October 2003: Week One: This Far and No Further

Back to October 2003 | On to October 2003: Week Two

October: After a second tense visit by International Red Cross officials to the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, the ICRC issues a harsh report complaining of inhumane treatment of prisoners, and for failing to process and release prisoners who do not belong in such a high-security facility.
Terrorism detainees and "enemy combatants"
The report also criticizes the lack of progress in establishing a legal system for processing detainees, and complains that excessive isolation and physical abuse is rampant through the facility. Base commandant Major General Geoffrey Miller brusquely tells the ICRC representatives that "interrogation techniques was not their concern, and denies that isolation or any other questionable methodologies are being used to force information from prisoners. (During the Senate hearings about Abu Ghraib, it is revealed that Miller was given the authority by the Pentagon to use a number of illegal interrogation techniques, including sleep deprivation, exposure to extremes of cold and heat, and placing prisoners in what are euphemistically called "stress positions" for agonizing lengths of time.) The ICRC's Christophe Girod says that far too many prisoners in Guantanamo are being kept for years after it is obvious that they are not terrorists, are no threat to the US, and have no useful information. Girod says that he is making these statements public because the Bush administration has been unresponsive to ICRC complaints. In May 2004, one FBI official reveals that the agency had instructed its agents not to be present during interrogations, because the severe and possibly illegal methods used to extract information would not be acceptable in court and could prejudice any criminal proceedings. The official says, "I thought Rumsfeld should have been fired long ago." (Seymour Hersh)

California governor recall attempt begins

October: House Republican Darrell Issa of California spends $1.7 million of his personal fortune to bankroll a recall election aimed at unseating Democratic governor Gray Davis.
California recall elections
Issa attempts to replace Davis with himself, but is blindsided by fellow Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, who uses his movie-star status to become the Republican front-runner in the recall. Issa eventually drops out of the contest. Schwarzenegger, who claims to be a "moderate" Republican but has close ties to the Bush administration, uses Californians' anger over spiking energy costs and rolling blackouts, which were actually engineered by companies such as Enron with the blessing of the Bush administration, to defeat Davis in the recall election. Schwarzenegger quickly becomes one of the GOP's most popular and visible figures, and immediately begins implementing draconian budget cuts that have their largest negative impact on California's poor and working classes.
The California energy crisis and Enron debacle give strong reasons for the White House to quietly use its resources to push for Schwarzenegger's candidacy and Davis's recall. Enron, having stolen $9 billion from the state, faces the likelihood of having to return the money under California's Unfair Business Practices Act; lieutenant governor Cruz Bustamente has already filed the paperwork. Enron's alternative proposal: plead guilty and pay two cents on the dollar in fines, a payout of merely $180 million. Davis will not countenance such a deal, but on May 17, 2001, Schwarzenegger met with Enron CEO Ken Lay, along with convicted junk-bond magnate Michael Milken, at Los Angeles's Peninsula Hotel, and agreed to not only run against Davis, but let Enron off the hook if elected. This story will be broken four days before the October 3 election by investigative journalist Greg Palast, and sourced by internal memos from Enron. The mainstream media ignores the story entirely.
Schwarzenegger will be dogged throughout the campaign by stories of his serial adulteries, his groping and harassment of unwilling victims, his connection with famed "madam" Heidi Fleiss, and allegations that he has fathered an out-of-wedlock child on a California woman, Tammy Baker-Tousignant. (Pensito Review, Salon, National Enquirer/Neil Rogers, Amy and David Goodman, Mark Crispin Miller)
October: Superfund, the huge, industry-funded toxic cleanup fund, officially goes broke.
Global warming and the environment
In 1995, the Republican-led Congress refused to reauthorize the tax on polluters to pay for Superfund, and since then the fund has seen its assets dwindle from $3.8 billion to zero. Worse, the Bush administration has refused to release half of the year's $450 million allocated for cleaning up toxic sites. Taxpayers are now funding the program by themselves, and the future of Superfund looks grim. (Eric Alterman and Mark Green)
October: In Iraq, David Kay, the head of the US teams hunting -- and not finding -- Iraq's supposed WMD stockpiles, gets a phone call from Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby.
Iraq war and occupation
Libby tells Kay he should check out a particular site that he and Cheney believe might hold WMDs. Libby gives Kay the geocoordinates. Kay checks a map, and finds that the supposed WMD dump is in the center of Lebanon. "That's where we're going next," cracks one of Kay's staffers.
Soon after, Kay is told he will meet with Iranian arms broker Manucher Ghorbanifar. "I recognize this one," Kay says. "This one I'm not going to do." Ghorbanifar had been the Iranian middleman for Reagan's people during the Iran-Contra gunrunning scandal; he had been terminated as a CIA source in 1983 for proven unreliability, called by CIA analysts a "talented fabricator." Ghorbanifar is claiming to have an Iranian source who has details about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, but the source wants $2 million before he will speak, and will only talk through Ghorbanifar. Kay knows that Ghorbanifar is trying to set him up. Kay finds out that Ghorbanifar is working through Michael Ledeen, a former NSC colleage of the equally discredited Oliver North, and now an American Enterprise Institute scholar. Ledeen is a radical ideologue with little grasp of the truth and little integrity. Kay cables the CIA saying that unless he has direct orders to meet with Ghorbanifar, he isn't going to do it. The request is dropped. Like the Lebanese "WMD site," the Ghorbanifar meeting stems from Dick Cheney's increasingly wild attempts to analyze intelligence for himself and singlehandedly find the WMDs he still insists are there. (Bob Woodward)
October: Former ConocoPhillips oil magnate Rob McKee replaces Richard Carroll as the unofficial oil industry representative (and administrator) of Iraq's own oil industry.
Oil profiteering and the "oiligarchy"
Further information on Carroll's and McKee's tenures in Iraq, and the foiled plans to break up and sell off Iraq's oil industry, can be found in the long writeup of March 19, 2003, following the entry about the invasion of Iraq. (Greg Palast)

October 1: Bush signs into law a new funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security.
Anti-terrorism and homeland security
It includes $4.2 billion for first-responder programs, $9 billion for border protection and $5.2 billion for the Transportation Security Agency and the Federal Air Marshal Program, among other provisions. A task force chaired by former senator Warren Rudman and former terrorism chief Richard Clarke concludes that the money the bill provides for the nation's first-responders is barely a third of what is required to adequately ensure the protection of the nation. (New York Times, Council on Foreign Relations)
October 1: Reporters inform former ambassador Joseph Wilson that they were told by White House advisor Karl Rove that Wilson's wife was "fair game" after Wilson blew the whistle on the Bush administration (actually, Wilson was informed of this weeks earlier, but the press is just now learning of it).
Plame outing
"What I have confidence in -- based upon what respectable press people in this town have told me -- is that a week after the Novak article came out, Karl Rove was still calling around and talking to press people, saying Wilson's wife is fair game. ...The gist of the message, as it was reported back to me right after the phone call, was 'I just got off the phone with Karl Rove. He tells me your wife is fair game.'" Writer Jim Hightower, a veteran of Texas politics, adds, "No kind of political action like this is going to be taken without Rove's office putting the stamp of approval on it. ...He may not have made the actual phone calls, but that's irrelevant." Former Clinton communications aide Larry Haas observes, "This is not a normal leak, this is scorched-earth politics. This kind of strategic decision is taken at a very senior level." It is later confirmed that one of the reporters contacted by Rove was MSNBC's Chris Matthews. (ABC, Observer, Washington Post)
October 1: As John Ashcroft's Department of Justice continues to investigate the CIA leak that exposed a senior operative,
Plame outing
Ashcroft continues to resist the appointment of a special counsel to independently investigate the incident. Ashcroft had a very different take in 1997, when he called for an independent counsel to investigate whether then-Vice President Gore used a government phone in his fund-raising efforts. The Internet site Talk Left hunts down a quote from an October 4, 1997 interview with Ashcroft on CNN's Evans and Novak show where he expresses his belief that even a single perceived impropriety must be answered with an independent investigation: "The truth of the matter is that if the law's been violated, we should be able to ascertain that. We can, if we have an independent person without a conflict of interest.... ...[A] single allegation can be most worthy of a special prosecutor. If you're abusing government property, if you're abusing your status in office, it can be a single fact that makes the difference on that." Congressional Democrats begin stepping up the pressure on Ashcroft to recuse himself, noting that Karl Rove, a potential target of the investigation, once did campaign work for Ashcroft. (Talk Left, Michael Isikoff and David Corn)
October 1: Conservative columnist Robert Novak writes a column defending his outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson.
Plame outing
He denies that his column was the result of a "planned leak," all evidence to the contrary, and says that if the CIA had not wanted him to reveal her name, he would not have done so. Novak fails to mention that CIA spokesman Bill Harlow asked him not to reveal Plame's name several days before he submitted his column. He notes that her name is listed in Who's Who in America, but fails to note that she is listed as a private "energy analyst" and not as a CIA employee. He tells a bald-faced lie, saying that a CIA source had told him that Plame was an analyst and not a covert employee. He also alleges that "It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA," another lie -- the only ones who knew, besides Plame's husband and her colleagues at the CIA, were the White House officials who bandied her name to the press, and the handful of reporters, including Novak, who had been given her name as part of the White House's orchestrated smear attempt against Plame and Wilson.
After reading Novak's column, one of Novak's two sources, deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, becomes worried. "I'm sure he's talking about me," he tells his boss, Colin Powell. Armitage is visibly upset, but Powell wonders if Novak could be talking about someone else. (Novak declines to identify his sources -- Armitage and Karl Rove -- to either Powell or Washington insider Ken Duberstein, who had helped set up the meeting between Armitage and Novak in which Armitage revealed Plame's identity.) Still, Powell brings in the State Department's top lawyer, William Howard Taft IV, to debrief Armitage. Taft realizes that the only legal course of action is for Armitage to reveal himself as Novak's source to the Justice Department investigators. Taft also feels obligated to inform the White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, but Taft doesn't mention Armitage by name. He asks Gonzales if he wants to know details -- Gonzales says he does not. It is just the answer Taft wants. Armitage's role in Plamegate will remain secret for now.
On October 2, FBI agents and a Justice Department prosecutor interview Armitage at his office. Taft sits in on the session. Armitage admits that he is one of Novak's sources for Plame, but experiences sudden and puzzling memory losses with other questions. He can't remember who told him Plame was a covert CIA agent. He can't remember realizing that the INR memo he discussed with Novak being classified as secret. And he forgot to mention that he had told Bob Woodward about Plame's identity days before discussing the same matter with Novak; he will later claim to have forgotten that, too. (Michael Isikoff and David Corn)
October 1: The reporters who were also told about Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a covert CIA agent, but who, unlike Novak, had the integrity not to report it, find themselves in a dilemma.
Plame outing
They know the White House is lying in their claims of uninvolvement in outing Plame. Scott McClellan has said repeatedly that Karl Rove isn't involved, but Time reporters Matthew Cooper, John Dickerson, Michael Duffy, and others know that Rove tipped off Cooper about "Wilson's wife" being a CIA agent. They also know that Lewis Libby confirmed Plame's identity. (Novak, of course, knows it as well, but he cannot be expected to conduct himself with journalistic integrity.) In a Time cover story about the allegations, the reporters, with the approval of editor Duffy, include no rebuttals from any of its knowledgeable reporters of McClellan's denials about Rove's involvement. Duffy later says he made the decision not to reveal their knowledge about Rove because of what he calls a commitment to "higher journalistic standards," but never explains what journalistic standards he and Time are upholding. According to Duffy, none of the reporters objected to the exclusions in the article. Meanwhile, White House press secretary Scott McClellan is still staunchly denying any involvement in the leak by Rove.
The article does hint at the journalistic dilemma faced by Duffy and Time, when it says, "[A]ny reporter who might have learned Plame's name in a leak is duty bound to shut up about it, even to federal investigators, if the situation comes to that." The story notes the irony of "the administration [having to rely] upon journalists' rectitude. In the prelude to and particularly in the aftermath of the war, Bush's aides at times questioned the patriotism of the press: that some of those officials may now be depending on the silence of the media in the face of a national-security investigation made some Bush allies uncomfortable."
At the same time, Libby sends McClellan his own talking points for McClellan to use in discussing Libby's role in outing Plame. "I've talked to Libby," McClellan is to say. "I said it was ridiculous about Karl. And it is ridiculous about Libby." McClellan repeats Libby's talking points word for word to the press. As for Bush, he tries to turn the accusations back on the reporters themselves: "I have no idea whether we'll find out who the leaker is -- partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers."
Legally, the reporters have little ground to stand upon, especially in light of a federal investigation. The tug-of-war between sources and reporters is well known -- both sides have agendas, both sides are free to use the other to push the information they desire to be released to the public. The shield laws protecting reporters from naming their sources have strict limitations. And the Justice Department has become quite aggressive in pursuing leaks, with FBI agents and DOJ investigators becoming increasingly enamoured of using subpoenas to force reporters to reveal their sources. And veteran FBI agent Jack Eckenrode is ready to break new ground.
Eckenrode, put in charge of the Plame leak, first speaks with Robert Novak, who had staunchly told his Meet the Press interviewer, Tim Russert, on October 5, that he would leave journalism rather than give up his source. What he doesn't tell Russert is that he has already agreed to meet with Eckenrode. (Novak's lawyer had warned him that he would have no legal basis for refusing to testify before a grand jury, and that such defiance could not only land him in jail, but subject him to paying steep legal costs. Apparently, the monetary interest outweighs Novak's problematic commitment to journalistic integrity.) On October 7, Novak speaks with Eckenrode. Eckenrode already knows, from State Department attorney William Taft, that one of Novak's sources is Richard Armitage. He doesn't need Novak to give up his source, yet. Instead, he wants to know how Valerie Plame Wilson's role was reported to him, without giving up names. Novak complies. For three years, Novak and his lawyers refuse to admit that Novak cooperated with the FBI. While other reporters battle subpoenas, refuse to cooperate, and even go to jail, Novak, who wrote the article outing Plame, remains above the fray. Many figure that Novak has already cooperated, but cannot prove it. (Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Frank Rich [PDF file])
October 1: Former CIA agent Philip Agee, who has written several books exposing the CIA's illegal involvement in Latin America and other areas of the world,
Plame outing
calls the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson "dirty politics." "This is entirely different than what I was doing in the 1970s," says Agee. "This is purely dirty politics in my opinion." The disclosure that the ambassador's wife was a CIA operative was "a cheap shot made because [Wilson] picked a hole in that pack of lies justifying the war." Agee says that he disclosed the identities of his former CIA colleagues to "weaken the instrument for carrying out the policy of supporting military dictatorships" in Greece, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. Those regimes "were supported by the CIA and the human cost was immense: torture, executions, death squads." The Bush administration's outing of Plame is nothing more than an act of political revenge, he says. (Guardian)
October 1: Mark Etherington assumes his duties as the British Governorate Coordinator for the Iraqi province of Wasit, in south-central Iraq.
Iraq war and occupation
Etherington was brought up in Kuwait and Qatar, and has extensive military and diplomatic experience in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia. Etherington will write a revealing memoir of his time in Iraq entitled Revolt on the Tigris, which culminates in the al-Sadr uprising and the CPA's "midnight abdication" of power. Etherington is an interesting observer of his small portion of the Iraqi occupation; although not a Middle East expert, he knows much more about the various Islamic and Arab cultures than most of the American and British officials he works with, and often finds their willful ignorance to be crippling others' honest efforts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure and establish some sort of democratic government. He observes that the biggest problem with establishing democracy in Iraq is that the Iraqis have no tradition of such, and instead prefer the familiar feudal system of centralized authority and local patronage which has been the paradigm for generations.
Wasit province is, like so many other areas of Iraq, in dire shape: electrical power was intermittent and off more often than on, and "[s]ewage flowed unchecked in the streets, and collected in ponds in the low ground between the houses and mud shanty dwellings of the city, oozing black-green and bubbling in the heat." Trash lies everywhere, with no one to collect it. Black-market gasoline is offered at every intersection; chaos reigns at the fuel stations. There seem to be an enormous number of Iraqi police, but they rarely intervene to arrest criminals or bring even a semblance of order; "[w]orse, there was plenty of evidence that they were directly implicated in criminal activity." For all intents and purposes, there is no real police presence in the capital city: "we were now witnessing an unprecedented test of the limits of social cohesion." Of the Iraqi police, he says they are worse than useless: "one might as well burn a million dollars as buy equipment for the police in their present state. It was hard to imagine a body of men less viable for law enforcement." His operations journal entries from October 9 contain the following margin notes: "Oh God," and "This is a complete nightmare."
Etherington is dismayed at the lack of personnel with which to, in his words, "impose the will of the [CPA] on the population while transition was effected." His experience in Kosovo with early seizure of civil initiative informed Etherington that he and his fellow CPA coordinators would need thousands of civilian experts, with offices in virtually every town and village, to quickly impose a peaceful transition upon Iraq. Instead, the US Defense Department had decided that the military squadrons already in place would be sufficient. In Wasit, the troops who are tasked to work with the Iraqis in establishing a new social concordance are 1600 Ukrainians, none of whom speak any Iraqi languages and few of whom know anything at all about Iraqi society and customs. Etherington says with typical understatement, "It seemed unlikely at first sight that a Ukrainian unit would possess sufficient experience of civil-military operations to undertake complex governance tasks effectively." And indeed, though the Ukrainian commanders and officers are uniformly gracious and helpful towards Etherington and his staff, there are many, many tasks that they and their troops are simply unable to perform. He writes, "I was told privately...that merely to establish a permanent presence by Christmas would be regarded as a success, though I was determined to do better than that." He notes that "Military presence is not of itself security, and we took no particular comfort from the Ukrainians at our gate. Such a presence can be counter-productive by being subtly delusive, allowing a civilian organization [the CPA] to abrogate responsibility for itself, perhaps subconsciously, to others, based on a purely subjective appreciation of capability."
Ethrington, with his experience in Kosovo and Northern Ireland, realizes that the CPA is failing to provide for the camp's security by relying solely on the Ukrainians, who despite their competence as soldiers, aren't trained to provide the kind of security the camp requires. To make things worse, Etherington and his staff have virtually no access to US or British military intelligence reports of conditions in their area, nor could they request intelligence gathering efforts when they were given evidence of direct threats against the camp. "This became increasingly frustrating, particularly when our experience and knowledge of the province had begun to eclipse that of the military...." And of course, KBR proves itself worthless again (see below), refusing to build the walls and emplacements that the camp needed. Eventually, instead of arguing endlessly with recalcitrant KBR officials, Etherington hired a bulldozer to create chicanes and earth ramps, and built a rude helicopter landing pad when KBR again refused to do so. Etherington even hired a team of locals to fix up the inside of the villa that serves as their command post, as once again KBR declared itself unable to do the job.
Etherington is also dismayed at the role of the US military in replacing the autocracy of Hussein with a more palatable democracy: "It was extraordinary, to British eyes at least, that here was a major foreign commitment for the US being managed almost exclusively by the Department of Defense rather than the State Department, which one might have assumed to have the requisite regional knowledge, political expertise and language skills," he writes. "This seemed counter-intuitive, and one would ordinarily imagine that so complex and risky a commitment as the 2003 foray into iraq would not have been allowed to become the subject of what appeared to be inter-departmental wrangling within the US government. And from what I had seen in my short time in Iraq, the British had not sent their Arabists. ...It was clear that the experts were not, in the main, here -- partly because such people commanded good salaries without having to come to come to a country which promised an unusually high security risk; and arguably because the American-led Coalition, buoyed by perceived military success against a regime once seen as an intractable international problem, felt that it had no need of advice."
Along with governance concerns come security worries (as seen above). It has been less than two months since the bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad, effectively ending that body's presence in Iraq and bringing home the dearth of real security for Coalition officials as well as troops. Britain found it difficult to find enough foreign service and diplomatic experts to fill the needs, especially when the British refused to compel service in Iraq for its civil servants, but instead relied on volunteers. Etherington writes that the tension between the twin tasks of physical and political reconstruction and providing security for Coalition personnel was irresolvable. Etherington's people were forced to work without an American or British military unit on whom to call in an emergency. Especially considering the overall CPA attitude of "let the military handle it," Etherington and his staff were often left to handle problems and situations far beyond their (and their Ukrainian colleagues') capabilities. He describes the situation in the small British administrative offices at the beginning of his tenure as "chaotic."
Etherington is particularly disturbed to note that he has no rule-of-law expert on hand to work with the Iraqi police and courts. "Without the rule of law, it is very difficult to initiate civil reform," he writes, "and the tenets of Occupation Law were unlikely to prove a suitable remedy in the long term." He is informed that the military will serve as law enforcement personnel, "which I thought a curious notion -- one generally tries to separate the law from the gun in the public mind because such connotations are counter-productive. While we were clearly an invasion force turned occupiers, labels which no amount of sophistry could disinvent, we clearly needed to rebrand ourselves at some point." Such "rebranding" has yet to take place.
Etherington also notes the role of private corporate entities in handling logistics: "The end of the war in Iraq had heralded the coming of the sub-contractor," he writes. "In almost every sphere of CPA endeavor a contractor loomed large. Some wielded considerable responsibilities, and the Halliburton contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) was perhaps the most striking example of this. KBR was contracted to provide 'life support' to both the CPA and the military; this entailed all contracting work, all catering, the supply of all items from swimming pools to lavatory paper, and the hiring and supervision of local staff. It was a bold idea, and removed at a stroke a major logistical problem for what remained a small civilian operation when compared to its military counterpart. Yet logistics, in the end, underpins strategy, and the fact that this important responsibility had been allocated outside the tactical command of the CPA was to have important repercussions, not least because the thoroughly impressive Halliburton people of my youth had not, in general and to my great regret, come to Iraq either." KBR proves to be a bitter disappointment to Ethrington, particularly when he discovers KBR refuses to operate anywhere outside the perimeter of the Ukrainian base where its provincial office is based. Ethrington insists that both the military and the civilian support services need to be visible in the community, and accessible by the community, but the KBR officials are balky.
He writes, "In the final analysis what we faced was fear -- most KBR staff were institutionally unwilling to leave the wire and did so only rarely. This in turn stemmed from a lack of understanding of Iraq and its people that...I [was] to encounter again and again -- in their eyes the fighting in the Sunni triangle was symptomatic of a widespread and general hatred of America and its motives, and Iraq was a fearsome place in which lurked shapeless and often unquantifiable dangers. Sadly this reflex of suspicion and mistrust often resulted in self-fulfulling prophecy as we missed the chance to exploit early opposition." The CPA provides Etherington's staff with virtually no operating budget, instead mandating KBR to "perform all the functions that would normally require expenditure. Yet, as rapidly transpired, KBR was often unable or unwilling to perform these tasks, and we ran the risk of being paralyzed until this could be solved. ...KBR presented, in its recalcitrance, an endless array of problems. The food was delivered erratically, always unpalatable and often cold."
The Coalition, especially the Americans, possesses an "almost visceral suspicion of Islam; and a similarly dark and instinctive fear of the ungovernable and bloody religion-based violence that seemed to lurk like a contagion in the mosques and winding alleyways of Baghdad and Iraq's southern cities. [Radical Shi'ite cleric] Moqtada al-Sadr now seemed to embody those fears." As of Etherington's arrival, the CPA has not yet proscribed dealings with Sadr's lieutenants and followers in the provinces, but the CPA is wary of Sadr. They believe Sadr has already established secret courts following strict Islamic law (sharia) in Najaf, and are sure he has put together a militia called Jaish al-Madhi. Etherington wishes he could deal with Sadr, but Sadr is implacable in his hostility towards those who have occupied his country; on the other hand, dealing with the far more moderate Grand Ayatollah Sistani is also impossible, as Sistani conscientiously refuses to have anything to do with secular politics (though Sistani's aides do meet occasionally with Etherington, and are quite helpful).
Of the effect of Iraq's status as a completely subjugated country on its citizenry, Etherington writes, "Defeat of this kind seems absolute when one sees it at close quarters, and I was never to meet an Iraqi in whom there was no ambivalence about the conquest of his country, regardless of his feelings about Saddam Hussein."
Etherington continues, "In retrospect it is clear that we were spread thin and not expecting opposition. We were not properly configured as an occupation force, and credible military power is an indispensable prerequisite if one is to re-fashion a regime, particularly one as deeply rooted as the Ba'ath Party. Civil-military command arrangements in theatre were opaque, and distances large. The majority of CPA personnel did not have armored vehicles, and a number, including many of my American civilian colleagues, either completely lacked protective flak jackets or the ceramic plates that turned them into bullet-proof, rather than anti-fragmentation, vests. There were insufficient troops in theatre, and the looting and violence that had dogged the early weeks of occupation had given the impression of systemic weakness. This was exacerbated by the attempt to broaden the membership of the Coalition; each new contingent, no matter how competent its individuals, further complicated an already complex and varied command structure. At local level there were simply too many organizations in the command chain, each with its own discrete security policy and hierarchy over which, ultimately, the CPA had scant control. All these things would return to haunt us." (Mark Etherington)

Kay's team finds no WMDs

October 2: Chief US weapons searcher David Kay reports to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees that his teams have found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, sparking fresh outrage from Congress and around the globe.
Iraq war and occupation
Kay says that his teams did find some evidence that Iraq may have been trying to create a small biological weapons program (much of this assertion is based on the discovery of a vial of botulism toxin at an Iraqi scientist's home), and was trying to extend the range of its ballistic missiles beyond prohibited ranges. Evidence of a nuclear weapons effort was "very rudimentary at best," and what little evidence of a chemical weapons program shows that the effort was, at best, embryonic. Kay reports that before the invasion, "[o]ur understanding of the status of Iraq's WMD program was always bounded by large uncertainties and had to be heavily caveated." This is a direct contradiction to Bush's statement in his speech of March 17, two days before the invasion, when he said, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal" weapons of mass destruction. Apparently there was a great deal of doubt.
Kay also reports that so far, the evidence collected shows that Hussein's nuclear program began and ended with the mere desire to possess such weapons. Kay notes that even had Iraq begun a nuclear program, it would have taken at least five to seven years to get it up and running. Kay also reports that his team found no proof that Hussein tried to obtain uranium from Niger; in fact, another African nation offered to sell uranium to Iraq, but no evidence exists that Iraq considered the offer. Kay continues, "Our efforts to collect and exploit intelligence on Iraq's chemical weapons program have thus far yielded little reliable information on post-1991 CW stocks and CW agent production, although we continue to receive and follow leads related to such stocks." This contradicts administration statements before the war that repeatedly asserted Iraq possessed chemical weapons and the wherewithal to deliver them. Kay says that his efforts are not concluded, and that he needs six to nine months and $600 million to finish the search. Bush administration officials, joined by British foreign minister Jack Straw and Australian PM John Howard, insist that Kay has uncovered enough evidence to justify the overthrow of the Hussein regime, but critics in Congress say that Kay's report proves that Hussein posed no imminent threat to the US, and that further diplomacy could have headed off the need for military intervention. Senator Jay Rockefeller says it was extraordinary that a decision was made to go to war when so little evidence was available: "You just don't make decisions like we do and put our nation's youth at risk based upon something that appears not to have existed."
Kay had spent two weeks writing his report out of an office at the CIA, and had shared his draft reports with both George Tenet and John McLaughlin. Neither are happy. Tenet keeps insisting that Kay must have missed finding the chemical weapons stockpiles. McLaughlin doesn't want to accept Kay's findings that the infamous aluminum tubes are not part of a nuclear program. But Kay remains unmoved.
Bush brushes off criticism of his administration, and grossly mischaracterizes Kay's report, saying that Hussein was a "danger to the world" and therefore needed deposing. "Iraq's WMD programs spanned more than two decades, involved thousands of people, billions of dollars, and was elaborately shielded by security and deception operations that continued even beyond the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom. That is what the report said. ....He's saying Saddam Hussein was a threat, a serious danger." He also says that Kay has discovered evidence that Hussein's regime was in violation of UN resolutions, even though no weapons or weapons programs have been discovered. Bush bases this assessment on the discovery of a single vial of botulism toxin in an Iraqi scientist's home; the vial is over 10 years old and was never used to develop any strains of toxins. Senator Edward Kennedy says after Kay briefs the Senate, "All I can say is I didn't believe there was an imminent threat to the United States when we went to war and I'm more convinced than ever listening to him that there was never a threat." Republicans, predictably, toe the line with Bush. "Dr. Kay and his group have clearly found significant evidence to support that Saddam Hussein, right up to the beginning of this war, was in violation of the UN resolutions as it regards weapons of mass destruction," says Senator John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking at a political lunch in Malvern, Pennsylvania., says, "[T]here's no question in my mind...Saddam was guilty of what we said he was guilty of and that the action the president ordered in Iraq was exactly the right thing to do." Bush responds, "sometimes the American people like the decisions I make, sometimes they don't. But they need to know I'll make tough decisions based upon what I think is right."
"The president's response raised the question of what, if anything, the administration learned from the failure to find significant quantities of WMDs in Iraq. Any president depends heavily on his staff for the vetting of intelligence and a reasonable summary and analysis of the world's day-to-day events. The ultimate authority in the White House for such issues lies with the President's national security advisor -- in this case, Condoleezza Rice." According to a former White House official, "Maybe the Secretary of Defense and his people are short-circuiting the process, and creating a separate channel to the Vice President. Still, at the end of the day, all the policies have to be hashed out in the interagency process, led by the national security advisor. [What happened instead] was a real abdication of responsibility by Condi." (ABC, MSNBC, BBC, Chicago Tribune, The Nation, Eric Alterman and Mark Green, Seymour Hersh, Michael Isikoff and David Corn)

"This is precisely how a discredited forgery about enriched uranium is transformed into proof that Iraq is building a nuclear weapon. This is how CIA dismissals of a link between Saddam and Osama bin Laden -- dismissals backed by investigation and expert analysis -- are made to disappear because they inconveniently contradict policy. This is how hype, exaggeration and distortion can be used to alter reality, right out where everyone can see it."
-- Jeff Bookman, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

October 2: On the heels of the Kay report, the Bush administration asks Congress for $600 million to continue the search for Iraqi WMDs.
Iraq war and occupation
Interestingly, the administration insists that the cost of previous and ongoing searches for such WMDs remain secret and without oversight. The $600 million is part of the $87 billion package requested by the administration for Iraqi reconstruction. (Stephen Pizzo/Daily Misleader, New York Times/Truthout)
October 2: The CIA leak of information about prewar intelligence gathering for Iraq, and the following inquiry, is an outgrowth of the long and bitter rift between competing forces in the administration.
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
On one side are the intelligence professionals, particularly CIA analysts and operations officers who believe that data about Iraq's weapons programs was deliberately hyped and distorted by the Bush administration in the months before the war, against officials at the White House and Pentagon who have long felt the CIA is too cautious to suit the needs of the current administration. For the analysts and officers, the conflict revolves around principles that they consider central to their work, including the need to produce independent assessments of foreign threats that are uncontaminated by the policy views of top officials at the White House, State Department and Pentagon. "I think what is going on is that the career intelligence officers, the operators and the analysts, are fighting to preserve their special status as professional, nonpartisan intelligence officers," says a senior former CIA official. "I think a lot of them are very angry at the way the Pentagon has tried to bully them and pressure them into reaching certain conclusions on Iraq. This leak case is symptomatic, it is another episode in this cultural war."
In the weeks between the president's State of the Union address and the start of the war in March, CIA analysts were appalled that such bogus information had been used by the president. After Wilson went public with his proof that some of that information was indeed false, someone leaked Plame's covert identity to the media. For CIA officers, the idea that the White House would compromise the identity of an officer under cover in order to silence a political critic goes to the heart of their sense of institutional independence. Many are carefully watching CIA Director George Tenet to see how well he tries to protect them from political assaults. "I think very fundamental questions are now being asked in Washington about the role of intelligence, about the relationship between (Tenet) and the president, and the relationship between the CIA and Pentagon," says another former official with close ties to the CIA leadership. "This may be a watershed year. And in some ways it may be being brought to head by the Wilson episode." (New York Times/Houston Chronicle)
October 2: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld comments that it would be "unfortunate" if it were determined that pre-war intelligence about Iraq was incorrect:
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
"It's not clear that it [intelligence] was off by a little bit or a mile at this stage," he says. "That's yet to be seen. If it is off by a lot, that will be unfortunate." Rumsfeld insists that even if that becomes the case, the war in Iraq is justified. Many observers, particularly American soldiers and Iraqi civilians, would probably choose a stronger word than "unfortunate." (VOA News)
October 2: The Republican-controlled senate votes down a Democrat-sponsored bill to provide new funding for the provision of body armor for US troops in Iraq.
Iraq war and occupation
At this time, up to 51,000 US soldiers lack proper body armor, and many are begging family and friends to provide them what the government won't. A recent Army study shows that 1 in 4 casualties in Iraq are caused by poor protective gear. (In These Times)
October 2: The case for a special investigator in the CIA leak case is bolstered by today's revelation that Attorney General John Ashcroft, nominally in charge of the current Justice Department investigation, has deep ties to many of those involved in the case.
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
Karl Rove, Bush's top political adviser who is a prime suspect, was a paid consultant to three of Ashcroft's campaigns in Missouri, twice for governor and for United States senator, in the 1980's and 1990's. Jack Oliver, the deputy finance chairman of Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, was the director of Ashcroft's 1994 Senate campaign, and later worked as Ashcroft's deputy chief of staff. Democrats continue to press for an independent investigator, while the Bush administration is trying to close ranks, insisting that the Justice Department will conduct a thorough investigation on its own, and portraying the entire incident as nothing more than Democratic efforts to undermine the administration. "Career professionals with decades of experience in these kinds of cases are fully capable of conducting a thorough and complete investigation," a senior Justice Department official says. (New York Times)
October 2: Retired general and presidential candidate Wesley Clark states flatly that the Bush administration has relied on twisted facts and demonized its critics to pursue war with Iraq.
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
"Nothing could be a more serious violation of public trust than to consciously make a case for war based on false claims," he says to an audience of military reporters and editors. "We need to know if we were intentionally deceived." Clark said the administration entered office determined to wage war with Iraq and seized on the Sept. 11 attacks for justification. He accused the administration of violating principles of American democracy. "This administration is trying to do something that ought to be politically impossible to do in a democracy, and that is to govern against the will of the majority. That requires twisted facts, silence, secrecy, and very poor lighting. That's why you need night-vision goggles to see what's going on over there." (AP/San Jose Mercury News)
October 2: The deaths of some of the 18 Marines during a firefight in Nasiriyah on March 23 are now being attributed not to Iraqi forces as first believed,
Iraq war and occupation
but to an American A-10 that the soldiers believed was flying in to give assistance. Captain Dan Wittnam, one of the survivors, says that he and his troops were pinned down by enemy fire, surrounded by dead and dying comrades, when the A-10 flew into view. "The first thought that went through my mind was, 'Thank God, an A-10 was on station,'" Wittnam says. Instead, the A-10 began firing on the American positions, killing an estimated 5 to 10 Marines and wounding others. The A-10 used 30mm shells made of depleted uranium; one Marine took a snapshot of a round from the aircraft which was found inside his destroyed assault vehicle. US Central Command refuses to comment on the incident except to confirm that it is under investigation. (CNN)
October 2: The father of slain CIA officer Johnny "Mike" Spann says he believes an independent counsel should investigate allegations that someone in the Bush administration exposed a CIA officer's identity,
War in Afghanistan
an act he calls treasonous. Spann was the first American killed in Afghanistan. His father, also named Johnny Spann, says he is still angry because he feels his son's identity and hometown were disclosed before his son's family could be adequately protected. "If someone in the Bush administration leaked this, they need to be punished, and they need to be made an example of, because that's not just a leak, that's treason," says Spann. "They should appoint an independent counsel so the American people can be sure, and let the chips fall where they may." (Newsday)
October 2: In an ironic legal twist, three groups of individuals, including a group of former Gulf War POWs, a group of former Iraqi hostages, and a group of September 11 attack victims' families, have sued the Saddam Hussein regime in US courts.
Iraq war and occupation
Until recently, the US government supported those lawsuits, but since the fall of the Hussein regime, the US government is now attempting to impede and deny these selfsame lawsuits. Their justification is that seized Iraqi assets should be used to benefit the people of Iraq, and therefore cannot be used to pay off lawsuit judgments. (FindLaw)
October 2: Anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist compares the estate tax to the Holocaust during an interview on NPR.
Bush's economic policies
(The estate tax, often erroneously referred to as the "death tax," is a tax whereby inheritors of estates have to pay taxes on their inheritance. The tax only affects the wealthiest 2% of Americans.) In refuting the argument that the tax should be retained because it affects such a small, and disparately wealthy, group of citizens, Norquist says, "I mean, that's the morality of the Holocaust. 'Well, it's only a small percentage,' you know. I mean, it's not you. It's somebody else." Interviewer Terry Gross, apparantly aghast at the comparison, responds, "Excuse me, excuse me one second. Did you just...compare the estate tax with the Holocaust?" Norquist defends his statement by explaining, "No, the morality that says it's okay to do something to a group because they're a small percentage of the population is the morality that says the Holocaust is okay because they didn't target everybody, just a small percentage." He goes on to liken the estate tax to apartheid in the old South Africa and to the communist regime of the old East Germany. It's worth noting that Norquist is a very influential conservative: head of Americans for Tax Reform, close friend of Karl Rove, with easy access to the White House. Norquist presides over a weekly meeting of important Republican activists and lobbyists where his ideas of radical tax reform are discussed and ways are found to be implemented.
Columnist Richard Cohen writes, "The Bush administration has mindlessly applied [Norquist's] doctrine. It has three times reduced taxes -- mostly on the rich -- careening the federal budget from a surplus to a deficit without end. The rich, who can afford their schools or health care, will not suffer. But the poor and the middle class will hurt plenty -- and state and local taxes, often the most regressive, will go up. ...For some time now, the estate tax has been a demagogue's delight. Republicans, including George Bush, like to call it the 'death tax.' It is said to have produced the demise of the cherished family farm -- although the government can offer not a single example. It is, however, the tax most hated by those who hate taxes the most. Inexplicably, Norquist's 'Holocaust' has somehow left quite a few survivors. Among the 10 richest Americans, for instance, are five Waltons -- heirs to the fortune left by the storied Sam, the founder of Wal-Mart. Forbes magazine says they are each worth $20.5 billion. The rest of Forbes's list of the 400 richest Americans is peopled by other heirs, although some got only a billion or two. In fact, the moral equivalency Norquist concocts is his own -- and it speaks volumes about the morality of anti-tax Republicans. To them, the rich owe nothing -- just like the poor, they would say. (The difference between rich and poor escapes them.) This is unbridled selfishness in the guise of ideology and makes wealth the moral equivalent of ethnicity or religion or even sexual preference. To Norquist, distinguishing between rich and poor is like making a selection at Auschwitz. It not only trivializes the Holocaust, it collapses all moral distinctions. When Trent Lott praised Strom Thurmond, the longtime segregationist (and laundry room Lothario), he revealed a mentality that not even Senate Republicans could publicly support -- and Lott had to resign as majority leader. Norquist has gone even further, likening the morality of mass murder to the imposition of a tax on the rich. At his next meeting of GOP activists, someone ought to ask him if he's out of his mind. If no one does, it's because they all are." (NPR [archived audio], Washington Post)
October 2: Republican senator Christopher Bond fires his communications director, Ernie Blazar, for putting up a political Web blog titled "N83548N."
Conservative hate speech and intolerance
The site was given the name of the number of a plane that crashed in 2000, killing Democratic governor Mel Carnahan, an aide, and Carnahan's son Randy. The site, located at this URL, still exists, but has no content. Blazar also maintains another blog, What Would Truman Do?, a site that criticizes Democratic politics while purporting to be hosted by loyal Democrats. (This site also has had all of its content removed.) The WWTD site apparently served as a testing site for the N83548N site. The N83548N site said it was named for a "turning point" in the history of Missouri politics. Bond and his staff maintain that they knew nothing about Blazar's sites. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
October 2: After making what many feel were racist remarks regarding black NFL star Donovan McNabb, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh resigns his position as commentator for ESPN's NFL pre-game show.
Conservative hate speech and intolerance
"I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL," Limbaugh said on the September 28 broadcast. "The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve." Limbaugh held the ESPN position for about three weeks. He claims he resigned voluntarily, without being pressed to do so, but refused to apologize for his remarks, and said that "If I wasn't right there wouldn't be this cacophony of outrage...." Later in the week, McNabb said he didn't mind criticism of his performance but was upset that Limbaugh made race an issue. Limbaugh may have expressed a bit of confusion at the different standards expected for ESPN: "Nobody tells me what I can and can't say" on the radio, he said October 1. Limbaugh is also under investigation for buying thousands of black-market prescription painkillers from an illegal drug ring. His housekeeper, Wilma Cline, has testified that she has been Limbaugh's source of illegal drugs for the last two years. She claims that Limbaugh is addicted to OxyContin, Lorcet and hydrocodone, and has twice gone through drug rehabilitation therapy. On October 1, Limbaugh issued a statement that read, "I am unaware of any investigation by any authority involving me. No government representative has contacted me directly or indirectly. If my assistance is required, I will, of course, cooperate fully." (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, AP/Miami Herald, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

October 3: Bush demonstrates his understanding of history and democracies:
George W. Bush
"See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction." (AllHatNoCattle)
October 3: A federal judge has ruled that Zacarias Moussaoui may not face the death penalty,
9/11 attacks
and may not be questioned about or charged with crimes directly relating to the 9/11 attacks. Judge Leonie Brinkema makes her decision in response to the federal government's repeated refusal to obey her ruling that Moussaoui must be allowed to call three top al-Qaeda members as witnesses. The three alleged terrorists are in detention in Camp X-Ray in Cuba. The prosecution, which is expected to appeal the ruling, expected Brinkema to dismiss all charges against Moussaoui, clearing the way for them to have him tried by a military tribunal. Brinkema is reportedly angry at the failure of federal prosecutors to abide by the law in their prosecution of Moussaoui. (Washington Post/Charlotte Observer)
October 3: After waiting nearly 24 hours after notification by the Justice Department, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales officially informs the staff that they have until 5:00 PM on October 7 to turn over all documents pertaining to the CIA leak.
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
State Department and Defense Department personnel have also been asked to retain all pertinent documentation that they may have. Gonzales says he gave the employees until October 7 "to ensure compliance with the time deadlines imposed" by the Justice Department. (Note that NPR originally broadcast the news that Gonzalez had given the White House 24 hours' "grace" before officially announcing the investigation; a further examination of NPR's Web transcript of that broadcast shows that the passage in question was deleted from their transcript. A preserved copy of that portion is linked below.) (Reuters, New York Times, NPR/Traprock Peace Organization)
October 3: Suspicion is increasing that Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff and one of the most powerful behind-the-scenes figures in the Bush administration, may be responsible for leaking CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson's name to the press.
Plame outing
So far the White House has refused to confirm or deny Libby's involvement, unlike the blanket denial the administration issued on behalf of Presidential advisor Karl Rove. Libby has made efforts to discredit Joseph Wilson, Plame' husband, and may have discussed Plame with a Time reporter as well as Robert Novak, who originally "outed" the agent. Meanwhile, the probe widens to include the State and Defense Departments. (Salon, CNN)
October 3: The Bush administration's strategy for dealing with the CIA leak is characterized by one Republican aide as "slime and defend:" deny all wrongdoing, say nothing to the press that isn't absolutely necessary, and, with the help of the compliant conservative press, tar the reputations of anyone who contradicts their version of events.
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
The offensive began with the recent sliming of Joseph Wilson as an "open opponent of the US war on terror" by the neoconservative editorialists of the Wall Street Journal. The New York Times notes that in the months before the first gulf war, Wilson remained in Baghdad, helping to rescue hundreds of Americans who might otherwise have been held as hostages. The first President Bush lauded him as a "truly inspiring diplomat" who exhibited "courageous leadership." Robert Novak has repeatedly attempted to portray Valerie Plame Wilson as a "secretary" instead of the career operative she is, and Tucker Carlson characterized Wilson's efforts to discover the truth about the Nigerian uranium as "[spending] only a week there, sipping tea in a cafe, talking to people." (Democratic congresswoman Jan Schakowsky responds to Carlson on CNN's Crossfire: "Well, let's cut down Joe Wilson. Is that the plan? That is...pathetic. ...[T]his is part of condemning and discrediting and, when they can, firing people who don't agree with this administration. ...Now it is just, let's undercut him. Let's undercut his wife. Let's say she was just a secretary now, or whatever she was. The point is, a crime was committed. ...What could be more political than discrediting someone in a typical revenge kind of statement, outing his wife?") The conservative Web news site Newsmax follows the administration's lead in painting Wilson as a Democratic campaign contributor, ignoring the fact that Wilson contributed to both Bush's and Gore's campaigns in 2000. Newsmax even finds a way to blame the leak on Bill Clinton, or rather "Clinton Cling-Ons," people NewsMax believes the Bush administration fired for working in the Clinton administration. CNS executive Scott Hogenson dismisses it as "pure Bush-bashing." The Republican National Committee has slandered Wilson by stating that he has ties to "radical anti-Bush groups;" the White House is encouraging Republicans to portray Wilson as a partisan Democrat with an agenda, and the Democratic Party as scandal mongers. The National Review insists that the "real story" is not the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson, but the selection of an "unqualified" Joseph Wilson to investigate the uranium allegations. (New York Times, CNN, ConWebWatch, National Post)
October 3: E-mails from Enron employees confirm that California gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger was among a small group of executives who met with Enron CEO Kenneth Lay at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel in May of 2001, in the midst of California's energy crisis.
Oil profiteering and the "oiligarchy"
The meeting with Enron occurred ten days after rolling blackouts darkened California for two consecutive days; Schwarzenegger has previously said that he does not remember such a meeting. "You don't meet with America's most well-known corporate crook in the middle of California's biggest financial disaster and not remember," says Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights senior consumer advocate Douglas Heller. "Mr. Schwarzenegger should come clean about what happened at that meeting and if he shares Ken Lay's views on energy regulation." The documents provide a list of invitees to the hastily arranged meeting and a list of those who actually attended. Only eleven of the 45 invitees attended, including Schwarzenegger. The meeting was meant to be an opportunity to gain business community support for Enron's "comprehensive solution" to the energy crisis. In one e-mail, Enron's VP of Public Relations wrote: "We'd like to position this meeting as an insider's conversation of what's going on with the energy situation. This meeting should be for principals only." FTCR contends that Enron policies were responsible for the severe energy crisis California faced in 2000 and 2001. The group notes that the crisis had dramatic implications on the state economy and state budget and will continue to impact consumers for years to come. FTCR has been critical of Enron's involvement in the California energy crisis, in which the company developed schemes for manipulating the power market that forced massive price spikes in the state. "since it was apparently important enough for Schwarzenegger to attend despite the last minute notice, Schwarzenegger should now explain what happened at his meeting with Enron's Ken Lay and whether or not he supports electricity re-regulation," says Heller. (Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights)
October 3: Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Defense Department study of American involvement in Indochina that became known as the "Pentagon Papers" in 1971, sees disturbing similarities between that period and today.
Plame outing
Salon writes, "...Ellsberg says...America is in the early stages of a similar crisis. Once again, he says, the country is embroiled in a foreign war for murky reasons. Once again, he says, the White House has justified its policy with lies, and is smearing a whistle-blower who exposed those lies. ...Ellsberg despairs watching an administration whose malevolence he believes far exceeds that of his old foes on the Nixon team. His hope, he says, is that history continues its repetition, and that the White House's attempts to destroy its domestic enemies finally leads to its own destruction." Ellsberg tells Salon, "I see an almost identical pattern here. Really, I don't know of any analogy so close in the 30 years between now and then. This is not an everyday occurrence. The origins of Watergate was an unauthorized disclosure by me that demonstrated a succession of presidential lies in a war that was still going on, lies that had lied us into war, exactly as in Iraq. In that case, that panicked the White House into fear that the leaker, in that case myself, would be imitated by others who would reveal information directly on Nixon, as I had not yet done -- the Pentagon Papers themselves ended in 1968, before Nixon came into office. He feared that I had more information on him that I would reveal. Wilson, of course, did reveal his own work under Bush. His revelation gave the lie to Bush's own statement [about Iraq's nuclear program]. The White House undoubtedly fears that Wilson had more information that he could put out and above all that others would be led by seeing what a worthwhile effort this was, to tell the truth about the president's lies, and be moved to follow his example. To deter them, the White House has clearly been led to set up a project to discredit him and to punish him in ways that will deter others from following his example, and in the course of that they're willing to take criminal actions. It's an exact reproduction of the effort under [Nixon aides] Charles Colson, John Ehrlichman and Egil Krogh, Jr. What I'm saying, then, is the plumbers are back."
When asked if he agrees with John Dean that the Bush administration is even more vicious than the Nixon administration, he replies, "In terms of the administration, this gang is really different in degree. All administrations lie and others have gotten us into wrongful wars. They haven't invented that stuff. But in terms of their antipathy to democracy, they're unusual. But what about the rest of the system? In Watergate, the system did work and it worked pretty well. The day my trial was dismissed, Nixon said, 'What in the name of God have we come to?' What we'd come back to was a democratic republic, not a monarchy. Are we seeing that yet? No, but that's not new either. The system really failed on Irangate, Contragate. I didn't believe Reagan and Bush could get away without being impeached, and they did. And they could get away this time. They can cover up anything with enough help from the Congress, enough help from the media and enough apathy from the public. But if guys like Sens. John McCain and Chuck Hagel, if they want to hold hearings, we could move ahead. In that case, this leak could turn out to be very good. It could bring down a terrible administration. If Rove made that leak, it would be the best thing he ever did for the country, given that he got caught." (Salon)
October 3: Televangelist Pat Robertson insults black actor Morgan Freeman while attempting to defend Rush Limbaugh from charges of racism.
Conservative hate speech and intolerance
Limbaugh charged that the media was overinflating quarterback Donovan McNabb's abilities because of his race. Robertson uses Freeman in a comparison with McNabb, saying, "He [Freeman] started off playing a chauffeur in 'Driving Miss Daisy,' and then they elevated him to head of the CIA and then they elevated him to President and in his last role they made him God. I just wonder, isn't Rush Limbaugh right to question the fact, is he that good an actor or not?" Freeman refuses to respond to Robertson's statement. (New York Daily News)

Proof that Bush lied about costs of Iraq war and reconstruction

October 4: A secret task force report reveals that the Bush administration deliberately misled Congress and the American people on the ability to pay for the war and reconstruction of Iraq with Iraqi oil profits.
Iraq war and occupation
The task force, called the Energy Infrastructure Planning Group and clandestinely established last fall to study Iraq's oil industry, issued a lengthy report which described the industry as so badly damaged by over 10 years' worth of trade embargoes that its production capacity had fallen by over 25%. Nevertheless, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told Congress during the war that "we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon. ...The oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 billion and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years." Donald Rumsfeld told the Senate the same day, "when it comes to reconstruction, before we turn to the American taxpayers we will turn first to the resources of the Iraqi government." On the day that Baghdad fell, Dick Cheney claimed that Iraq's oil production could reach 3 million barrels a day by the end of the year, even though the task force had determined that Iraq was generating around 2.1 million barrels a day before the war. A large chunk of the $20.3 billion requested to shore up Iraq's infrastructure is slated to go to rebuilding Iraq's oil industry. "The problem is this," Iraq's administrator Paul Bremer noted at a Senate hearing in mid-September: "The oil infrastructure was severely run down over the last 20 years, and partly because of sanctions over the last decade. ...We are going to have to spend a lot more money than we are going to get revenue, even once we get oil production back up to prewar levels."
The administration is playing down the report, and attempting to recast the pre-war predictions as mere speculation, not the confident assertions that were made at the time. The Pentagon's chief spokesman Lawrence DiRita now says earlier estimates and statements by Wolfowitz and others "oozed with uncertainty." In September, Rumsfeld told a Senate committee that he didn't misjudge Iraq's oil capacity. He claims that projections show the country's oil revenues increasing to $12 billion next year from $2 billion this year, and reaching $19 billion in 2005 and $20 billion in 2006. Paul Bremer makes a different prediction: he says that for the next two years, whatever revenue is reaped from oil production will not exceed the cost of Iraq's day-to-day operating expenses. In 2005, he said, there would be a surplus of only $4 million to $5 million at best. Cheney's April projections that $20 billion a year will come from oil are now thoroughly discredited; a Cheney aide blames looting and sabotage to the oil infrastructure as undercutting Cheney's predictions. Wolfowitz and others continue to pile on the lies: in July, Wolfowitz told a group of senators that Iraq was already producing 1 million barrels of oil a day, though Philip Carroll, the senior American oil adviser in Baghdad, said that Iraqi oil production "experienced a terrible month in July because electrical problems cut us back to half of what we should have produced." Carroll said that although gross production for the week of July 25 was a million barrels a day, 350,000 barrels had to be injected back into the ground, because of a lack of storage or distribution infrastructure. An aide to Wolfowitz said he believed that the oil information came from a briefing and that Wolfowitz's testimony was "sober and nuanced." (New York Times, Eric Alterman and Mark Green)
October 4: Baghdad is in the grip of a huge, and escalating, illegal drug use crisis.
Iraq war and occupation
A formidable hallucinogen nicknamed "Lebanon" is one of the main drugs of choice, along with prescription narcotics like Valium. This, combined with the pre-war release of tens of thousands of convicted criminals from Iraq's jails, is proving to be a major problem for Iraq's fledgling police force. (BBC)
October 4: British businessman Wahab al-Rawi, who was held for four weeks as a suspected terrorist by US forces before being released without being charged,
Terrorism detainees and "enemy combatants"
says that while he was there he was mistreated, and threatened with torture and rape, if he did not cooperate. Rawi, along with his brother and a colleague, was arrested, denied a lawyer, and held for a month in Gambia. Rawi, who formerly lived in Iraq, apparently proved a tough nut to crack: "I said to them, they can't intimidate me, I lived through my father's experience when he was held and tortured by Saddam Hussein. I told them, in Iraq they don't threaten, they do things, they rape people, they torture. The little American said: 'We can be just as ruthless as Saddam Hussein' -- he was trying very hard to scare me. They were threatening me with rape and assault." He deeply resents being accused of terrorist activities. "I have been loyal to Britain," he says, but of the CIA agents, he adds: "To me, they're no different [from] Saddam Hussein." (Guardian)
October 4: Conservative columnist Robert Novak, who outed CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson in July 14, 2003, escalates the damage he caused to Plame's career and the US intelligence community by exposing the name of the CIA front company she used to carry out her assignments.
Plame outing
Novak, in his regular column, reveals that Plame worked through a CIA front company called Brewster & Jennings while she operated in Europe and the Middle East to find information about Islamic nations' possible WMD capabilities. The biggest problem with Novak's revelation is that other CIA assets and agents are now at risk because of the exposure of the front company. Human intelligence in such countries as Iraq and Iran is notoriously hard to come by, and one of Plame's tasks was to work with foreign nationals recruited by American intelligence agents. Now all of those foreign nationals who have known contacts with Brewster & Jennings are in danger of being exposed to their governments, and possibly arrested and even killed. Former CIA agent and former Plame colleague Larry Johnson says he is "furious, absolute furious" that Novak revealed both the identities of Plame and her cover company. A CIA officer operating overseas says of the outings, "There's only one entity in the world that can identify you. That's the US government. When the US government does it, that's it." The question remains: who revealed the identity of Brewster & Jennings to Novak, and why did he feel compelled to reveal it? Current CIA agents say that Novak's outings of Plame and her front company resulted in "severe" damage to her team and significantly hampered the CIA's ability to monitor nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. (Knight Ridder/CommonDreams, Raw Story)
October 4: A study released by the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy shows that viewers who get the majority of their news from Fox News are up to four times more likely to believe erroneous information and hold demonstrably untrue positions on the war in Iraq and on American foreign policy than are viewers/listeners to National Public Radio or the Public Broadcasting System.
Conservative media slant
The study surveyed thousands of listeners/viewers who get their news from a single source: either Fox, NPR, or PBS. The survey asked for true or false answers to three statements: Saddam Hussein is directly linked to the 9/11 attack, weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and world opinion generally favored the US invasion of Iraq. All three statements are provably false. 23% of NPR and PBS listeners and viewers answered 'true' to at least one of the three statements, while over 80% of Fox viewers answered 'true' to at least one. Although healthy percentages of Americans hold at least one false perception no matter what news source or sources they use, Fox viewers were far more likely to be misinformed than consumers of any other news sources. (Baltimore Sun)

Blair deliberately misled public about Iraqi WMDs

October 5: Diary extracts by former cabinet minister Robin Cook show that Blair deliberately misled the British public by pretending to have proof about Iraq's WMD programs that he knew did not exist.
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
British PM Tony Blair knew all along that Iraq had no serious WMD programs, and that Iraq could not launch any sort of WMD strike within 45 minutes, Cook writes. He also says that there was "near mutiny" in the cabinet when military action was first discussed -- until now, the administration has portrayed a much calmer decision-making process. Cook writes that Blair "deliberately crafted suggestive phrasing" to mislead the public into thinking there was a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Cook adds that Blair had appeared prepared to go to war regardless of any progress made by UN weapons inspectors: "Tony made no attempt to pretend that what Hans Blix might report would make any difference to the countdown to invasion." Cook also writes that the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, John Scarlett, "assented" when he suggested Iraq had no WMD which could target large cities. During the cabinet debate of whether or not to join the US in the invasion, a "large number of ministers" spoke up against British involvement. Cook says that two facts bother him the most: that Blair acknowledged that no matter what the UN inspectors found or didn't find, the invasion timetable was set; and that neither Blair nor Scarlett contradicted him for his view that "Saddam did not have real weapons of mass destruction that were designed for strategic use against city populations and capable of being delivered with reliability over long distances." Cook, who resigned from the Blair cabinet in protest of the Iraqi invasion, has written a book based on his diaries that is being serialized in the Sunday Times. Blair spokespersons deny all of Cook's allegations. (CBS, BBC)
October 5: In retaliation for a Palestinian bombing attack on civilians in Haifa, Israel strikes a terrorist base deep inside Syria.
Middle East unrest
The base, purportedly used by both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, was destroyed by an air attack. It is the first instance of an Israeli military incursion inside Syria since 1982, when Israel warred against Palestinian terror forces in Lebanon and Syria. Syria angrily protests the attacks, but takes no military action against Israel. (VOA News/VNIS)
October 5: The Bush administration announces a major reorganization of the controlling agencies responsible for bringing order to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Iraq war and occupation
Apparently an attempt to allow the White House to more directly control events in those two countries, the effort includes the formation of the "Iraqi Stabilization Group," to be headed by national security advisor Condoleezza Rice. The idea was put forth by Rice, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld during discussions with Bush at his "ranch" in August, and is being implemented now, though Rumsfeld is apparently being shut out of the proceedings. "This puts accountability right into the White House," says a senior administration official, though others deny that is the intent. The New York Times observes, "It is the closest the White House has come to an admission that its plans for reconstruction in those countries have proved insufficient, and that it was unprepared for the guerrilla-style attacks that have become more frequent in Iraq. There have been more American deaths in Iraq since the end of active combat than during the six weeks it took to take control of the country." (New York Times, Reuters/CNN)
October 5: A mother of an American soldier in Iraq writes a letter to the Chicago Tribune.
Iraq war and occupation
In it, she notes that her son's unit, part of the Missouri National Guard, was told by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld personally (during his recent jaunt to Iraq) that the unit would be going home on December 3. Three days after Rumsfeld's assurances, the unit was informed that their tour was being extended indefinitely; the soldiers have been given another departure date in April 2004, but no one believes it. She writes, "Morale among my son-in-law's unit, already low, has plummeted even further. When he was first deployed, he was apprehensive but willing, as he said, 'to serve my country.' He no longer believes what he is doing is serving his country in any way. 'We just patrol and do guard duty,' he says. 'We're walking targets.' These men feel that they are viewed by the Bush administration as expendable bodies. ...My son-in-law's first child is due to be born Jan. 3. Obviously he will not be here for the birth, a fact that matters only to us, his family." (Chicago Tribune)
October 5: Morale among many US troops has sunk to such a level that a growing number of soldiers are looking into the consequences of going AWOL -- absent without leave.
US military
The GI Rights Hotline, a national soldiers' support service, has logged a 75% increase in calls in the last 3 months, with more than 100 of those calls from soldiers, or people on their behalf, asking about the penalties associated with going AWOL. A number of soldiers currently on 15-day leave have indicated that they will not return to Iraq when their leave is over. Military leaders are so worried about the situation that they are forcing many soldiers to take their leave in Germany instead of allowing them to come home to America for their leave. Many callers to the hotline complain about the length of the Iraq campaign, the rough desert conditions, and an American death toll that has risen well above 300, including nearly 180 soldiers killed after President Bush's May 1 declaration that combat operations in Iraq had ended. One soldier, a veteran of Bosnia and Iraq, writes to his family, "There is no morale here. The leadership just doesn't care about us. I don't want anything to do with this mess anymore." Another soldier, who was denied emergency leave when his wife miscarried their child, has told her he will not re-enlist when his term is up this year: "I'm definitely getting out. To heck with the Army." His wife says, "He hates it and he's not re-enlisting. He basically has given up." (New York Post)

More criticism from opponents and allies alike

October 6: The Bush administration has incurred withering criticism from opponents and allies alike who point out that the administration has been swift to condemn leaks from other branches of government, but lackadaisacal to the point of non-involvement when dealing with its own leaks.
Plame outing
White House officials have chastized lawmakers for "loose tongues," threatened military commanders who said too much to media representatives, and drastically curtailed access to classified and non-classified data. Congressional lawmakers and staffers are entering their second year of a White House-instigated investigation by the FBI to find out who in Congress leaked information about al-Qaeda communications to the media. (Note: This FBI investigation, which has lain dormant for most of the year, was recently revived after the CIA leak began making headlines; a grand jury is said to be convening.) In contrast, Bush waited over two months to acknowledge the leak from his staff regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, and most observers feel that the administration has done more to misdirect and stonewall an investigation than to cooperate with it. Many Congressional Democrats charge that the White House has itself used selective leaks -- and selective outrage at the alleged leaks of others -- to advance its policies, particularly relating to the war in Iraq. "That was such a source of frustration to me, the selective leaking," says Senator Dick Durbin. "It angered me to watch as people within the administration leaked selective information about the threat in Iraq, leaving out many other important details." Some Democrats have been forced repeatedly to defend their access to secret information, even as the White House ignored an apparent violation by administration insiders. Senator Carl Levin says, "People are very upset about it up here. ...The contrast between their rhetoric and the casual way in which the president first treated this [disclosure of the CIA operative's name] is incredible. Here's a leak that is not only a felony but directly can jeopardize lives." Press secretary Scott McClellan claims, falsely, that "[g]oing back to July there was absolutely no information that had been brought to our attention beyond anonymous sources in media reports to suggest any White House involvement. The president has directed the staff to cooperate fully because no one wants to get to the bottom of this sooner than he does." A retired CIA officer who spent his career working undercover overseas fumes, "The whole thing is just so distressing. ...If some idiot in the White House set out to do this malevolently, he ought to have his tongue cut off." (Los Angeles Times)
October 6: Retired Marine general Anthony Zinni, who headed USCENTCOM from 1997-2000, says, "Iraq reminds me of Vietnam. Here we have some strategic thinkers who have long wanted to invade Iraq. They saw an opportunity, and they used the imminence of the threat and the association of terrorism and the 9/11 emotions as a catalyst and a justification. It's another Gulf of Tonkin." (Kevin Phillips)
October 6: Joseph Wilson believes that the outing of his wife by Bush administration officials may have placed her life in danger, and that the government is doing little to protect her.
Plame outing
"There have been a number of other people who've come out and suggested that perhaps this does make her a target. ...We...as a consequence of that, have begun to rethink our own security posture." Wilson confirmed that no government official or agency has offered any kind of protection to his wife, Valerie Plame Wilson. Republican senator Chuck Hagel adds, "If there is the least possibility, most remote possibility, of her life being in danger, then the government owes that person protection and security." Days before, Wilson said that he believes Karl Rove was behind the leak. "The act of leaking the name of a national security asset to the press was a political act," he told authors James Moore and Wayne Slater on October 3. "The White House, in which resides the president, has a political office, and that political office is headed by Karl Rove. Now I can't tell you -- the investigators will ultimately tell you, I hope -- who actually leaked or authorized the leak; I can't tell you that it was Karl Rove, but what I can tell you is that in the days following Mr. Novak's article which exposed the identity of my wife, Karl Rove, among others, was orchestrating a campaign to push that story on the press. And so, even if Karl Rove was not the leaker, potentially liable or vulnerable for criminal activity, at a minimum you have to ask yourself if that is the sort of ethical treatment that one expects out of one's federal government. That their senior officials would be dragging the wife of somebody they perceived to be an opponent out into the public square to administer a beating. After all, this president said that he was going to change the tone in Washington, and if he's changed it, it's for the worse."
The leak certainly matches Rove's modus operandi -- his traditional use of orchestrated press leaks, lies, and using third-party "cutouts" to do his dirty work without leaving his fingerprints on the crime itself. (AP/Baltimore Sun, James Moore and Wayne Slater)
October 6: Intelligence analyst John Loftus explains just who blown CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson is and why exposing her is such a potential disaster.
Plame outing
Plame is one of a select few who is classified "NOC," or an agent with "no official cover." Loftus says, "Mrs. Wilson is one of those rare women who was a superspy. She risked her own life by going overseas without official protection, no diplomatic immunity. If she got arrested, she would be shot as a spy. And she had a cover company, a secret cover the CIA set up. It looks like a normal business, and, from that business, is able to travel the world and recruit brave people around the world that were willing to help us hunt for weapons of mass destruction. And a columnist exposed not only her name, but even after knowing that CIA didn't want her name disclosed, even after being told that she was an operative, even after knowing she is the rarest operative, a NOC, columnist Robert Novak then publishes the name of her cover business. Every intelligence agency in the world is tracing all the mail they've ever had with her, all the company connections. I hope that none of her agents are in countries like North Korea or Iran, because those people are going to be tortured to find out, were you ever an agent for Mrs. Wilson? What was your connection with this company she had? ...But what Novak has done is to name one CIA agent and then go and expose the whole ring. He named the cover operation." Interviewer Keith Olbermann asks Loftus, "We're supposedly in a world war against terrorism. Here's an agent it will take 20 years to replace, specialized in weapons of mass destruction. Her name gets leaked. As you pointed out, her company name gets leaked. Her cover name gets leaked. It sounds to me like whoever leaked this is either a traitor or an idiot. Are there other options that I'm missing?" Loftus answers, "No, I think that's pretty much it. I think it is a very petty person, is the bottom line, that Novak simply wanted to expose the person, that this CIA agent had once made a donation to the Gore campaign. Big deal. And her husband made a donation to the Bush campaign. It's a free country. It was an act of pettiness, but it was incredibly stupid. And he did this act after he had been warned, don't do it. I hope he goes to jail. I want him indicted now under Section C of the act. ...People like Mr. Novak belong in prison." (MSNBC)
October 6: US National Guard soldiers stationed outside Baghdad reveal just how poorly they are treated.
Iraq war and occupation
Their rifles are retooled relics from Vietnam. They are forced to buy walkie-talkies because their standard-issue radios don't work; the same goes for flashlights, knives, and some night-vision sight components. They have bought cheap Iraqi-made air conditioning units and fans because none are provided by the US military. Water rations are limited to two liters a day; after that, soldiers are forced to drink from chlorination tanks. A typical meal consists of an MRE and powdered Gatorade. Soldiers from one Florida unit, the Third Battalion of the 124th Infantry, complain that the regular soldiers from the unit they are attached to, the First Armored Division, use them to kick in doors of suspected resistance cells. "The First AD wants us to catch bullets for them but won't give us enough water...." complains one Guardsman. "Can you believe that sh#t?" Like most Guardsmen, this unit completely lacks any training in urban combat, and has had to learn as they go, often paying for their lack of training with injuries or deaths. "By now this company has conducted scores of raids, taken fire on the street, taken casualties, taken rocket-propelled grenade attacks to the club and are defiantly proud of the fact that they have essentially been abandoned, survived, retrained themselves and can keep a lid on their little piece of Baghdad. But it's not always the Joes who have the upper hand. Increasingly, Haji [the Iraqi resistance] seems to sets the agenda." (The Nation/CommonDreams)

October 6: On a trip to Africa, Bush tells reporters about the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a CIA agent to the press, "We're talking about a criminal action, but also hopefully will help us send a clear signal we expect other leaks to stop, as well. And so I look forward to finding the truth." A laudable sentiment, and one Bush has no intention of seeing through. (Frank Rich [PDF file])

California GOP voting machine fraud criticized

October 6: Touch-screen voting machines to be used in the California recall election worry some observers, who believe that the machines can be easily reprogrammed to perpetuate fraud in the election.
Election fraud
Some of the new machines do not produce paper printouts of the votes they record, making a recount almost impossible. The machines, marketed by Diebold Electronics, are under scrutiny by many political observers because of Diebold's ownership by activist Republicans and the suspicion that the machines have already perpetuated voter fraud in smaller elections and in the 2000 Florida Presidential contest. A small number of companies control the vote-counting machines and methodology in America. Those companies are either owned by Republican-aligned firms or by British companies, many of which provide offshore havens for vote-counting firms such as Accenture (formerly owned by Saudi Arabians), which is contracted to count the military overseas votes in 2004. In California, the governor's recall election votes were handled by the following companies: Sequoia, ES&S, Diebold, DMF Associates, and PollStar. Sequoia is a British company. ES&S is owned by the Omaha World Herald Corporation, a firm with deep ties to the Republican Party. Its main owner is a company owned by Senator Chuck Hagel's campaign finance director, Michael McCarthy. Hagel has owned shares in both the voting company itself and in the parent company run by his campaign finance director, and Hagel was the CEO and Chairman of the voting machine company while it built the machines that counted his votes. Diebold's CEO, Walden O'Dell, is heavily involved in fundraising operations for Bush's 2004 reelection efforts; O'Dell recently said at a Bush fundraiser, "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Between them, ES&S and Diebold handle over 80% of the US's electronic voting. Other major voting machine manufacturers also have major connections to the GOP. VoteHere, a company striving to get its cryptography software into all the other companies' machines and who already has a contract with Sequoia, is chaired by Admiral Bill Owens, a close Cheney supporter and member of the Defense Policy Board. Another director of VoteHere is former CIA director Robert Gates, who heads the George Bush School of Business. During the 2002 elections, a piece of Diebold software called "rob-Georgia.zip" was found on an unprotected voting computer server, for anyone to download and use. Diebold machines do not leave paper trails of votes counted; Diebold refuses to address the problem, and has demonstrably interfered with investigations of its software and of claims that its software is flawed, erroneous, and easily hacked to produce unwarranted results -- three studies, by Johns Hopkins and Rice Universities and the State of Maryland, have shown that Diebold election machines are unreliable and subject to abuse. (Toronto Globe & Mail, Black Box Voting, Online Journal, Buzzflash, New York Times/Truthout)
October 6: Senator Bob Graham of Florida drops out of the Democratic race for president,
2004 presidential elections
citing a lack of money and delays caused by his co-chairing of the Congressional investigation of the 9/11 attacks. As of now, he has not endorsed another candidate, nor has he announced whether he will run for his Senate seat in 2004. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
October 6: Conservative columnist Paul Sperry writes that the October 1, 2002 National Intelligence Estimate stated flatly that Iraq had not sponsored past terrorist attacks against America, was not operating in concert with al-Qaeda, and was not a terrorist threat to America.
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
"We have no specific intelligence information that Saddam's regime has directed attacks against US territory." Sperry continues, "Bush saw the warning, yet completely ignored it and barreled ahead with the war plans he'd approved a month earlier, telling a completely different version of the intelligence consensus to the American people. Less than a week after the NIE was published, he warned that 'on any given day' -– provoked by attack or not, sufficiently desperate or not –- Saddam could team up with Osama and conduct a joint terrorist operation against America using weapons of mass destruction. 'Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists,' Bush said Oct. 7 in his nationally televised Cincinnati speech. 'Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving fingerprints.' The terrorists he was referring to were 'al-Qaida members.' By telling Americans that Saddam could 'on any given day' slip unconventional weapons to al-Qaida if America didn't disarm him, the president misrepresented the conclusions of his own secret intelligence report, which warned that Saddam wouldn't even try to reach out to al-Qaida unless he were attacked and had nothing to lose –- and might even find that hard to do since he had no history of conducting joint terrorist operations with al-Qaida, and certainly none against the U.S. If that's not lying, I don't know what is. ...Forget that Bush lied about the reasons for putting our sons and daughters in harm's way in Iraq; and forget that he sent 140,000 troops there with bull's-eyes on their backs, then dared their attackers to 'bring it on.' It was the height of irresponsibility to have done so in the middle of a war on al-Qaida, the real and proven threat to America. Bush diverted those troops and other resources –- including intelligence assets, Arabic translators and hundreds of billions of tax dollars –- from the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders along the Afghan-Pakistani border. And now they've regrouped and are as threatening as ever. That's inexcusable, and Bush supporters with any intellectual honesty and concern for their own families' safety should be mad as hell about it –- and that's coming from someone who voted for Bush." (WorldNet Daily/Bartcop)

October 7: After weeks of vicious attacks on each other from Palestinian and Israeli forces,
Bush's foreign policies
Bush chooses to support Israel's Ariel Sharon in his determiniation to continue attacking Palestinian elements, and even supports Sharon's attack on a Hamas and Islamic Jihad base inside Syrian borders. Most observers believe that Israel's actions will increase tensions in the Middle East, and make it harder to achieve a peace agreement. (New York Times)
October 7: NATO announces that it will deploy more troops to Afghanistan,
War in Afghanistan
and for the first time deploy them outside of Kabul. Afghanis and other Muslims interpret this as the spreading and lengthening of the Western occupation of their country. (Michael Scheuer)

Schwarzenegger elected California governor in "circus" election

October 7: California holds a recall election between sitting governor Gray Davis and a host of contenders, most prominently Republican actor-turned politician Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic lieutenant governor Cruz Bustamente.
California recall elections
The ballot features two questions, a yes/no question on whether Davis should be removed from office, and a list of candidates to replace Davis if the vote goes against him. Republican Darrell Issa, who funded the recall effort, dropped out of the race in August when accusations that he funded the recall to buy his way into office undermines his candidacy. Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan drops out when Schwarzenegger, a putative "moderate" with an ugly history of sexual harassment, enters the race. The Democrats are led by Lieutenant Govenor Cruz Bustamente after Senator Dianne Feinstein refuses to participate in what many Democrats are calling a "circus." Other participants include Republican Peter Ueberroth, formerly the commissioner of major league baseball, and independent Arianna Huffington, along with many celebrity and joke candidates. In all, 135 candidates are on the ballot. After several debates, only one of which was joined by Schwarzenegger (whom many said was unprepared for the debates and needed heavy coaching), Huffington and others drop out in opposition to the entire recall efforts. The recall is successful, and Schwarzenegger wins a plurality of votes to replace Davis as California's governor. Schwarzenegger immediately begins replacing Democrat and moderate Republican state officials with far-right appointees, many vetted by the Bush White House. The national Republican Party is determined to use the election as a means to get more women voters on the GOP rolls; a memo from California GOP organizer Julie Leitzell declares that the recall election is an excellent opportunity to target disaffected voters, primarily women, before the November 2004 elections: "It's important that we use this opportunity (and hot news hook) to present an image of diverse Republican women (moms, educators, business owners, students, working women)," Leitzell writes before the election. "We want to make sure the media are steered toward the 'common-sense women against Davis' angle.... We are working on getting a big-name female draw for each local event." (Wikipedia, Laura Flanders)

"I admire Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power. I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for what he did with it." -- Arnold Schwarzenegger, 1977, quoted by Buzzflash

Shortly after the election, Schwarzenegger approaches environmentalist Robert Kennedy Jr, his cousin by marriage, for advice in becoming what Schwarzenegger calls "the best environmental governor in California history."
Global warming and the environment
Kennedy agrees; one of the key elements of Schwarzenegger's environmental plan is the adoption of the Sierra Nevada Framework -- "the product of a decade of grueling work by government, timber industry and environmental groups to manage the Sierra Nevada forests," writes Kennedy. But, extremists in Bush's Department of the Interior opposes any restrictions on the exploitation of public lands. Just after Schwarzenegger's ascension to power, Republican House member David Dreier informs Schwarzenegger that the White House wishes him to abandon his support for the framework. Schwarzenegger refuses, but says if the framework is modified by the same "thoughtful, inclusive stakeholder process that had resulted in the original plan" (Kennedy's words), then he would accept those. The White House agrees, and Karl Rove announces that no federal actions will be taken in the Sierra Nevada forests without extensive discussion with everyone involved. Yet, on January 21, 2004, Schwarzenegger learns that the US Forestry Service is ready to announce a tripling of the amount of logging to be allowed in the Sierra Nevada's protected forests. White House officials refuse to return Schwarzenegger's calls. As Kennedy writes, "To emphasize its contempt for the process, the Forest Service held a news conference in the Sacramento Hyatt, directly across the street from the governor's office, to announce its plan. Republicans and Democrats alike in the Schwarzenegger administration were furious at the betrayal and astounded at the hardheaded arrogance that accompanied the broken promise." (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
October 7: An Iraqi guerrilla interviewed by the Los Angeles Times warns that Iraqi resistance fighters are preparing to sharply step up their efforts to drive US forces out of Iraq.
Iraq war and occupation
He says that the resistance is supported by followers of Saddam Hussein as well as observant Muslims. "The American Army will feel that Vietnam was just a playground by comparison," says the guerrilla, the self-proclaimed leader of Serayeh al Jihad, or the "Companies of Jihad." He ahd a colleague told the Times that the guerrillas are preparing to expand beyond the so-called "sunni triangle," that their group aims to abduct U.S. servicemen and give them to Osama bin Laden to barter for the Al Qaeda prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and that they are starting to develop into a full-fledged underground army that could take over as soon as they drive US forces from Iraq. Further comments indicate that the group has strong loyalties to both bin Laden and to Hussein, but that not all of the resistance members, who belong to different organizations and do not share all the same goals, would agree. The US dismisses the warnings and downplays the efforts of the disparate resistance groups to unify their efforts. (Los Angeles Times)
October 7: In his Cincinnati speech, Bush tells his audience that high-level contacts between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein "go back a decade."
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
This is technically true, but deceptive. The contacts Bush refers to took place in the early '90s, when al-Qaeda was in its infancy and the two were uneasy allies against the Saudi monarchy. Bush also says, "We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases," failing to mention that the source for this charge are captured al-Qaeda members and quite unreliable. (Eric Alterman and Mark Green)
October 7: White House lawyers will spend up to two weeks screening responses from 2,000 staff members in an attempt to find out who leaked the information on CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson,
Plame outing
but Bush is already predicting that no information will be found to shed any light on the matter. "I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration official" who leaked Plame's name to the press, Bush tells reporters. "I don't have any idea. I'd like to. I want to know the truth. ...I have no idea whether we'll find out who the leaker is -- partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers. But we'll find out." The White House intends to review all documents, e-mails, and other material requested by the Justice Department before turning them over to the investigating lawyers. Scott McClellan rules out the possibility that either political adviser Karl Rove, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "scooter" Libby, or National Security Council official Elliott Abrams are responsible for the leak. He knows, McClellan says, because he has personally spoken to all three men. (MSNBC, Frank Rich [PDF file])
October 7: The Australian Senate censures Prime Minister John Howard for misleading the public in his push to send Australian troops to support US and British forces in Iraq.
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
The Senate statement of censure notes that Howard produced no evidence to justify his claims in March that Iraq had stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons, and castigates him for suppressing Australian intelligence warnings that war with Iraq would increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks. One senator accuses Howard of "unprecedented deceit." The censure was sparked by the testimony of Australian intelligence analyst Andrew Wilkie, who testified before a Parliament committee on August 22. In part, Wilkie said, "[T]he Government was also receiving detailed assessments on the US in which it was made very clear the US was intent on invading Iraq for more important reasons than WMD and terrorism. Hence all this talk about WMD and terrorism was hollow. Much more likely is the proposition the Government deliberately exaggerated the Iraq WMD threat so as to stay in step with the US." (Buzzflash)
October 7: Representative John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, sends a letter to senior White House advisor Karl Rove, asking for his resignation.
Plame outing
In it he says, "...while you may or may not have been the source of the Robert Novak column which revealed the status and name of a covert operative, the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, you were involved in a subsequent effort to push this classified information to other reporters and give it even wider currency. This itself may be a federal crime, but regardless of that fact, your actions are morally indefensible. In my view, it is shameful and unethical that an Administration that promised to govern with 'honor and integrity' and 'change the tone' in Washington has now engaged in an orchestrated campaign to smear and intimidate truth-telling critics, placing them in possible physical harm and impairing the efforts and operations of the CIA. Recent reports indicate that you told the journalist, Chris Matthews, and perhaps others, that Mr. Wilson's wife and her undercover status were 'fair game.' Since these initial allegations have arisen, neither the White House nor your office have denied your involvement in furthering the leak. Repeated press inquiries into this matter have been rebuffed with technical jargon and narrow legalisms, instead of broader ethical issues. ...The law states that even if you lawfully knew of Mr. Wilson's wife's status, you were obliged to come forward and report the press leak to the proper authorities -- not inflame the situation by encouraging further dissemination. Larger than whether any one statute can be read to find criminal responsibility is the issue of whether officials of your stature will be allowed to use their influence to intimidate whistle-blowers. Over three decades ago, our nation was scarred by an Administration that would stop at nothing to smear and intimidate its critics. I do not believe the Nation will countenance a repeat of such activities. For your role in this campaign, I would ask that you resign immediately." (Buzzflash)
October 7: Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank reminds us of the media leak of December 1975, where Robert Novak received a leak from foreign-policy hardliners and promptly published it, to the embarrassment and anger of the Ford administration and moderate Republicans around the country.
Plame outing
In this case, Novak, along with his partner Rowland Evans, published the rumor that President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were ready to make concessions in the SALT II treaty negotiations with the Soviet Union in order to keep the treaty alive. After the leak, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld intervened, preventing Kissinger from making the proposals to the Soviets. Most observers believed that Senate aide Richard Perle leaked the information to Evans and Novak; Perle was a proven source for Evans and Novak in the past, with one source observing, "several sources in Congress and the executive branch who regard Perle as an opponent said that he and his allies make masterful use of the Evans and Novak column. ...One congressional aide who tries to counter Perle's...influence on arms issues said the Evans and Novak 'connection' helps Perle create a 'murky, threatening atmosphere' in his dealings with others." Perle denies providing the information about Joseph Wilson's wife to Novak. However, it is worth considering that Novak has a long and cozy history of publishing leaked information at the behest of neoconservatives in the foreign policy apparatus of the US government. In 1981, Evans and Novak wrote about a supposed superiority in Soviet strategic rockets, based on information provided from a top-secret CIA report. In 1986, complaints surfaced about "arms control opponents within the [Reagan] administration [leaking] information" to Evans and Novak about U.S. difficulties monitoring Soviet compliance with arms control agreements; Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dave Durenberger protested the "prostitution of national secrets" and "the frequency with which columns by these two writers are peppered with sensitive national security information." Currently, Novak has aligned himself closely with Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board, an ad hoc advisory group made up of neoconservative hawks like Perle (a fixture in Novak columns), James Woolsey, Newt Gingrich, Kenneth Adelman, and others. (Washington Post)

More evidence that claims of Iraqi WMDs was falsified

October 7: In an e-mail sent to supporters, the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign claims that Iraq has successfully hidden
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
"dozens of WMD-related activities and significant amounts of equipment" from inspectors and US forces. The e-mail also insists that the Kay report, which found no WMDs and little else other than relics of abortive development programs from before the Persian Gulf War, supports the Bush campaign's contentions that Iraq did indeed possess a large arsenal of WMDs. (Buzzflash)

Back to October 2003 | On to October 2003: Week One

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

October 2003:

Week One

California governor recall attempt begins

Kay's team finds no WMDs

Proof that Bush lied about costs of Iraq war and reconstruction

Blair deliberately misled public about Iraqi WMDs

More criticism from opponents and allies alike

California GOP voting machine fraud criticized

Schwarzenegger elected California governor in "circus" election

More evidence that claims of Iraqi WMDs was falsified

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