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
September 2003
Week Two
- September 8: Iraq administrator Paul Bremer publishes an op-ed in the Washington Post that makes it clear he believes the US will be in Iraq for years to come.
Iraq war and occupation
He repeatedly uses the term "occupation," apparently not realizing that the Arabic equivalent of the word, "ihtilal," denotes humiliation at the hands of foreigners. In the Middle East, the occupation is Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands. Bremer is using the term to evoke memories of the US and its allies' occupation of Germany and Japan after World War II, with the infusions of American money and the rebuilding of societies as democratic and economic powerhouses. Condoleezza Rice is taken aback at Bremer's sweeping pronouncements -- she had no idea he had written such a piece for the press. "I am not going to lose connectivity with you," she tells him, but she's too late. "He's a control freak," Bush begins saying of Bremer, but nothing is done to keep Bremer under control and on message. Six months before, the NSC had agreed that it was critically important to put Iraqis in control of their government as soon as possible. The "MacArthur" method of occupying a foreign power was considered a grave mistake. Now Bremer was doing his best MacArthur impersonation in Iraq, aloof, imperious, and accountable to no one. On September 16, according to his book, he tells a group of new Iraq ministers, "Like it or not -- and it's not pleasant being occupied, or being the occupier, I might add -- the Coalition is still the sovereign power here." Bremer often doesn't bother to hide his contempt for the people he rules. He tells deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, "Those people couldn't organize a parade, let alone run the country." (Bob Woodward)
- September 9: A federal judge rules that families of 9/11 victims can proceed with their lawsuit against airlines, aircraft makers and the owners of the World Trade Center.
9/11 attacks
"The hijacking and crashing of the planes was 'a foreseeable risk,'" rules US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein. While the crashes "may not have been foreseen," the airlines had the duty to screen passengers to prevent harm to passengers, crew and ground victims. The ruling will likely affect hundreds of other pending lawsuits, which may use Hellerstein's judgment to give impetus to their own court appearances. (New York Times) - September 9: Once again, a Bush administration official implies that dissent against the administration's policies is tantamount to aiding the enemies of America.
Bush administration's contempt for democracy
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that such critics only make the administration's tasks harder, and suggested that those criticisms might encourage US enemies to believe that the US would abandon its efforts against terrorism before the process is completed. The Democratic National Committee responds, "Dissent is a vital part of democracy. The Bush administration's repeated attempts to associate dissent with treason are among their most undemocratic -— and unpatriotic -— actions." (DNC) - September 9: An e-mail uncovered by the pro-environmental group Greenpeace appears to prove that conservatives in the Bush administration pushed an Exxon front group to sue the EPA to suppress a report on climate change.
Oil profiteering and the "oiligarchy"
The Justice Department has been asked to investigate. In the e-mail, Myron Ebell of the Exxon-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute writes to Phil Cooney, a senior official at the White House Council for Environmental Quality describing his plans to discredit an EPA study on climate change through a lawsuit. Ebell states the need to "drive a wedge between the President and those in the Administration who think that they are serving the president's interests by publishing this rubbish." He notes his group is considering a call for the then-head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman, to resign, and openly suggests that she'd make an appropriate "fall gal" if the administration desires to once again ally with conservatives opposing action on climate change. His memo to the US government official begins: "Thanks for calling and asking for our help." If true, it would prove illegal complicity between Bush officials and Exxon in conspiring to cover up the results of the EPA study which provided additional proof of global warming as well as conspiring to damage the career of a government official, Whitman. The report, released in May 2002, forced the Bush administration to grudgingly (and incompletely) admit that global warming is a reality. The report also placed much of the blame on climate change on Exxon and other large oil companies whose products release tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide and various toxins into the atmosphere. Two days after Ebell's e-mail was sent, Bush repudiated the report. Whitman resigned her post in May 2003. (Greenpeace) - September 9: 10 more Marines fall ill with what has been diagnosed as cases in "an incredibly high rate of malaria" among US soldiers who were briefly in Liberia last month on a peacekeeping mission.
US military
43 soldiers and sailors have been diagnosed with the illness so far. Only 225 soldiers and sailors were sent on the mission to Liberia, which means that approximately 20% of the soldiers involved have contracted the disease. An unknown number of others have complained of symptoms. Possible reasons for the outbreak include problems with the vaccines mandated for the troops sent to Liberia. (Newstrack/ABC News)
EPA study proves administration covered up environmental danger from 9/11 attacks
- September 10: A study by the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of the Inspector General proves the World Trade Center became, after the 9/11 attacks, a chemical wasteland that spewed toxins into the atmosphere for at least six weeks after the strike.
9/11 attacks
This directly contradicts statements from the White House that claimed the air was safe and free of contaminants. The author of the study, Professor Thomas Cahill, says that working conditions would have been "brutal" for rescue workers without respirators, and only slightly less so for workers in nearby areas. "The debris pile acted like a chemical factory," Cahill writes in a statement issued along with the study. "It cooked together the components and the buildings and their contents, including enormous numbers of computers, and gave off gases of toxic metals, acids and organics for at least six weeks." Specifically, the study shows that samples from the site found four types of particles listed by the EPA as likely to harm human health: fine metals that can damage lungs; sulfuric acid that attacks lung cells; fine undissolvable particles of glass that can travel through the lungs to the bloodstream and heart; and high-temperature carcinogenic organic matter. "For each of these four classes of pollutant," Cahill says, "we recorded the highest levels we have ever seen in over 7,000 measurements we have made of very fine air pollution throughout the world;" in some cases over 1,500 times normal levels. EPA Inspector General Nikki Teasley released an internal report in August that showed the Bush administration pressured the EPA into sanitizing its reports on air quality after 9/11. The administration "convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones" by having the National Security Council control EPA communications in the days after 9/11, the report said. - Among the information withheld was the potential health hazards of breathing asbestos, lead, concrete and pulverized glass. Businesses who did their own environmental studies found alarmingly high amounts of asbestos, dioxins, and other dangerous contaminants. Even though the site's air was markedly clearer as early as summer 2002, the main threat remains: toxic dust that has settled into carpets, furniture, and air ducts.
- Why would the Bush administration take such a course? The EPA report mentions "the desire to reopen Wall Street and national security concerns;" economist Paul Krugman believes that there is more to it. After the strike, there was a huge outpouring of sympathy and support for New York City. The Bush administration immediately promised $20 billion in emergency aid for the stricken metropolis. However, hard-line Republicans never wanted to help the city. Within hours of the strike, senators Phil Gramm and Don Nickles were attempting to gut the emergency aid package promised by Bush. Once Bush's photo ops at Ground Zero were over, the administration began backtracking on its promises. By February 2002, only a small amount of the promised aid had been released, and budget director Mitch Daniels was accusing city lawmakers of playing "money-grubbing games." In the end, New York received the promised $20 billion, but the additional money promised for "first responders" such as firefighters and police did not materialize until a few months ago, and most of it went to sparsely populated, Republican-voting states. Krugman notes that "[t]he federal government spends much more protecting the average resident of Wyoming from terrorists than it spends protecting the average resident of New York City." (MSNBC, New York Times)
- September 10: At a luncheon by the National Press Club,
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, when asked about the still-missing Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, responds, "Sometimes I overstate for emphasis." (Paul Waldman) - September 10: After months of insisting that there are more than enough American troops deployed in Iraq, the US military is preparing to call up thousands of new National Guard personnel for deployment, as well as extending the terms of those already over there for six months or beyond.
Iraq war and occupation
Communities across America are losing critical first-responder manpower; some communities are losing 20% or more of their police force to the Guard callups. Worse, Guardsmen sent to Iraq will not be paid any hazard pay, combat bonuses, or extended benefits; they will be considered for pay purposes as doing the same level of work as they would do in their hometowns, and will only be paid standard Guard pay for serving in Iraq. Thousands of Guardsmen could be deployed for 18 months or longer; many face the prospects of going into massive debt, and losing homes and jobs, due to the length of time they will be away. (Daily Misleader, my own sources) - September 10: The Bush administration plans on treating the $87 billion appropriated by Congress for the reconstruction of Iraq as if it were "off-budget" -- in essence, making it disappear.
Iraq war and occupation
Business Week observes, "This is an accounting gimmick that would shame even Enron. 'We will hold down spending,' Bush and GOP leaders on Capitol Hill will say. But next to that boast will be a little imaginary asterisk that says, 'For everything, that is, but Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, a fistful of trust funds, and the war in Iraq.' In truth, the government will spend more than $1.3 trillion next year -- close to twice the discretionay-spending target -- on stuff that doesn't count in Washington's debates over fiscal responsibility." (Business Week) - September 10: Former Air Force propaganda specialist Colonel Sam Gardiner identifies numerous false stories from the Bush White House concerning Iraq.
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
Gardiner, a former instructor at the National War College, the Air War College and the Naval Warfare College, releases his study entitled "Truth from These Podia: Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management, Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations in Gulf II," which identifies more than 50 stories about the Iraq war that were faked by government propaganda artists in a covert campaign to "market" the military invasion of Iraq. Gardiner says, "It was not bad intelligence" that lead to the quagmire in Iraq, "It was an orchestrated effort [that] began before the war" that was designed to mislead the public and the world. Gardiner's research leads him to conclude that the US and Britain had conspired at the highest levels to plant "stories of strategic influence" that were known to be false. The London Times of London describes the $200-million-plus US operation as a "meticulously planned strategy to persuade the public, the Congress, and the allies of the need to confront the threat from Saddam Hussein." The multimillion-dollar propaganda campaign run out of the White House and Defense Department was, in Gardiner's final assessment "irresponsible in parts" and "might have been illegal." Gardiner explains, "Washington and London did not trust the peoples of their democracies to come to the right decisions." Consequently, "[t]ruth became a casualty. When truth is a casualty, democracy receives collateral damage." For the first time in US history, "we allowed strategic psychological operations to become part of public affairs... [W]hat has happened is that information warfare, strategic influence, [and] strategic psychological operations pushed their way into the important process of informing the peoples of our two democracies." According to Gardiner, "there were over 50 stories manufactured or at least engineered that distorted the picture of Gulf II for the American and British people." Those stories include:- The link between terrorism, Iraq and 9/11
- Iraqi agents meeting with 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta
- Iraq's possession of chemical and biological weapons.
- Iraq's purchase of nuclear materials from Niger.
- Saddam Hussein's development of nuclear weapons.
- Aluminum tubes for nuclear weapons
- The existence of Iraqi drones, WMD cluster bombs and Scud missiles.
- Iraq's threat to target the US with cyber warfare attacks.
- The rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch.
- The surrender of a 5,000-man Iraqi brigade.
- Iraq executing Coalition POWs.
- Iraqi soldiers dressing in US and UK uniforms to commit atrocities.
- The exact location of WMD facilities
- WMDs moved to Syria.
- Gardiner notes that false stories about Iraqi WMDs "was only a very small part of the strategic influence, information operations and marketing campaign conducted on both sides of the Atlantic." The "major thrust" of the campaign, Gardiner explains, was "to make a conflict with Iraq seem part of a struggle between good and evil. Terrorism is evil... we are the good guys. The second thrust is what propaganda theorists would call the 'big lie.' The plan was to connect Iraq with the 9/11 attacks. Make the American people believe that Saddam Hussein was behind those attacks." The means for pushing the message involved: saturating the media with stories, 24/7; staying on message; staying ahead of the news cycle; managing expectations; and finally, being prepared to "use information to attack and punish critics."
- The techniques that proved so successful in Operation Iraqi Freedom were first tried out during the campaign to build public support for the US attack on Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld hired Rendon Associates, a private PR firm that had been deeply involved in the first Gulf War, to manage the PR campaign for Iraq. (Founder John Rendon calls himself an "information warrior.") The White House Coalition Information Center was set up by Rendon and Karen Hughes in November 2001 (to be renamed the Office for Global Communications in January 2003). The CIC focused on "the plight of women in Afghanistan" to build support for its operations in Afghanistan. CIC's Jim Wilkinson later called the Afghan women campaign "the best thing we've done." Gardiner is quick with a correction. The campaign "was not about something they did. It was about a story they created.... It was not a program with specific steps or funding to improve the conditions of women." The coordination between the propaganda engines of Washington and London even involved the respective First Wives. On November 17, 2001, Laura Bush issued the following statement: "Only the terrorists and the Taliban threaten to pull out women's fingernails for wearing nail polish." Three days later, Cherie Blaire told the London media, "In Afghanistan, if you wear nail polish, you could have your nails torn out." Time and again, US reporters accepted the CIC news leaks without question.
- Among the many examples that Gardiner documents was the use of the "anthrax scare" to promote the administration's pre-existing plan to attack Iraq. In both the US and the UK, "intelligence sources" provided a steady diet of unsourced allegations to the media to suggest that Iraq and al-Qaeda terrorists were behind the 2001 mailing of anthrax-laden letters. It wasn't until December 18 that the White House confessed that it was "increasingly looking like" the anthrax came from a US military installation. The news was released as a White House "paper" instead of as a more prominent White House "announcement." As a result, the idea that Iraq or al-Qaeda were behind the anthrax plot continued to persist. Gardiner believes this was an intentional part of the propaganda campaign. "If a story supports policy, even if incorrect, let it stay around." In a successful propaganda campaign, Gardiner writes, "We would have expected to see the creation [of] stories to sell the policy; we would have expected to see the same stories used on both sides of the Atlantic. We saw both. The number of engineered or false stories from US and UK stories is long."
- Before the coalition invasion began on March 20, 2003, Washington and London agreed to call their illegal pre-emptive military aggression an "armed conflict"and to always reference the Iraqi government as the "regime." Strategic communications managers in both capitols issued lists of "guidance" terms to be used in all official statements. London's 15 Psychological Operations Group paralleled Washington's Office of Global Communications. In a departure from long military tradition, the perception managers even took over the naming of the war. Military code names were originally chosen for reasons of security. In modern US warfare, however, military code names have become "part of the marketing." There was Operation Noble Eagle, Operation Valiant Strike, Operation Provide Comfort, Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Uphold Democracy and, finally, Operation Iraqi Freedom.
- The Pentagon's control over the news surrounding the April 2003 capture and rescue of Private Jessica Lynch receives a good deal of attention in Gardiner's report. "From the very beginning it was called an 'ambush'," Gardiner notes, but, "If you drive a convoy into enemy lines, turn around and drive back, it's not an ambush. Military officers who are very careful about how they talk about operations would normally not be sloppy about describing this kind of event. This un-military kind of talk is one of the reasons I began doing this research." One of the things that struck Gardiner as revealing was the fact that, as Newsweek reported: "as soon as Lynch was in the air, [the Joint Operations Center] phoned Jim Wilkinson, the top civilian communications aide to CENTCOM Gen. Tommy Franks." It struck Gardiner as inexplicable that the first call after Lynch's rescue would go to the Director of Strategic Communications, the White House's top representative on the ground. On the morning of April 3, the Pentagon began leaking information on Lynch's rescue that sought to establish Lynch as "America's new Rambo." The Washington Post repeated the story it received from the Pentagon: that Lynch "sustained multiple gunshot wounds" and fought fiercely and shot several enemy soldiers...firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition." Lynch's family confused the issue by telling the press that their daughter had not sustained any bullet wounds. Lynch's parents subsequently refused to talk to the press, explaining that they had been "told not to talk about it." (Weeks later, the truth emerged. Lynch was neither stabbed nor shot. She was apparently injured while falling from her vehicle.) Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers let the story stand during an April 3 press conference, although both had been fully briefed on Lynch's true condition.
- "Again, we see the pattern," Gardiner observes. "When the story on the street supports the message, it will be left there by a non-answer. The message is more important than the truth. Even Central Command kept the story alive by not giving out details." Gardiner saw another break with procedure. The information on the rescue that was released to the Post "would have been very highly classified" and should have been closely guarded. Instead, it was used as a tool to market the war. "This was a major pattern from the beginning of the marketing campaign throughout the war," Gardiner writes. "It was okay to release classified information if it supported the message." (Earth Island/Rense, Laura Flanders)
"The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. ...Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it." -- Adolf Hitler
- September 10: The US military is stepping up its efforts to recruit Hispanics, including tens of thousands of non-citizen immigrants, for military duty.
US military
The military has offered immediate citizenship for those who join instead of forcing them to wait the usual five years. Anti-war groups say that the Pentagon merely wants them for "cannon fodder." Recent statistics from the Pew Hispanic Center, a non-partisan think-tank, show that Latinos are already doing the most dangerous combat jobs in disproportionate numbers. While they are still under-represented in the armed forces as a whole -- they made up 9.4 per cent of enlisted men in 2001, compared with 13.4 per cent of the general population - they are over-represented in jobs that involve handling weapons (17.7 per cent). (Independent/Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace) - September 10: New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg asks Vice President Cheney not to attend the observation of the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The reason given is the conflict between providing the proper security and the focus on the families at the observation. Cheney was slated to lead the city in a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m., the time when the first hijacked plane struck the Twin Towers two years before. (CNN)
- September 11: Nonproliferation expert Henry Krepon says,
Anti-terrorism and homeland security
in light of the Bush administration's relentless efforts to hinder UN and other efforts to gain control of nuclear materials, biotoxins, and chemical weapons, "On balance, we are not safe. We are actually less safe than we were before the war on terror was waged after 9/11." (Mark Crispin Miller) - September 11: Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz tells ABC, "We know [Iraq] had a great deal to do with terrorism in general and with al-Qaeda in particular and we know a great many of bin Laden's key lieutenants are now trying to organize in co-operation with old loyalists from the Saddam regime."
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
The next day Wolfowitz will be forced to admit that he misspoke: he will tell the AP that his remarks referred not to a "great many" of bin Laden's lieutenants but rather to a single Jordanian, Abu Musab Zarqawi, who has been proven to have worked with a terrorist group inimical to Saddam Hussein. "[I] should have been more precise," Wolfowitz will admit. In fact, Wolfowitz's entire statement is a flagrant lie. Columnist Robert Scheer characterizes Wolfowitz's lie as a common Bush administration strategy to feed misinformation and lies to the American people: "say what you want people to believe for the front page and on TV, then whisper a half-hearted correction or apology that slips under the radar. It is really quite ingenious in its cynical effectiveness, and Wolfowitz's latest performance is a classic example —- even his correction needs correcting." (Toronto Star) - September 11: The American media discovers that US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have often had to buy their own equipment.
US military
According to the Pentagon's "Operation Iraqi Freedom Lessons Learned" report, soldiers spent their own money to get better field radios, extra ammunition carriers to help them fight better and commercial backpacks because their own rucksacks were too small. One airman points out that his $200/year clothing allowance and uniform provisions don't last long. "Now with some of the units if you rip a pair of BDU's [battle dress uniform], they will give you a new pair. But for the most part you are responsible for buying any new uniform you need except for boots. Your unit will always supply with a free pair of boots." Meanwhile, US soldiers wounded in Iraq are being billed $8.10 a day for hospital food, as mandated by a 1981 law. A Republican congressman has introduced legislation to repeal the law. "If I could be king for a day, I'd stop it in a minute," says Major General Kevin Kiley, who commands the Army hospitals in the eastern United States. Meanwhile, many soldiers are facing collection attempts to obtain the outstanding debts. (Scripps Howard/Global Security, St. Petersburg Times) - September 11: Discussing the devastating impact of Bush's tax cuts on the middle and lower classes,
Bush's economic policies
GOP senator Rick Santorum says callously, "[M]aking people struggle a little bit is not necessarily the worst thing." (Los Angeles Times/Eric Alterman and Mark Green) - September 11: The US Army declares itself "stumped" by the continuing outbreak of "mystery pneumonia" plaguing Americans and British troops stationed in the Middle East.
US military
"We don't know the cause, but we're aggressively pursuing that through laboratory tests," says Col. Bruno Petrucelli, a doctor and epidemiologist in the US Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine in Maryland. SARS, bioweapons, and other causes have been ruled out. "Clinically there is just no fit here with the bioagents," Petrucelli says. Investigators outside of the military believe that many more cases than the 19 acknowledged by the US have occurred, possibly as many as 100, and point to anthrax vaccinations as a prime possibility. The Pentagon has ruled the deaths of a number of soldiers as unrelated to the illness, and instead seems to be blaming the outbreak on the smoking habits of some of the victims. Soldiers are required to take the anthrax shots whether or not they want them. (Reuters, UPI) - September 11: Retired general Wesley Clark gives an interview to Rolling Stone.
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
He says that his opposition to the Bush administration began in earnest after 9/11, when he learned that the attacks were being used merely as an excuse to launch a "five-year plan" to overthrow or destabilize a number of Middle Eastern countries and their neighbors, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, and Somalia. When asked why invading Iraq was a mistake, Clark calls it a "historic strategic blunder," reminding the reader that "Iraq had no connection to the war on terror. Of all the states in the Middle East to give chemical, biological or nuclear weapons to terrorists, least likely was Iraq. Saddam's a control artist. He wouldn't have given bioweapons to Osama bin Laden unless Osama's mother, four wives and fifteen children were in one of his prisons so he could rip their hearts out if Osama screwed up. But we didn't want to face the tough task of going after bin Laden, so we did a bait-and-switch and went after Saddam instead. And now, look at the headline on today's New York Times: bin Laden seen with aide on tape. We're less secure now than we were before. Spending $80 billion and putting half the U.S. Army in Iraq has provided a supercharger to Al Qaeda recruiters. We helped bin Laden. The only thing we could have done that would have helped him more is if we had invaded Saudi Arabia and captured Mecca. We've also squandered the support that brought 200,000 Germans out after 9/11 two years ago. They're not coming back out again -- not for this administration. You won't get any support out of the Germans and the French until you get a regime change in Washington." - Clark says that a large part of the administration's problem is the influence of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, and remembers the paranoid and secretive atmosphere they helped create in the Ford White House: "What I discovered was that the [Ford] White House was full of paranoia and suspicion -- a real Watergate mentality. I'd bring something up, and they'd say, 'Wes, if you ask a question like that, you can't work here.' The reason the White House was that way was not only because of Watergate but because of the two guys in charge: Donald Rumsfeld, who was Gerald Ford's chief of staff, and Dick Cheney, who was his assistant. Today you've got the same people in there running things, trying to close down access to government. Rumsfeld and Cheney are patriotic men, and I know they are doing the best they can. It's just that I disagree with them. I don't believe that government is made better by secrecy and restraint. It's made better by transparency, by being open and honest. If you're right, you're right. If not, you take your licks."
- When asked about Bush's desire for wider surveillance powers and more legislation along the lines of the Patriot Act, Clark retorts, "Come on, give us a break. The Patriot Act, all 1,200 pages of it, was passed without any serious congressional discussion. There was no public accountability, and now he wants more? What does he think this country is? We shouldn't do anything with the Patriot Act until it's unwrapped. I'd like to see what violations of privacy it entails, and whether those violations are in any way justified by their preventing terrorism in this country. And we need to do it now before we take another step forward and pay for that." When asked about the administration's, and its conservative allies', penchant for trying to squelch dissent, Clark responds, "I'm not going to let Tom DeLay or Dick Cheney or those guys who've never served in uniform take away from the right of men and women who served honorably in this country's armed forces to criticize policy. If soldiers' lives are at stake, the time to criticize the policy is now, not when it's over. I think the height of patriotism is to speak out. Even in wartime in a democracy, you need a democracy. You need people with the courage to stand up and voice their opposition without being labeled unpatriotic. I've always thought that the height of loyalty is to ask questions and help sort things out." (Rolling Stone)
- September 12: The $87 billion request from the Bush administration for rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan is in reality a mere down payment on the ultimate costs of rebuilding those countries, say senior administration officials.
Iraq war and occupation
Some officials say that the US will have to make what they term a "generational commitment" to keeping troops, and funnelling billions, into both countries. "One cannot help but wonder if this means that generations of soldiers will serve in this volatile part of the world or generations of Americans will be paying untold billions of dollars in new foreign aid," says Democratic Senator Robert Byrd. Officials defend the costs, saying that they had no idea Iraq was in such poor shape. The White House hasn't issued a definitive price tag for the Iraq operation, beyond Bush's vow that the United States will "do what it takes." (Capital Hill Blue) - September 12: Bush visits the 3rd Infantry in Fort Stewart, Georgia, to complement them on the fine job they performed in Iraq.
Iraq war and occupation
The 3rd suffered more casualties than any other US military unit. The last of its troops returned home in August, but a large number of units are already scheduled for redeployment. Many of the troops are less than enthusiastic about a visit from President Bush. "He likes war," says one radio operator. "He should go fight in a war for two days and see how he likes it." (AP/Washington Times, Palm Beach Post/Orange County Democrats) - September 12: The US military is attempting to sort out the facts about the latest incidence of friendly fire, where soldiers from the 82nd Airborne fired on a group of Iraqi policemen who were chasing bandits.
Iraq war and occupation
Eight Iraqis died and seven others were wounded. Later US reports claim that the American soldiers were fired upon first; eyewitness reports dispute that claim. The US military has apologized, but has also cleared the soldiers of any wrongdoing. The military statement claims that the firefight lasted less than a minute and was triggered by Iraqi fire on the US soldiers, while eyewitnesses claim that the Americans opened fire, and the battle lasted as long as 45 minutes. Iraqi policemen who survived tell journalists from their hospital beds how they begged the American soldiers to stop shooting, screaming in Arabic and English that they were police. The Americans kept firing volley after volley, they say; the fusillade raged for a half hour. The next day, mourners will swarm the city of Fallujah, firing weapons into the air and berating the Americans for the deaths. "We have had enough of the Americans killing us and then just saying 'Oh, sorry!'" says one mourner. Another says, "We want the Americans to leave our country because they have brought us only death. We are fed up with their apologies. We will continue our resistance." (AP/Washington Times, Guardian, Guardian) - September 12: Halliburton's US contracts to restore Iraq's oil infrastructure and provide support to US troops will cost taxpayers a minimum of $2 billion and probably more, according to the US Army.
Halliburton
An Army Corps of Engineers contract to rehabilitate the country's oil fields, controversial because it wasn't competitively bid, now is valued at $948 million, more than $200 million above the level projected last month. Halliburton's separate Army Field Support Command contract, which it won in 2001, now is estimated to cost $1 billion in Iraq alone, up more than $400 million from the level in late May. Senator Bob Graham, a Democrat, says he may support the administration's request for $87 billion in new funds for Iraq, but, "I will not support a dime to protect the profits of Halliburton in Iraq." (Dow Jones/Mindfully) - September 12: London's conservative Financial Times criticizes the Bush administration for its
Bush's foreign policies
"instinctive and ideological tendency to regard international consultation and cooperation as a burdensome bore or intolerable constraint." Don't they know, the paper asked, that "alone the US is far more vulnerable than it likes to believe, while in concert with free nations, it is far more powerful than even it can imagine"? (CommonDreams) - September 12: Joseph Wilson, the former diplomat who proved that the Bush administration lied about Iraq's WMDs, tells the Salt Lake City, Utah Committee on Foreigh Relations that "The war in Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism."
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
Instead, the occupation has "coalesced into a white hot rage the amorphous envy and jealousy" that many Arab and other underdeveloped countries have long had of America. "What a wonderful recruiting tool for international terrorists." He continues, "Invading Iraq has made our country less safe, and I'm prepared to continue to argue that. ...Bush is faced with two problems. He needs to restore his credibility and heal US relations with Iraq and the rest of the world at a time when our military power is at a zenith and our political and moral authority is at its lowest ebb ever." (Salt Lake Tribune)
- September 13: The Senate Intelligence Committee refuses to seek to declassify sensitive documents concerning the 9/11 attacks,
9/11 attacks
instead accepting the Bush administration's assertions that the documents need to remain secret in order to further the US war against terrorism. Chairman Pat Roberts, a Republican, and senior Democratic member Jay Rockefeller co-author a letter to Senator Bob Graham, who had requested the declassification, that announces the decision, which was based on review of the documents in question along with briefings by FBI director Robert Mueller and CIA deputy director John McLaughlin. (Boston Globe) - September 13: The wear and tear on US military equipment in Iraq is extreme, and very costly.
Iraq war and occupation
One prime example is the cost of new treads on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle; around 600 Bradleys are stationed in Iraq, piling up around 1,200 miles a month. The vehicles need new tracks about every 60 days, at a cost of $22,576 per vehicle. A third of the vehicles are out of commission while waiting for new tracks. Goodyear is ramping up production, and the Army is running three shifts seven days a week at the Red River Army Depot in Texas, rebuilding old tracks, but the workers there are still three months behind the Army's demands. The tracks this fiscal year will have cost $230 million, nearly triple the $78 million the Army spent on track repair and replacement in 2002. The punishing and dangerous terrain of Iraq and the unanticipated intensity of combat, or "operational tempo," are driving up military costs as significantly as they are raising the danger to the troops. Defense experts say the toll of the war on troops and equipment will ensure higher military spending for years to come. "This $87 billion is really just a down payment," says Scott Lilly, the Democratic staff director of the House Appropriations Committee and a military procurement expert. "We assumed that operations would cease a lot earlier than they have," says an Army official. "They haven't ceased. The planning process was always to downsize, for the operational tempo to drop dramatically by now. The surprise is, we continue to operate at a very, very high op tempo with a very, very large force." Army officials say they will need more than $16 billion to repair and replace worn and expended military hardware and reconstitute a force that has been exhausted by simultaneous operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. "There's widespread concern that the Department of Defense just hadn't thought through this thing adequately," says James W. Dyer, the Republican staff director of the House Appropriations Committee, who attributes supply problems to "very poor planning." "We've consumed everything," Gen. Paul J. Kern, commander of the Army Materiel Command, said three weeks ago. Army resupply, he said, is costing "in clearly the millions of dollars per day." (Washington Post)
- September 14: Evidence in the possession of the Bush administration shows that there was minimal, low-level contact between al-Qaeda and Iraqi citizens, but zero proof that any connection between the terrorist group and Saddam Hussein's regime.
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
Most of the administration's assertions about the connections between Hussein and al-Qaeda come from terrorist sympathizer and defector Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has proven less than credible. The administration claims to have unreleased evidence that there were contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence in the mid-1990s, but that has not been confirmed. "There is nothing yet that remotely resembles state sponsorship by Iraq," says one recently retired intelligence officer. Of course, with the fall of Hussein, al-Qaeda activities within Iraq have spiked. "The US attack on Iraq has now made a terrorist connection a self-fulfilling prophecy. We really found the one formula that maximizes al-Qaeda's chances of increasing their operations in Iraq," says Greg Thielmann, who retired last year as the State Department's top expert on chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. In 1996, US intelligence discovered that tenuous contacts existed between Iraqi intelligence and al-Qaeda terrorists: "The Iraqi chemical corps was sent to Sudan to maintain relationships with the terrorists and to share knowledge about poisons," one source says. "We are confident they were in contact with al-Qaida at that time." Bin Laden himself may have met with an Iraqi agent in Khartoum, Sudan, in 1996 and subsequently met with one of the heads of Iraqi intelligence. There may have been an informal agreement between Hussein and bin Laden that there would be no al-Qaeda attacks inside Iraq; other than that, the two were rivals because Iraq's secular brand of Islam conflicted with bin Laden's more extreme followers. (AP/Arizona Daily Sun) - September 14: Two guerrilla leaders in Iraq tell an American reporter that their organizations are poised for greater and more deadly attacks against American forces, and will not stop until the US pulls out of Iraq entirely.
Iraq war and occupation
The two, one a native Iraqi and the other a Jordanian, say their fighters are mostly former Iraqi army officers and young Iraqis who had joined because they were angry over the deaths or arrests of family members during US raids in the hunt for Saddam Hussein and his supporters. They receive funding from Syria as well as private Iraqi sources. One leader, a Hussein loyalist, says he feels sure that Hussein is directing at least some of the activity. He has heard that leaders many levels above him had met recently with the fallen Iraqi leader. But Hussein will never return to power in his opinion because of the shame of losing Baghdad and because of relatives who turned in his sons and other key figures for rewards. "We love Saddam Hussein for one thing -- he has a big mind," the guerrilla leader says. "He knows how to think and how to plan. He made our hearts as strong as steel." The other leader claims he isn't a terrorist, but an enemy of "U.S. imperialism. ...Can you describe a man who defends his country as a terrorist? ...Iraq is the land of prophets and the birthplace of civilization. We will fight until we shed the last drop of our blood for this country. ...The Americans are only coming to occupy Iraq, to drain this land of its natural resources." Both are guided by a blend of Islamist teachings and pan-Arab nationalism, and speak disdainfully of "Wahabbis," as hard-line Sunni Muslim followers are called. Both deny any al-Qaeda connections; one says his fighters are too valuable to be used as suicide bombers, a hallmark of al-Qaeda operations. "We are Islamist in that we are protecting our religion," says one leader. "We are nationalist in that we are protecting our country. We don't care about our lives. We care about the lives of our fellow Iraqis." He also says that even if the US leaves, the opposition will continue, directed against the US-picked Iraqi Governing Council and Ahmad Chalabi. They will only accept an Iraqi leader who "suffered like us, who was with the people" during wars and sanctions. "I promise you. The first day Chalabi is president, we will bomb his house no matter who is inside." (Knight Ridder/Contra Costa Times) - September 14: A new furor erupts in Britain when it is revealed that Foreign Secretary Jack Straw begged PM Tony Blair not to enter the Iraqi conflict less than two weeks before the invasion.
Iraq war and occupation
In a confidential "personal minute" to Blair, Straw recommended that the UK should offer the Americans "political and moral support" in their campaign against Saddam Hussein, but not military backing. Straw argued that the UN's refusal to back the invasion made it too damaging for Britain to take part in; instead, Straw urged Blair to tell the US that British troops would help clear up the mess and keep the peace once the war was over, but would play no part in Saddam's overthrow. Blair was reportedly shocked at Straw's urgings, rejecting them point-blank and making him promise to stay quiet. Once Blair made it clear that Britain was committed to joining the US in the Iraqi invasion, Straw agreed to fall in line and from that moment on began publicly supporting the war. The incident is detailed in a new book called Blair's War, written by New Statesman political editor John Kampfner. In his book, Kampfner claims that Blair and his cabinet had deep, divisive doubts about the solidity of their intelligence about Iraq, and that as time grew near to invade, intelligence reports were becoming more and more clear that the Jussein regime possessed no WMDs. Furthermore, the book revealks that Blair had secretly agreed to go to war as early as April 2002, when he had a summit with George Bush at the President's ranch in Crawford, Texas. According to Kampfner's sources, the 45-minute claim about Saddam's missiles "was a red herring designed to scare," and Blair knew it. In a final ironical twist, Blair was kept in the dark when President Bush finally ordered US forces into action. (Scotsman) - September 14: British Chancellor Gordon Brown has warned PM Tony Blair that the soaring cost of Iraqi operations poses a severe threat to the British economy,
Iraq war and occupation
with a bill approaching £4.5 billion. Brown predicts a strong rise in income taxes will be needed to offset the expenditures. A senior official says, "We are not in a crisis, but Gordon is anxious to keep a tight rein. You can't do that and have an open-ended commitment to pouring cash into Iraq. Something will have to give." (Sunday Mirror) - September 14: On Meet the Press, Vice President Cheney tells an astonishing array of lies in response to questions about Iraq.
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
He responds to a question about polls showing 70% of Americans believe Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks by saying, "I think it's not surprising that people make that connection." (The White House Web site says, "You can't distinguish between al-Qaeda and Saddam.") He continues, "We don't know" if such a link exists, but adds that the US has "learned more and more that there was a relationship" between Iraq and al-Qaeda, and refers to Iraq as "the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11," leaving little doubt in listeners' minds what he thinks. (The actual base of al-Qaeda operations is Afghanistan, which is why the US invaded that country in 2001.) - Cheney says, "We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization." This statement is absolutely false, with no support from anyone in the CIA or FBI. As possible proof of a connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq, Cheney cites once again the long-discredited story of an alleged meeting between Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaeda leader of the 9/11 strikes, and Iraqi officials in the Czech Republic before the attacks. "We've never been able to develop any more on that yet, either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it," Cheney qualifies. He does not mention that Czech officials disputed that story in December 2001 and US intelligence officials have confirmed that Atta was actually in the US at the time of the alleged meeting.
- Cheney also claims that al-Qaeda "sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained" on biological and chemical weapons and bomb making. No such training sessions have ever been confirmed, and Cheney offers no evidence to substantiate his claim. A senior defense official says "There isn't any new intelligence." Cheney adds, "Same on biological weapons--we believe he'd developed the capacity to go mobile with his BW production capability because, again, in reaction to what we had done to him in '91. We had intelligence reporting before the war that there were at least seven of these mobile labs that he had gone out and acquired. We've, since the war, found two of them. They're in our possession today, mobile biological facilities that can be used to produce anthrax or smallpox or whatever else you wanted to use during the course of developing the capacity for an attack." Cheney, of course, fails to note that those "mobile biological facilities" have long since been proven to have actually been for the production of hydrogen for artillery weapons, and that he personally sat in a briefing by weapons inspector David Kay debunking the bioweapons labs in late July.
- During the broadcast, Tim Russert replays Cheney's quote from March 16, 2003 about Saddam currently having reconstituted nuclear weapons, and says, "You misspoke." Cheney responds, "Yeah, I did misspeak. I said repeatedly during the show 'weapons capability.' We never had any evidence that he had acquired a nuclear weapon." On March 16, 2003, Russert asked Cheney, "What do you think is the most important rationale for going to war with Iraq?" Cheney responded, "Well, I think I've just given it, Tim, in terms of the combination of his development and use of chemical weapons, his development of biological weapons, his pursuit of nuclear weapons." Cheney also repeats the lie that the Clinton administration wasn't concerned with terrorism, and continues to insist that Iraq attempted to obtain uranium from Niger. Cheney also repeats the lie that the Clinton administration wasn't concerned with terrorism, and continues to insist that Iraq attempted to obtain uranium from Niger, saying that the British dossier that had been proven a forgery actually "revalidated" the assertion. Former CIA counter-terrorism expert Vincent Cannistraro says that Cheney's "willingness to use speculation and conjecture as facts in public presentations is appalling. It's astounding." (MSNBC [Meet the Press transcript], Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune, Common Cause, NBC/Bush on Iraq, Boston Globe/Paul Waldman, Seymour Hersh, Michael Isikoff and David Corn)
- September 14: On Meet the Press, Cheney bristles at allegations that he or members of the administration have profited economically or politically from their connections with Halliburton, who maintains huge contracts with US military and corporate entities in Iraq.
Halliburton
After he cashed in $30 million worth of Halliburton stock options upon assuming the vice-presidency, Cheney says he has taken no further interest in the corporation's fortunes. He describes as "political cheap shots" any suggestions to the contrary: "Nobody has produced one single shred of evidence that there's anything wrong or inappropriate here." (Note that the Guardian confirmed in March 2003 that Cheney still receives payments of up to $1 million a year from Halliburton as "deferred compensation.") Catherine Martin, Cheney's spokeswoman, admits that he receives "about $150,000 a year" in deferred compensation from Halliburton through 2005, but said the amount was not tied to the company's fortunes in any way. According to Martin, Cheney bought an insurance policy to cover the compensation before he took office, guaranteeing him the full amount even if the company went bankrupt. The $400,000 of stock options in Halliburton belonging to Cheney have been assigned to a charitable trust that controls them and receives all benefits from them. Even after Cheney leaves office, he will not be able to reclaim the options and cannot take a tax deduction for them, she asserts. - Senate Democrats are disputing Cheney's claims that he has severed all ties with his former company. On September 17, Senator Frank Lautenberg will stand on the floor of the Senate and display Cheney's current financial disclosure form, which states that Cheney holds 433,333 Halliburton stock options and continues to receive deferred compensation. "If you ask everyday Americans if someone has a financial interest in a company that pays them annual compensation, I am sure the answer would be universally yes." Lautenberg and Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle continue to call on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee to hold hearings on the administration's contracts with Halliburton for Iraq, particularly those that were granted without competitive bidding. With the appointment of Whitewater investigator L. Jean Lewis as chief-of-staff of the Defense Department's inspector general agency, it's unlikely that any such evidence will ever be made public. In 1995, Lewis pretended to faint, and was carried out of, Congressional Whitewater hearings when Democrats began questioning her about her hamhanded attempts to interfere in the Whitewater investigations. During his five years as Halliburton's CEO, Cheney steered over $2.3 billion in contracts to the company, almost double what it had received in the five years preceding Cheney's tenure. (Gene Lyons/HNN, Guardian, New York Times, Amy Goodman and David Goodman)
- September 14: During the same Meet the Press broadcast, Cheney claims that he had no idea his administration had allowed 140 Saudis, including 24 members of the bin Laden family, to leave the US in the hours and days after the attacks.
9/11 attacks
Author Craig Unger, who broke the story in Vanity Fair, points out that not only were former President Bill Clinton and Vice-President Al Gore prevented from flying during that time, as well as a flight carrying a heart to a dying cardiac patient, but the Saudis were allowed out. "...[B]ut for the first time we know that Saudis were in the air when American air space was locked down. This was the greatest national security crisis possibly in the history of the United States, and American skies were emptier than at any time since the days of the Wright brothers. Why is it that the Saudis were the most privileged people in the United States including members of the bin Laden family? In any normal criminal investigation, even if it's a common place murder, it is normal to question the friends and relatives of the suspect, and here you had roughly 24 members of the bin Laden family who left without being interrogated or interviewed, and it really calls into question why the administration has been so soft on the Saudis. 15 out of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis. Increasingly we've learned since 9/11 about a fairly big Saudi role in terrorism." Unger has tried numerous times to get a comment from the White House, and no one would confirm or deny Cheney's denials. He did get responses from various airport officials: "[T]hey were stunned. I spoke with the Director of Aviation, Tom Kinton, and he simply couldn't believe it. He said, how is it possible they're letting them go? Virginia Buckingham, who is Head of MassPort, which is the agency that oversaw Logan was just agog. Here they were, the bin Ladens were on the tarmac in the plane. They simply couldn't believe that they were being told to let them go without questioning." (Democracy Now) - September 14: Cheney really outdoes himself on Meet the Press.
Iraq war and occupation
During the interview, he claims that not only is Iraq "relatively stable and quiet," but "the majority of Iraqis are thankful for the fact that the United States is there." The reality is that Iraqis are increasingly angry and resentful of the American presence in their country. The Defense Department warns that the biggest threat to American troops is not foreign terrorists or leftover Hussein loyalists, but ordinary Iraqi citizens. Says one officia, "To a lot of Iraqis, we're no longer the guys who threw out Saddam, but the ones who are busting down doors and barging in on their wives and daughters." (Mother Jones) - September 14: A carefully handled visit is made by ABC's Good Morning America crew to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
Terrorism detainees and "enemy combatants"
"The treatment of the detainees here at Camp Delta reflects the very best traditions of how our nation treats our enemies," says Major General Geoffrey Miller, commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo. A different reality is noted by legal expert Stuart Taylor: "I think it's maybe the most lawless set of actions the United States government has taken in my lifetime." ABC reporters are allowed orchestrated glimpses of life inside the razor wire-surrounded camp; they report seeing teenaged captives playing video games, enjoying views of the ocean, and observing their religious rites. The article notes that some top Bush administration officials are said to like the idea that Guantanamo frightens its inmates. They are said to be investigating whether it would be possible to send some Iraqi prisoners there. Other reports are far more daunting than the report produced by ABC. (ABC News) - September 14: The number of Americans wounded in Iraq is far higher than admitted by the Bush administration.
Iraq war and occupation
Over 6,000 servicement have been evacuated, with over 1,500 suffering from wounds. Americans have been led to believe that the number is far smaller. Officially, around 10 soldiers a day are declared wounded. Many injuries go unreported to the press. The Observer notes, "It is believed many of the American casualties evacuated from Iraq are seriously injured. Modern body armour, worn by almost all American troops, means wounds that would normally kill a man are avoided. However, vulnerable arms and legs are affected badly. This has boosted the proportion of maimed among the injured. There are also concerns that many men serving in Iraq will suffer psychological trauma. Experts at the National Army Museum in London said studies of soldiers in the First and Second World Wars showed that it was prolonged exposure to combat environments that was most damaging. Some American units, such as the Fourth Infantry Division, have been involved in frontline operations for more than six months." Their British counterparts have been rotated out of Iraq far more frequently. American wounded return to the USA with little publicity; they are flown into Andrews Air Force Base on C-17 transport jets every night. Battlefield casualties are first treated at Army field hospitals in Iraq then sent to Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre in Germany, where they are stabilised. Others are sent to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, near Washington, and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. "The hospitals are busy. Sometimes all 40 of Walter Reed's intensive care beds are full." Susan Brewer, the founder of America's Heroes of Freedom, a local support group, says, "Our nation doesn't know that. Sort of out of sight and out of mind." (Guardian, MSNBC)
Journalist Christiane Amanpour reveals that the US press "muzzled itself" during invasion
- September 14: Christiane Amanpour, CNN's most noted foreign affairs journalist, accuses the American press of "muzzling itself" during the Iraqi invasion.
Media manipulation and marketing by GOP
She also says that CNN was intimidated by the Bush administration and Fox News, creating "a climate of fear and self-censorship." Amanpour is the latest and perhaps most visible of the crowd of journalists who have accused the American media and the Bush administration of cozying up together and letting the realities of the war go unreported. Amanpour says, "I think the press was muzzled, and I think the press self-muzzled. I'm sorry to say, but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did." When asked if there was anything she was forbidden to report, she replies, "It's not a question of couldn't do it, it's a question of tone. It's a question of being rigorous. It's really a question of really asking the questions. All of the entire body politic in my view, whether it's the administration, the intelligence, the journalists, whoever, did not ask enough questions, for instance, about weapons of mass destruction. I mean, it looks like this was disinformation at the highest levels." In a nasty, personally insulting retort, Fox News spokesperson Irena Briganti says of Amanpour's comments: "Given the choice, it's better to be viewed as a foot soldier for Bush than a spokeswoman for al-Qaeda." Amanpour joins the BBC's director general Greg Dyke in her criticism of the media's coverage of the invasion. Dyke has said he was "shocked" by "how unquestioning the [US] broadcast news media was during this war." Amanpour is later called on the carpet by her boss, Jim Walton, the president of CNN's Newsgroup. (USA Today, Media Guardian) - September 14: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is losing ground steadily among other members of the administration as well as with Congress and the American people.
Iraq war and occupation
Much of the blame for the debacle in Iraq is falling on Rumsfeld's head, especially in light of his demands for full authority and responsibility for overseeing Iraq's occupation and reconstruction. Rumsfeld's future depends on the goodwill and support of three constituencies: the White House, Congress, and the military's officer corps. How he fares with all of these groups may depend on how quickly Iraq can be settled down. He fares particularly poorly in Congress. An ally of his, GOP Senator Lindsey Graham, says, "Winning the peace is a lot different than winning the war. ...His bluntness comes across as arrogance, and he's made some enemies on Capitol Hill, probably because of style differences. ...[T]here's some belief that he's reluctant to admit that things are off-track when they seem to be off-track. He's very defensive." Another GOP senator says, "I think his legislative affairs shop is awful. It serves him so poorly. Don Rumsfeld can't be personally blamed for all of that. But the combination of his personality, which some people find condescending and prickly and a little offensive -- Rumsfeld himself doesn't have any time for criticism -- and the fact that the groundwork hasn't been laid by a good legislative affairs staff, has created some problems." While few doubt Rumsfeld's zeal, many doubt his flexibility or his willingness to listen to alternatives: "Robert McNamara for four years of Vietnam going down the toilet was absolutely convinced with a religious zeal that what he was doing was right thing," saus retired Army general Thomas E. White, who was fired as Army secretary this year by Rumsfeld. "It wasn't until 30 years later that it dawned on him that he was dead wrong. And I think you have the same thing with Don Rumsfeld." Says Graham, " Unless there's adaptation in the reserves, there's going to be a bloodletting," with thousands of reservists declining to reenlist. He said he is introducing legislation with the assistance of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to radically improve the health benefits for reservists, and to reduce the costs to civilian employers of reservists deployed overseas. One White House aide says Rumsfeld, a proven survivor, will win out in the end: "I suspect he will be saved by the strong backs and the creativity of the Army soldiers in Iraq. And that's an incredible irony." (MSNBC) - September 14: A Tallahassee Democrat editorialist compares the mistakes made with the Guantanamo Bay detainees with those interned by the US during World War II:
Terrorism detainees and "enemy combatants"
"On closer inspection, these 'dangerous subversives' turned out to be a motley crowd of ordinary farmers, aging businessmen and Spanish-speakers. About one in 10 had joined the Nazi Party in the 1930s. Astonishingly, at least 80 prisoners were Jewish refugees. There were also 2,264 Japanese seized from Latin America, along with 288 Italians. Of the 4,058 German internees, documents show, there was evidence of espionage against only eight people. ...Internment in special camps was for people who could not be convicted of a crime because they had not committed one. How did a security program net so many of the wrong people? The answer may sound familiar: slipshod intelligence work, reliance on local denunciations, and lack of regional and linguistic expertise, coupled with a reckless abandonment of legal norms that ultimately proved counterproductive. ...Sixty years later, we are hearing some similar stories. Sher Ghulab spent 14 months in Guantanamo before being declared innocent. Dumped on the streets of Kabul with a pair of new sneakers and no money, he wondered why the authorities had interrogated him only twice during his captivity, if they were interested in establishing his guilt or innocence. Other ex-prisoners claimed they were delivered to American forces by a US ally, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, in exchange for cash payments. Said Abasin, a Kabul taxi driver released after a long public campaign by his father, said he could never forgive the Americans." (Tallahassee Democrat)
