September 2006: Week Four: Page Five: This Far and No Further

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GOP representative Mark Foley resigns after sexually explicit e-mails with 16-year old boy revealed; GOP House leadership knew about Foley's actions for at least a year without taking action

September 29: Republican House member Mark Foley abruptly resigns after it is revealed that he has had frequent sexually explicit contacts with a 16-year old male House page. Foley was the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. Foley may have had similar contacts with other teenage pages. In Foley's resignation letter, submitted to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, Foley says he is "deeply sorry," but fails to address the charges. Several male pages have provided the press with excerpts of instant messages, or IMs, from Foley over his personal AOL account to them, where Foley, using the screen name "Maf54," made repeated and explict references to sexual organs and acts. Foley says in a statement, "I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent." Initially Foley's campaign denied the allegations, and tried to allege that his opponent was attempting to smear him, saying that the e-mails were completely innocent and Foley was guilty of nothing more than being "too friendly and too engaging." "The emails in question were a response to a handwritten thank you letter from a former page," read a statement from the Foley campaign. "There have not been any allegations made by anyone except by Tim Mahoney and the Democrats who are attempting to misrepresent a series of innocent communications to prop up a failing political campaign," Mahoney is now calling for an investigation into the allegations. "The seriousness of these allegations goes far beyond the tit for tat of a political campaign," said a Mahoney campaign spokesperson. When other pages learned of Foley's denials and counter-attack against Mahoney, they contacted ABC News; when ABC reported on their allegations, and reprinted their e-mails, Foley resigned. Foley is credited with writing the sexual-predator provisions of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, which Bush signed in July; investigations are now underway to determine, among other things, if Foley violated the portions of the law he himself wrote. Of sexual predators using the Internet to stalk their victims, Foley said, "They're sick people; they need mental health counseling." In 2003, Foley abandoned his attempt to challenge then-Senator Bob Graham after denying rumors that he was a closet homosexual.
Foley later confirms that he is abandoning his campaign for re-election; the Florida Republican Party is scrambling to find a replacement for Foley, though due to the lateness of his withdrawal, Foley's name will remain on the ballot. According to Florida election law, any votes for Foley will automatically go to his designated replacement.
Foley is a veteran Republican congressman, a former real estate agent and restaurant owner, who has built his career largely on legislation meant to halt the sexual predation of children and others. He won notice in Florida's state legislature in 1993 after sponsoring a bill that would allow the seizure of the cars of men who solicited prostitutes. Throughout his career he has presented himself as a protector of exploited children. Foley won his seat in the US House in 1994, as a member of the "Gingrich revolution." Until his resignation, he was a deputy whip as well as the co-chair of Congress's Missing and Exploited Children Caucus. On July 27, 2006, Bush hailed Foley and other House and Senate lawmakers as members of what he called a "SWAT team for kids." Bush spoke while signing into law a broad child protection measure that included a Foley-sponsored provision requiring sex offenders to register in every state where they live, work or attend school. According to a former Foley aide who has discussed the matter with Foley's current staff, they are as shocked as everyone else. "No one saw the extent of this," the aide says. "You do that kind of stuff in the shadows." Foley has often discussed the case of 10-year old Adam Walsh, who was kidnapped, assaulted, and murdered in South Florida in 1981. "I remember that the case startled me," Foley said once. "It described the end of innocence for South Florida." In 1998, Foley spoke out against Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, calling Clinton's actions "vile" and describing Clinton as addicted to sex. Foley ducked questions about his sexual orientation in 2003, when he was campaigning for a Senate nomination, but dropped out of the Senate race after that. On June 29, 2006, Foley told an NPR reporter that legislating "is not necessarily just trying to brand people or create a scarlet letter or subject them to unnecessary ridicule, but it's really to set a bar and a standard by which they then decide, 'I better get help professionally,' 'I better go and see how I can deal with this problem,' or, 'I should absolutely avoid contact with young people in order to ensure I don't fall into this very serious problem.'"
The 16-year old page, whose identity is protected because of his age, alerted Capital Hill staffers to the e-mails from Foley. In the e-mails and IMs, Foley asked the former page how old he was, what he wants for his birthday, and asks for a photo. The page told staffers, "Maybe it is just me being paranoid, but seriously. This freaked me out." The page termed another e-mail exchange containing another request for a picture "sick sick sick sick sick." Other pages say they were reluctant to report Foley for his inappropriate solicitations because of his powerful position as a Congressman.
(Warning: in this section of this item, some of the comments by Foley are quite graphic and unsuitable for many readers. Skip to the next paragraph if you are easily offended.) In some of the exchanges, Foley asked the boy, "You in your boxers, too? ...Well, strip down and get relaxed." He also asked the boy, "Do I make you a little horny?" The boy replies, "A little," and Foley replied, "Cool." In exchanges with the 16-year old page and other teenaged boys, Foley said in one, "What ya wearing?" The boy replies, "tshirt and shorts," and Foley replies, "Love to slip them off of you." In response to one page's mention of going to lacrosse practice, Foley says, "love to watch that...those great legs running." During the same exchange, Foley asked, "Did any girl give you a haand [sic] job this weekend? ...Did you spank it this weekend yourself? ...I am never to [sic] busy haha." Foley presses the young man for details of his masturbation: "love details", asking him if he masturbates "face down" and observes, "cute butt bouncing in the air...great visual." He tells the boy minutes later, "Well I have aa [sic] totally stiff wood now." He then asks, "is your little guy limp...or growing?" "I am hard as a rock..so tell me when your [sic] reaches rock," he says. He asks the boy to measure his erection for him and tell him his size; when the boy complies, Foley writes, "ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...beautiful." The boy's final message in the exchange: "well, better go finish my hw...i just found out from a friend that i have to finish reading and notating a book for AP english." Foley is obviously aware of AOL's restrictions on obscene and graphic language, and takes pains to avoid such terms in his messages in order to avoid being flagged by the program's monitoring
Former FBI agent Brad Garrett says that Foley's actions "add...up to soliciting underage children for sex. And what it amounts to is serious both state and federal violations that could potentially get you a number of years."
Foley came to know the page after the boy served with fellow Republican congressman Rodney Alexander in the summer of 2005, and the boy sent the other congressman an e-mail thanking him for allowing him to work with him. Foley initiated his own exchange with the boy through e-mails. Alexander says when he learned of the contacts from a reporter months later, he informed the leader of the House Republican campaign organization, Thomas Reynolds, but did not pursue the matter further because, he says, the boy's parents wanted the matter dropped.
The repercussions of Foley's resignation may go far beyond his own criminal acts. House Majority Leader John Boehner confirms that he knew of Foley's sexually explicit contacts with the page in the spring of 2006. Originally he said he informed Hastert of the charges, and that Hastert was aware of the situation, but he has now changed his story and says he cannot remember if he told Hastert of the contacts. No actions to curb Foley's actions was ever taken. Boehner has already moved to block an attempt by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to have the House investigate the entire matter, and instead succeeded in getting it referred to the House Ethics Committee. Hastert tells reporters on September 30, "I've asked [Republican congressman] John Shimkus, who is head of the Page Board, to look into this issue regarding Congressman Foley. We want to make sure that all of our pages are safe and our page system is safe. None of us are happy about it." Shimkus says he knew of the contacts between Foley and the page in late 2005, and, when he asked Foley about the exchange, Foley denied any inappropriate conduct. Shimkus says he told Foley to stop e-mailing the boy. "Only now have I learned that Congressman Foley was not honest about his conduct," Shimkus says. Clay Shaw, another House Republican from Florida, is blunt about Foley: "This type of behavior is what I try to protect my grandchildren from. It is unacceptable. He should have resigned. Members of Congress are responsible for protecting the most vulnerable among us -- our children. I support the speaker's decision to investigate the page program."
Rahm Emanuel, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, asks why Alexander had gone to the House GOP's chief political operative, Reynolds, rather than to other party leaders. "That's to protect a member, not to protect a child," he says. (ABC News, ABC News, ABC News, Pensito Review, Daily Kos, Washington Post, Washington Post, ABC News, ABC News [graphic excerpts from Foley's e-mails and IMs], Palm Beach Post, Arizona Republic)
September 29: In his new book State of Denial, veteran Washington Post reporter and self-described Republican Bob Woodward notes that in July 2001, then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice "brushed off" a briefing from then-CIA director George Tent about an imminent terrorist threat. The account directly contradicts Rice's own assertions that she and the administration had, in its first eight months in office, been "at least as aggressive" as the Clinton administration in countering terror. While Woodward's first two books on the Bush presidency, Bush at War and Plan of Attack, have been wildly popular with Bush supporters, garnering Woodward lavish praise from them on his reporting abilities and his objectivity, with the publication of this book, suddenly Woodward is now being painted as a liberal mouthpiece and errant journalist. Press secretary Tony Snow, a former Fox News host and frequent substitute for Rush Limbaugh on that worthy's radio program, says the book is driven by those on "the losing side of the argument."
And in a CBS 60 Minutes interview to be broadcast on October 1, Woodward says he has an idea of why gasoline prices are plummeting so close to the November elections. Woodward reports on a conversation with Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar bin Sultan, nicknamed "Bandar Bush" for his cozy relationship with the Bush family, and Bush, in which the former Saudi ambassador told Bush he could help ease oil prices ahead of the elections. "They could go down very quickly," Woodward reports Bandar telling Bush. "That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day." (Financial Times/MSN MoneyCentral)
September 29: Woodward also claims in State of Denial that CIA counterterrorism officials were "brushed off" when they took what they felt was a good opportunity to assassinate bin Laden to the White House. During the now-infamous July 10, 2001 meeting between Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, and counterterrorism chief Cofer Black (documented in the October 2006 page of this site, in which Tenet and Black attempted to warn Rice of an impending attack from al-Qaeda, Black says that if he had been given authorization, and $500 million in covert action funds, his teams could have found and assassinated bin Laden. Black claims that the CIA had around "100 sources and subsources" in Afghanistan who could have helped carry out the hit. Woodward claims the intelligence Tenet and Black shared with Rice included communication intercepts indicating the likelihood of an al-Qaeda attack on US soil. Woodward says that Tenet described the meeting as a "tremendous lost opportunity to prevent or disrupt the 9/11 attacks." The book claims that two weeks before the July meeting with Rice, Tenet told Richard Clarke, the National Security Council's counterterrorism director, of his gut feeling about a likely attack. "It's my sixth sense, but I feel it coming. This is going to be the big one," the book quotes Tenet as telling Clarke. (New York Daily News)
September 29: Bush tells a largely military audience that those who disagree with him on the conduct of the Iraqi occupation are either "buying into enemy propaganda," spreading such propaganda, or both. "You do not create terrorism by fighting terrorism," Bush tells a meeting of the Reserve Officers Association in Washington. "If that ever becomes the mindset of the policymakers in Washington, it means we will go back to the old days of waiting to be attacked and then respond." He says the only way to fight terrorism "is to stay on the offense against the terrorists." He also says that his critics have "selectively quoted" from the recently leaked NIE that concludes the war in Iraq is going far worse than admitted by Bush and his officials. "Some of them selectively quoted from the document to make the case that by fighting terrorists, by fighting them in Iraq, we are making people less secure here at home," Bush says. "This argument buys into the enemy propaganda that the enemies attacked up because we are fighting them." Bush continues to echo the same long-debunked rationales for the terrorists' jihad against America: "Iraq is not the reason the terrorists are at war against us. Their war against us is because they hate the very thing that America stands for. And we stand for freedom." (USA Today)
September 29: A feature article in Germany's Der Spiegel illustrates just how desperate the situation is in Afghanistan, and why so many Afghanis are turning to the Taliban for assistance -- they have little other choice.
The Taliban's resurgence is well documented, and the group's power is spreading. In 2004, the Taliban carried out four suicide attacks in the country. In 2005, 17. Their target for 2006 is 500, and so far they're likely to reach their goal. US ambassador Ronald Neumann, one of the few Americans in Afghanistan who actually know anything about the country, said in May, "It will be a bloody summer." He was right. Neumann remembers the country from his days as a young man backpacking through the countryside, when his father was ambassador to Afghanistan. He knows how lovely the country was then; he also knows that then, as now, it was a poor, hopelessly medieval society unable to cope with modern technology and global changes. During that time, the 1960s, there were few poppy fields in Afghanistan; the people made their living in other ways. Now, opium poppies seem to be the only way to bring money in for many farmers and peasants.
The new power group is called by security experts the "neo-Taliban," made of of, among others, Mullah Omar's former holy warriors, the mighty drug mafia, the troops of Islamist terror lord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Arabian and central Asian jihadists, and al-Qaeda. Their centers of power are in the tribal areas bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan. Over the past few years, thousands of new recruits have been brought in from the refugee camps and impoverished villages, and drilled in boot camps in the Pashtun border region. The first major units are now ready for deployment. Most of the organization's financing comes from the poppy fields, and from rich financiers in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The fundamentalists once again control large parts of Afghanistan's southern and eastern provinces. Their law now applies in Disho, Sangin and Baghran, all districts of Helmand. Music and Western clothing are forbidden, men are not permitted to shave, and praying five times a day is mandatory. Women are not allowed to work and may only leave home wearing veils and in the company of men.
The reason why much of the populace is turning to the Taliban is simple, tragic, and, once, avoidable. The power vacuum created by the defeat of the Taliban rulers in 2001 was never filled by anything approaching a national government; the regime of Hamid Karzai never had any real influence outside of Kabul. Neither Karzai's government, the US-led coalition troops, and aid organizations showed much interest in the miserable lives of the populace, cut off as they were from civilization and dependent for survival on feudal overlords. Poppy fields have been destroyed, leaving the growers with no viable alternatives for a livelihood. The foreigners in Afghanistan were, and are, uniformly hostile. The Taliban offers protection. The Taliban forces are outmanned and outgunned. But the foreign occupation forces have little tolerance for casualties, leading to what experts call "asymmetrical warfare."
There has been some progress, as laid out by a German security advisor who is familiar with the plight of the country and his own country's occupation forces, part of the NATO contingent in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is no longer a central haven for terrorists, he claims. Osama bin Laden is no longer the leader of al-Qaeda, but a marked man in hiding. The country's traditional civilian governmental body, the Loya Jirga, is in place; Afghanistan's monarch, King Zahir Shah, is back after years of exile in Italy, a powerful symbol. The first presidential elections saw Afghani citizens traveling on foot for days to vote in the central cities. Afghanis held strong hopes for a new future. A parliament was elected, the new constitution adopted. A police force, army and department of justice are currently being established. "But it's all a sham," says the advisor. "There's no substance." Too much of the aid going into the country is spent on feting the Westerners who live a riotous, partying lifestyle in Kabul. "They don't appreciate us," says an Afghan engineer. The US troops on the ground treat the natives with arrogance and contempt, with an Afghani major complaining that the US soldiers use Afghan civilians as human shields. "The Soviet occupying forces treated my father better than our American friends treat us," he says. The American companies in Afghanistan are making staggering profits, but doing little or nothing for the people they are supposedly there to help.
Kabul itself is a showplace for Western values. It boasts a five-star hotel and several showy malls. International restaurants dot the city. Store shelves are overflowing with foreign goods. Many children attend local schools. This all looks very good on Western media reports. But outside of the capital city, little has changed. Water is not always available. Electricity service is sporadic at best. Roads are all but impassable. Life expectancy is low, and the child mortality rate is the highest in the world. The judicial system is systematically corrupt, with justice bought and sold by officials who compete for the largest bribes. American tax dollars are wasted on failed projects that funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars into corporate coffers, while more are wasted, as documented by watchdog organization CorpWatch, paying for "contractors' prostitutes and imported cheeses." The CorpWatch investigators spent months monitoring the flow of international funds and concluded that business-savvy representatives of donor nations rather than Afghans were the real beneficiaries. The U.S. government lavished $150 million on the private security firm DynCorp. Its mission: to close down Afghanistan's poppy fields. 90 Americans and 550 Afghans set about the task. The result: thousands of extremely irate farmers who, despite having their crops destroyed, were denied realistic compensation. The Rendon Group from Washington was charged with winning public support for the United States and its military in Afghanistan. According to CorpWatch, the PR firm, with its close ties to the Bush administration, has received contracts worth more than $56 million since September 11, 2001. It has failed miserably in Afghanistan: never before have the Americans and their allies been as unpopular as they are today. The same Afghanis who hailed Americans as saviors in November 2001 now regard their erstwhile liberators as occupiers. They are convinced, with reason, that the US merely wants their country as a base for pursuing its own geostrategic interests. In return, the Americans have little patience for the corrupt, feudalistic society that is turning increasingly to crime and showing no intention of metamorphosing into a modern, Western-style democracy.
Karzai's attempts to keep all sides happy is resulting in a precipitous drop in his own popuarity. Desperate to keep the warlords and clan leaders happy, Karzai has welcomed their representatives into his government; the Afghan Secret Service has actionable evidence of drug-running on 48 of the National Assembly's 351 members, but no brief to bring charges. His relationship with his neighboring ruler, Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf, is one of mutual acrimony, with Karzai accusing Musharraf of encouraging terrorism in order to destabilize the Afghani government, and Musharraf unable to control large sections of his own country.
The adversaries in Afghanistan know each other well; in fact, they are former allies. Mullah Omar received the support and veneration of the Americans during the 1980s rebellion against Soviet rule. Hekmatyar raked in untold amounts of money and military support from the US during that time. The Taliban's field commander, Jalaluddin Haqqani, made his reputation as a US-supported freedom fighter against the Soviets.
The German security advisor recommends backing off of the more grandiose ideals in play among Western planners, setting of more modest goals and bringing the German (and other Western) soldiers home. "Why should we impose our democratic ideals on Afghanistan, a country with rich traditions of its own?" he asks. But, he says, the politicians will ignore his advice, and we will carry on regardless. Why? "Because we never ask ourselves the right questions." (Der Spiegel)
September 29: The Bush administration is paying Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf between $70 and $80 million a month, the news of which has infuriated Indian lawmakers and citizens. The revelation comes from an unpublished British Defense Ministry report, which was almost immediately characterized by the ministry as "not representing the views of the MoD or the government." The report states, "Musharraf knows that time is running out for him...at some point the US is likely to withdraw funding (and possibly even protection) of him estimated at $70-80 million a month. ...Without US funding his position will become increasingly tenuous." The latest flap comes on top of Musharraf's own claim, barely reported in America, that the CIA has paid the Pakistani government an undisclosed sum of reward money, a claim that Musharraf retracted when questioned about the fact that it is illegal for the US to pay governments. He modified his claim to say that the CIA may have instead paid invididuals. The Times of India observes that Musharraf would "join the list of Third World dictators -- Jordan's late ruler Hussein, Iraq's Saddam Hussain, Panama's Noreiga, Dominican Republic's Trujillo among them -- who were reported to be on CIA rolls at one time of the other." (Times of India)
September 29: Time magazine details some of the extensive contacts between White House officials and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In January, photos of Abramoff at White House functions with, among others, Bush, surfaced; at the time, Bush said, "I, frankly, don't even remember having my picture taken with the guy...I don't know him." Bush may well be lying. Certainly his senior officials know Abramoff quite well, according to a trove of e-mails from Abramoff and his colleagues. He had particularly close contact with Karl Rove, Bush's political guru, through Susan Ralston, who was an assistant to Abramoff before becoming Rove's assistant early in Bush's first term. Abramoff's clients, mainly Indian tribes, paid for skyboxes and tickets to events that he used to host congressional aides and others. Ralston frequently obtained such items from Abramoff, often without paying for them, which violates laws banning White House officials from accepting gifts worth in excess of $20. Other Rove aides were also in contact with Abramoff, as was Rove himself, though Ralston seemed to be the primary go-between for Rove and Abramoff. (Days after the e-mails are made public, Ralston will resign.)
Abramoff obviously desired even closer contact with Rove, reminding him in one message from December 2000, "I am sure you well covered with everything, but just in case, please do not hesitate to ask me for anything you might need." A March 2002 e-mail reads, "I was sitting yesterday with Karl Rove, Bush's top adviser, at the NCAA basketball game discussing Israel when this e-mail came in. I showed it to him." (White House officials dispute the account.) And Ralston sent Abramoff little reminders of Rove's affection, as in one e-mail with the subject line "Diet," which read, "Karl said you looked great. He'd love to know your secret."
Since most of Abramoff's energies was spent on securing funding for his Indian clients (or securing funding on their behalf and then keeping the bulk of it for himself), he spent most of his time lobbying lawmakers in Congress and officials in the Department of the Interior. He was rarely successful at getting his friends and colleagues hired in key administration posts, such as Interior Secretary Gale Norton's chief of staff, but he did get some White House support for some of his cronies, and successfully got the White House to block the appointment of someone he opposed. Overall, he had far more success with Republican Congressmen like Tom DeLay and Bob Ney. At least once, in 2003, administration officials had an ethics advisor talk to the Intergovernmental Affairs Office at the White House, which usually dealt with the tribes and their lobbyist, Abramoff. The advisor suggested that the White House officials should talk to the tribes directly, rather than the lobbyists, and that the lobbyists shouldn't even be in the room during these meetings. Abramoff's deputies were furious. And Abramoff knew these strict standards, which it doesn't appear were enforced, would endanger his job security. "This is horrible," he wrote. "Why would they f*ck us like this?" Obviously he was used to better treatment. (Time)
September 29: The Jack Abramoff scandal has reached out to influence yet another House race and another Republican incumbent. According to his Democratic challenger, Republican representative John Doolittle knew of and tolerated forced abortions, sex slavery, and sweatshop conditions in the Northern Marianas Islands. (Information about Abramoff's interest in the Northern Marianas, and Republican support for Abramoff, is available elsewhere in this site.) Retired Lieutenant Colonel Charlie Brown, Doolittle's challenger, says that Doolittle was aware of the abuses while he helped, with the aid of convicted lobbyist Abramoff, to fund the islands' government that allegedly exploited its workers. Brown alleges that Doolittle "got $10,000 from Abramoff's firm, the largest ever paid by Abramoff to a congressman." Doolittle spokesman Doug Ose denies the allegation. (KCRA-TV/Raw Story [link to video])
September 29: At least one group plans on challenging the newly passed detainee treatment bill in court, within days of Bush's upcoming signing of the bill. "I don't think there's a snowball's chance in 'H' that this will be found constitutional," says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. CCR represents a number of Guantanamo prisoners. Even some Republicans who voted for the bill aren't convinced that it is constitutional. Arlen Specter says the bill is "patently unconstitutional on its face." And fellow Republican senator John McCain responds to a question of its constitutionality, "I think so." (Congressional Quarterly/TPM Muckraker)
September 29: Bush escalates the rhetorical war he and his fellow Republicans are waging against their Democratic opponents; at a Birmingham, Alabama fundraiser, he says, "[F]ive years after 9-11, Democrats offer nothing but criticism, and obstruction and endless second guessing." Echoing once again the Republicans' favorite insult, he adds, "The party of FDR and the party of Harry Truman has become the party of cut and run." Bush and his colleagues have chosen to deal with the barrage of evidence that shows their handling of the Iraqi war and the war on terror has been cavalier and inadequate by attacking the patriotism and courage of their opponents. Veteran political journalist Robert Parry says that Bush is attempting to "nationalize" the election "around his vision of fighting 'World War III' against Islamic militants and in defense of his claim to broad presidential powers, such as the right to lock up people he deems 'enemy combatants.' In effect, Bush is gambling that the Right's powerful media apparatus, Republican organizational advantages and the residual fear from the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks will trump the Democrats' abilities to convince the American people that Bush's vision represents a dire threat to the future of their democratic Republic." But unlike earlier years, when so many Democrats appeared cowed by such attacks, this time they are answering the charges. "On his watch, five years after 9/11, he not only has failed to capture Osama bin Laden, but as the [National Intelligence Estimate] indicates, his failed policies have made America less safe and spawned terrorism, not decreased it," says Karen Finney, spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee. "Democrats will be tough and smart, and will actually fight the terrorists, not leave them to plan future attacks."
But the rhetoric continues to fly. The day before, Bush, who released only four pages from the controversial, 30-page NIE that was prepared in April but just now reported, accused Democrats of cherrypicking pieces of the report "for partisan political gain" and "to mislead the American people and justify their policy of withdrawal from Iraq." (The charge of "cherrypicking" is hard to understand considering that Bush only allowed the release of four selected pages of the report.) He said, "The greatest danger is not that America's presence in the war in Iraq is drawing new recruits to the terrorist cause. The greatest danger is that an American withdrawal from Iraq would embolden the terrorists and help them find new recruits to carry out even more destructive attacks." This is in direct contradiction to the conclusions drawn in the NIE, which states that the longer US forces remain in Iraq, the more terrorists are joining the Islamic cause. But the statement is a good sound byte, and includes the attack phrase that was so successful in 2004, "embolden the terrorists." (AP/AOL News, Consortium News)
September 29: A new documentary, Jesus Camp, is disturbing many viewers with its depiction of children being indoctrinated in radical conservative Christianity. Reviewer Neva Chonin of the San Francisco Chronicle writes, "The film offers one answer to why the country's Evangelical minority packs such a political wallop, and it's frighteningly simple: They're efficient -- and ruthless." The camp is actually called Kids on Fire, a Pentecostal summer camp run by pastor Becky Fischer at Devils Lake, North Dakota. According to the review, "There campers pray to a cardboard standup of George W. Bush, weep and speak in tongues, writhe on the floor clutching little fetus dolls and perform Cultural Revolution-style musical numbers in camouflage face paint;" Chonin writes, "Think of it as boot camp for the future army of God." Fischer admits without reservation to borrowing techniques used by other extreme religious factions (Islamic fundamentalism is a particular favorite) in her jihad against abortion, liberals and godless secularism. Counselors at Kids on Fire do not use war as a metaphor, but a literal, powerful call to arms aimed at "taking America back for Christ." Most of the children at the camp are products of strictly religious households, largely home-schooled and rejecting "everything from evolution and science to Harry Potter and non-religious dancing (heavy metal and hip-hop are fine, as long as Christ is in the heart and the lyric sheet)." Chonin writes that the film, while flawed, "is among the year's most important films, if only because it forces us to learn about an America we seldom see and seldom want to see. It stares into the face of faith run amok, and for those willing to follow its gaze, it provides sad revelations." (San Francisco Chronicle)
September 29: The September 21 expose of the racism and hatred suffusing the senior editorial staff of the Washington Times (see above item) has caused a storm of controversy, and prompted a response by managing editor Francis Coombs, who calls the Nation article mendacious and says the article's allegations about him are false. But Coombs's wife Marian confirms for author Max Blumenthal that her husband is a white supremacist racist who says blacks are "born genetically 15 to 20 IQ points lower than a white person," and that abortion is necessary "to keep the black and minority population down in this country." Coombs is described by multiple newsroom sources in Blumenthal's piece as an unreconstructed "racial nationalist" and a hater of blacks and Jews. The Times is a powerful media ally of the Bush administration.
Marian Coombs herself has her own unsavory alliances, including attending several meetings of the neo-eugenicist group American Renaissance in part to meet with her old friend Nick Griffin, leader of the neo-fascist whites-only British National Party (BNP). She has written frequently for Occidental Quarterly, an openly white supremacist and anti-Semitic publication. In one article, she wrote the United States had become a "den of iniquity" because it allowed too many minority immigrants. In another piece, she criticized interracial marriage, stating: "white men should 'run, not walk' to wed 'racially conscious' white women and avoid being outbred by non-whites." (Interestingly, this last statement has been echoed by a number of prominent conservatives, including Pat Buchanan.) In 2001, Marian Coombs posted the following comment on the American Renaissance Web site: "Whites do not like crowded societies, and Americans would not have to live in crowds if our government kept out Third-World invaders." She terms herself a "white nationalist" who admits her views are in line with her husband's.
Though she denies that her and her husband's racist, anti-immigrant slant influences the paper's coverage, journalist George Archibald, who is in line to replace senior editor Wesley Pruden when Pruden retired from the Times, writes, "Wrong. I know from many years' experience with this couple that this is not true. Just look at the paper's slant on immigration coverage over the past several years." Then he asks the cogent question: "But why would the owners of the Washington Times want a white supremacist and neo-eugenicist as its No. 2 editor, let alone possible successor to outgoing Editor-in-Chief Wesley Pruden?"
Archibald knows that a report about Coombs's management and ideology was submitted to the South Korean president of the Washington Times Corporation, Dong Moon Joo (who has Anglicized his name to Douglas M. Joo). Joo, a senior official in Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, was not interested in any such information on Coombs, according to Blumenthal. The report was quite specific in documenting Coombs's ugly racism and abusive management style. In the spring of 2003, Coombs said, at a party at another editor's home, "I would never want to be born black. This would mean that I would be born genetically 15 to 20 IQ points lower than a white person." The same evening, Coombs said time and time again that he was "unequivocally for abortion...since abortion disproportionately impacts blacks and minorities, it helps to keep the black and minority population down in this country." Many others, including Archibald, have heard Coombs express similar views.
Former Times assistant book section editor, Amanda Kolson Hurley, wrote a letter in response to Blumenthal's piece, which he posted on his blog. Hurley wrote, in part: "As a former (albeit short-lived) staffer at the Washington Times, I was eager to read Max Blumenthal's expose. What I found was largely a rehash of revelations about Fran Coombs' hateful, but well-known, views on race, along with a fair summary of the struggle for the Times' soul. What's missing is a larger indictment of a newsroom culture that quashes real journalistic talent for the sake of an extremist ideology. ...Readers may get the impression that editors like Coombs and Stacy McCain have handpicked a staff of right-wing crazies to support their agenda -- but that's simply not the case. Coombs and especially McCain, a virulent misogynist, are reviled by most Times staffers, who would like nothing more than to turn the crass propaganda sheet into a respectable newspaper. One detail did give me a jolt: Blumenthal wrote that on August 22, Coombs devoted page 1 to a positive review of Pat Buchanan's anti-immigrant screed. How typical. In my brief tenure at the Times' Sunday books section, I remember being pre-empted again and again by McCain (presumably with Coombs' all-clear) placing fawning 'news' stories about right-wing books in the main section, despite the fact that said books had already been assigned to experts for objective review."
Archibald writes that he, Hurley, and a dozen other current and former reporters and editors are all saying the same thing: "Fran Coombs is governed by deeply racist views and is a highly unpopular managing editor, who has stifled the energies and skills of the Times newsroom. ...I was surprised to find out how many Times staffers were willing to talk to Blumenthal about the rampant racism and abusive management of Pruden and Coombs, the paper's top two editors, who are legendary for their spiteful vindictiveness and ruthlessness. It took a lot of courage for Times people to speak out."
In contrast, the responses of Pruden and Coombs have been anything but courageous and honest. Coombs falsely smeared Archibald as a "disgruntled employee" who had been pressured to leave the Times (Archibald, a four-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, had left the Times to work on a book and take care of his mother, stricken with lung cancer), says Archibald is "detached from reality," and accuses him of conducting "an increasingly vicious and fictitious cyber-campaign against the Washington Times and me in particular." Archibald writes, "Coombs has unfairly smeared my character, questioned my mental stability, and now has lashed out at others who he believes spoke to Blumenthal. Many sources at the paper tell me there are growing concerns that Coombs, Pruden and Washington Times Corp. president Joo are preparing to retaliate against those whom they believe spoke. I assure them, however, that I shall keep a vigilant eye on the next series of events at the Times in order to help protect former colleagues who have been sources in this unfolding story. If Coombs, Pruden and Joo are really serious about trying to restore the credibility of the Times, why don't they issue a legal document that offers protection from being fired to any employee who wishes to reveal his identity? And why don't the paper's owners come forward to ensure that no employee is bullied and intimidated?"
As of yet, neither Sun Myung Moon nor his son Preston Moon, the CEO of the Times's parent corporation News World Corporation, have spoken publicly about the situation. "Why have they not come forward at all?" Archibald asks. "Is their silence a clear sign that they do not wish to defend senior editors whom their own internal reports confirm are guilty of racist ideology and abusive management?"
Interestingly, once Joo was informed the Nation article would appear, he hired a law firm, Covington & Burling, to defend himself, Pruden, and Coombs. Archibald writes, "But once Covington & Burling's attorneys conducted their initial internal investigation, they were so appalled and outraged that they refused to defend the Times, and be linked with the editors' racist ideology. Imagine: Even lawyers who defend almost anyone could not stomach the atmosphere at the Times. And my sources confirmed that Joo was absolutely livid when rebuffed by the law firm."
Since the article first appeared, Coombs and Pruden have circulated an internal e-mail to reporters and editors mocking Archibald as a deranged alcoholic. Coombs has threatened to "take a baseball bat to Archibald's head." According to Archibald's sources, their stance has the full knowledge and support of Joo. "Joo, Pruden and Coombs are like cornered animals right now," says one senior official. "They know they've been exposed; they know they are despised by most of the newsroom and corporate management. But they refuse to let go of power and are willing to do absolutely anything to hang on." Archibald asks, "How long must the Washington Times continue to bleed in its public reputation and media credibility before Coombs and Pruden are replaced by a new regime of editors who will take the paper back to sensible, complete, and honest daily coverage of the news? Only the owners know the answer, and whether they have the sense in the face of published facts to clean house sooner rather than later." (Huffington Post, The Nation)
September 29: Another former football teammate of Senator George Allen goes public with his recollections of Allen's racism. Allen, a Virginia Republican, is running for re-election. Edward Sabornie, a special education professor at North Carolina State University, has anonymously spoken out before concerning his knowledge of Allen's racist behaviors, recalling that Allen had used the term "n*gger" to describe blacks: "It was so common with George when he was among his white friends," he said in a previous interview. "This is the terminology he used." Sabornie says he is speaking out because of Allen's denials of the allegations, saying that the claims from an array of former teammates and friends were all "ludicrously false." Sabornie replies, "What George said on Monday really kind of inflamed me -- that it was 'ludicrously false' that he ever used the N-word. I don't know how George can look himself in the mirror after saying that." Sabornie also remembers Allen calling blacks "roaches" and Latinos "wetbacks." Four other acquaintances of Allen's have publicly stepped forward to say that they witnessed Allen using racial slurs.
Sabornie first alerted Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Allen's usage of racial epithets in 2004 in an e-mail. Moulitsas says he never shared the e-mail with anyone because "I didn't have a way to confirm the story." In earlier pieces including Sabornie's recollections, Salon never communicated with anyone from Daily Kos, the campaign of Allen's Democratic challenger Jim Webb, or any Democratic Party entity. (Salon)
September 29: In an interesting turn of events, the Sons of Confederate Veterans has turned on Senator George Allen over Allen's statement that he had been slow to grasp the pain that Old South symbols like the Confederate flag cause black people. The SCV describes itself as an organization that celebrates Southern history; others view it as a neo-Confederate, white supremacist group. Former state commander of the SCV Brag Bowling says of Allen, "The denunciation of the flag to score political points is anathema to our organization." Allen, once a virtual shoo-in for re-election to the Senate and once a prime candidate for the 2008 Republican candicacy for president, now finds himself in a closely contested race because of his racial slurs, both past and present. (CBS News)
September 29: Conservative Democratic senator Max Baucus is blocking the nomination of Eric Solomon as Deputy Treasury Secretary for tax collection because Treasury's plan for collection billions in unpaid taxes is not a credible strategy. Baucus had been holding up the nomination until the Treasury Department drafted a plan for attacking the annual tax gap. The tax gap measures the amount of taxes owed but not paid, and the IRS's most recent estimate put the figure at $345 billion in 2001. Baucus says the report that the Treasury Department delivered earlier this week "isn't the complete and credible product that I asked for. It lacks the specific benchmarks, timetables, and goals that turn a rote government report into a real strategy." Baucus says he offered to let the nomination proceed if Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson testified before the Finance Committee in November to fill in some of the details, but Paulson refused. "If the Treasury Department will not or cannot provide these final details, then there's no reason to believe their plan is actionable or real," says Baucus. The Treasury Department says the details of the report would be filled in as part of President Bush's next budget proposal, to be delivered to Congress early next year. (AP/Missoulian)

September 30: Bush calls for a worldwide offensive against America's enemies, angrily responding to critics saying that his policies are breeding a new generation of Islamic terrorists. "The only way to protect our citizens at home is to go on the offense against the enemy across the world," Bush says. "So we will remain on the offense until the terrorists are defeated and this fight is won." He argues that an early withdrawal from Iraq, as suggested by many Democrats and others, will only embolden terrorists: "It would help them find new recruits to carry out even more destructive attacks on our nation, and it would give the terrorists a new sanctuary in the heart of the Middle East, with huge oil riches to fund their ambitions. America must not allow this to happen." He says that for al-Qaeda and other organizations, a safe haven in Iraq "would be even more valuable than the one they lost in Afghanistan." The new round of criticisms are fueled by a new National Intelligence Estimate, partially declassified earlier this week, which argues that the war in Iraq has spawned a new generation of Islamic radicals determined to strike against the United States. Adding to the criticism is the response over the new Bob Woodward book, State of Denial, which documents a number of policy blunders committed in Iraq, amid bitter feuding by the president and his closest aides and refusal to acknowledge reality. Bush insists in another speech today that claims of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq was helping foster anti-American terrorism were tantamount to "buying into the enemy's propaganda." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice adds in a separate interview that the US must remain in Iraq to counter the growing influence of neighboring Iran. "We just have to fight tooth and nail for the victory of the Iraqis who do not want Iranian influence in their daily lives," she says. "We've got a chance to resist the Iranian push into the region, but we better get about it."
Critics have a different take. Democrats have long accused the White House of failing to foresee an Iraqi insurgency, create a viable international coalition behind the invasion, and of sending too few soldiers to do control the restive country. Now they are also charging the president is in his own state of denial. "He doesn't want to see the facts. He doesn't want to acknowledge reality," says Carl Levin, the top Democrat of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean calls Bush's political counteroffensive "the product of a desperate White House with no credibility left with the American people." (AFP/Yahoo! News)
September 30: In spite of rosy predictions from the Bush administration, it doesn't look like the US military will be able to turn security responsibilities over to the Iraqi army and police any time soon. The strategy in Iraq, President Bush has said often over the past year, is to stand down the US military as Iraq's security forces stand up. While training programs have turned out over 300,000 members of the Iraqi army and national police, many of these trainees are very unreliable, with their loyalties more towards their own militians or clans rather than any sort of national unified security solution. And violence in Iraq is soaring, with each month worse than the last. With the insurgency undiminished and Iraqi forces seemingly unable to counter it, US commanders say they expect to stay at the current level of U.S. troops -- about 140,000 -- until at least next spring. That requirement is placing new strains on service members who leave Iraq and then must prepare to return a few months later. Tours of duty have been extended for two brigades in Iraq to boost troop levels. While the "stand down as they stand up" policy is not defunct, US officials are now attempting to shift the blame for Iraq's problems away from the US military and onto the country's own social and governmental institutions. "You fix the government, you fix the problem," says an Army battalion commander.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld agrees, adding in reference to the numbers of trained Iraqi forces, "If we look at it one-dimensionally like that, there's no answer to the question, because the problem is not a military problem. In fact, the reality is that it's a political governance problem, and it's a governmental problem, and it's a problem of reconciliation." In this view, it doesn't matter how many Iraqi troops are trained if there is no government to lead them. "I believe that you could have a million Iraqis within the Iraqi security forces and still be ineffective against the insurgents," says an Army colonel who recently returned from a year in Iraq. The question is, how many troops feel they are actually defending a unified Iraq? "There isn't yet an Iraq to defend," says Thomas Donnelly, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "A nation, as well as an army, needs to be stood up."
But many military insiders say that no matter how large Iraq's problems with government, and no matter how many raw numbers the training program has achieved, the security forces are not ready for action. "I believe that our US forces need to be here at these numbers for three to five more years, to be honest," says Army Major Daniel Morgan, a 101st Airborne officer who just completed his second tour in Iraq. CENTCOM commander John Abizaid says it will take even longer: "It's a generational level of work, not something that's going to be done overnight," he told PBS's Jim Lehrer last week. One veteran Army officer says that it will take ten years or more to get Iraq to the "stand up while the US stands down" point. Other experts believe that the US training program itself is flawed, lacking both funding and enough US advisers and trainers. The training effort is "grossly insufficient, concentrated at battalion and brigade headquarters only," says retired Army Major General Paul Eaton, who oversaw the program in 2003 and 2004. He and others believe that the effort will not really succeed until it expands to attach more advisers to smaller units, such as companies and platoons -- which Eaton said would take thousands of additional personnel. The United States failed to send out enough really good advisers with language skills to work in the training program, adds retired Marine Colonel T.X. Hammes, another Iraq veteran. "Thus we train Iraqis, push them out the door and fail to support them," he says. This makes them unable to reach the real goal of providing security to Iraq, he adds -- "or worse yet, due to lack of US supervision, [they] become part of the problem."
At least one expert says even 300,000 to 320,000 Iraqi security forces are not enough; such a target, says Georgetown University defense specialist Bruce Hoffman, "is arguably inadequate to start with." Given the total population in unstable parts of Iraq and a standard ratio of population to security forces of 20 to 1, he says, "Iraq really needs 500,000 troops and police." And more than just numbers is involved: "'Standing up' is a far broader term than many have understood," says Army Lieutenant Colonel James Gavrilis, a counterinsurgency expert and a Special Forces officer who participated in the invasion of Iraq. "I don't think a lot of people in uniform understood that it would entail developing the quality and character of those forces as well as their numbers." And some specialists worry that "standing up" Iraqi soldiers and police forces may in fact be contributing to the current outburst of sectarian violence, because the police especially are not seen as impartial players. "To the degree that 'standing up' a Shia-dominated force is perceived as a security threat to Sunnis, you get a stronger and stronger reaction the more you stand up," says Frank Hoffman, a strategic expert and retired Marine officer. "This may account for what you are seeing -- the sense that national institutions that do not reflect political concerns will produce more violent reactions and a greater reliance on local militias." A Marine officer who has fought in Anbar province and an Army captain who just returned from Baghdad agrees, both saying they fear that all the US military is doing is training and arming Iraqis to fight a looming civil war. (Washington Post)
September 30: Bush signs the Iran Freedom Support Act into law. The bill says the US will "hold the current regime in Iran accountable for its threatening behavior and to support a transition to democracy in Iran," and authorizes the US government to "provide financial and political assistance (including the award of grants) to foreign and domestic individuals, organizations, and entities working for the purpose of supporting and promoting democracy for Iran.... Such assistance may include the award of grants to eligible independent pro-democracy radio and television broadcasting organizations that broadcast into Iran." The bill is widely seen as a stepping stone for Bush administration and GOP warhawks to build a base of support for launching a military strike against Iran. (Source Watch, Raw Story)
September 30: Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf says without the help of Pakistan, particularly its ISI intelligence service, the West has no hope of winning the war against terror. "If we were not with you, you won't manage anything," he tells a BBC interviewer. "You'll be brought down to your knees if Pakistan doesn't co-operate with you. That is all that I would like to say. Pakistan is the main ally. If we were not with you, you won't manage anything. Let that be clear. And if ISI is not with you, you will fail." Pakistan's ISI is considered by many Western experts to be riddled with Taliban and al-Qaeda sympathizers, and providing critical help to Taliban and Islamists in the chaotic border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Musharraf also says that the Taliban, not al-Qaeda, should be the biggest focus of Western intervention in Afghanistan. (BBC)
September 30: Israel is in the process of completing its troop withdrawal from Lebanon, fulfilling a key condition of the cease-fire that ended a month-long war with Hezbollah guerrillas. The pullout ends a nearly three-month troop presence and clears the way for the full deployment of an international peacekeeping force that will police the border with the Lebanese army. Israel has gradually reduced its troop presence since the August 14 cease-fire from a peak of 30,000 during the fighting to several hundred in recent days. Israel sent the troops into Lebanon shortly after Hezbollah guerrillas abducted two soldiers and killed three others in a July 12 cross-border raid. More than 150 Israelis and 850 Lebanese were killed in 34 days of fighting. The cease-fire prohibits unauthorized arms transfers to Hezbollah, a powerful militia backed by Syria and Iran that has long operated with autonomy in the south. The cease-fire also calls for the unconditional release of the soldiers. The United Nations has appointed a mediator to try to win the soldiers' freedom, most likely through a prisoner swap with Israel. As in previous Israeli withdrawals since the cease-fire, the peacekeepers would send patrols to the vacated areas after being informed by the Israelis and in turn inform the Lebanese government. The UN resolution calls for 15,000 peacekeepers to work with an equal number of Lebanese soldiers to prevent another outbreak of fighting. It mandates a full Israeli pullout and requires the south be kept weapons-free except for arms approved by the Lebanese government. Some 10,000 Lebanese soldiers and more than 5,000 U.N. troops have been deployed in the south. (AP/USA Today)
September 30: Bob Woodward's new book, State of Denial, portrays Bush as, according to the review by the New York Times's Michiko Kakutani, "a passive, impatient, sophomoric and intellectually incurious leader, presiding over a grossly dysfunctional war cabinet and given to an almost religious certainty that makes him disinclined to rethink or re-evaluate decisions he has made about the war." Woodward has drastically revised his depiction of Bush from the laudatory portrait given in his 2002 book Bush at War, which was hailed by Bush officials; Woodward's new book is catching heavy flak from those same officials, who now lump the formerly compliant Woodward in with other media figures considered "unreliable." Unfortunately for Bush and those officials, Woodward's new conclusions are drawn from unimpeachable sources, including top-level members of the Bush administration. What has changed is not Bush's personality, but Woodward's former willingness to carry water for the administration. It is not a popular change in the White House.
Woodward portrays Bush as stubborn to the point of obduracy, insisting on "staying the course" in Iraq even if every general and advisor beg him not to. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is portrayed as a bully and "control freak" who has surrounded himself with compliant yes-men, and obsessed with proving his own theories of using lighter, more mobile forces in Iraq to win a victory, even as the situation there descends into chaos. None of this is new -- see items strewn throughout this site for proof -- but the impact of such charges coming from Woodward, considered by many to be the most eminent reporter in Washington and long known to have considerable sympathy and allegiance to the Republican Party -- is devastating for the Bush administration.
Woodward describes a White House so riven by rivalries that Bush's closest advisors were virtually at each other's throats -- once almost literally -- over how to conduct the war in Iraq. Woodward described a series of "surreal" meetings where Rumsfeld and Powell refused to look at one another while making their presentations to an impatient, fidgety Bush who obviously couldn't be bothered to pay either man his full attention. Wood writes that Powell and Rumsfeld were like "bulls" who "staked out their ground, almost snorting defiantly, hoofs pawing the table, daring a challenge that never came. And the President, whose legs often jiggled under the table, did not force a discussion." Woodward describes one meeting where Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage not only "barked" at Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, "[i]t was almost as if Armitage wanted to reach across the table and snap Feith's neck like a twig. Armitage's knuckles even turned white." Armitage and Powell were constantly angered by accusations from the Rumsfeld-Cheney axis that they, and the entire State Department, were "appeasers" who wanted to tuck tail and run from Iraq. (The internal criticisms are, of course, later echoed in public attacks on Democrats and other opponents of Bush's belligerent foreign policy.) "Their idea of diplomacy," Armitage told Woodward, is to say, "Look, f*cker, you do what we want." Retired general Jay Garner, who briefly ran Iraq after dictator Saddam Hussein was ousted, said the White House "resembled a royal court" presided over by a president who was not told bad news and did not want to know what really was happening in Iraq. "Bush did not press," Woodward writes. "He did not try to open the door himself and ask what the visitor had seen and thought." What Bush got from his advisers, according to Woodward, were "some upbeat stories, exaggerated good news and a good time had by all."
Some revelations in the book are startling. Woodward reveals that after the 2004 election, then-chief of staff Andrew Card worked to oust Rumsfeld, proposing that he be replaced with Bush loyalist and former Secretary of State James Baker; Card apparently had the support of Laura Bush, who worried that Rumsfeld was damaging her husband's reputation, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, national security adviser Stephen Hadley, and senior White House adviser Michael Gerson. Bush listened instead to Dick Cheney, who supports Rumsfeld. (Card and Powell eventually left the administration.) Others come off equally poorly. General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is portrayed as weak-willed and a Rumsfeld puppet. Former CIA director George Tenet is described as opposing the Iraq invasion, but unwilling to challenge Bush on the subject. And Rice, who is primarily discussed in her former role as national security advisor, is depicted as a presidential enabler, ineffectual at her job of coordinating interagency strategy and planning, and complaining that Rumsfeld refused to return her phone calls, forcing Bush to intervene. Rumsfeld himself comes across as a polarizing figure, refusing Card's request to send National Guard troops to Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina until Bush made the request personally, and characterized by General John Abizaid, the senior military commander in the Middle East, as not having "any credibility anymore." Eager for accurate information out of Iraq, Rice dispatched her deputy, Frank Miller, to Baghdad. But when Miller came across smiling Iraqi kids, he didn't realize "that in Iraq the thumbs-up sign was the equivalent of the American middle finger salute," and told Rice that the civilians loved the US occupiers. Another time, then-US commander General Richard Sanchez complained to Miller that the billions Congress authorized for Iraq's reconstruction were slow in coming. "Prove to me that Iraq is the No. 1 priority because I don't see it from here," Sanchez said. And just before General Peter Pace was named chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a close friend warned him, "You should not be the parrot of the secretary's shoulder." But Pace is the perfect selection as Rumsfeld's voice on the JCS: he reportedly has "zero doubts" about the war and apparently still believes that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks.
The book also portrays Cheney as so obsessed with finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that his office would contact David Kay, then the United Nations' chief weapons inspector, with satellite surveillance reports and other intelligence tips on where such weapons caches might be located. None was found, and Kay told Congress in January 2004 that US intelligence on former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain chemical and biological weapons had been "dead wrong." Much of that intelligence had been discredited by the CIA and other intelligence agencies, but resurrected at Cheney's behest.
One of the most damning revelations surrounds the July 10, 2001 meeting between Rice, Tenet, and counterterrorism coordinator Cofer Black. Tenet and Black tried to warn Rice of an impending terrorist attack, but came away feeling they'd been given "the brush-off." Rice, who will initially deny the meeting ever took place until confronted with documentation, then wll try to downplay the meeting, was one of the loudest administration critics of Bill Clinton, charging that his administration failed to pursue Islamic terrorists aggressively enough before 9/11. It seems that Rice's criticisms are more justly pointed towards herself. 9/11 commissioner Jamie Gorelick confirms that the commission was never told about the July 10 meeting; the meeting, initially denied by Rice, was later confirmed by White House and State Department officials.
The administration in general is compliant, afraid to speak up against anything Bush, Cheney, or Karl Rove dictate; the traditional policy-making process involving methodical analysis and debate has been abandoned in favor of manifestos from above. Woodward notes that, far from being "listened to" by Bush and Cheney, as both have repeatedly claimed, military generals and military experts who begged for more troops on the ground in Iraq, worried about the disbanding of the Iraqi Army, and asked for better post-war planning, were ignored, mocked, or unwilling, either out of cowardice or blind loyalty, to press their case for altering the course of the Iraq operation. Woodward describes the management of the war as off-the-cuff, improvised as events occured, and far more worried about the message being sent to the American electorate than about real-world events. The picture of Iraq was determinedly rosy no matter how catastrophic the situation became even as its own intelligence showed that Iraq was spiraling into chaos and civil war. Administration officials ignored a report, for example, compiled by State Department counselor and Rice crony Philip Zelikow, which found that "Iraq remains a failed state shadowed by constant violence and undergoing revolutionary political change" and concluded that the American effort there suffered because it lacked a comprehensive, unified policy.
Few outside the halls of power knew before Woodward's book just how influential former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has been in the conduct of the war. Kissinger, apparently attempting to transform Iraq into a Vietnam-like scenario in which the US wins this time out, constantly urged Bush and Cheney to "stay the course" in Iraq, and warned that, if Bush began withdrawing troops, the desire among the populace to continue the withdrawals would escalate with every soldier returned home.
Like his other books, Woodward writes from a "you-are-there" perspective with information gleaned from interviews conducted on background. Some of his best sources seem to include Tenet, Card, former Saudi Arabian ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and former national security advisor to the elder Bush, Brent Scowcroft. What is different in State of Denial is Woodward's newfound willingness to insert his own opinions and feelings into the narrative, "perhaps in a kind of belated mea culpa for his earlier positive portrayals of the administration," writes Kakutani. Woodward seems particularly disturbed by Rumsfeld's cavalier rhetoric and refusal to accept responsibility for his department's failures. In one section, Woodward writes that when he told Rumsfeld that the number of insurgent attacks was going up, Rumsfeld replied that they're now "categorizing more things as attacks. ...'A random round can be an attack and all the way up to killing 50 people someplace. So you've got a whole fruit bowl of different things -- a banana and an apple and an orange." Woodward writes of his own reaction, "I was speechless. Even with the loosest and most careless use of language and analogy, I did not understand how the secretary of defense would compare insurgent attacks to a 'fruit bowl,' a metaphor that stripped them of all urgency and emotion. The official categories in the classified reports that Rumsfeld regularly received were the lethal IED's, standoff attacks with mortars and close engagements such as ambushes."
In an earlier section, describing the former Iraq administrator Jay Garner's reluctance to tell Bush about the mistakes he saw the Pentagon making in Iraq, Woodward writes: "It was only one example of a visitor to the Oval Office not telling the president the whole story or the truth. Likewise, in these moments where Bush had someone from the field there in the chair beside him, he did not press, did not try to open the door himself and ask what the visitor had seen and thought. The whole atmosphere too often resembled a royal court, with Cheney and Rice in attendance, some upbeat stories, exaggerated good news and a good time had by all." Kakutani says that, were the issue less grim, "the picture of the Bush administration that emerges from this book might resemble a farce. It's like something out of 'The Daily Show' or a 'Saturday Night Live' sketch, with Freudian Bush family dramas and high-school-like rivalries between cabinet members who refuse to look at one another at meetings being played out on the world stage."
Kakutani observes, "There's the president, who once said, 'I don't have the foggiest idea about what I think about international, foreign policy,' deciding that he's going to remake the Middle East and alter the course of American foreign policy. There's his father, former President George Herbert Walker Bush (who went to war against the same country a decade ago), worrying about the wisdom of another war but reluctant to offer his opinions to his son because he believes in the principle of 'let him be himself.' There's the president's national security adviser whining to him that the defense secretary won't return her phone calls. And there's the president and Karl Rove, his chief political adviser, trading fart jokes."
Woodward believes that Rumsfeld decided to make the Iraq war plan his own project after he saw his rival agency, the CIA, step up to run operations in Afghanistan after it became clear that the Pentagon, after 9/11, wasn't prepared to invade that country with any expedience. Woodward also suggests that Bush named Rumsfeld his defense secretary in part because he knew his father mistrusted Rumsfeld, and he wanted to prove his father wrong.
Many of Bush's closest allies and colleagues, even family members, seem dismayed and "flummoxed" by his decisions. Laura Bush told Andrew Card that she can't understand why her husband isn't upset about Rumsfeld and the uproar over his mishandling of the war. Armitage told former Secretary of State Colin Powell that he was baffled by Bush's refusal to make adjustments in the handling of the war, saying to Powell, "'Has he thought this through? What the president says in effect is, We've got to press on in honor of the memory of those who have fallen. Another way to say that is we've got to have more men fall to honor the memories of those who have already fallen." (New York Times, Seattle Times, New York Daily News)
September 30: London's Daily Mail reports that, according to Woodward's new book, Bush routinely kept Tony Blair in the dark about vital combat intelligence concerning Iraq, ignoring pleas to share the information. Woodward writes that Blair repeatedly complained to Bush after discovering Britain was being denied access to key information on the grounds that it was a 'foreign' nation. The attempt to bluff Blair involved a highly classified database called the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET) which the Pentagon used to store and communicate years of potentially embarrassing intelligence, as well as technical information about combat operations in Iraq. Woodward says that top Pentagon officials took the decision to deny Britain access to it, apparently with the backing of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice. "The classified information had a caveat - NOFORN - meaning no foreigners were allowed access, a restriction that included even the British troops fighting alongside Americans in Iraq," Woodward writes. In July 2004, Bush assured Blair he had signed a directive saying the NOFORN rule would no longer apply to the British on military operations. But the book says the Pentagon ignored it, hatching a scheme to hoax the British into believing they were being kept fully informed. (Daily Mail)
September 30: Further criticism of the Iraqi war is coming out of Britain, with Prime Minister Tony Blair a notable exception. Former foreign secretary Jack Straw calls the present situation in Iraq "dire," and admits he regrets a number of elements of the war. He says that "many mistakes" have been made by the US in the aftermath of the invasion, and the efforts of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and his State Department to install a "proper civilian administration" were not followed through -- "stymied," it is noted by Independent reporter Rupert Cornwall, "by a then ascendant Pentagon and by Vice-President Dick Cheney." (Independent/InfoWars)
September 30: Evidence is mounting that Republican House leaders knew of former colleague Mark Foley's inappropriate and possibly criminal sexual exchanges over the Internet with teenaged boys, but instead took action to keep it quiet. Aides to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert confirm that they knew about the matter as far back as the spring of 2006 only after GOP representative Thomas Reynolds, who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, spoke of Hastert's knowledge to the press, saying, "Rodney Alexander brought to my attention the existence of e-mails between Mark Foley and a former page of Mr. Alexander's. Despite the fact that I had not seen the e-mails in question, and Mr. Alexander told me that the parents didn't want the matter pursued, I told the speaker of the conversation Mr. Alexander had with me." Previously both Hastert and Majority Leader John Boehner have claimed that Hastert did not know of the incidents. Hastert's aides now say that they referred the matter to "the proper authorities," but that all they, and presumably Hastert, knew was that the contacts were "over-friendly." Hastert's aides tell the press, "While the speaker does not explicitly recall this conversation [with Reynolds], he has no reason to dispute Congressman Reynolds' recollection that he reported to him on the problem and its resolution." Hastert's aides say they referred the matter to the Clerk of the House [then Jeff Trandahl], and "mindful of the sensitivity of the parent's wishes to protect their child's privacy and believing that they had promptly reported what they knew to the proper authorities," they did not discuss it with others in Hastert's office -- including, if you can believe them, Hastert. The issue was referred by the clerk to the congressman who oversees the page program, John Shimkus. Shimkus says he learned about the e-mail exchange in late 2005 and took immediate action to investigate, and that Foley told him it was an innocent exchange. Shimkus says he warned Foley not to have any more contact with the teenager and to respect other pages. Shimkus' spokesman, Steve Tomaszewski, says, "Obviously Foley lied about the other e-mails." Shimkus himself later says, "He lied to me and he lied to the former clerk. ...My evaluation was there's no smoking gun here. At the time, that e-mail had no significance...other than 'Mark, stay away from this kid, this doesn't look good.'"
Progressive blogger Markos Moulitsas Zuniga makes a harsh but apt point about Hastert. On Hastert's Web site as of this entry (the evening of September 30), three of the top items are, respectively, "Hastert Drives Effort to 'Keep Kids Safe in Cyberspace' (8/29/2006)," "Hastert Taps National Experts To Keep 'Kids Safe in Cyberspace' (8/22/2006)," and "Keeping Kids Safe in Cyberspace Community Meeting Tuesday, August 29th." On Hastert's site, he is quoted as saying, "Recent news stories remind us that there are predators using the Internet to target children. And just as we warn our children about 'stranger danger' when they are at the park or answering the door or telephone, we need to be aware of potential dangers in Cyberspace." Moulitsas observes, "And even more recent stories tell us that Dennis Hastert would rather turn a blind eye to a Republican pedophile in his midst, rather than have to spend a few million bucks defending a House seat. I know that power corrupts. But I didn't know that the GOP was so dedicated to hanging on to power at all costs that they would tolerate a sexual predator in their own midsts rather than do the right thing. And all along, he was talking such a good game...."
Democrats are charging that Reynolds, who was first informed by fellow Republican Rodney Alexander, the mentor of the 16-year old page who first alerted staffers to the inappropriate contacts from Foley, did not bother to do anything to curb Foley's actions. "Congressman Reynolds's inaction in the face of such a serious situation is very troubling, and raises important questions about whether there was an attempt to cover up criminal activity involving a minor to keep it from coming to light before Election Day," says Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Karen Finney. New York Democrats (Reynolds represents a New York state district) say, "Mr. Reynolds knew about these allegedly inappropriate e-mails from a fellow congressman to a minor for months and didn't lift a finger." Reynolds's opponent, Jack Davis, adds through a spokesman, "Tom Reynolds had a moral obligation to protect our children." And Foley's opponent in the 2006 elections, Tom Mahoney, who until now had been considered a long shot to defeat Foley but now is given a much better chance of defeating whoever the Florida Republican Party decides to run in Foley's place, says, "It's now clear from all the reports coming in from across the country that the Republican leadership team has been well aware of this problem with the pages for well over a year. It looks to me that it was more important to hold onto a seat and to hold onto power than to take care of our children." And Minority Whip Steny Hoyer adds, "For at least eight months, this was held in the privacy of the House Republican leadership. I think the American people are going to be outraged."
While the Republicans who serve on the board that oversees House pages were informed, along with Shimkus, of Foley's actions, the lone Democrat on the board, Dale Kildee, was not informed. Shimkus says, "I think based on the information I had, what I did was fine. If I regret something, maybe I should have had Dale with me, because now it's going to be a political football." According to Kildee, "I was never informed of the allegations about Mr. Foley's inappropriate communications with a House page, and I was never involved in any inquiry into this matter. ...If it was serious enough for him to go and talk to Foley, it was serious enough to go to the Page Board. We should have had a meeting, and we should have either referred the matter to the ethics committee or begun a professional investigation." Kildee has been on the Page Board since the 1980s and is its longest-serving member. Two of his sons have been House pages. Kildee says the House Page Board's first meeting on the issue was Friday, after the allegations about Foley had become public and Foley had already resigned. On the same day, Shimkus and another board member visited the pages and apologized to them. A few days earlier, Shimkus had "read them the riot act" about behaving properly while in the program. Friday night, Shimkus told the pages, "I'm embarrassed. I'm ashamed. This lecture I gave you I should give to my colleagues." He urged the pages to contact him or another adult supervisor if they ever feel uncomfortable or are concerned about the behavior of House members, staff members or others. Shimkus says he's not sure what steps, if any, the board could take to prevent this kind of incident again. "Our responsibility is to make sure the kids are as safe in DC as they are at home. And you know what? They are. These kids are incredibly watched after and monitored, as well as any kids can be monitored."
Apparently some representatives of the media have attempted to assist in the coverup. An earlier Web version of the Washington Post story linked below read, in part, "Boehner said he told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), and that Hastert assured him 'we're taking care of it.' It was not immediately clear what actions Hastert took. His spokesman had said earlier that the speaker did not know...." This sentence was copied from the Post's search engine this morning. By the afternoon, the report read, "House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told the Washington Post last night that he had learned this spring of inappropriate 'contact' between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he then told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Boehner later contacted the Post and said he could not remember whether he talked to Hastert." This is a significant change of a report that, in its original form, alleges that Hastert may have covered up Foley's sexual predations. The Post apparently made the change, without initially notifying readers of the change, after Boehner called the newspaper to say that he didn't remember if he had spoken to Hastert about the matter.
The Post also wrote on September 30 that "House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) was notified early this year of inappropriate e-mails from former representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.) to a 16-year-old page, a top GOP House member said yesterday -- contradicting the speaker's assertions that he learned of concerns about Foley only last week. Hastert did not dispute the claims of Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), and his office confirmed that some of Hastert's top aides knew last year that Foley had been ordered to cease contact with the boy and to treat all pages respectfully.... Only after Reynolds's definitive statement did Hastert concede yesterday that he may have been notified of some of the questionable activities of Foley, 52, who had co-chaired the Congressional Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. Hastert said, however, that he knew nothing of the sexually explicit instant messages that became public Friday when ABC News and other news outlets reported them." Hastert's office says in a statement, "No one in the speaker's office was made aware of the sexually explicit text messages which press reports suggest had been directed to another individual until they were revealed in the press and on the Internet this week." (AP/AOL News, New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Washington Post [sanitized version], Editor and Publisher, Washington Post/Buzzflash [September 30 version of home page], Daily Kos, Congressional Quarterly/Yahoo! News)

GOP blocks House investigation into Foley, then calls for investigations

September 30: House Majority Leader John Boehner, who knew about Mark Foley's contacts with at least one teenaged House page as far back as the spring of 2006 but denies any knowledge of its sexual content, blocks Democratic representative Nancy Pelosi's request for a House investigation of the matter. Republicans boo Pelosi when she asks for a recorded vote on the proposal. There has been no satisfactory explanation of why Boehner does not want a House investigation of the incident and the involvement of Boehner, Dennis Hastert, and other Republicans in keeping the Foley matter quiet, though a recommendation to have the House Ethics Committee look into it passed the House on a unanimous vote. Boehner and other House Republicans are now calling for a criminal investigation into Foley's actions. "The improper communications between Congressman Mark Foley and former House Congressional pages is unacceptable and abhorrent. It is an obscene breach of trust," write Boehner, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, and Majority Whip Roy Blount in a statement. "His immediate resignation must now be followed by the full weight of the criminal justice system." No Republican has yet explained why there should be a criminal investigation, but there should not be a House investigation. House leaders also say they will see that a toll-free hotline is installed for pages who are sexually harassed or contacted can call and file complaints. "Anyone who was involved in the chain of information should come forward and tell when they were told, what they were told and what they did with the information when they got it," says Republican House member Peter King. King calls it a "dark day" for Congress, adding, "We need a full investigation." Fellow Republican Christopher Shays says that any leader who had been aware of Mr. Foley's behavior and failed to take action should step down. "If they knew or should have known the extent of this problem, they should not serve in leadership," he says. The Justice Department is not investigating the matter as yet, but an official says the agency has a "real interest" in looking into the matter to see if any crimes were committed. The Democratic co-chair of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, Robert Cramer, calls Foley's actions "shocking and disturbing," and says, "Anyone, including Foley, involved in this type of behavior should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." (C-SPAN/Crooks and Liars [link to video included], AP/San Francisco Chronicle, AP/AOL News, New York Times)
September 30: The GOP is reeling under a barrage of questions about the House Republican leadership's handling of Mark Foley's sexual e-mails with several male teenagers (see above item for specifics of Foley's activities and earlier information about House Republicans' failure to hold Foley accountable). The Chicago Tribune asks why Foley was allowed to keep his position as the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children when House leaders knew of Foley's actions as far back as 2005. Although House leaders such as Dennis Hastert and John Boehner, and the Republican in charge of the House pages, John Shimkus, all deny knowing that Foley's e-mail contacts were anything except appropriate, the question remains as yet unanswered. According to Kevin Smith, a spokesman for Boehner, "[GOP congressman Rodney] Alexander [the sponsor of one of the pages] told him he had talked to the parents of the page and they told him they didn't want it pursued. It was an FYI. That's where it ended. It didn't rise to the level of alarm in [Boehner's] head. It wasn't 'Oh my God, we have a serious situation here.'" Tribune reporter Frank James writes on the Tribune's news blog Web page, "In an era when child sexual abuse is a major issue, indeed one the House leadership has given priority to addressing, Boehner, like it or not, can count on being asked repeatedly why the alarm bells didn't go off. Better that the alarm bells would have gone off then than going off the way they are now." (Chicago Tribune, Chicago Tribune)
September 30: Representative John Shimkus, the Republican who serves as board chairman for the House page program, confirms that, contradictory to what Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert says, Shimkus was shown e-mails from Republican representative Mark Foley to a 16-year old former page sometime last year by the House Clerk, Jeff Trandahl. Though the e-mails contained nothing overtly sexual, Shimkus and Trandahl agreed that they should confront Foley about the exchanges. "We basically said, 'We got these emails. And we don't think this is appropriate,'" Shimkus recalls. He told Foley, "'You have to stop [contacting this boy].'" Foley replied that all he was doing was trying to be a "mentor" to the boy, and he was guilty of nothing more than being "overly friendly." Shimkus says, "He lied to me. He lied to the former clerk." Shimkus says he believes he handled the situation as best he could, given the information he had at the time. He said he didn't tell any other lawmakers about the incident, even other page board members, because he thought it had been addressed sufficiently. He denies knowing about the more explicit messages until September 29. "My evaluation was there's no smoking gun here," he says. "At the time, that email had no significance...other than 'Mark, stay away from this kid, this doesn't look good.'" He adds that he regrets failing to inform fellow board member Dale Kildee, a Democrat, "because now it's going to be a political football." Of Foley, Shimkus says, "I imagine Mark really is a sick man who has really harmed himself and harmed the institution. Because of that I'm sure I'll be dealing with this for a while."
Shimkus's election opponent, Dan Stover, accuses Shimkus of taking part in a cover-up orchestrated by the House Republican leadership to protect Foley, a charge that Shimkus denies. "It looks like a deliberate cover-up to either get past the election, or to ride it out, or at the very least not do their central job of Congressional oversight," says Stover. Shimkus contradicts his previous assertion that he was shown some "overly friendly" e-mails by House Clerk Jeff Trandahl during the initial "handling" of the Foley incident, now saying through his spokesman, Steve Tomaszewski, that he "did not see personally any e-mail a year ago when he dealt with the issue. He was only told of the one e-mail that came out first, which references, 'How are you doing after the hurricane?' and, 'Send me a picture.'" Shimkus has not yet clarified which of his statements is true and which is a lie. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Belleville News-Democrat)
September 30: Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert releases the results of an "internal review" conducted by his staff regarding the Mark Foley scandal. The "facts" presented by Hastert's review stand in stark contradiction to information revealed by other House members and others involved in the scandal. According to Hastert's review, one of his aides, Tim Kennedy, received a phone call in the fall of 2005 from the office of fellow Republican representative Rodney Alexander. The call was regarding an e-mail exchange between Foley and one of Alexander's former pages, a 16-year old boy. The Alexander staffer did not reveal the contents of the e-mails, but told Kennedy that he and Alexander were concerned about them. Kennedy discussed the matter with his supervisor, Mike Stokke, Hastert's Deputy Chief of Staff. Stokke directed Kennedy to ask Hastert's in-house counsel, Ted Van Der Meid, to whom Kennedy should report the incident. Van Der Meid told Kennedy to inform the Clerk of the House, Jeff Trandahl, who was the House official responsible for the page program. Stokke discussed the matter with Alexander's chief of staff, but again, the specific contents of the e-mails were not discussed. Alexander's chief of staff then conferred with Trandahl over the matter. The chief of staff refused to divulge the contents of the e-mail exchange to Trandahl, citing the desire by the page's family to maintain their privacy, and their desire to simply have the e-mail exchange cease. Trandahl was assured there was no sexual content to the e-mails; Alexander's chief of staff called the exchange "over-friendly."
Trandahl discussed the situation with John Shimkus, the chairman of the Page Board, and informed Van Der Meid that he was taking action. "This is entirely consistent with what he would normally expect to occur as he was the Speaker's Office liaison with the Clerk's Office," the Hastert report says. Trandahl and Shimkus discussed the matter with Foley, and advised him to immediately cease all communications with the young man "to avoid even the appearance of impropriety and at the request of the parents." Because of their desire to protect the privacy of the page and his family, Kennedy, Stokke, and Van Der Meid did not discuss the situation with anyone else in Hastert's office. Hastert, according to the report, was informed "many months later," in the spring of 2006 of the e-mails, after Thomas Reynolds, the head of the House Republican campaign organization, was approached by Alexander, who "mentioned" the incident from the previous fall. "During a meeting with the Speaker, [Reynolds] says he noted the issue which had been raised by Alexander and told the Speaker that an investigation was conducted by the Clerk of the House and Shimkus. While the Speaker does not explicitly recall this conversation, he has no reason to dispute Congressman Reynold's recollection that he reported to him on the problem and its resolution." Hastert, in the report, denies that anyone in his office ever knew anything about the "sexually explicit text messages which press reports suggest had been directed to another individual until they were revealed in the press and on the internet this week. In fact, no one was ever made aware of any sexually explicit email or text messages at any time."
This report has been contradicted, in various places, by Shimkus, Alexander, Reynolds, and the pages themselves. There is little reason to believe any of the contents of this "internal review" without independent confirmation from other, more reliable sources. (Talking Points Memo)
September 30: The New York Daily News learns that Republican congressman Thomas Reynolds, a key player in the coverup of the Mark Foley scandal, accepted a $100,000 campaign contribution from Foley in July 2006 for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which Reynolds chairs. In May 2006, around the time Republican House leaders such as Reynolds say they began finding out about Foley's contact with several House pages (according to Roll Call Reynolds knew in February or March), Reynolds gave Foley a $5,000 contribution. While there is no direct evidentiary link that the contributions were any sort of bribe or hush money, there is reason for suspicion. "We're going to do with it what we do with other donations -- use it to help elect Republicans," says NRCC spokesman Carl Forti. Larry Sabato, the head of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, says, "It's a lot of money. I'm sure the NRCC has considered the pluses and minuses and decided that 30-plus days before the election, they'd rather take a few hits and keep the money." The Daily News describes Foley as a "Republican rainmaker" who has raised over $500,000 for the party since 1996, mostly in donations from the health care, finance and insurance industries.
A letter in Florida's Sarasota Herald-Tribune asks the pertinent question, where exactly did Foley get that $100,000 that the Republicans are currently dividing among themselves? "What corporate entities and special interests contributed to Foley's huge campaign fund, and did these 'gifts' influence legislation benefiting those generous donors, contrary to the interests of the public? Hundreds of thousands reportedly came from the insurance industry and their lobbyists, contributions we Floridians should regard with suspicion." The letter correctly notes that no one can expect the supine, Republican-led House Ethics Committee to investigate this question in any real depth. (New York Daily News, Daily Kos [links to FEC Form B, other campaign contribution info], New York Daily News, Sarasota Herald-Tribune)
September 30: Former legislative assistant and intelligence advisor Brent Budowsky pens a white-hot commentary challenging Bush to stand up to his charges that Bush has shown tremendous contempt and disrespect to his military commanders and to American troops in the field. "Time and time again,"Budowsky writes, "George Bush has shown contempt for his commanders, disrespected their advice, demeaned them publicly and privately, and taken action after action that directly harmed the safety of our troops and caused great damage to the mission and our national security. ...What we have witnessed on a massive scale is a dereliction of duty of unparalleled proportion, from those who sent these young men and women to war, where they heroically did their duty, while politicians used them as cannon fodder for partisanship while committing derelictions of duty that did them great harm. On issue after issue our hyper-partisan president has abused both the chain of command and his trust as commander in chief. It is high time we end this abuse of command influence, these attempts by the President and Secretary of Defense to ignore the advice of commanders, and to threaten or intimidate them into not speaking out, and then to publicly misrepresent their views. I dare any Republican, I dare any conservative, I dare any neoconservative to put their name on paper and challenge any one of these blunt and true assertions." Budowsky provides the following list, excerpted almost verbatim:
- Is it not true that our commanders were bullied, beaten down and rudely and unprofessionally treated to force them into a war plan that they believed had far too troops for the mission?
- Did our commanders not despise the shameful, unethical, and abusive treatment of General Eric Shinseki when he tried to warn us and was treated with ridicule and abuse by the neocons and our President?
- Did it not do real damage for morale when General Shinseki was forced into early retirement while George Tenet and others who failed were given the Presidential Medal of Freedom?
- Did not our commanders repeatedly, time and again throughout this venture, advise against inadequate troop strength, then be ordered to stop advocating what they believe is right, and read in the newspapers our President promising, falsely, that he always gives the commanders the troop levels they believe they need?
- Do you not admit that at the very beginning of this unfortunate venture, grave damage was done to this mission by ignorant words and ignorant policies by a smirking President and arrogant Secretary of Defense when they spoke of Old Europe, when they made snide and condescending comments about NATO, when they guaranteed that this mission would never have the support that President George Herbert Walker Bush, who they also demeaned in the media at that time, achieved for the first Gulf War.
- Do you not now admit with humble apologies you committed a grave injustice, and did real harm to our troops, when those with zero combat experience insulted a long list of retired generals as "armchair generals," when they spoke truth to power, and in fact spoke for a majority of active duty generals, despite false statements by ideologues and partisans to the contrary.
- Did not our commanders warn against the failure to provide equipment that was so extreme and so dangerous that the Marine Corps pathologist found that up to 70% of our casualties were preventable, meaning their serious injuries and deaths were not caused by their mistakes, or the enemy's success, but by derelictions of duty on a massive scale by those who sent them to war but disrespected the advice of commanders.
- Is it not true that our commanders time and again sought help, which was denied, to provide body armor, fortified vehicles, helmets, bandages and other equipment that civilian officials failed to provide, despite repeated, and false, claims that they always gave the commanders what those commanders sought. Did our commanders not unanimously and aggressively oppose the use of torture which they unanimously and aggressively believe creates danger for our troops, tarnishes our reputation around the world, creates new terrorists and violates cardinal rules of war that they hold sacred?
- Is it not 100% true that the torture practices advocated by this President directly disrespect two centuries of good advice and military ethics and directly violate the advice and good judgment of commanders today?
- Is it not true that our commanders were repeatedly and aggressively subject to abusive interference, and pressure from civilians that would be grounds for court martial, if it did not come from the President, Vice President and Secretary of Defense?
- Is it not true that every commander is appalled and sickened by proposals to cut spending for brain injuries for wounded troops?
- Is it not true that commanders and enlisted men are disgusted that civilian leaders have allowed a situation to continue that almost 20% of active duty troops face such extreme financial hardship they are forced to pay predatory lenders interest rates from 300% to nearly 800%?
- Do you not confess that it is an unpardonable dereliction of duty that this is ever allowed to happen, to even one man or woman who wears the uniform of our country?
- Is it not true that commanders were disgusted and appalled that they were ordered to never again say our leaders needed a post war plan for Iraq, and privately disgusted that they were threatened and bullied and told they would be fired by those who started a war with too few troops, and continued an occupation with too much too corruption, and then demeaned the commanders who proposed a plan?
- Is it not true that our commanders were appalled by the misuse and misrepresentation of intelligence that is so essential in deciding whether to wage war, and how conduct it, once it begins?
- Do you deny that our commanders urgently requested reinforcements at Tora Bora when we could have killed Bin Laden and were outraged when the cavalry did not come to finish the kill, but were sent to Iraq instead by a President who always claimed, falsely, that he followed his commanders advice and now claims, falsely, that his political opponents offer nothing but cut and run which he, himself, did at Tora Bora?
- Do you dispute that from day one commanders urged a far more visionary and serious effort for reconstruction of Afghanistan and warned, correctly, that if this were not forthcoming, which it was not, that the Taliban would come back, and the war lords and drug lords would triumph, which they have?
- Do you not admit that our commanders were appalled that Republican operatives and Republican contributors were chosen for lucrative Iraq Reconstruction projects that saw at least $10 billion wasted, stolen and lost?
- Do you not confess that our troops were gravely hurt by stolen money in corrupt contracts and crony deals, when that money should have gone to protect our troops, and help Iraqis who's hearts and minds we need to win?
- Do you not admit that our commanders are appalled by scandal and negligence so rampant that the Iraqi police academy will have to be torn apart because urine and feces drip down on recruits, while corruption runs rampant among Iraqi police where many do not do their jobs, others shoot to kill Americans, and our troops suffer casualties doing the jobs that Iraqi police have refused to do, for all these years of the misbegotten venture?
- Do you not confess that our commanders are appalled that Iraqi politicians are unwilling and unable to deal with murdering militias, who have stepped into the void created by the failure of Iraq police to stand up, and who spend half their time committing sectarian murder against each other, and the other half planning the murder of American troops?
- Do you believe it serves democracy, our commanders or our troops when more than 60% of Iraqis support the killing of American troops, and more than 70% want our troops to leave within range of a year? Do you question my assertion that time and time again, on issue after issue, at great cost to the mission and the troops, commanders faced political pressure and abuse, and were threatened not to speak their minds, while civilian leaders put on their American flag pins and went to their 4 of July picnics and stated, falsely, shamefully, that the commanders agree with every decision the civilians made, and get everything they privately ask for?
- Is it not true today, that our commanders believe we need more American and NATO forces in Afghanistan?
- Is it not true today, that our commanders will be forced to even greater distortions of troop rotations in Iraq, and that if the status quo continues unabated, some of the ten year old children we see on playgrounds today, will someday serve in Iraq based on the "stay the course" contingency plans that remain active today?
- Do you not admit that the Senate Intelligence Committee report that you want covered up until after the election will countless false statements by high level officials who failed to tell the truth, about what was in the true interest of our troops?
- Do you not agree that because of the stresses and distortions of our global force structures from this misbegotten and mismanaged venture our commanders believe there are major dangers in trouble spots around the world, that we could be unable to address under current conditions?
- Do you concede that our current Chief of Staff of the Army is courageously resisting political pressures and refusing to support a budget he believes is bogus, and is fighting with honor for what he believes our troops in fact need?
- Do you not admit that our commanders are asking for far more money than you have told the public, to replace outworn and often destroyed equipment that must urgently be replaced to protect the security of the Nation, and maintain a credible military deterrent, around the world?
- Do you not accept the incontrovertible fact that our entire American intelligence community believes that the current Iraq war strategy is creating new terrorists, more terrorists, and great dangers and that our commanders have long been fighting like hell for policies that address political, diplomatic, economic and humanitarian issues that have been so devastatingly neglected by civilian leaders, over the objection of our commanders?
- Do you not agree that our commanders are deeply offended by the spectacle of the leader of one our major "allies," Pakistan, making a deal that gives sanctuary to terrorists in parts of his nation, and then comes to Washington, and refuses to answer questions, because he has a book deal with his publisher, which takes priority over American lives?
- Do you admit that the commanders and officer corps who have long advocated more effective reconstruction for Afghanistan are disgusted to see a Presidential dinner where leaders of two of our most important "allies" insult and demean each other, while our President sits at the table between them, five years after 9-11, looking like a pitiful and helpless spectator?
- And do you not confess and admit that our commanders are appalled that ideologues run to talk shows and political speeches, and blow the winds of war from the lips of those who have done enough damage to our military for a lifetime, who have no experience in war themselves, but talk of a new war here, and a new war there, as though war is a dinner party discussion, or cheap talk show talk?
- Do you not admit that it would be better for our commanders, for our troops, for our security if our entire nation was asked to contribute to whatever war effort we undertake together?
- Do you not agree is it shameful that 1% of our country makes close to 100% of the sacrifice, that some are asked to die in Arabia while others guzzle gas in their cars, that some give their lives and limbs for our country while others enjoy tax cuts, discuss housing bubbles, and watch oil executives pocket hundreds of millions of dollars of personal wealth?
Budowsky calls for immediate, bipartisan Congressional hearings that would allow military commanders and ordinary troops to tell the real story of the handling of the Iraq occupation. "[L]et us end this dereliction of duty that has gone on, for far too long, at too great a cost, with too much blood, with too many dead, with too much damage done to our country," he writes. "We owe a debt to every man and woman who has ever served our country, to every man and woman who serves anywhere in the world today, and to every man and woman who will ever serve as guardian of our freedom to be the best that we can be ourselves, and to be the best that we can be, for them. We must not be remembered as a generation that fell to dereliction, we should aspire to be a generation that will pay the price to reach for greatness, to leave the young who follow us, the world that they deserve." (Buzzflash)
September 30: New York Times columnist Frank Rich writes that the entire furor over the conclusions of the newly released NIE -- that the Iraq war benefits terrorists -- as "breaking news" is ridiculous. (He's right. Scan over the items covered in this site for the last three years for proof.) The conclusion first turned up on an official basis in a classified CIA report leaked to the press in June 2005. Many experts and observers have drawn the same conclusion years before. The same media astonishment over Bob Woodward's revelation that a secret government report predicts a rise in the Iraqi insurgency is equally specious. Experts and observers in and out of governments have been predicting such rises for years, and these predictions have consistently come true. "The facts of Iraq are not in dispute," Rich writes. "But the truth is that facts don't matter anyway to this administration, and that's what makes this whole NIE debate beside the point. From the start, honest information has never figured into the prosecution of this war. The White House doesn't care about intelligence, good or bad, classified or unclassified, because it believes it knows best, regardless of what anyone else has to say. The debate over the latest NIE or any yet to leak will not alter that fundamental and self-destructive operating principle. That's the truly bad news. ...When they talk about staying the course, what they are really talking about is protecting their spin and their reputations. They'll leave it to the 140,000-plus American troops staying the course in a quagmire to face the facts." (New York Times/Wealthy Frenchman)
September 30: Former legislative assistant Brent Budowsky demands an explanation for the Mark Foley scandal, particularly a reason why it was not handled by Republican House leaders a year ago. "How can one explain that a senior Republican Congressman is only now forced to resign over a major scandal involving apparent sexual overtures to pages that were reported to Republican Congressional Leaders almost a year ago?" he asks. "When a second Republican Congressman found out about these acts long ago, did he only report it to the Republican in charge of electing Republicans to Congress? He should have immediately gone right to the Speaker, but apparently he did not, it appears he wasmore interested in alerting the partisan Republican Campaign Committee? Exactly who did he report this dangerous situation to? There was significant provable documentation of the acts in question long ago, including e-mails and instant messaging. Could it be true that Congressional Republican leaders did not immediately seek them?" Budowsky observes, cogently enough, "For Republican leaders so hell bent on eavesdropping and invasions of privacy, it would be derelict if they did not seek this provable evidence eleven months ago, and equally derelict if they sought it, had it, but did nothing for almost a year. Surely they dont believe that the legitimate seeking of emails and IM to protect young pages is less important than the eavesdropping they otherwise champion so aggressively? Either they did nothing, in which case the safety and security of young Congressional pages was endangered by extreme neglect, or they did, in which case they covered up some very wrong and dangerous conduct. These acts were committed, incredibly, by the Congressman in charge of the group with the responsiblity of protecting children against abuse. Why was he not removed, immediately, ten or eleven months ago, with a public acknowledgement of the acts and a public statement of commitment by the group he led to protect our children from abuse? Were the emails and IM's immediately read, or not, eleven months ago? Exactly which Republican leaders were aware of this and exactly what did they do eleven months ago, ten months ago, nine months ago? Was there at least a serious investigation about whether any other pages were approached by Congressman Foley, eleven months ago? Was there a serious investigation about whether new protections are needed for all pages, from potentially dangerous abuse, eleven months ago?" As of this writing, few, if any, of these questions are being addressed by the House Republicans and their cohorts inside and outside of the Bush administration.
Budowsky concludes that a full and impartial investigation, conducted by reliable outsiders, is needed without delay. He writes, "We do not need another case where we find out long after the fact that our entire intelligence community believes the Iraq war creates more terrorists. We do not need another case where a Senate Intelligence Committee report is covered up until after the election, about false statements made by high level officials, misleading the public and Congress about Iraq intelligence. We do not need a sham investigation by a political committee in a one party Congress desperately trying to maintain control and therefore highly unlikely to seek and report the truth. The safety and security of the Congressional pages is paramount to all other considerations. The protection of the Congressional pages from abuse by Congressmen must be first, second, and third order of importance and the partisan and political convenience of politicians seeking to protect their power must not endanger even one of these good young men and women who serve as pages. We must get the truth. We must protect the pages. We must enforce the law. We must punish the wrongdoers. We must have an independent investigation beyond partisan influence and we must have it now, immediately, until we are 100% certain that not one page is endangered by one Congressman." (Buzzflash)
September 30: Senator John McCain's essential two-faced political nature is positioning him perfectly for a 2008 presidential run, writes Boston Globe columnist Robert Kuttner. Kuttner writes, "He manages to be both the anti-Bush within the Republican Party, and also Bush's enabler. This schizophrenic role, which his bipartisan fans somehow miss, happens to position McCain perfectly for 2008 as the guy untarnished by all the bad stuff Bush brought us, but who continues the same regime." Kuttner offers two examples, both pieces of legislation originally, and publicly, opposed by McCain, and then being passed into law with McCain's help.
The first is a law prompted by the June 2006 Supreme Court ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, in which the court could not set up kangaroo courts that deprived defendants of their legal rights. Bush and the Congressional leadership responded with legislation that would not allow accused prisoners the right to see or challenge the evidence presented against them, suspended habeas corpus, and authorized what by any normal definition is torture disallowed by the Geneva Conventions. McCain balked at the last provision, and joined two fellow Republican senators, Lindsey Graham and John Warner, in defense of the Conventions and the American proscription on torture. But instead of sticking to their principles, the three senators "negotiated" with the administration. When the legislation came back, virtually nothing had changed except a hollow "reaffirmation" of the Geneva protections. McCain, with his two cronies, had agreed to allowing the president to define what exactly is and is not covered under Geneva. Detainees still have no right to habeas corpus, nor do they have the right to see the evidence that convicts them. And the CIA still routinely sends prisoners to other countries to be blatantly tortured. When the Senate voted to pass the bill, McCain and his two cronies voted in favor of it. (As a side note, Kuttner observes, "A judge friend of mine advised, 'This will never stand up in court.' Excuse me, judge, but have you checked the Supreme Court lately? One more change, and this court would uphold Torquemada.")
The Senate is now ready to consider passing legislation that authorizes the NSA and other US intelligence agencies to spy on Americans, in a law that goes far beyond even anything allowed under the USA Patriot Act. McCain came out in public against the spying when it became public in December 2005, but will not, at this writing, oppose the Senate legislation.
Kuttner writes that the voters, likely sick of the crimes and shenanigans of the Bush administration, will be in a mood to throw the entire administration out the window by 2008..."But wait. There's John McCain! Isn't he the Republican who challenged Bush on Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo? Didn't he fearlessly investigate the corrupt Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff? Didn't he resist the right's immigrant-bashing? Didn't he cross the aisle to work with Democrats John Kerry on Vietnam POWs and MIAs, and Russ Feingold on the (worse than useless) McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act? What a guy! You can just imagine the truly revolting columns by gullible Washington pundits on McCain as just the kind of bipartisan that the republic needs." Kuttner concludes, "In fact, McCain votes 90 percent of the time as an ordinary far-right conservative, and when push comes to shove, he gives the administration what it wants. The morning line used to be that the fundamentalist GOP base would never go for McCain, but that was last year. This year, McCain has made highly publicized appearances genuflecting to religious-right icons. Despite an abiding mutual distaste, he and Karl Rove have kissed and made up, because they need each other -- McCain to get elected president, Rove to continue the regime. If we are taken in by this act, we will face a permanent right-wing takeover of our democracy." (Boston Globe)
September 30: Republican activist Justin Zatkoff of Ann Arbor, Michigan was recently beaten so badly that he required surgery and has, or claims to have, little memory of the incident. That much is fact. Unfortunately, Zatkoff's attempt to blame liberal activists for the beating falls flat after police confirm that Zatkoff's attempt to pin the blame on liberals is a lie. In the days following the attack, the conservative student Web site Truth Caucus posted photos of his injured face, pronounced the incident a "hate crime," and speculated it was the work of "liberal thugs." A Republican organizer in Michigan e-mailed campus Republicans, warning them to travel in groups until the election was over. But Ann Arbor police confirm that Zatkoff was his own worst enemy. Instead of being beaten by roving packs of liberals, Zatkoff started a fight during a party and got punched in the eye. People at the party confirmed Zatkoff was violently drunk; police have obtained an admission of guilt from the man who punched Zatkoff, a friend of Zatkoff's from high school. Zatkoff is the executive director of the Michigan Federation of College Republicans. He is a student at Oakland University, and the Oakland University Chapter Chairman of the College Republicans. (Ann Arbor News/MLive)

Back to September 2006: Week Four

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 2004, Week Four

Page Five

GOP representative Mark Foley resigns after sexually explicit e-mails with 16-year old boy revealed; GOP House leadership knew about Foley's actions for at least a year without taking action

GOP blocks House investigation into Foley, then calls for investigations

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