United States News Digest
Cheney's War To Block The Senate Intelligence Committee
The announcement by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) on Nov. 7, freezing the ongoing probe by the Senate Intelligence Committee into White House and Executive branch use of tainted intelligence, is just the latest in a long line of dirty operations by Dick Cheney's "Chickenhawk Intelligence Agency" to try to stop Congressional oversight of his rogue apparatus.
See this week's InDepth, and the Presidential campaign statement by Lyndon LaRouche for the full story.
Frist's action against the Senate committee comes at the same time that the Independent Commission investigating intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, charged that the White House is refusing to cooperate with the Commission's investigation.
Washington observers say this amounts to a pattern and practice of obstruction of the investigations. And, the record shows that Dick Cheney and others in the Executive branch are running a Watergate-style threat campaign that goes back to June 2002, against the Senate Intelligence Committee. Three incidents stand out:
*On July 17, 2003, the White House denounced Senate Intelligence Committee member Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) for trying to "rewrite history," when Durbin refused to accept the cover story that CIA Director George Tenet took "full responsibility" for the fake intelligence that was used in President Bush's State of the Union address of 2003, about Iraq obtaining uranium for nuclear weapons.
Durbin appeared on "Good Morning America," on July 17 to say that Tenet had told the Senate "who the person was" who insisted "on putting in [the President's State of the Union speech] ... this language about the uranium shipment from Africa." Durbin said that he could not reveal the name, because the information is classified, but said that "the CIA knew [the information] was incredible." Immediately the White House exploded against Durbin, smearing him for opposing the Iraq war, and for allegedly rewriting history.
Political sympathy, however, proved to be with Durbin and the Senate investigation, but then the name of Robert Joseph, the White House official and neo-con insider, who Durbin refused to name, appeared in the Washington Post. The White House blamed the "leak" on Durbin, at which point neo-con Senators from the Republican side demanded Durbin's resignation from the Intelligence Committee which did not happen. Then reports circulated that a grand jury was being convened against Durbin.
* On July 21, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, and Africa, Amb. Joe Wilson charged that the White House had leaked the identity of his wife, Valerie Plame, a covert CIA officer, in order to intimidate him. A day later, Sen. Durbin demanded that Wilson's charges be investigated, because, "It's not only unacceptable, it may be criminal." Durbin is demanding that the Senate investigate whether the U.S. Administration did illegally reveal that Ambassador Wilson's wife works as a CIA operative. Durbin said, "That's about as serious as it gets in this town."
Durbin further charged that the White House is trying to have him removed from the Senate Intelligence Committee, in the midst of the ongoing hearings about the intelligence Wilson had shown was a fraud. Durbin said that the White House has floated a false story that he has leaked classified information on Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction. Durbin said on the Senate floor, "The White House allegations ... were, in fact, false, and inaccurate."
Even this was a replay of earlier White House interference:
*In June-August 2002, the FBI was deployed to confiscate the records of any Senator on the Intelligence Committee's contact with reporters on "two days in June [2002]" as part of a probe of "leaks" of classified information relating to the Sept. 11 attacks. What had leaked were documents that showed that National Security Agency had intercepted calls on Sept. 10 of al-Qaeda individuals discussing that "Tomorrow is the zero hour," and this advance intelligence had not been analyzed until after the attacks occurred. The administration was "so infuriated that Vice President Dick Cheney called leaders" of the joint House/Senate committee investigating intelligence failures, reported CNN, to threaten them. Sen. Bob Graham, and Rep. Porter Goss, then the respective heads of the Senate and House intelligence committees, were so intimidated that they called the DOJ themselves to order the FBI which they were investigating to investigate themselves!
Later, the White House attempted to withhold all classified information from the Senate Intelligence Committee because the members were security risks. That was the state of intimidation in August 2002, when the White House began upping the pressure for Congress to pass a resolution authorizing the Iraq war.
DNC Boycotting Of D.C. Ballot Denounced As "Offensive" and Racist
Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Terry McAuliffe, fresh from a confrontation with LaRouche Youth Movement activists in Philadelphia, is being blamed for the appalling withdrawal of five Democratic candidates from the Jan. 13 Washington, D.C. primary ballot. Remaining on the ballot for the nation's first Presidential primary are Lyndon LaRouche, Dennis Kucinich, Carol Moseley Braun, Howard Dean, and Al Sharpton.
D.C. City Council President Jack Evans and other District officials "accused DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe of actively discouraging participation," reported the Washington Post of Nov. 8, which otherwise blacked out the name of Lyndon LaRouche, who had been placed on the D.C. ballot, along with nine other Democrats, on Nov. 7.
The withdrawal from the ballot disenfranchises the voters of Washington, D.C., especially African-Americans, but DNC spokesman Tony Welch told the Washington Post that the five candidates who withdrew their namesJoe Lieberman, John Kerry, Richard Gephardt, John Edwards, and Wesley Clarkwere "just following" delegate selection rules. Welch did not disclose that McAuliffe and the DNC organized those "rules."
It was the similar use of DNC "rules" in the 2000 elections that disenfranchised the more than 53,000 Democratic voters in Arkansas that voted for Lyndon LaRouche against Al Gore in that state's primary. The DNC and Gore stole the LaRouche delegates in that state. Ironically, Gore's slap in the face to the Arkansas voters led to his losing that state by some 50,000 votes to George W. Bush. Had he won Arkansas, Gore would not have needed the Florida electoral college votes to be elected President.
Under McAuliffe's misleadership, the DNC is blundering again.
D.C. City Council president Jack Evans announced Nov. 7 that he will continue to buck the DNC by submitting emergency legislation restoring the names of the five candidates (Edwards, Kerry, Gephardt, Lieberman, and Clark) to the ballot even if they object "because our residents deserve a fair and open primary." "Not only have three of the candidates (who live in D.C.) disrespected their hometown, they've disrespected African Americans." City Councilman Adrian Fenty said, "It is indicative of what they think about the District and urban issues in general."
Even the chairman of the D.C. Democratic Party, A. Scott Bolden, who usually rubber-stamps DNC decisions, denounced the action of the five candidates as an "offensive gesture." "[W]hen put to the test, these five candidates have cut and run, and now we all know they weren't the right ones to begin with."
Intelligence Pros Tell U.S. To Stop Israeli Violations of Peace Agreements
Without U.S. efforts to improve Palestinian-Israeli relations, the collapse of pro-American sentiment in Iraq and throughout the Middle East won't be stopped. This was the essence of submissions made by the CIA, and the State Dept.'s Intelligence and Research (INR) to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, reported the Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz on Nov. 3. The Israeli daily paraphrases the submission by Assistant Secretary of State Carl Ford, the head of INR. In Ha'aretz's words, INR says that the "Bush Administration ... apply 'clear and intentional pressure' on Israel regarding the settlements, as part of making headway with the Palestinians, as well as helping to calm the situation heating up in Iraq." Ford considers using pressure on Israel for securing an agreement with the Palestinians, one of two conditions for stability within Iraq.
The daily also paraphrases CIA Congressional liaison Stanley Moskowitz "that an arrangement for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that would be acceptable to the Palestinian and developed Arab states, 'such as the plans outlined by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah,' are expected to significantly reduce negative feelings toward the U.S. in the region." The statements, a formal requirement from February hearings of the Senate Committee are a supplement to the annual intelligence report on "current threats" to the United States.
The INR and CIA view is held by a large number of Middle East veteran experts in the military, foreign service, and intelligence community, who have all been frozen out of any participation in the Iraq reconstruction effort because of the "Likudnik" warmongers in the Cheney-Bush administration, who ran the Iraq policy. The neo-con Likudniks have especially ruled out State Dept. veterans with a knowledge of the Arabic language, because the neo-cons consider them too "pro-Arab."
Reflecting the sane, measured view of these retired U.S. professions was an op-ed this week in the Nov. 4 Jordan Times, where former Undersecretary of State Robert Pelletreau proposes that the Saudi peace plan be revived, and pushed forward, together with the Road Map, by a joint European-Arab effort.
American Casualty Rates In Iraq Similar To Russians In Afghanistan
Russian experts involved in the Afghanistan war reckon that the American casualty rate in Iraq is approximately equal to that suffered by Russian forces in Afghanistan during their much longer occupation. The calculations were reported by Sergei Lavrov, Russia's permanent representative to the United Nations:
"The other day, our colleagues from the UN, who used to be in charge of Afghanistan-related issues, made some simple calculations. It turned out that if we multiply daily American casualties in Iraq by the number of days the Soviet troops were in Afghanistan, the figure would be about 13,000. We had that many casualties in Afghanistan. This information showed everyone the scope of the Iraqi problem," Lavrov said.
Cheney Asks Supreme Court To OK His Stonewalling on Energy Task Force
In the continuing saga of Vice President Dick Cheney's refusal to turn over documents to the Congress concerning the secret dealings of Spring 2001, between his energy policy task force and corporate pirates, (particularly, Enron and Halliburton), Judicial Watch has filed papers with the U.S. Supreme Court to try to force Cheney to make the information public.
Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia ruled that Cheney should obey a lower court order to release some documents. Cheney then got John Ashcroft's Justice Department to ask the Supreme Court to reverse the order to turn over documents. The Supreme Court is expected to hear the case by the end of 2003. Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club have been trying for two years to get records of the task force meetings released. The Congress was on Cheney's case as well, but the Congressional General Accounting Office backed down when the White House refused to cooperate.
Meanwhile, the energy bill that Cheney's task force designed is stalled in conference between the House and Senate, as the conferees negotiate questions such matters as how much ethanol the government should subsidize, while the entire U.S. energy infrastructure goes to pot.
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