United States News Digest
Ambassador Wilson Skewers Cheney and Rove in 'Nightline' Interview
ABC-TV's "Nightline" ran a special edition on Sept. 30, highlighting the probe into White House leaks concerning Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife's employment as an undercover CIA operative. Host Ted Koppel played the scandal to the hilt, focussing on Vice President Dick Cheney and White House political consultant Karl Rove, and drawing out the parallels to the early stages of the original Watergate affair.
Following a 10-minute introduction, Koppel engaged Wilson in an extensive interview, in which the former Ambassador was able to lay out the entire account of his trip to Niger, the conclusion of which was that there was no Iraq-Niger "yellow-cake" deal. Wilson emphasized that it was the Office of the Vice President that tasked the CIA to probe the yellow-cake allegations. He also reported that several Washington journalists had called him, right after speaking with Rove, who had told the reporters, "Joe Wilson's wife is fair game."
Scandals Mount Over 'Worthless' and "Fragmentary" Evidence Against Iraq
The U.S. paid $1 million for so-called intelligence from Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Council, but it was worthless, says a classified DIA report obtained by the New York Times, and reported on Sept. 29. The DIA was tasked to deal with this "intelligence" at a certain point. Chalabi's gang arranged interviews with defectors, but many were not the people they claimed to beusually "top WMD scientists"according to the DIA report. The DIA analysts say they cannot determine whether the informants deliberately attempted to mislead the U.S., or simply didn't know what they were talking about.
However, for those familiar with Iraqi exile politics, there is no question that Chalabi and his cohorts were deliberately "playing" the system for the political end of getting the U.S. to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Going back to 1996, EIR has reported on interviews with former intelligence agents and analysts, who had warned that Chalabi was untrustworthy, and had repeatedly made statementslater discovered to be falsein order to garner political support, both in Washington, and in London, where he was the favorite of the Foreign Office.
In another development, both Democratic and Republican Party leaders of the House Intelligence Committee have charged that the intelligence leading to the Iraq war was "circumstantial," "fragmentary," and out-of-date, with "too many uncertainties" to allege that Iraq had WMD or ties to al-Qaeda. Both Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla), committee chairman, and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif), ranking Democrat, found "significant deficiencies" in the U.S. intelligence community's ability to gather new information on Iraq, and said it relied on "past assessments," made before 1998, as well as "some new 'piecemeal' intelligence"both of which "were not challenged as a routine matter." The letter, signed by both leaders, to CIA Director George Tenet, was reported in the Washington Post Sept. 28.
"The absence of proof that chemical and biological weapons and their related development programs had been destroyed, was considered proof that they continued to exist," they charged.
The letter indicates one significant difference between the two committee leaders. Harman said the judgments in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq, "were deficient with regard to the analysis and presentation." Goss, a former CIA agent, on the other hand, believes the judgments were not deficient, and were properly couched to reflect the incomplete nature of the intelligence.
See this week's InDepth for full analysis of how the Iraq war debacle the disinformation leading to the war, is becoming "Cheneygate."
Putin Gives Nothing to Bush on 'Axis of Evil'
The Sept. 26 summit between President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin did little more for Bush than provide some photo ops. Bush had gone in there with instructions from Cheney's neo-con Chickenhawks to seek concessions from his Russian counterpart on issues concerning the Cheneyacs' "Axis of Evil"Iraq, Iran, and North Koreabut, based public reports and other indications, he returned empty-handed.
In statements made following the summit, it became clear that the Russians were sticking to their line of resisting any attempts to involve them in the "postwar" occupation of Iraq; they continue to argue that this should be handled by the United Nations, not the U.S. They are not likely to veto any new U.N. resolution on Iraq, but nor will they send any troops.
On Iran, the Russians are not going to back any efforts to block the Iranian nuclear program, which the Russians are involved in building, and which they, like the Iranians, insist is for the peaceful development of Iran's economy. Bush was not able to obtain any concessions about support for some kind of UN resolution, around an inspection regime.
On the issue of North Korea, Putin was direct and pointed. Putin stated at his Sept. 27 joint press conference with Bush that the nations who have been negotiating in the so-called "Six Power" process with Pyongyang over its nuclear program -Russia, the U.S., Japan, China, and South Koreamust give the North Koreans an unequivocal security guarantee.
With Bush looking on in silence, Putin declared, "Russia believes that ensuring a nuclear non-proliferation regime should be accompanied by extending to North Korea guarantees in the sphere of security." China's Foreign Minister was also reported by the Korean press to have very strongly pressed President Bush on the security guarantee for North Korea in a private New York meeting. This policy has now been echoed by all other nations in the negotiating process with the exception of the U.S., including in statements in the last week at the UN.
See this week's Russia Digest for further Putin statements, and the post-summit meeting with Russia's military.
U.S. Failure in Iraq, Cheney Role Highlighted at Forum
In response to a question from an EIR reporter on the role of Vice President Dick Cheney, and his former Gulf War I aides, Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis Libby, in pursuing a war with Iraq for the past 12 years, Carnegie Endowment specialist Joseph Cirincione, who had just returned from a four-day trip to Iraq, organized by the Department of Defense, said that the only thing more rapid than the rise of the neo-cons, was how quickly their policies are failing.
Cirincione and Jessica Mathews, President of the Carnegie Endowment were speaking in Washington, D.C. Sept. 30, at a Carnegie forum, just after their Iraq trip. In no uncertain terms, Mathews said that there is no military solution to the crisis in Iraq.
More troops will not help, Mathews stated, and that serious mistakes were made in the de-Baathification, and the dismantling of the Iraqi Army. She reported that the number of ambushes on convoys has increased, the daily attacks against coalition forces have increased by 40%, and that there is an influx of foreigners joining the attacks. In addition, the 35,000 Iraqi police that have been trained are not qualified. Regarding "regime change," Mathews said even though one-third of the so called "55 Deck of Cards" (with names and photos of the top figures in Saddam Hussein's government) have been arrested, no significant intelligence has been gained. She went on to say that even if the UN were to take over, she believes there is only a 50% chance that the situation will get better.
Cirincione, a Senior Associate at Carnegie, said that all the intelligence used by the White House was based on the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) which was influenced by Vice President Dick Cheney and his chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Cirincione doubted that the Pentagon chief of weapons inspections, David Kay's recent report concerning weapons of mass destruction (WMD) would ever be made public. He said that all the evidence that Kay, who oversaw a 1,200-1,500-person Pentagon team of inspectors, operating for five months, points to conclusions opposite to those sought by the White House: 1) that there was no active chemical, biological, or nuclear-WMD program at the time of the invasion; and 2) that there had been no buildup of WMD after 1991.
Both Mathews and Cirincione said that one has to reluctantly admit that Saddam Hussein was telling the truth about not having a WMD program, a conclusion also reached by UN Inspector Hans Blix. Therefore, concluded Cirincione, the Administration cannot allow Kay's report to made public. He said that the joint letter by Congressmen Porter Goss (R-Fla) and Jane Harman (D-Calif) was based on the realization that there has been no real intelligence about Iraq's alleged WMD programs since 1998.
Bill To Repeal Patriot Act Introduced
Legislation to repeal the worst features of the 2001 U.S.A. Patriot Act has been introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and a number of other Congressional Democrats. Announcing this on Sept. 24, Kucinich said that since the Sept. 11 attacks, "this nation has undergone a dramatic political change, leading to an unprecedented assault on the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights."
"Today, our nation has reached a critical turning point," he said. "Will we live in perpetual fear and continue to allow the disintegration of our basic rights and liberties? Will we stand by as the Administration formulates a second, more dangerous Patriot Act because, in the President's words, 'the first bill did not go far enough'? " Accompanying Kucinich were Representatives Barbara Lee (D-Calif), Sam Farr (D-Calif), Pete Stark (D-Calif), Jim McDermott (D-Wash), and Janice Shakowsky (D-Ill). McDermott asserted, "Today, I will tell you that the most dangerous man to Americans is John Ashcroft. Without exception, every day, he comes out with some way to further take away our rights."
Kucinich's bill, which is labelled the "Benjamin Franklin True Patriot Act," would repeal those sections of the Patriot Act that authorize warrantless sneak-and-peek searches, warrantless library, medical, and financial record searches, and the detention and deportation of non-citizens without meaningful judicial review.
Meanwhile, Attorney General John Ashcroft and President Bush are calling for new legislation giving the Justice Department still more police-state powers, Ashcroft has also gone on the offensive against his critics, labelling them as "hysterics," and as people who want to tip off the terrorists.
It has also been disclosed that powers granted to the FBI and DOJ under the Patriot Act, are being used in many criminal investigations that have nothing to do with terrorism. As many predicted, the 9/11 attacks were used as the pretext to ram through the Congress additional powers which can be used against anyone. And pending legislation, characterized as "Patriot II," now being pushed by the Administration, would make it far worse.
A new DOJ report, recently released to the Congress, shows that the expanded "anti-terrorism" powers given to DOJ under the Patriot Act are also being used in investigations of white-collar crime, blackmail, drug-trafficking, money laundering, and investigations of allegedly-corrupt foreign leaders.
Anti-Immigrant Initiative Pushed for Arizona Ballot
A local racist group called "Protect Arizona Now" is promoting a referendum for the 2004 election, that would cut off services in the state for undocumented immigrants. Though the group is backed by some Arizona politicians, and is thus said to be connected to the "right wing of the Republican Party," its more important booster is the "Clash of Civilizations"-promoting Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) based in Washington, D.C.
CIS stresses the danger of terrorism from unguarded borders, and is a significant propaganda center for post-9/11 fear-mongering, publicizing analyses by Samuel P. Huntington, one of the fathers of the "Clash of Civilizations" theory, and by anti-Islam fanatic, Daniel Pipes. CIS warns of the fundamental clash of cultures demarcated by the U.S.-Mexican border, which could feed into the cover environment for the use of the Synarchist terrorist networks of such fascist promoters as Spain's Blas Pinar.
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