In this issue:

Retired Flag Officers To Oppose Gonzales Nomination

Retired Military Officers Leading Drive To Oust Rumsfeld

Rumsfeld Under Fire From Republicans, Military Leaders

Pentagon Tells Detainees They Can Go to Court

Israeli Industrial Espionage Under Investigation

Senate Dems Move Against Effort To Cut Medicaid

Pentagon Wants Another $80-$90 Billion for Iraq

Marc Rich Sandal Could Blow Up in Cheney's Face

From Volume 3, Issue Number 51 of EIR Online, Published Dec. 21, 2004

United States News Digest

Retired Flag Officers To Oppose Gonzales Nomination

A group of retired generals and admirals, who were top military legal officers, and who are opposed to the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to be U.S. Attorney General, are discussing how to most effectively stop his confirmation by the Senate, according to the Dec. 16 New York Times, and confirmed by a legal source contacted by EIR.

The retired officers are particularly focussed on the legal memoranda written and commissioned by Gonzales which sanctioned harsh treatment, including torture, of prisoners captured in the war on terrorism. Retired Admiral John Hutson, who was the judge advocate general for the U.S. Navy, said that when Gonzales wrote these memos, he "was not thinking about the impact of his behavior on U.S. troops in this war and others to come.

"He was not thinking about the United States' history in abiding by international law, especially in the wartime context. For that reason, some of us think he is a poor choice to be Attorney General."

Brigadier Gen. James Cullen (ret.) said that Gonzales had ignored the advice of military lawyers who were adamantly opposed to the Administration's legal strategies. "When you create these kinds of policy that can eventually be used against your own soldiers, when we say 'only follow the Geneva Conventions as much as it suits us,' when we take steps that the common man would understand is torture, this undermines who we are supposed to be, and many of us find it appalling."

Retired Military Officers Leading Drive To Oust Rumsfeld

Retired military officers are the driving force behind the campaign to oust Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, according to a source who has been deeply involved in the torture investigations. These retired officers, who are speaking on behalf of active-duty officers who cannot speak up, are particularly targetting Southern Republican Senators, and they are telling these Senators to "get rid of this man before there's a mutiny."

Although the news media are playing up Rumsfeld's arrogance and callousness toward the soldier in Kuwait who asked the Defense Secretary why U.S. soldiers deployed in Iraq had to dig through scrap heaps to find armor, the source said that the real issue is not Rumsfeld's callous disregard of the "grunts"—the troops on the ground—but his callous disregard of the officer corps, his not listening to them.

The source said he is hearing that there will be a shake-up at the top levels of the Pentagon in February, in which Rumsfeld will be dumped, but he believes that Dick Cheney is still firmly defending the Secretary of Defense.

Rumsfeld Under Fire From Republicans, Military Leaders

Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld is increasingly under fire from senior U.S. lawmakers and within senior U.S. military layers.

Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss) told the Biloxi, Miss. Chamber of Commerce Dec. 15: "I'm not a fan of Secretary Rumsfeld. I don't think he listens enough to his uniformed officers." Lott added: "I would like to see a change in that slot in the next year. I'm not calling for his resignation, but I think we do need a change at some point."

Rummy's callous response to lack of battle armor for troops and their vehicles hit a raw nerve with senior U.S. legislators and senior military command.

Senator Susan Collins (R-Me), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told a journalist: "I think there are increasing concerns about the Secretary's leadership of the war, the repeated failures to predict the strengths of the insurgency, the lack of essential safety equipment for our troops, the reluctance to expand the number of troops—all of those are factors that are causing people to raise more questions about Secretary [Rumsfeld]." Her comments are echoed in comments by Senators John McCain, Chuck Hagel, and Chris Dodd, and retired General Norman Schwarzkopf.

Schwarzkopf told MSNBC Dec. 13 that he was angered "by the words of the Secretary of Defense when he laid it all on the Army, as if he, the Secretary of State, didn't have anything to do with the Army and the Army was over there doing it themselves, screwing up."

Pentagon Tells Detainees They Can Go to Court

The Pentagon this week started giving the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba letters saying that they have the right to go to trial; but this is happening six months after the landmark Supreme Court ruling.

Attorneys for some of the detainees are calling the military's notice extremely late, unclear, and practically useless to detainees who do not have lawyers, the Washington Post reported Dec. 16. Some lawyers predicted that no detainee would be able to properly challenge his imprisonment using the military's guidelines.

Israeli Industrial Espionage Under Investigation

The reported rift between the U.S. and Israel over Israel's illegal supplying of forbidden high-technology military hardware to China, is only one aspect of the growing tension between the U.S. and Israel. Reporter Joshua Mitnick of the Moonie Washington Times wrote Dec. 16, that Israeli Army Radio reported this week that "Israeli defense officials in the United States have been accused by the FBI of industrial espionage, the second spying complaint levelled against Israel in four months...."

The Israeli Defense Ministry denies that its envoys have been accused by the U.S. of spying, but did not deny that the FBI had questioned some of its military officials working in the U.S., for aggressively asking questions about classified systems. The Ministry says they were only engaged in "aggressive collection" of unclassified information. "For us, it is legitimate," said a Defense Ministry spokeswoman. This revelation comes on the heels of the Dec. 1 FBI raid on the headquarters of Ariel Sharon's #1 lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), where the FBI agents reportedly came in with guns drawn, to seize computer and other files. The AIPAC raid is part of an ongoing investigation of defense officials working for the Israeli embassy in Washington. Also suspected in the AIPAC case, is Pentagon employee Larry Franklin, who works in the close circle of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, and his Deputy, Bill Luti.

Reporter Mitnick also says that the Israeli government is not denying that it called in all its military envoys for a special meeting in New York earlier this month (just after the AIPAC raid) to give them "new guidelines." It was not specified exactly what special office the Government of Israel maintains in New York, where the military envoys were briefed; but it is known that Ariel Sharon uses New York as his main base of operations when he is in the U.S.

Senate Dems Move Against Effort To Cut Medicaid

On Dec. 15, the office of Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) issued a press release announcing that he is spearheading an effort by Senate Democrats to "stand in the way of any effort to block grant Medicaid." The Senate Democrats signed a letter to President Bush expressing their opposition to any such proposal because it "would ultimately mean low-income families and persons with disabilities would be dropped from the program."

"This letter sends a strong signal to the White House that Senate Democrats will not support any effort to block grant Medicaid," Bingaman said.

The only Senate Democrat who did not sign the letter was Republican-in-Democratic-clothing Zell Miller, who is retiring. Excerpts from the letter follow:

"We are writing to express our opposition to any Medicaid reform proposal that seeks to impose a cap on Federal Medicaid spending in any form or eliminates the fundamental guarantee to Medicaid coverage for our nation's most vulnerable citizens, including low-income children, parents, pregnant women, people with disabilities, and senior citizens.

"...We are unwilling to allow the Federal government to walk away from Medicaid's over 50 million beneficiaries, the providers that serve them, and the urban and rural communities in which they live.

"Arbitrary limits on Federal Medicaid spending fail to automatically adjust for economic recessions, demographic changes, health care inflation, or disasters, including terrorism.... Moreover, capped Federal payments profoundly limit a State's ability to be innovative in responding to the growing number of uninsured in this country. We stand ready to work with you on policies impacting the health and well-being of [eligible recipients], and identifying those structural changes that enhance state flexibility without compromising the health and well-being of beneficiaries.

"With the number of uninsured growing in the nation and an aging population, we should take steps to stabilize and improve health coverage rather than undermine it...."

Pentagon Wants Another $80-$90 Billion for Iraq

The supplemental budget request is likely to arrive on Capitol Hill early next year, and will come on top of $25 billion in bridge funding that Congress added to the defense appropriations bill last summer, according to the Wall Street Journal Dec. 14. Whatever the actual amount turns out to be, the next supplemental looks to be the largest one yet, following on $160 billion that Congress has already appropriated since Bush's invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. The much-higher-than-expected troop levels, currently building up to 150,000 troops by January, and the excessive wear and tear on equipment, is driving the costs of the U.S. military presence in Iraq ever higher. Some of the money is also supposed to help the Army reorganize itself from 33 combat brigades to 43.

Marc Rich Sandal Could Blow Up in Cheney's Face

In discussions with EIR on Dec. 13, a prominent Republican Party figure pointed to the New York Post's front-page banner headline exposing Marc Rich's role in the Saddam Hussein-era oil-for-food scandal. A two-page spread, by the tabloid's investigative reporter Niles Lathem, revealed that both the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau are conducting grand jury probes into the role of fugitive—later pardoned (by President Clinton)—financier Marc Rich, in a string of lucrative, but illegal, oil contracts with the Saddam Hussein regime, under the UN-administered oil-for-food program. The Post story named Ben Pollner, a New York City-based oil trader, as a second target of the two probes, reporting that Pollner was recently interrogated by Morgenthau's investigators about his dealings with Rich and Saddam.

Of course, the New York Post's spin on the story is to revive the Bill Clinton pardon of Marc Rich, to embarrass and scandalize the ex-President. But some anti-Bush/Cheney Republicans are licking their chops over the fact that the Marc Rich scandals also hit hard at the Veep's office, because Rich's long-time attorney, and the "quarterback" for the campaign to get President Clinton to pardon Rich, was none other than Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, chief national security aide, and alter ego. For 16 years, whenever he was out of government service, Libby, a protégé of Nixon's personal attorney Leonard Garment, handled Marc Rich's legal affairs. Beginning in 1999, Libby worked with "ex"-Mossad officer Zvi Rafiah and Al Gore's White House attorney Jack Quinn, to steer the Rich pardon effort.

The GOP stalwart who pointed to the flank against Libby and Cheney said that there are a lot of GOP "interested parties" who could jump at the story. He forecast that the Bush/Cheney team would be hit with a barrage of damaging leaks, coming from disgruntled Republican Party and even Administration sources. "Look for a leak parade," the source said, adding that the Bush Administration, once said to be "leak-proof," is now facing disasters. He cited the Bernard Kerik fiasco, as a typical case of what he expects to see with greater and greater frequency. He also cited the White House bungling of the situation with Treasury Secretary John Snow, who was initially touted as one of the first Cabinet members to be out the door, and later was told he'd be kept on. "Previously, Snow was an empty suit. Now he's an empty suit with a grudge." He added that he expects the Administration to come to an unhappy premature end soon. "The problem is, what comes next? Republicans hate and fear the unknown, and right now," he concluded, "nobody knows what's coming next from this Administration."

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