In this issue:

Bush Rebuffs Neocon Push for Date Certain on Iraq War

Bush Administration Will Give Intelligence to UN Inspectors

White House Fights Off 'Dogs of War' Press Corps

Despite New Attacks from Senate and Rumsfeld, Tenet Will Not Be Ousted from CIA

Gilmore Commission Calls for National Counter-Terror Center

Bush Reported To Have Authorized Assassinations of Terrorist Leaders

'Triangulator' Dick Morris Backs Lieberman in '04

U.S. Postal Service: En Route to Privatization

George Soros Guilty of Insider Trading

From Volume 1, Issue Number 42 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Dec. 23, 2002

UNITED STATES NEWS DIGEST

Bush Rebuffs Neocon Push for Date Certain on Iraq War

A well-placed U.S. national security source reported Dec. 18 that the war party inside the Bush Administration was pushing for the President to issue a war order on Dec. 27, so that an invasion of Iraq could commence by mid-January. However, so far, the source reported, President Bush has rejected the plan, and will continue to press for Iraqi full compliance through the UN Security Council inspections. The source added that the Bush White House is concentrating on some immediate actions to reverse the accelerating collapse of the U.S. economy, job losses, etc. He indicated that February will be a crucial moment on both of these issues, when the question of war or peace will be much more clearly decided.

Bush Administration Will Give Intelligence to UN Inspectors

Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has finally extracted a commitment from the U.S. to share intelligence data that it claims to have on Iraq's weapons programs, mostly in the form of satellite pictures, according to the New York Times Dec. 21. The data are to be provided to Blix's office in New York and to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, but, in the beginning, at least, it will be one piece of data at a time. Unnamed Administration officials indicated to the New York Times that, because of the fear that classified materials might fall into the hands of the Iraqis, the intelligence will be provided on a "just-in-time" basis.

The idea would be that the inspectors would act on the information as soon as they got it, before any chance that it might leak to the Iraqis. The announcement came as President Bush made a decision to cancel a mid-January trip to Africa, so that he can deal with Iraq, if necessary, during that time.

White House Fights Off 'Dogs of War' Press Corps

The following transcript, from Federal News Service Dec. 18, shows Presidential Press Secretary Ari Fleischer engaged in fighting off the "dogs of war" among the press, and as such, is a good indicator of what's wrong with much of the press.

The topic was Iraq's report to the UN on its weapons-of-mass-destruction programs, or lack thereof.

Q: ... But Saddam Hussein has issued a declaration that has problems and omissions. So, why isn't the ball game over?

FLEISCHER: Because the President, as I indicated, has said that we will continue to consult and work with our allies....

Q: We're correct, then, in reporting that the President is now beginning the process of convincing his allies in the Security Council that Iraq is in material breach of this resolution, and therefore, serious consequences must follow.

FLEISCHER: No, I urge you to await tomorrow and await what Hans Blix says and not to jump to the—

Q: Why do we have to wait for tomorrow? You just told us the President—

FLEISCHER: Because your job is to cover the news. The news will get made tomorrow.

Q: ... So if Hans Blix then goes to Iraq and says, "Hey, did you destroy these mustard gas shells? Where is the evidence? Show us," is that not giving Saddam another chance to amend his filing?

FLEISCHER: Again, this is the process that the President called for at the United Nations, and you are seeing it unfold.

Q: But he said he had to tell the truth—he had one chance to tell the full truth, complete and accurate truth. If you then go back and say, "Hey, you forgot this," and Iraq gets a chance to say, "Oh, you're right," and shows something else, is that not—

FLEISCHER: John, I appreciate your rush to war—(laughter)—but the fact of the matter is this President will do just what he told the world he would do. He promised, and this was part of our consultations in the multilateral course that this President pursued, to consult with his allies and to be deliberative. You are watching the process.

Q: It seems to me the term "last chance" is giving everybody a little difficulty here.

FLEISCHER: Well, I think that you all seem to be in a rush for the last chance to happen maybe on tomorrow's news deadline. I urge you not to look at it that way.

Q: Thank you.

FLEISCHER: Thank you.

Despite New Attacks from Senate and Rumsfeld, Tenet Will Not Be Ousted from CIA

Although he is under new attack from the Senate and from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, CIA Director George Tenet will not be ousted, says the Dec. 17 New York Times, because of a close relationship to Bush "41," in addition to Bush "43's" confidence in him.

The article quotes from President Bush's chief of staff Andy Card, saying that Bush 41 had told him before the 2000 election that, if Bush 43 were elected, to make sure that briefings were given directly by the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) to the President, and not summarized through others, and also told him that it is inadvisable to make the Director of the CIA a political appointment. That is the reason, says the Times, that Tenet, who was appointed under Clinton, is still there, and George W. has become confident in that relationship. On Dec. 12, Tenet was given an award by the Nixon Center, and at the Georgetown University ceremony, a very complimentary letter from former President Bush was read as part of the proceedings before Tenet's speech.

The Times also played up how much Tenet is hated by the neo-cons, from Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala) to the Pentagon civilians. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld is up in arms, trying to unseat Tenet as key briefer, says the Times, reporting that Rumsfeld has "challenged Tenet's authority" by creating an Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence post for the first time ever, and by setting up a unit in the Pentagon to "search for Iraq's links to terrorism." (The Times doesn't mention that Rumsfeld's choice to head the Intelligence seat at DOD is John Carbone, one of the co-authors, with Elliott Abrams, Paul Wolfowitz, et al., of the "Clean Break" doctrine done for Benjamin Netanyahu by IASPS in 1996.)

Gilmore Commission Calls for National Counter-Terror Center

The Gilmore Commission, headed by former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore (R), last week released its fourth report on implementing a national strategy to defend against terrorism. A major component of the Commission's recommendations is the establishment of a National Counter-Terrorism Center as a stand-alone agency, not beholden to any particular department, and a body whose purpose would be to bring together intelligence information from all of the intelligence-gathering agencies, the FBI, the CIA, and the military, into one big picture. The agency, as proposed, would also have its own domestic investigative capability.

The Commission is apparently quite sensitive to the civil liberties implications of its proposal, as Gilmore told reporters that the "touchstone" underlying the Commission's work is Benjamin Franklin's famous quote, that he who would give up some of his liberty for safety, deserves neither liberty nor safety. "We have to remember that coming through this crisis without diminishing our freedoms or our core values of individual liberty is the game, and if we pursue more security at the cost of what makes us Americans, the enemy will have won."

Gilmore later explained that the domestic investigative capability of the proposed agency must be subject to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and all of the guidelines that governed Justice Department investigations from the 1970s on.

Bush Reported To Have Authorized Assassinations of Terrorist Leaders

The Dec. 15 Sunday New York Times reported, in its lead story, that the Bush Administration has prepared an expanded list of terrorist leaders whom the CIA is authorized to kill, if capturing them is impractical. According to the Times' sources, President Bush has provided written legal authority to the CIA to hunt down and kill the terrorists without seeking further authority.

In a hair-splitting distinction, officials say that this does not violate the Executive Order banning assassinations, because the targets are defined as "enemy combatants" and thus as legitimate targets for lethal recourse.

The list of authorized targets contains about two dozen names, some of whom also appear on the FBI's list of most-wanted terrorist suspects. But the Presidential finding authorizing the assassination policy, is reportedly not limited to those on the list.

In response, Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche, in discussions with his associates Dec. 16, characterized the reported policy as "totally immoral," and as something that is completely unacceptable in terms of U.S. tradition and law.

LaRouche said that this assassination policy "can't be allowed to stand." He said that this takes the world into a dimension of politics which those who remember the Hitler regime, would not want to get into. "You don't do this in a civilized society," LaRouche said, explaining that you can not justify your own uncivilized conduct, on the grounds of uncivilized conduct by others.

'Triangulator' Dick Morris Backs Lieberman in '04

Dick Morris, the erstwhile Clinton political consultant who had to withdraw from that position after being caught in a relationship with a high-priced call girl, commented in his Dec. 17 column in the New York Post that Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn), who had led in the polls before Al Gore dropped out of the running for the 2004 Democratic Presidential nomination, would benefit even further now that Gore has done so. Morris opined that the independent vote, split in the last election between McCain and Bradley, will more likely go for a "centrist" like Lieberman, than a "liberal" like John Kerry.

Morris slandered Sen. Kerry (D-Mass) by stating, "Inside the tall, well-groomed Massachusetts Senator is a small Mike Dukakis trying to be heard." Kerry also has "problems with his wife and her money." Also, he claimed, Kerry's relationship to his wife (the former Teresa Heinz, whose money was inherited from the late John Heinz, her first husband) is "tempestuous" and "will make good copy."

As for Sen. Lieberman, Morris says: "Lieberman is too klutzy to seem phony. He comes across as a mensch.... He seems like a man of conscience, because he is one." Morris concludes: "This race will likely come down to three Senators: Kerry, John Edwards (D-NC) and Lieberman. In that contest, Lieberman's integrity, stability and centrism could make all the difference."

Interestingly, in his opinion column the day before, Morris wrote of Trent Lott (R-Miss) that he has known Lott for 15 years and has had "perhaps a hundred or more meetings with him. I got to know him better than any American politician other than Bill Clinton." He claims there is not a "racist bone" in Lott's body, and then, Claiming that the Democrats are just expressing "sour grapes" over losing at the polls in November, suggests "And if they want Lott to resign, why not ask Sen. Bob Byrd (D-W Va) to resign because of his former membership in the Ku Klux Klan and his recent use of the 'N' word on television." As for President Bush's comments deploring Lott's remarks, Morris dismisses them as "the President wanting his own man [i.e., Bill Frist] in the leadership" of the Senate.

New Pentagon Budget To Push Special Forces, Wunderwaffen

The fiscal year 2004 budget plan, to be presented to President Bush, will seek a $14-billion spending boost, less than had been anticipated a year ago, and will cut conventional weapons programs in favor of special forces and "alternative means of delivering bombs," reported the Washington Post last week, including unmanned aerial vehicles, experimental hypersonic aircraft (which haven't been built yet), and new kinds of cruise missiles. "These categories will provide a kind of mix-and-match set of capabilities," a senior defense official told the Post.

Facing cuts are the Army's Comanche helicopter program (by almost 50%), and the Air Force's F-22 fighter. The Navy's program to build a new aircraft carrier will also have conditions placed on it. The gurus of military transformation are complaining that the new budget plan still maintains too much of the current force structure, and doesn't leave enough room for future procurement of "transformational" technologies.

U.S. Postal Service: En Route to Privatization

Postal Workers president William Burrus called the recent appointment of a Commission on the U.S. Postal Service "a thinly veiled attempt to dismantle the Postal Service as we know it." Burrus charged that the Bush Administration is being pressured by GOP extremists, and noted that no postal workers or union representatives were appointed to the Commission.

Burrus warned that universal service, uniform rates, and six-day delivery are at risk, as well as service to rural areas, inner cities, and anywhere else not deemed profitable by large volume mailers and pre-sort companies.

George Soros Guilty of Insider Trading

According to BBC News Dec. 20, megaspeculator and drug-legalizer George Soros has been found guilty of insider trading by French judge; at issue in the case was the abortive 1988 takeover of Société Générale. Two others indicted with him were acquitted. Prosecutors are asking that Soros be fined $2.22 million—i.e., what he made from this illegal operation.

Soros was not in the French court to hear the verdict. Instead, he was busy predicting to BBC News that the U.S. dollar could lose one-third of its value over the next few years and the stock market could fall "much lower."

All rights reserved © 2002 EIRNS