iraq, Bush retorted, "I told them that they had to."
Iraq war and occupation
Pelosi recalls asking Bush, "Mr. President, why do you think this time it's going to work?' And he said, 'Because I told them it had to.' ...That was the end of it. That's the way it is." (CBS fails to report Pelosi's followup question to Bush's "Because I told them I had to" retort. She asks, "Why didn't you tell them that the other two times?") Pelosi says Bush never consulted with her over his plans to send at least 21,500 more US troops to Iraq. In Bush's speech on Iraq more than two weeks ago, he said he had "consulted members of Congress from both parties," as well as overseas allies and distinguished outside experts. Bush and his top aides had a swirl of meetings with lawmakers from both parties. But Pelosi says she was not satisfied, particularly recalling a White House meeting the afternoon of the speech. "He brought us in to tell us what he was going to say in a matter of hours," she says. "It wasn't a consultation -- it was a notification. And a late-minute one at that." She adds, "I don't see any signal that the president is ready to listen. Nonetheless I pray -- and I use the word very, very specifically -- pray that he will go to another place on Iraq." (CBS News, AmericaBlog) - January 25: The US has systematically failed to equip its soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly for non-traditional duties such as training Iraqi security forces and handling detainees, according to the Inspector General for the Defense Department.
Iraq war and occupation
So far, the wars have cost American taxpayers $500 billion, with Bush ready to ask for another $100 billion. The Army alone expects to spend an extra $70 billion on an additional 65,000 permanent troops from fiscal year 2009 through 2013. According to Army officials, $18 billion of that will be spent on equipment. - Yet even with these huge expenditures, the Pentagon's IG finds that the troops have been forced to go without guns, ammunition, and other supplies necessary to "effectively complete their missions." Some units have had to cancel or postpone some assignments while waiting for the proper gear. Soldiers have also found themselves short on body armor, armored vehicles, communications equipment, and many other items. "As a result, service members performed missions without the proper equipment, used informal procedures to obtain equipment and sustainment support, and canceled or postponed missions while waiting to receive equipment," according to the executive summary of the report. Service members often borrowed or traded with each other to get the needed supplies, according to the summary. The report finds that in many cases, the equipment shortages are due to basic management failures among military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan. US Central Command lacks standard policies for requesting and tracking equipment requirements or for equipping units to perform nontraditional duties. The Inspector General recommends that the Pentagon establish new internal controls and policies to address the funding, equipping, and sustaining forces performing nontraditional duties. (Business Week)
- January 25: Senate Republicans block Democrats' efforts to pass new minimum wage legislation, already passed by the House, by filibustering the bill and attaching a raft of amendments to the bill that would benefit businesses that employ low-pay workers.
Bush's economic policies
The Democrats' bill, which would raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour over two years, is running aground on Republican filibusters. It takes 60 votes to break a filibuster; the latest vote was 54-43. Any hybrid bill featuring an array of corporate tax cuts will face serious opposition in the House. - Angered at Republican filibustering and delay tactics in the Senate designed to block the minimum wage increase overwhelmingly approved by the House, Senator Ted Kennedy accuses Republican senators of being unrelentingly cruel to American workers. "When does the greed stop?" he thunders from the floor of the Senate. Kennedy lists the dozens of unrelated, pricy amendments Republicans have attempted to tack on to the minimum wage legislation -- all designed to give businesses fat benefits at government expense, Kennedy demands to know why Republicans are as cruel as they are to the working poor in America. "We have now had amendments that have been worth over 200 billion dollars." he rails. "Amendments that have been offered. We've had amendments on education of 35 billion dollars. We've had health-savings amendments that will benefit people with average incomes of $112,000.... We've had those kinds of amendments and we're looking at the Kyl amendment at 3 billion dollars. But we still cannot get two dollars and fifteen cents -- over two years. Over two years!" The minimum wage law would raise the wage in America by a modest $2.15/hour over a two-year phase-in process. "What is the price, we ask the other side? What is the price that you want from these working men and women? What cost? How much more do we have to give to the private sector and to business? How many billion dollars more, are you asking, are you requiring? When does the greed stop, we ask the other side? That's the question and that's the issue."
- Kennedy is livid about Republican tactics to either completely block the minimum-wage legislation, or to festoon it with a raft of pork for businesses, in light of Republican protestations that they intend to work in a bipartisan manner with Democrats. "Make no mistake about it -- they have on the Republican side, 70 more amendments. 70 more amendments!" he says. "We have none. We're prepared to vote now. 70 more amendments.... 'Oh yes, we want an increase in the minimum wage, we want this, we want that but...let's have some other kinds of amendments that have virtually nothing to do with this.'" Kennedy has obviously had enough of Republicans and their corporate-friendly, worker-hateful practices. "240 billion dollars in tax breaks for corporations. 36 billion dollars in tax breaks for small businesses. Increase in productivity -- 42 percent over the last 10 years," he says. "But do you think there's any increase in the minimum wage? No. At 12 after five today, on Thursday, I speak for all of our Democrats and say we're prepared to vote now. Now! ...Do you have such disdain for hard-working Americans that you want to pile all your amendments on this? Why don't you just hold your amendments until other pieces of legislation? Why this volume of amendments on just the issue to try and raise the minimum wage? What is it about it that drives you Republicans crazy? What is it? Something. Something! What is the price that the workers have to pay to get an increase? What is it about working men and women that you find so offensive?"
- Kennedy says it has become clear that any pretense of bipartisanship from Republicans is nothing but hypocrisy and lies, and that has become quite clear in the jockeying and filibustering by Republicans about the minimum wage hike. "We don't want to hear any more from that side for the rest of this session about permitting or not permitting votes in here when you're denying it on the most simple concept of an increase in the minimum wage," he snarls. "We don't want to hear any more about that. This is filibuster by delay and amendments. I've been around here long enough to know it when I see it and smell it, and that's what it looks like, that's what it is, make no mistake about it. Make no mistake about it." (AP/Houston Chronicle, C-SPAN/Bob Geiger)
- January 25: The number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits shot up last week by the largest amount in 16 months.
Bush's economic policies
According to Labor Department reports, 325,000 newly laid-off workers filed claims for jobless benefits last week, an increase of 36,000 from the previous week. That is the biggest one-week rise since a surge of 96,000 claims the week of Sept. 10, 2005, when devastated Gulf Coast businesses laid off workers following Hurricane Katrina. The jump in jobless layoffs followed a string of reports showing the economy was performing at a better-than-expected pace at the end of 2006 and the beginning of the new year. It is difficult to use unemployment applications to measure real-world gains and losses because of the Bush Labor Department's decision to not count millions of long-term unemployed Americans in their numbers, thus inaccurately portraying employment numbers as far higher than they really are. (AP/ABC News) - January 25: Two election workers in Ohio's Cuyahoga County are convicted of illegally rigging the 2004 presidential election recount so they could avoid a more thorough review of the votes.
Election fraud
A third employee who had been charged was acquitted on all counts. Jacqueline Maiden, the elections coordinator who was the board's third-highest ranking employee when she was indicted last March, and ballot manager Kathleen Dreamer each were convicted of a felony count of negligent misconduct of an elections employee. The felony conviction carries a possible sentence of six to 18 months. Prosecutor Kevin Baxter says he still isn't sure that others were not involved in the recount tampering. "We'd like to listen to them if they had anything to say, if anyone else was involved with this," he says. "We still haven't been able to determine that." Since the 2004 elections, the board has since enacted reforms meant "to fully restore the public's confidence in the election process in Cuyahoga County," a spokesman says. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, AP/OpEd News/Daily Kos) - January 25: Democratic senator Dick Durbin, the Majority Whip, says that Dick Cheney is "delusional" about what is happening in Iraq.
Iraq war and occupation
Durbin is responding to Cheney's recent statements claiming "enormous successes" in Iraq, statements (reported above) that cast serious doubt on Bush's claims that he wants to work in a bipartisan manner with Congress. Like many others in Congress, Durbin blames Cheney for Bush's insistence on building up troop levels in Iraq rather than pulling out of the sectarian violence there after nearly four years and redeploying troops to Afghanistan and other terrorist trouble spots. "To have Vice President Cheney suggest that we have had a series of enormous successes in Iraq is delusional," Durbin says. "I don't understand how he can continue to say those things while the president calls them 'slow failure'." Bush used the term "slow failure" in a separate television interview earlier this month, saying that's where the situation would be headed unless another 21,500 troops were injected. (McClatchy) - January 25: US Attorney Bud Cummins files a brief in the Little Rock, Arkansas district court saying that his summary firing is unconstitutional.
US Attorney firings
Cummins, like at least ten other US attorneys, has been fired and replaced with more politically correct appointees by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, using an obscure provision of the USA Patriot Act. Cummins says that his firing violates the presidential appointments clause of the Constitution. Many Democrats and others outside of the White House believe that the firings and replacements are to reward friends of Bush, and to punish prosecutors who have pursued convictions against Bush's political allies. Cummins is being replaced by Tim Griffin, a friend and former staff member of Karl Rove. Cummins, through his attorney John Wesley Hall, contends that the section of the Patriot Act that Gonzales is relying on is an attempted "end run" around the appointments clause, which mandates that the Senate confirm the president's appointees. "Under the Constitution, only the president can appoint a US attorney, not the attorney general, so this appointment is void," says Hall. Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse counters by saying that "Congress provided the attorney general the authority in federal law...to appoint a United States attorney because we must ensure that someone is able to carry out the important function of leading a US attorney's office in the event a vacancy arises. We have clearly stated our commitment to having a US attorney in every district who is confirmed by the Senate, and thus there is no merit to the assertion that we are using this authority in an attempt to circumvent the confirmation process." There has been no word as to when, or even if, Gonzales will ask for hearings for Griffin and the other Bush-friendly replacements. (Los Angeles Times) - January 25: Author Jeremy Scahill, who has just written a new book on the private security military company Blackwater USA, pens a brief op-ed for the Los Angeles Times on that secretive firm.
Military-industrial complex
Currently Blackwater is preparing to undergo intense Congressional scrutiny on their financial relationship with the US government and with other firms such as Halliburton, and the possible corruption, graft, and fraud Blackwater may be guilty of taking part in. Blackwater has a $300 million contract with the State Department to protect US potentates in Iraq like ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, a contract dating back to 2003, when it provided security for CPA bigwigs like Paul Bremer. Bush's own plans to escalate the troop presence in Iraq means that Blackwater, and other firms like it providing mercenaries for the US government, will be ever more in demand. - Interestingly, in Bush's recent State of the Union speech (see earlier item), he mentioned a new initiative that represents a significant development in the way the US responds to disasters, reconstructions, and wars: a Civilian Reserve Corps. Naturally, Bush's words are rosy and hard to oppose: "Such a corps would function much like our military reserve," he said. "It would ease the burden on the armed forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them." But this is what his administration has already done, "largely behind the backs of the American people and with little congressional input, with its revolution in military affairs." Scahill writes. "Bush and his political allies are using taxpayer dollars to run an outsourcing laboratory. Iraq is its Frankenstein monster."
- There are already over 100,000 private contractors, of which 48,000 work as private soldiers -- mercenaries -- according to a recent GAO report. Scahill writes, "These soldiers have operated with almost no oversight or effective legal constraints and are an undeclared expansion of the scope of the occupation. Many of these contractors make up to $1,000 a day, far more than active-duty soldiers. What's more, these forces are politically expedient, as contractor deaths go uncounted in the official toll."
- Unsurprisingly, the idea of a Civilian Reserve Corps came from the multimillionaire who runs Blackwater, Eric Prince, two years ago. Prince is the man with the most influence behind the idea of repackaging mercenaries as legitimate forces. In early 2005, Prince, a heavy contributor to the Bush campaign and to Republican causes, pitched the idea at a military conference of a "contractor brigade" to supplement the official military. "There's consternation in the [Pentagon] about increasing the permanent size of the Army," Prince declared. Officials "want to add 30,000 people, and they talked about costs of anywhere from $3.6 billion to $4 billion to do that. Well, by my math, that comes out to about $135,000 per soldier. ...We could do it certainly cheaper."
- By any measure, Prince is an unusually powerful man. He has his own army, the Blackwater forces, who have a large, state-of-the-art military training camp, all "to fulfill the anticipated demand for government outsourcing." Scahill writes, "Today, its contacts run from deep inside the military and intelligence agencies to the upper echelons of the White House. It has secured a status as the elite Praetorian Guard for the global war on terror, with the largest private military base in the world, a fleet of 20 aircraft and 20,000 soldiers at the ready. From Iraq and Afghanistan to the hurricane-ravaged streets of New Orleans to meetings with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger about responding to disasters in California, Blackwater now envisions itself as the FedEx of defense and homeland security operations. Such power in the hands of one company, run by a neo-crusader bankroller of the president, embodies the 'military-industrial complex' President Eisenhower warned against in 1961."
- Scahill concludes, "Further privatizing the country's war machine -- or inventing new back doors for military expansion with fancy names like the Civilian Reserve Corps -- will represent a devastating blow to the future of American democracy." (Los Angeles Times)
Bush officials admit authorizing military attacks against Iranians in Iraq
- January 26: The Bush administration has authorized US troops to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran's influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program.
War with Iran
The administration also reveals that for over a year, US forces in Iraq have secretly detained dozens of suspected Iranian agents, holding them for three to four days at a time. The "catch and release" policy was designed to avoid escalating tensions with Iran and yet intimidate its emissaries. US forces collected DNA samples from some of the Iranians without their knowledge, subjected others to retina scans, and fingerprinted and photographed all of them before letting them go. Last summer, however, senior administration officials decided that a more confrontational approach was necessary, as Iran's regional influence grew and US efforts to isolate Tehran appeared to be failing. The country's nuclear work was advancing, US allies were resisting robust sanctions against the tehran government, and Iran was aggravating sectarian violence in Iraq. "There were no costs for the Iranians," says one senior administration official. "They are hurting our mission in Iraq, and we were bending over backwards not to fight back." - According to administration officials, around 150 Iranian intelligence officers, plus members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Command, are believed to be active inside Iraq at any given time. There is no evidence the Iranians have directly attacked US troops in Iraq, and administration officials have refused to give any evidence of Iranian operations inside Iraq. CIA director Michael Hayden says that Iran has been "embedding" operatives inside Iraq for three years, offering operational training, intelligence and weaponry to several Shi'ite militias connected to the Iraqi government, to the insurgency, and to the violence against Sunni factions. "Iran seems to be conducting a foreign policy with a sense of dangerous triumphalism," Hayden said in a recent appearance before Congress. But again, Hayden refused to offer any evidence of his claims.
- The new "kill or capture" program was authorized by Bush in a meeting of his most senior advisers last fall, along with other measures meant to curtail Iranian influence from Kabul to Beirut and, ultimately, to shake Iran's commitment to its nuclear efforts. The administration's plans contain five "theaters of interest," as one senior official puts it, with military, intelligence, political and diplomatic strategies designed to target Iranian interests across the Middle East. The White House has authorized a widening of what is known inside the intelligence community as the "Blue Game Matrix" -- a list of approved operations that can be carried out against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. And US officials are preparing international sanctions against tehran for holding several dozen al-Qaeda fighters who fled across the Afghan border in late 2001. They plan more aggressive moves to disrupt tehran's funding of the radical Palestinian group Hamas and to undermine Iranian interests among Shii'tes in western Afghanistan.
- In Iraq, US troops now have the authority to target any member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, as well as officers of its intelligence services believed to be working with Iraqi militias. The policy does not extend to Iranian civilians or diplomats. Though US forces are not known to have used lethal force against any Iranian to date, Bush administration officials have been urging top military commanders to exercise the authority, possibly in an attempt to foment war against Iran.
- Skeptics of the "Iranian connection" abound within both the State and Defense Departments, who say they worry it will push the growing conflict between tehran and Washington into the center of a chaotic Iraq war. Officials say that Hayden counseled Bush and his neoconservative, warhawk advisers to consider a list of potential consequences, including the possibility that the Iranians might seek to retaliate by kidnapping or killing US personnel in Iraq. In response to questions about the "kill or capture" authorization, Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the NSC, says, "The president has made clear for some time that we will take the steps necessary to protect Americans on the ground in Iraq and disrupt activity that could lead to their harm. Our forces have standing authority, consistent with the mandate of the UN Security Council."
- Officials say US and British special forces in Iraq, which will work together in some operations, are developing the program's rules of engagement to define the exact circumstances for using force. In his last few weeks as the top commander in Iraq, General George Casey sought to help coordinate the program on the ground. One official said Casey had planned to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a "hostile entity," a distinction within the military that would permit offensive action. Casey's designated successor, General David Petraeus, told Congress in writing this week that a top priority will be "countering the threats posed by Iranian and Syrian meddling in Iraq, and the continued mission of dismantling terrorist networks and killing or capturing those who refuse to support a unified, stable Iraq."
- The accusations against Iran go far beyond Iraq. Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, said in an interview in late October that the United States knows that Iran "is providing support to Hezbollah and Hamas and supporting insurgent groups in Iraq that have posed a problem for our military forces," adding, "In addition to the nuclear issue, Iran's support for terrorism is high up on our agenda." Again, Burns refused to offer any proof of his claims. Burns, the top Foreign Service officer in the State Department, has been leading diplomatic efforts to increase international pressure on the Iranians. Over several months, the administration made available five carefully selected political appointees for interviews, to discuss limited aspects of the policy, on the condition that they not be identified. Officials who spoke in more detail and without permission -- including senior officials, career analysts and policymakers -- say their standing with the White House would be at risk if they were quoted by name.
- The decision to use lethal force against Iranians inside Iraq began taking shape last summer, when Israel was at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Officials say a group of senior Bush administration officials who regularly attend the highest-level counterterrorism meetings agreed that the conflict provided an opening to portray Iran as a nuclear-ambitious link between al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and the death squads in Iraq. Among those involved in the discussions, beginning in August, were deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams, NSC counterterrorism adviser Juan Zarate, the head of the CIA's counterterrorism center, representatives from the Pentagon and the vice president's office, and outgoing State Department counterterrorism chief Henry Crumpton. While Bush was then proclaiming that his administration was emphasizing diplomacy as the preferred path for dealing with Iran, in private, diplomacy was the farthest thing from his mind. Bush officials have systematically pushed US military commanders to take more aggressive actions against Iran. "This has little to do with Iraq. It's all about pushing Iran's buttons. It is purely political," says a senior intelligence official. The official expresses similar views about other new efforts aimed at Iran, suggesting that the United States is escalating toward an unnecessary conflict to shift attention away from Iraq and to blame Iran for the United States' increasing inability to stanch the violence there. (Washington Post)
- January 26: Bush defies Congressional efforts to condemn his Iraq escalation plan, saying, "I'm the decision maker."
Iraq war and occupation
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Robert Gates warns that a proposed Senate resolution criticizing the deployment of additional troops would embolden the enemy. "Any indication of flagging will in the United States gives encouragement to those folks," Gates says. "I'm sure that that's not the intent behind the resolutions, but I think it may be the effect." At a retreat with House Republicans, Bush mocks Senate Democrats, telling the gathered Republicans that he finds it "ironic" that the same Senate Democrats who oppose his plan to send 21,500 more combat troops to Iraq would unanimously confirm Lieutenant General David Petraeus as the head of US forces in Iraq, when Petraeus helped design the escalation. Democrats respond angrily to Gates's comments, which were similar to what Petraeus said at his Tuesday hearing before his confirmation yesterday. "The American people will rightly dismiss these accusations as a desperate attempt by the administration to support a failed policy that is not worthy of the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform," says Senator Edward Kennedy. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer disputes Bush's suggestion that the Democrats have not come up with an alternative plan. Hoyer says the Democrats are united around the proposition that the United States should shift more responsibility to the Iraqis, begin a "phased redeployment" of troops and initiate more aggressive regional diplomacy to stabilize Iraq. - Bush is attempting to rally Republican lawmakers and keep them from signing on to any resolution that criticizes the president's new strategy in Iraq. By keeping down the number of Republican defections, the administration hopes to make any vote appear highly partisan and to buy Bush's new plan more time. Right now, the strategy by the White House and their Republican cohorts in Congress seems to be, according to Republican senators, to muddy the waters with a number of competing resolutions that could siphon support from a strong message of disapproval for Bush's plan. While Senate Democrats have adopted a resolution opposing the introduction of the additional troops, calling for more diplomacy and a regional peace effort, and demanding that US troops be deployed away from urban sectarian hotbeds to guard Iraq's borders, hunt down terrorists and train Iraqi security forces, Republican senator John Warner has introduced an alternative resolution, that calls for measurable benchmarks in Iraq but includes language accepting Bush's constitutional powers as commander in chief, leaves rhetorical room for additional troop deployments, and treats the fight with Sunni extremists in Anbar province as a matter separate from the sectarian violence in Baghdad. A third resolution, drafted by Republican senator John McCain, would establish strict benchmarks for the Iraqi government and the Bush administration to meet, but does not criticize the escalation. The best the White House seems to be able to hope for is what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calls a "smorgasbord" of resolutions that splits both parties and pulls senators in different directions.
- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the vote on the resolution will take place despite stiff administration lobbying and a filibuster threat from Senate Republicans. (Washington Post, CBS News)
- January 26: Richard Perle, a former Pentagon advisor with close ties to Dick Cheney, says that US Marines might be used in a strike against Iran.
War with Iran
Perle makes his statements during a raucous discussion held as part of a PBS documentary to be aired in April. Perle is repeatedly booed and hissed during his portion of the discussion. According to Salon blogger Alex Koppelman, the discussion leader showed a video of Perle saying that "it would be a mistake to send Marines to Iran, and that it was not being contemplated." Perle then said that the quote had been filmed several months earlier and that he "can't say [the same] now." This past Sunday, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported that Perle had said at a conference in Israel that Bush "will order an attack on Iran if it becomes clear to him that Iran is set to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities while he is still in office." Perle is quite close to Cheney and his office; Cheney's is the loudest voice pushing for a military confrontation with Iran. (Raw Story) - January 26: It is confirmed that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has fired a raft of US attorneys and replacing them with conservative loyalists from the Bush administration's inner circle.
US Attorney firings
While some of the new appointees have strong legal credentials, few if any have any ties to the communities they are representing, and many have no experience as prosecutors. All of the new appointees held high-level White House or Justice Department posts. Gonzales is using an obscure provision of the USA Patriot Act to avoid Senate confirmation hearings, instead appointing the new prosecutors as interim appointees for indefinite terms. Many legal experts believe that the administration pushed for the change in the Patriot Act as part of its ongoing attempt to expand the power of the executive branch, a charge that administration officials deny. Being named a US attorney "has become a prize for doing the bidding of the White House or administration," says Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor who's now a professor at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "In the past, there had been a great deal of delegation to the local offices. Now, you have a consolidation of power in Washington." Obviously, the new appointees' loyalties lay primarily with the Bush administration, and cannot be relied upon to aggressively pursue criminal cases against Bush friends or officials. - Traditionally, the top assistant US attorney in each local office temporarily fills any vacancy while home-state senators search for preferred candidates to present to the White House for consideration. If it takes more than four months to find a permanent successor, a judge can extend the temporary appointment or name another acting US attorney. Ultimately, the candidates must be confirmed by the Senate. Gonzales gained the ability to appoint interim US attorneys for indefinite terms as a result of a change to the Patriot Act that stripped federal judges of their appointment power.
- Since last March, the administration has named at least nine U.S. attorneys with administration ties. They include:
- Tim Griffin, 37, the US attorney for Arkansas, who was an aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove and a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
- Rachel Paulose, 33, the US attorney for Minnesota, who served briefly as a counselor to the deputy attorney general and who, according to a former boss, has been a member of the secretive, ideologically conservative Federalist Society.
- Jeff Taylor, 42, the US attorney in Washington, D.C., who was an aide to Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and worked as a counselor to Gonzales and to former Attorney General John Ashcroft.
- John Wood, US attorney in Kansas City, who is the husband of Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Julie Myers and an ex-deputy general counsel of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
- Deborah Rhodes, 47, the US attorney in Mobile, Ala., who was a Justice Department counselor.
- Alexander Acosta, 37, the US attorney in Miami, who was an assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil rights division and a protege of conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
- John Richter, 43, the US attorney in Oklahoma City, who was the chief of staff for the Justice Department's criminal division and acting assistant attorney general.
- Edward McNally, the US attorney in southern Illinois, who was a senior associate counsel to Bush.
- Matt Dummermuth, the US attorney in Iowa, who was a Justice Department civil rights lawyer.
- In the wake of the recent firings of numerous US attorneys, Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein and Democratic House member John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, have filed bills that would restore to federal judges the right to name interim appointees when vacancies develop. Republican senator Arlen Specter, whose office has confirmed that he surreptitiously inserted language making the change in the Patriot Act last year, gave his qualified support to Feinstein's bill. "One of the strengths of any administration towards the end of their time in office is having highly experienced people in place," says Tom Heffelfinger, the former US attorney in Minneapolis who voluntarily resigned and was replaced by Paulose. "It helps things function really smoothly, and you get your priorities handled aggressively and efficiently." (McClatchy News)
- January 26: CBS's chief foreign correspondent, Lara Logan, says that CBS and other mainstream American media outlets are continuing to air only "sanitized" and government-friendly reporting from Iraq, and that the situation is far more chaotic, violent, and dire, especially in Baghdad, than the US media consumer is led to believe.
Media manipulation and marketing by GOP
Logan has recently compiled a gritty story she calls "Battle for Haifa Street" that CBS refused to air, but merely posted on its Web site. In response, Logan sends out an e-mail to friends and colleagues asking for their help in lobbying CBS to air the piece. She calls it "a story that is largely being ignored even though this is taking place everysingle [sic] day in Baghdad, two blocks from where our office is located." The piece includes interviews with Iraqi civilians who complain that the US military presence is only making their lives worse and the situation more deadly. "They told us they would bring democracy, they promised life would be better than it was under Saddam," one told Logan. "But they brought us nothing but death and killing. They brought mass destruction to Baghdad." Logan's piece includes footage of dead bodies, "some with obvious signs of torture," as she points out. She also notes that her crew had to flee for their lives when they we were warned of an impending attack. While fleeing, another civilian was killed before their eyes. Logan says that her story is "not too gruesome to air, but rather too important to ignore.... It should be seen. And people should know about this." - When the media watchdog site MediaChannel contacted CBS about the Logan piece, CBS spokewoman Sandy Genelius responded that Logan's segment was not broadcast because "the Executive Producer of the Evening News thought some of the images in it were a bit strong plus on that day the program was already packed with other Iraq news." Genelius also attempts to paint Logan as a "passionate" reporter who merely wants her work broadcast. (MediaChannel [links to video and Logan's original e-mail])
- January 26: Liberal blogger P.M. Carpenter reminds fellow progressives that it is a mistake to throw their unfettered support to Republican senator Chuck Hagel, who may mount an outsider campaign for the Republican nomination for president.
2008 presidential elections
Outside of Hagel's outspoken opposition to the Iraq war, Hagel is an unreconstructed, unrepentant conservative. Carpenter lists Hagel's conservative qualifications:- Hagel voted for a Constitutional ban on flag desecration; prohibiting lawsuits against gun manufacturers; for limiting medical liability lawsuits; reauthorizing the USA Patriot Act; and for a permanent repeal of the estate tax.
- Hagel votes against a $100 million subsidy to reduce teen pregnancy by education and contraceptives; against repealing tax subsidies for companies that move US jobs overseas; against shifting $118 billion from corporate tax loopholes to education; against banning drilling in Alaska's ANWAR wildlife refuge; against funding the National Endowment for the Arts; against the 1997 McCain-Feingold overhaul of campaign finance; and voted against raising the minimum wage to $7.25/hour.
- Hagel gets a 0% rating from NARAL, which indicates a hardline anti-abortion stance. He gets an anemic 36% rating by the NEA on education issues. He gets a 0% rating from the League of Conservation Voters for his hardline resistance on environmental protection. He gets a 12% rating from the American Public Health Association. He gets a lowly 8% rating from the AFL-CIO for his stance against labor and unions. And he gets a 22% rating from the Alliance of Retired Americans for his opposition to helping the elderly.
- Hagel is rated at 100% by the Christian Coalition. He gets an A rating from the NRA.
- Overall, he votes 90% on conservative voting issues, and votes with Bush 95% of the time.
