Dark clouds in Bush's future?

by **sunny** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 6:44 pm

One of the most clear eyed explanations I've seen as to why the DSM is so important, and why there is reason to hope: <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0607-26.htm">www.commondreams.org/views05/0607-26.htm</a> Bring It Down. Now. by David Michael Green The Downing Street Memo is the gift that just keeps on giving. And well it should. It is the smoking gun which proves that the gravest possible crime was committed by the Bush administration, and among its victims were the American people. I am more hopeful about American politics than I have been in a long time, though still cautious. For nearly five years now, the Bush administration has gotten away with murder - literally and figuratively - with seemingly immutable impunity, always defying the laws of political gravity, at least as they are known in this universe. So I've come to be tentative and rather pessimistic about the possibilities of ending this national nightmare of reaction, thievery and militarism, and bringing these criminals to justice. But Downing Street seems to have legs, and I feel a critical mass building now. It is different this time, in part, because this is the first true insider smoking gun, set down in black and white. But it is also different, in part, because the context has changed. Unlike previous revelations, from the Clarke or O'Neill (Suskind) books, for example, the evidence this time comes against the background of growing discontent at home with the disaster of Iraq, and the diminished credibility of a president and the movement of regressive politics he leads. Generally content or frightened people will forgive a lot, sometimes even murderous lies of this magnitude. But angry, deceived people will not. Bush has built himself a credibility gap of which Lyndon Johnson could be proud, which probably accounts more than anything for his inability to sell the bundle of Social Security deceits he's been peddling. He said he was going to get Osama 'dead or alive'. He didn't. He said his tax scheme would revive the economy. It didn't. He said it wouldn't add to the national debt. Boy, did it. He and his minions said Iraq was a necessary war, in response to an urgent threat, and that American 'liberators' would be greeted with flowers and chocolate. None of that came true, of course, and now the public no longer supports George and Dick's Excellent Adventure in the Cradle of Civilization. Fifty-seven percent of Americans perceive the war as going badly. Only forty percent think that it's been worth it to remove Saddam from power given the costs in troops and dollars. And only thirty-eight percent approve of how Bush is handling the war. Moreover, Iraq echoes the tragedy of Vietnam in every salient way, from the lies going in, to the 'everything's just fine' detachment of the political class, the international opprobrium, the inability to effectively fight counter-insurgency warfare, and the lack of any sort of remotely appealing exit scenario. And on the Nam trajectory, it feels like we are at 1970 or so in terms of public disenchantment. (In part, we should note, that is precisely because of the lessons learned from that war, which produced a healthy increase in political skepticism among the American public.) But in Vietnam, the Tet Offensive had already occurred by 1970, and so, for many years, had the draft. Imagine what will happen to already low and falling support for the Iraq debacle if in the coming months there is a single, highly demoralizing reversal for the US military in Iraq, a la Tet, or if a starved military is forced to reinstitute the draft. This is the context in which the damning evidence of the Downing Street Memo arrives, and it is part of the explanation for why the Bush administration may now finally find itself in the deep trouble it so richly deserves. The Memo itself lays out in clear text the game of deceit played by the Bush and Blair gangs in the run-up to the Iraq War. Among its highlights, the DSM confirms that the war had been decided upon well before Congressional or UN Security Council action, and before weapons inspectors were inserted and then removed because of the 'urgency' of Iraq's threat (of course, the real urgency and real threat was that the absence of WMD would kill Bush's pretext for war). The Memo then goes on to show, most significantly, that the war planners knew their case was "thin", so they distorted - "fixed" - the intelligence and facts in order to market the war. (For a more complete discussion of the Memo itself and the wholesale failures of the mainstream media to treat this earth-shattering story with anything approaching the coverage it deserves, see <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0513-20.htm.)">www.commondreams.org/view...3-20.htm.)</a> Eighty-nine members of the House sent a letter to the president asking for clarification of the ominous implications of the Memo, and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan soon began getting questions about it. It will hardly surprise attentive readers that his response to these questions was smug, condescending, and maximally disingenuous. Without addressing the content or implications of the Memo (and, most absurdly of all, while claiming not to have read it), McClellan refers us to the president's statements of the time, which he says provide a clear record of Bush's honest and very public diplomacy on the Iraq issue. It turns out, however, that if one examines that record just as McClellan suggests, one finds anything and everything but honesty from Bush and his team. Instead, precisely as the DSM prescribes, we were given a boatload of knowing lies from the administration, often in the most visible of fora, like the State of the Union address (see <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0519-30.htm).">www.commondreams.org/view...9-30.htm).</a> Since these initial developments, much has happened in just a short time. First, knowledge of the Memo's existence is becoming more widespread. As of this moment, I doubt more than one percent of Americans are aware of the story, but that number is increasing rapidly, especially through the alternative media. More and more articles written on a variety of subjects make reference to it, even in passing, and it is flying across email networks with accelerating rapidity. Google "Downing Street Memo" and about 267,000 hits are returned at present, with that number rising fast. The story feels at this moment like a virus about to kick into the exponential phase of its growth curve, or a pregnant cloud about to burst showers over the parched land. The mainstream media is addressing the DSM, but still only in bits, and - it would appear - only reluctantly. No doubt the experiences of CBS and Newsweek have been precisely as intimidating as the White House intended them to be, and no doubt fears of lost profits prove even more sobering. Just the same, there is movement, and some of it has been forced by us. Two weeks too late, for example, the New York Times finally ran a brief single-column story. Of course, they buried it on page 10, and they gave the story the wrong emphasis. Its first paragraph reads "More than two weeks after its publication in London, a previously secret British government memorandum that reported in July 2002 that President Bush had decided to 'remove Saddam, through military action' is still creating a stir among administration critics. They are portraying it as evidence that Mr. Bush was intent on war with Iraq earlier than the White House has acknowledged." The article goes on to develop this theme of timing, which is by far the lesser of the two main deceits proven by the DSM. Almost no mention is made in the article of the much more egregious crime of lying about the necessity of the invasion for American security needs, and willfully constructing an entire campaign of disinformation to market the war. The Times also felt the pressure of its readership on this issue to such an extent that the new Public Editor, Byron Calame, was compelled to publish an online response to the "flood" of angry email from readers expressing disappointment and worse at America's so-called newspaper of record. Mr. Calame writes "My checks find no basis for Ms. Lowe's [a sample incensed correspondent] concern about censorship or undue outside pressures. Rather, it appears that key editors simply were slow to recognize that the minutes of a high-powered meeting on a life-and-death issue - their authenticity undisputed - probably needed to be assessed in some fashion for readers. Even if the editors decided it was old news that Mr. Bush had decided in July 2002 to attack Iraq or that the minutes didn't provide solid evidence that the administration was manipulating intelligence, I think Times readers deserved to know that earlier than today's article [Calame is referring here to the article discussed in the previous paragraph]." Again, this goes to the lesser issue raised by the DSM, but Calame then interviews Phil Taubman, the NYT Washington Bureau Chief, who addresses the more salient question of the manipulation of intelligence to sell the war. Says Taubman: "It is mighty suggestive that Lord Dearlove, the chief of MI6, came home with the impression, or interpretation, that 'the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.' However, that's several steps removed from evidence that such was the case. The minutes did not say that Mr. Tenet had told that to Lord Dearlove or that Lord Dearlove had seen specific examples of that. The minutes, in my estimation, were not a smoking gun that proved that Bush, Tenet and others were distorting intelligence to support the case for war." There are two huge problems with this alibi for the Times' obscene failure. First, by any reasonable standard, the Memo absolutely does provide such 'evidence' that the facts were being fixed. It says so itself. And, remember that it is an internal British government document, leaked to the public. As such, and since it was never intended to see the light of day, there would be no reason for it to be dishonest or distorted for the benefit of its original readers. Remember also that Tony Blair has in fact commented briefly on the Memo, but never denied its veracity in any fashion. Recall that a member or former member of the Bush team who was privy to these discussions has confirmed, off the record, the accuracy of the Memo. And remember that the Memo's blueprint fits precisely with what are now established facts from the period, namely, that the Bush people told lie after whopping lie about Iraq's WMD capabilities, and did so knowingly. All told, this amounts to an extremely powerful case, one which would certainly prove highly persuasive in a criminal case, where the standards of proof are far higher than they are for a public's evaluation of their political leaders in a democracy. But, even if this extremely persuasive evidence were not on the table, the second problem with the Times' lame excuse is that unassailable evidence of a crime (do we ever have that?) is hardly necessary for publication of a news story, anyhow. We don't 'know' yet whether Tom DeLay is guilty of the accusations which have been made against him, but those accusations are themselves highly newsworthy, and have been treated, appropriately, as such. We don't yet 'know' definitively whether John Bolton is a 'kiss up, kick down' sort of fellow, but the fact that there is some evidence suggesting that might be the case deserves, and got, plenty of media coverage. And I sure don't remember a lot of media hesitation over Whitewater or Monicagate. Me, I'm just one guy out here in the hinterlands, but where I come from, very powerful evidence of a president lying to sell a war - evidence which has not been disputed, evidence which has been independently corroborated in multiple ways, and evidence which has caused deep concern among a large portion of Congress - well, that's worthy of a wee bit more coverage than we've seen to date. Indeed, apart from 9/11, what story of the last decade is bigger than this? The arguments proffered by the Times for its poor coverage of the DSM render this news blackout and associated coverup distortions looking very much like a case of disingenuousness of which the White House would be proud. Together, they would constitute a crime on top of a crime, but for the fact that it is not, alas, the first episode in this ugly story. By its own (very late) admission, the Times betrayed its responsibility to the American public during the run-up to the war - precisely the period described in the Memo - by failing to question the 'evidence' and claims offered by the administration for the necessity of going to war, serving instead as a virtual government stenographer. That makes the current fiasco - at best - a perfect trifecta of botched journalism from America's paper of record. But it also makes that 'at best' interpretation seem increasingly implausible. Far more likely with such a series of failings, all in the same direction of massively favoring the administration, is that the Times is purposely abdicating its duty as a government watchdog. Whether that is because of cowardice, profits, both, or some other explanation is as yet unclear. My, how far we've traveled. In this week full of Watergate reminiscences, the irony of our present condition could not be more complete. Three decades ago, two cub reporters with the backing of a great patriotic paper struggled to uncover, bit by painstaking bit, information which saved the republic from a highjacking. Today, the story is out there in plain sight, and yet the no-longer-remotely-great journalistic organs not only fail to present it, they conspire to cover it up, adding their own special contribution to the current unraveling of constitutional government. Increasing numbers of Americans are coming to realize that learning the truth about their country requires going to foreign sources like the BBC, or to alternative electronic media. Fortunately, however, American journalism still exhibits a pulse in a few parts of the country. Most significant so far has been a stunning cri de coeur out of Minneapolis, deep within America's heartland and hardly a Havana, Falluja or even Berkeley. In a devastating Memorial ('Memo'rial?) Day editorial, the Star Tribune called the president what he is, a liar who has committed the gravest sin any commander-in-chief ever could, "spending [American soldiers'] blood in an unnecessary war based on contrived concerns about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction". Wow. One can only imagine the shivers running down the spines of Rove, Bush, Cheney and the rest as they read those words and consider the (very mainstream) source. Already unpopular and no longer trusted, the Memo has the capacity to devastate if not destroy this White House, and potentially even to sentence its occupants to financial ruin and long prison terms. (If this were to get any sweeter, more deserved, or more ironic, those jail cells would turn out to be in The Hague, rather than Leavenworth. Nobody pinch me yet, please, this is too good.) Indeed, the ironies which may ensue from this point forward are exquisite to contemplate. Those who have recklessly dismantled American democracy over the last two decades in a naked pursuit of power may well in turn become victims of several of the destructive precedents they themselves have established. For starters, consider Karl Rove's dilemma right now. He is in precisely the position he has long loved to place his opponents (such as Democratic members of Congress over the Iraq war vote just before the elections of 2002, to choose just one example). If he says nothing about the DSM, he risks it continuing to proliferate exponentially, with more and more mainstream, heartland, media hurling devastating and unanswered body blows at the Bush administration, until ultimately a tidal wave of rage crests over 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But if he addresses it head on, he risks making tens of millions of Americans aware of something they presently are not, with most of them likely to then see the plain message of this evidence for exactly what it is. Hobson's choice or not, at the rate things are progressing, the White House will have to respond, and likely soon. Just this week a chorus of impeachment calls has echoed across the alternative media, including even one (at least) from a conservative source, Paul Craig Roberts of the Hoover Institution, who accuses Bush of "intentionally deceiving Congress and the American people in order to start a war of aggression against a country that posed no threat to the United States". He goes on to note, quite accurately, that "As intent as Republicans were to impeach President Bill Clinton for lying about a sexual affair, they have a blind eye for President Bush's far more serious lies". To get a sense of how frightened and vulnerable the Bush team is, consider McClellan's response to a reporter's question about the letter sent by 89 members of the House calling for an explanation of the Downing Street Memo. McClellan said the White House saw "no need" to answer the letter. This tells us three things, right off the bat. First, the Bush administration is blocking Congress from performing its constitutionally mandated duty of oversight of the executive. Well, no surprise there. Second - and, again, absolutely no surprise - this White House has once more demonstrated its seemingly inexhaustible capacity to break all prior records for arrogance. Napoleon couldn't touch this stuff, and neither could Nero. Imagine believing that you're above answering basic questions posed by Congress about the single biggest issue of our time. Imagine seeing "no need" to explain to the country why documentary evidence exists showing that you lied your way into a war which continues to consume American soldiers by the thousands, with no end in sight. Now, that's how they do it in the big leagues. But experience reminds us that arrogance and bullying behavior almost always serve to mask massive insecurities just beneath, bringing us to the third revelation which can be extrapolated from McClellan's non-comment. Think about it. The gravest possible accusation has been made against the president and his team, emanating from, among others, one-fifth of the House of Representatives. In addition to its moral implications, it has the political capacity to topple the presidency and perhaps kill the entire regressive right movement of the last quarter-century. It is, in short, some very serious business. Knowing what we know about how these folks viciously attack anyone who besmirches them in the slightest, what are we to make of their silence on this most lethal - this most existential - of political attacks? No doubt they are completely trapped by the evidence and can only hope and pray the Memo just goes away. But ever true to form, McClellan, Bush, Cheney and the whole lot of them would be strewing carnage across the landscape on this issue if they could get away with it. Just ask CBS, Newsweek, Amnesty International, Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke, John McCain or John Kerry. Get in their way, and the attacks come hard, fast and personal. That they are not now in full assault mode further affirms the accuracy and power of the Memo, as well as suggesting that the White House is strategically trapped between a rock and a hard place. Perhaps they even find themselves in shock and awe. It is crucial now for progressives and patriots of all stripes to push this opportunity as hard as possible, down multiple paths. The mainstream media is the most significant avenue for advancing this initiative which has the potential to take down Bush. We must continue to exert unrelenting pressure on media outlets simply to do their jobs, so that the public may be informed of this gravest breach of its trust. Members of Congress, led by John Conyers, have also played an important role so far by providing legitimacy to the critique, a rallying point around which other vectors can agglomerate, and an important angle the media can exploit should they ever decide one day to earn their salaries. We must do more to pressure Congress, particularly vulnerable Republicans (and I predict there may be quite a lot of them in 2006) to take this question seriously or explain to their constituents why they do not. Impeachment is completely warranted for the crimes committed by the Bush administration, and we must relentlessly demand this outcome. As mentioned above, there are potentially exquisite ironies in this case, and this is one of them. Having impeached Clinton for lying about oral sex, how ridiculous would Republicans now appear trying to argue that there is no impeachable offense here? Another example of sublime irony might be produced by a court case, perhaps over a wrongful death charge. Cindy Sheehan (bless you for your sacrifice, and for your tireless work to save others from the same fate), are you reading this? History is calling your name. And once again, imagine the patently obvious hypocrisy of Republicans trying to prevent the president from having to testify in such a case, after they just got through establishing a legal precedent for the same by forcing Clinton to do so, while in office, over the far less harmful allegation of sexual harassment. And, in yet another example of exquisite irony, imagine how unsympathetic the judiciary is likely to be toward them, after the radical right has excoriated judges who don't bend to their will, to the point that GOP senators have offered justifications for recent violence directed against judges. The regressive movement of the last several decades has provided a vicious spectacle, to the extent that internal cannibalization always seemed one likely avenue for its ultimate demise, with, for example, the far right running a nearly successful primary candidate against sitting Republican Senator Arlen Specter last year. But this is better. Lots better. After a quarter century of scorched earth politics, I could not have designed a more appropriate fate for these destroyers of democracy than to be hoisted by their own petards, and then taken out by their own destructive precedents. America has gone seriously astray due to the regressive right movement that began in earnest with Reagan, incubated under Gingrich, and blossomed full-blown in the era of Bush, Scalia and DeLay. This political cancer has yielded death, destruction, environmental wreckage, massive debt, wholesale violations of human rights, diminishment of national security, dismantling of constitutional democracy at home and widespread hatred for America abroad. And that's just the first term. It is difficult to imagine that one could ruin a country so thoroughly in just four years, but the Bush team has succeeded famously (with a good deal of help from the press, the Democrats and the public). Finally, it appears that we have in the Downing Street Memo a weapon, and with it the proper context, to end our long national nightmare. Impeachment. Now. David Michael Green (pscdmg@hofstra.edu) is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. ### Maybe my fantasies will yet come true<img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/smokin.gif ALT=":smokin"> Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=sunny@rigorousintuition>sunny</A> at: 6/7/05 4:55 pm

by **Starman** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 4:31 pm

Sunny: posted, in part from Common Dreams: "America has gone seriously astray due to the regressive right movement that began in earnest with Reagan, incubated under Gingrich, and blossomed full-blown in the era of Bush, Scalia and DeLay. This political cancer has yielded death, destruction, environmental wreckage, massive debt, wholesale violations of human rights, diminishment of national security, dismantling of constitutional democracy at home and widespread hatred for America abroad. And that's just the first term. It is difficult to imagine that one could ruin a country so thoroughly in just four years, but the Bush team has succeeded famously (with a good deal of help from the press, the Democrats and the public). Finally, it appears that we have in the Downing Street Memo a weapon, and with it the proper context, to end our long national nightmare." -- WoW -- That's an absolutely sharp, hard-hitting and encouraging article alright; It almost (well, OK, it did) make me hopeful that critical change MIGHT be happening to depose at least the topmost public tier of corporate/military gangster thugs who are part of the infrastructure of death, exploitation, and corruption that has seriously led America astray. But ChRist, the problems confronting America and the World are SO deep and thoroughly ingrained in the way business has been done, and evident in the hopeless idiocy of the visible Iraq/Afghan wars, and as severe in the relatively invisible wars in South America, East Timor, Africa (Africa Sun News - Africa Wars & Conflicts War in Africa. ... There are currently fifteen African countries involved in war, or are experiencing post-war conflict and tension. ... www.africasunnews.com/wars.html), Haiti, in the tragic betrayal of 911 used as cover to deflect the frauds and fallacies of America's foreign and domestic policies, in America's Shadow Government that rules behind the scenes (and which is at least semi-international in scope) and funded in-part by an enormous Black Budget that supports a truly terrifying agenda of global conquest, while the crisis of widescale environmental catastrophe and the impending debacle of Peak Oil social and economic dislocations provide a very bleak prognosis for the short to midterm future ... While Impeaching Bush and his Cabal of criminal racketeers is a hopeful prospect, it's hard to see this bunch succumbing peacefully to the 'will of the people', as society has become SO decieved and misled, fueling the faux-Christian right movement of self-indulgent hypocritical justification for head-up-ass thinking. Still, I recognize that, as aware and principled citizens who detest the forces of darkness at work in the world and which our top 'leaders' seem to be agents for, we NEED to emphasize the positive and take an active roll in progressive change. So my small contribution is to encourage folks to write their reps and major media outfits, to express their demands that this issue of falsification leading up to war which the DSM confirms, be given the full attention and consideration it deserves, in Public debate and in Congress. The following links put e-mail addresses to media and Gov. reps. at your fingertips -- give it a shot -- It'll at least make ya feel like you can actually SPEAK and make yourself heard, to demand long-overdue accountability (and hopefully begin to break the backs of the political/corporate cartels and their sabotage of democracy and a peaceful, cooperative world community). Re: *Good: One-stop shopping -- email links for President, White House, Congress, media-press and television/radio news/news programs: <a href="http://www.conservativeusa.org/megalink.htm">www.conservativeusa.org/megalink.htm</a> (it's a CONSERVATIVE-allied site -- Which use provides a unique opportunity for subverting the list's Hu-RaH! pro-War-n-GOP-policy intent!) **Better: <a href="http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=111">www.fair.org/index.php?page=111</a> FAIR's Media Contact List Let your voice be heard! Talk back to the media. Network & Cable Television National Radio Programs National Newspapers Magazines News Services / Wires ***Best: Rumour Mill News -- US and NY Media Links, Gov, International, Embassies, etc. (Excellant, exhaustive list!) <a href="http://www.rumormillnews.com/MEDIA_EMAIL_ADDRESSES.htm">www.rumormillnews.com/MED...RESSES.htm</a> MEDIA EMAIL ADDRESSES This page of email addresses is NOT designed to be used to send individual emails. It is designed so you can copy and paste them into your emails! This could be compared to sending a bulk mailing via the post office! THE PREFERRED WAY There is NO preferred way to use this list. Some people send emails to their Congressional Representatives and CC (copy) all the media email addresses. Other people prefer to BCC (Blind copy) the email addresses. The reason for this is because they want whoever is reading the email to actually READ what they have to say! With thousands of email addresses appearing BEFORE the actual message, it is less likely the Congressional staffer will ever read the email, therefore your email may NEVER be counted! If you want to let your Congressional Representatives know that you have also emailed the media, you can now include the link to this page and write a p.s. at the bottom of your email telling them you have BCC'd the email to thousands of media people! ************* Starman

by **sunny** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 4:52 pm

Starman, thanks for the links, very useful info that- And I do write regularly, to praise when they do well, and to bitch when they fall down- Reps and media alike But you are so right-the problems, corruptions, hate, stupidity,et.al. seem so inbedded I sometimes despair- I have to keep reminding myself of the good things in life,-my kids, my mom and sister, friends, my dog Sugar (who's always there for me) my books and flowers, sex, music, the internet; beautiful days like today when it rained while the sun shone down hot and liquid as molten lava and a gorgeous stranger smiled at me from across a steaming parking lot-I saw a curly-headed child manning a lemonade stand today, for chrissakes! Haven't seen that lovely sight in years. A friend thanked me for listening, and I hugged her for being my friend-Every tiny precious thing we must hold onto, become as little children in gratitude, be happy with tadpoles in mud puddles like we used to do- someday soon, I'm afraid, it could save our (spiritual) lives.....<img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)">

by **wolf pauli** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 8:05 pm

An interesting take on how to use the DSM, from P.M. Carpenter: <a href="http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2005/06/a_dsm_strategy.html">pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m...ategy.html</a> A DSM strategy "... I understand that those demanding accountability are tempted to take the “deception” road. Plainly, there is mountainous evidence of deception. But they’ll never pin it on Bush. "What I don’t understand is the lack of near-singular focus on the Downing Street Memo’s essence, which points demonstrably and directly to what Bush knew and conspired to hide. In the DSM the British attorney general bluntly declared the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action, while the memo revealed that illegal regime change was, in fact, at the heart of Bush’s intentions, concreted into policy. "This illegality was also at the core of the subsequent conspiracy to deceive. But one need not prove the subsequent acts of deception to prove original intent of illegality -- the knowing violation of international law by launching an invasion in the absence of provocation. This is the one overwhelmingly provable fact that leaps off the DSM’s pages. It was Bush’s “state of mind indicating culpability.” He knew his policy of regime change through invasion was illegal in itself. ..."

by **PeterofLoneTree** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 12:25 am

Another good website to contact your local reps is: <a href="http://www.congress.org/">www.congress.org/</a> where you can also sign up for "Megavote" (upper right corner) and receive weekly e-mail updates on how your reps vote on issues when Congress is in session.

by sw » Thu Jun 09, 2005 12:46 am

by **seemslikeadream** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 10:12 am

OH Dem says BWC scandal ilegalities put PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN QUESTION Thursday, June 9, 2005 Kaptur alerts colleagues of unfolding scandal Brown says illegalities put presidential election in question The $215 million loss - coupled with a failed $50 million rare-coin investment with Tom Noe, a prominent Republican campaign contributor - have given Democrats political ammunition against the GOP, which has dominated state government for years. Democrats such as Miss Kaptur and U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown of Lorain say the latest scandals mirror problems in Washington and even call into question the results of the 2004 presidential election. "Shame on the governor of Ohio," said Miss Kaptur, who put The Blade's Tuesday online story breaking the news of the $215 million loss into the Congressional record. "Shame on the state officials of the State of Ohio. What a tragedy they have perpetrated on the people of our state." <a href="http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050609/NEWS09/506090443" target="top">www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050609/NEWS09/506090443</a> OHIO INVESTMENT SCANDAL Taft's office told in October about $225 million loss; e-mail from Conrad said firm overleveraged account Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, located in Columbus. ( THE BLADE/ALLAN DETRICH ) Zoom By JAMES DREW BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU CHIEF COLUMBUS — Gov. Bob Taft’s office learned seven months ago — not this week — that the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation had lost $225 million in a high-risk investment. In an Oct. 26, 2004, e-mail to Taft aide James Samuel, the bureau’s administrator-CEO, James Conrad, wrote that the “entire value” of the portfolio managed by MDL Capital Management was down about $225 million. Mr. Conrad also alerted the governor’s office that the bureau had rejected MDL’s request for another $25 million and the firm was in danger of collapsing, which he said would be “likely to make national news.” <a href="http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050609/NEWS24/50609003" target="top">www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050609/NEWS24/50609003</a>

by **seemslikeadream** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 12:08 pm

Another Downing St Memo – Wrongfooting Saddam Thursday, 9 June 2005, 4:37 pm Article: The Scoop Editor SCOOP EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is a transcript of another document leaked to the media concerning the build up to the Iraq war. It concerns a discussion in early 2002 between the UK Ambassador to the US and then Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Importantly the following document appears to confirm the thrust of the allegations made concerning the so-called "Downing Street Memo", namely that the Bush Administration had already made up its mind to go to war against Iraq before it began the diplomatic offensive in the second half of 2002. The transcript that follows was transcribed by a member of the Democratic Underground forums from the PDF version posted online. Some of the typos are from the original. Emphasis has been added to key passages. – Scoop Co-Editor Alastair Thompson CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL British Embassy Washington From the Ambassador Christopher Meyer KCMG 18 March 2002 Sir David Manning KCMG No 10 Downing Street IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN: CONVERSATION WITH WOLFOWITZ 1 Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, came to Sunday lunch on 17 March. 2 On Iraq I opened by sticking very closely to the *****s that you used with Condi Rice last week, We backed regime change, but the plan had to be clever[/link] and failure was not an option. It would be a tough sell for us domestically, and probably tougher elsewhere in Europe. The US could go it alone if it wanted to. But if it wanted to act with partners, there had to be a strategy for building support for military action against Saddam. I then went through the need to wrongfoot Saddam on the inspectors and the UN SCRs and the critical importance of the MEPP as an integral part of the anti-Saddam strategy. If all this could be accomplished skilfully, we were fairly confident that a number of countries would come on board. 3 I said that the UK was giving serious thought to publishing a paper that would make the case against Saddam. If the UK were to join with the US in any operation against Saddam, we would have to be able to take a critical mass of parliamentary and public opinion with us. It was extraordinary how people had forgotten how bad he was. 4 Wolfowitz said that he fully agreed. He took a slightly different position from others in the Administration, who were focussed on Saddam's capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction. The WMD danger was of course crucial to the public case against Saddam, particularly the potential linkage to terrorism. But Wolfowitz thought it indispensable to spell out in detail Saddam's barbarism. This was well documented from what he had done during the occupation of Kuwait, the incursion into Kurdish territory, the assault on the Marsh Arabs, and to his own people. A lot of work had been done on this towards the end of the first Bush administration. Wolfowitz thought that this would go a long way to destroying any notion of moral equivalence between Iraq and Israel. I said that I had been forcefully struck, when addressing university audiences in the US how ready students were to gloss over Saddam's crimes and to blame the US and the UK for the suffering of the Iraqi people. 5 Wolfowitz said that it was absurd to deny the link between terrorism and Saddam. There might be doubt about the alleged meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker on 9/11, and Iraqi intelligence (did we, he asked, know anything more about this meeting?). But there were other substantiated cases of Saddam giving comfort to terrorists, including someone involved in the first attack on the World Trade Center (the latest New Yorker apparently has a story about links between Saddam and Al Qaeda operating in Kurdistan). 6 I asked for Wolfowitz's take on the stuggle inside the Administration between the pro- and anti- INC lobbies (well documented in Sy Hersh's recent New Yorker piece, which I gave you). He said that he found himself between the two sides (but as the conversation developed, it became clear that Wolfowitz was far more pro-INC than not). He said that he was strongly opposed to what some were advocating: a coalition including all outside factions except the INC (INA, KDP, PUK, SCIRI). This would not work. Hostility towards the INC was in reality hostility towards Chalabi. It was true that Chalabi was not the easiest person to work with. Bute had a good record in bringing high-grade defectors out of Iraq. The CIA stubbornly refused to recognise this. They unreasonably denigrated the INC because of their fixation with Chalabi. When I mentioned that the INC was penetraded by Iraqi intelligence, Wolfowitz commented that this was probably the case with all the opposition groups: it was something we would have to live with. As to the Kurds, it was true that they were living well (another point to be made in any public dossier on Saddam) and that they feared provoking an incursion by Baghdad, But there were good people among the Kurds, including in particular Salih (?) of the PUK. Wolfowitz brushed over my reference to the absence of SUnni in the INC: there was a big difference between Iraqi and Iranian Shia. The former just wanted to be rid of Saddam. 7 Wolvowitz was pretty dismissive of the desirability of a military coup and of the defector generals in the wings. The latter had blood on their hands. The important thing was to try to have Saddam replaced by something like a functioning democracy. Though imperfect, the Kurdish model was not bad. How to achieve this, I asked? Only through a coalition of all the parties was the answer (we did not get into military planning). <a href="http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0506/S00116.htm" target="top">www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0506/S00116.htm</a> Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=seemslikeadream@rigorousintuition>seemslikeadream</A> at: 6/9/05 10:10 am

by **seemslikeadream** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 12:24 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>But even if the memo doesn't detonate, there are suddenly several other potential scandals sputtering away in the press today to cause the White House worry.<hr></blockquote><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/06/08/BL2005060801519.html" target="top">www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/06/08/BL2005060801519.html</a>

by **seemslikeadream** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 7:02 pm

To get a sense of how frightened and vulnerable the Bush team is, consider McClellan’s response to a reporter’s question about the letter sent by 89 members of the House calling for an explanation of the Downing Street Memo. McClellan said the White House saw "no need" to answer the letter. This tells us three things, right off the bat. First, the Bush administration is blocking Congress from performing its constitutionally mandated duty of oversight of the executive. Well, no surprise there. Second - and, again, absolutely no surprise - this White House has once more demonstrated its seemingly inexhaustible capacity to break all prior records for arrogance. Napoleon couldn’t touch this stuff, and neither could Nero. Imagine believing that you’re above answering basic questions posed by Congress about the single biggest issue of our time. Imagine seeing "no need" to explain to the country why documentary evidence exists showing that you lied your way into a war which continues to consume American soldiers by the thousands, with no end in sight. Now, that’s how they do it in the big leagues. But experience reminds us that arrogance and bullying behavior almost always serve to mask massive insecurities just beneath, bringing us to the third revelation which can be extrapolated from McClellan’s non-comment. Think about it. The gravest possible accusation has been made against the president and his team, emanating from, among others, one-fifth of the House of Representatives. In addition to its moral implications, it has the political capacity to topple the presidency and perhaps kill the entire regressive right movement of the last quarter-century. It is, in short, some very serious business. Knowing what we know about how these folks viciously attack anyone who besmirches them in the slightest, what are we to make of their silence on this most lethal - this most existential - of political attacks? No doubt they are completely trapped by the evidence and can only hope and pray the Memo just goes away. But ever true to form, McClellan, Bush, Cheney and the whole lot of them would be strewing carnage across the landscape on this issue if they could get away with it. Just ask CBS, Newsweek, Amnesty International, Paul O’Neill, Richard Clarke, John McCain or John Kerry. Get in their way, and the attacks come hard, fast and personal. That they are not now in full assault mode further affirms the accuracy and power of the Memo, as well as suggesting that the White House is strategically trapped between a rock and a hard place. Perhaps they even find themselves in shock and awe. (EMPHASIS ADDED) Please read the original article. It is life-changing: <a href="http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=6379" target="top">bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=6379</a> <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3822539" target="top">www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3822539</a>

by **Starman** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 8:39 pm

OmGosh! (er, mebbe that should be, 'Oh My Gorsch!'?) Whatta vapid, one-dimensional Zomie-like 'droid that Dubya character is -- Ya jest gotta luv im, eh? (heavy sarcasm filter *ON*) And that puppy-dog Blair guy, whatta Lark! As Dana Milbank recounts in the linked Washington Post article: "The issue caused quite a fuss in Britain when the Times of London published the memo last month on the eve of Blair's reelection. Here at home, the memo provoked outrage from liberals but did not become a major news event -- until yesterday. . . . "Blair, as he has done on a full range of issues over the past four years, leaped to Bush's defense. Well, I can respond to that very easily,' he said, before Bush could open his mouth. 'No, the facts were not being fixed, in any shape or form at all.' Translation: Blair said: -- As you can see, The Emper-- oops, I mean, Chimp -- scratch that-- The Anointed One is nattily attired in a snazzy and stunning Midnight deep-blue crushed-shadow-weave two-piece executive-style Dinner Ensemble jumpsuit, exquisitely tailered by Yves Laurant's staff at their prestigious God's Thread's department, using their Vatican-licensed and thrice-blessed Egyptian Royal Estates-woven 3512-count poly-silk exclusive Other World blend made entirely from 100-percent Atlantic-Ritchfield refined Pennsylvania Top-kick high-grade crude processed into their Paratrooper-elite polysyn duracloth ballistic-grade fiber, and custom-loomed with Royal-Supereior silk-threads spun by specially-enhanced Bolivian-spliced B2BH Premiere-grade AsiaNet India-Emperer silkworms fed an exclusive diet of organic Papaya flowers and ground nutmeg-leaf mash. Offsetting the jumpsuit's severe but understated elegance of at-ease command informality is a hand-filigreed Chinese-silk tie in the hallowed S&B Black-and-Gold-inlaid Boys Club style, to which the excellant selection of Mock-Synthetic-alligator-skin low-heel Regal Cowboy Pumps complete a fastidious wardrobe that speaks of well-earned privelege, comfort and self-conscious high-class status equally ready for danger or dinner, as only One born and bred to the exalted position of the world's most highest rank could wear with such great grace, aplomb and poise -- truly a wondrous display of high coutiere sensibility that I'm sure all here will agree makes this press gathering a remarkable world-class event to be remembered and cherished for a lifetime. Oh, and thank-you so-much for asking and allowing me to respond on this momentous occasion! Cheery-O, as you yanks are fond of reminding us British of what we say! ***** Nah, the Emperer ain't nekkid. (--Right! **eyeroll left ...ZZZZZ) Starman

by **seemslikeadream** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 5:52 pm

Manhattan's veteran District Attorney Robert Morgenthau is on the verge of penetrating a major conduit for foreign money into the Bush family network and the American political system that parallels the campaign finance scandals in Ohio and Florida. Morgenthau's investigation of the notorious Sam and Charlie Wyly brothers of Texas, the billionaires who spearheaded the Swift Boat disinformation campaign against John Kerry and a similar distortion effort against John McCain in 2000, is focused on a Wyly-controlled Isle of Man off-shore account tied to the Bank of America. In 1989, George H. W. Bush dispatched a Houston attorney to the Isle of Man to take charge of the secret Bush accounts. One of the accounts was Five Star Trust, a multi-billion dollar account used by the Bushes as a covert off-shore money tranche for their political and business purposes. <a href="http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/scoops/Lemme.htm" target="top">www.waynemadsenreport.com/scoops/Lemme.htm</a> http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/120104Madsen/120104madsen.html I have no idea why my post was deleted I'll try again Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=seemslikeadream@rigorousintuition>seemslikeadream</A> at: 6/11/05 5:40 pm

by **Starman** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 8:53 pm

... and SO much more; WoW. Somehow this article got past me -- Thanks for drawing it to my attention; I googled Five Star Trust & CIA to find Madsen's Dec. article which I read on Daily Kos -- I'm sort-of speechless; The whole sordid, ugly business is very-well laid-out for anyone to be thoroughly disgusted at the sheer criminal recklessness ... Madsen's Dec. 2004 article 'Bush Campaign Behind Election Fraud' reads like a political murder-thriller espionage yarn -- conflating Enron, dirty money, Nigerian scammers, the notorious Middle East arm-dealer with intimate Bush-ties Khashoggi (whose wife is Osama's sister-in-law!), the old failed BCCI bank used by Mossad, CIA, KGB, and MI6 in covert-ops and narco-arms smuggling etc. galore, NASA insiders, the State of Florida GOP and Election officials, Five Star Trust (officially set-up by a trusted Bush associate-lawyer in 1989, claimed by Intelligence insiders to be a CIA financial front-company, linked to Nugen Hand bank), several tons of Phillipine Gold ingots (allegedly a stash of 3 Billion in gold and gems that deposed Dictator Ferdinand Marcos, together with Saudi Billionaire ames-dealer Khashoggi and then VP George Bush tried to find a repository for, serving as the basis for establishing Five Star Trust -- which 'curiously' a CIA documents FOI search by an alleged former contractor for the CIA who claimed payment due for services rendered found only 2 'signals traffic' documents re: 'Five Star Trust circa early 80s -- and which they refused to release citing 'security', past or ongoing interest, and possibly compromising foreign relations [typical flim-flam], intimidation, blackmail, fraud, intelligence insiders leaking info in response to the betrayal and outrageous abuse of power by the Bush Clan, and political assassination of an investigator who had to go covert but was discovered getting too damn close to the forbidden truth. re: "The story of this corruption is nothing new. What is new is the purpose. The use of this old and covert tranche of money for a special Bush operation to deny the American people their right to a free and fair vote was not the typical illegal sale of arms to a terrorist nation, the overthrow of a foreign government, or the payment of bribes to foreign potentates. It was a high crime in every constitutional sense. The target was the American political system and not just in 2004 but also in 2003, 2002, and 2000. The scandal goes right up to the White House and the Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee. It involves an extremely crooked Florida national politician and other Florida state government officials. And, as with all modern American political scandals, we have at least one dead body, a number of whistleblowers and anonymous "Deep Throats," powerful but corrupt politicians, counterfeit and real documents, con men, and a money trail tied to off-shore foreign bank accounts. "People may wonder why a group of intelligence insiders would come forward to a non-major media outlet with such tantalizing information at this time. The corporate-beholden media cannot be trusted to report such a news story. A common theme from all the intelligence and ex-intelligence officials with whom I have communicated is that George W. Bush made a major mistake in attacking and purging the clandestine service of the CIA. The "agency," which extends far beyond the confines of Langley, Virginia, is having its revenge. It has willingly exposed a portion of a traditional clandestine CIA money route to expose the vote scam that was used to ensure Bush's election. "The clues, for example, the bogus check, were conveyed to us as exactly that--clues. Those markers pointed to the illegal nature of the covert money flows. The connections between NASA contracts, Texas, and Florida were additional clues to one of the major sources of the money used for the vote rigging. There were a number of roads that led to the same destination. But that is the nature of covert intelligence. Some patriotic and brave people, who have served in silence for a number of decades, have chosen their country over a corrupt family and administration. It is now time for the constitutional process to begin. Rectification of the criminal conspiracy that denied John Kerry and John Edwards the White House must begin in Ohio, and extend to Florida, California, Texas, Georgia, and other states where votes were flipped by computers from the Kerry to the Bush column. Past elections must also be investigated and those who were done in by this fraud, namely, people like Max Cleland, Gray Davis, Al Gore, and others must also have their day in court." -- Madsen Also: His November 25 story is almost as damning: Saudi/Enron/Election Connection Special Report as published by Online Journal Saudis, Enron money helped pay for US rigged election "According to informed sources in Washington and Houston, the Bush campaign spent some $29 million to pay polling place operatives around the country to rig the election for Bush. The operatives were posing as Homeland Security and FBI agents but were actually technicians familiar with Diebold, Sequoia, ES&S, Triad, Unilect, and Danaher Controls voting machines. These technicians reportedly hacked the systems to skew the results in favor of Bush. "The leak about the money and the rigged election apparently came from technicians who were promised to be paid a certain amount for their work but the Bush campaign interlocutors reneged and some of the technicians are revealing the nature of the vote rigging program." *************** The sheer audacity of these crimes is nothing less than mind-boggling -- even tho the Bush Clan and their associates have been implicated in even more egregious abuses of authority, such as complicity in the 911 attacks and fabricating a case for war which they then plundered for special deals to pay-back cronies and to cover their asses -- What a terribly sad state the nation has come to when so many folks (including democrats and businessmen and judges and attorneys, etc.) have turned a blind eye or been bought-out by such awful scum, who have absolutely NO claim to decency or integrity, none; These are the kinds of fanatic idealogues who can justify everything they do, including war crimes and murder and reaping billions from elaborate narco and arms-selling networks. Why should even ONE innocent die to protect these vermin? Can America handle the truth of how pervasively rotton the whole system has become? And I have to include the CIA in such bleak assessment as having facilitated so much that is foul and reeking, having caused so much suffering and horror around the world on behalf of anti-democratic wealthy cliques. Impeachment and a thorough housecleaning of government and business, is it too much to ask? But this nation's people deserve nothing less ... Starman Yeah, it seems like your previous post DID get lost -- wha happened? Weird stuff? Didn't you mention some odd censoring at DU to keep Five Star out of the loop? High Starnge ...

by **seemslikeadream** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 8:56 pm

The last laugh History will hold Bush and Blair accountable for their lies in the run-up to the Iraq war, even if the D.C. press corps just finds them funny. By Joe Conason June 10, 2005 | On Tuesday, more than a month after the "Downing Street memo" first appeared on Britain's front pages, a Reuters correspondent asked George W. Bush and Tony Blair to explain the secret document that says the Bush administration had decided by July 2002 to invade Iraq -- and that the intelligence on Saddam Hussein's arsenal was then being "fixed" to bolster an otherwise exceedingly "thin" justification for war. While the president and the prime minister airily attempted to dismiss the explosive memo -- just as many mainstream and conservative journalists in the United States did at first -- they have a lot more explaining to do. History will hold them accountable even if the press does not. For unlike previous indications of Bush's duplicity in promoting the war, this document provides historical evidence of a kind that usually remains hidden in a vault for years or even decades. The Downing Street memo meets a higher standard of proof than gossip from one of Bob Woodward's unnamed sources or the memoirs of a disgruntled former official like Paul O'Neill. It is the official classified record of a crucial meeting of the British government's security cabinet on July 23, 2002 -- including the prime minister, the attorney general, the foreign secretary, the defense secretary and the chief of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service. It details their worried discussion of their American ally's premature and absolute determination to wage a war that the president publicly claimed he hoped to avoid, and of the difficulty they would have in justifying that war Stodgy and fearful, the Washington press corps seemed unable to process this revelatory document, concocting various excuses to ignore it or relegate it to the back pages. Until Tuesday, it seemed likely to fade into the archives, despite the best efforts of dissident politicians and bloggers. So the president may have been surprised when Steve Holland of Reuters asked this question: "On Iraq, the so-called Downing Street memo from July 2002 says intelligence and facts were being 'fixed around' the policy of removing Saddam through military action. Is this an accurate reflection of what happened? Could both of you respond?" Like the eager poodle that will be his permanent caricature, Blair leaped to answer first. His response is worth parsing carefully, especially because neither he nor Bush took any follow-up questions on the subject. "Well, I can respond to that very easily," Blair said. "No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all." He didn't deny the authenticity of the memo, nor did he try to claim that the obvious meaning of the phrase "fixed around" is different in London than in Washington. He also didn't try to explain why the memo so clearly quoted Sir Richard Dearlove, head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, making comments precisely to that effect. And he didn't explain why, if the memo was wrong, neither he nor anyone on his staff corrected its contents when it was circulated to all those present after the meeting. Did Blair mean to suggest that Dearlove -- identified in the memo only by his traditional codename "C" -- had reported inaccurately on what he had learned from his CIA counterparts in Washington? If so, how would Blair know that? Or did Blair mean to imply that Matthew Rycroft -- his foreign policy aide who took the meeting notes and later wrote the memo -- misquoted Dearlove? Blair moved on swiftly without further clarification, as if he and his government bore no responsibility for the memo's contents -- and he was lucky that nobody asked what he thought he was talking about. "And let me remind you that that memorandum was written before we then went to the United Nations," he continued blithely. "Now, no one knows more intimately the discussions that we were conducting as two countries at the time than me. And the fact is, we decided to go to the United Nations and went through that process, which resulted in the November 2002 United Nations resolution to give a final chance to Saddam Hussein to comply with international law. He didn't do so. And that was the reason why we had to take military action." The credibility of Blair's remarks can be judged only in context of the Downing Street memo and other documents leaked in Britain, all of which show that "going to the U.N." was merely a pretext for military action -- which he had committed his country to support months earlier. Yes, the Downing Street memo was written before the United States and the United Kingdom brought Iraq before the U.N. Security Council. But as Blair well knows, the decision to return to the United Nations had nothing to do with Bush's ultimate goal. The question debated among his advisors and with the British was what route they would take to get to Baghdad -- and how to manage world opinion along the way. On May 1, the Sunday Times of London also published another classified British government document, titled "Iraq: Conditions for Military Action" and dated July 19, 2002 -- four days before the Blair security cabinet met at Downing Street. Circulated to the officials at that meeting, the memo emphasized the commitment Blair had already made when he visited Texas several months earlier: "When the prime minister discussed Iraq with President Bush at Crawford [Texas] in April, he said that the UK would support military action to bring about regime change." The memo noted that the United States should meet "certain conditions" and that both governments would have to "shape public opinion" to make war politically feasible. At the time, like his friend Bush, Blair was telling his public and elected officials that he had made no decision to invade Iraq. But still another memo shows that his denials were misleading. In a classified report, Sir David Manning, the prime minister's foreign policy advisor, informed Blair about his March 14, 2002, meeting with then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. "I said that you would not budge in your support for regime change, but you had to manage a press, a parliament, and a public opinion. Or as Christopher Meyer, then the British ambassador to the United States, put it in still another leaked memo, dated March 18, 2003, about a conversation with Rice: "We backed regime change, but the plan had to be clever and failure was not an option." In other words, as the Downing Street memo also indicates, the United Nations was nothing more than the stage set for a "clever" plan to manage public opinion. At the July 23 meeting, Foreign Minister Jack Straw admitted that the case against Iraq "was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran." Straw's solution was to "work up an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the U.N. weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force." According to the memo, Blair hoped that Saddam would cooperate -- by refusing to cooperate with the U.N. "The prime minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the U.N. inspectors ... Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD ... If the political context were right, people would support regime change." There was no discussion at the July 23 meeting, or in any of the leaked documents, about how to avoid war -- although Blair continues to insist that was his fondest wish. Both Blair and Bush have frequently asserted, as the prime minister again repeated at the White House this week, that in fact Saddam didn't comply with the U.N. resolutions. Indeed, Blair rather strangely behaves as if the world hadn't seen the inspectors return to Iraq during the weeks before the invasion; as if the world hadn't watched the destruction of illegal missile parts found by the inspectors; as if the world hadn't learned, after exhaustive post-invasion searching, that there were simply no weapons of mass destruction hidden in Iraq. Blair apparently thinks that everyone should simply believe him -- regardless of the Downing Street memo and other inconvenient realities -- because nobody knows what went on between him and Bush "more intimately ... than me." As Groucho Marx would have said, should we believe Tony or our own lying eyes? As for Bush, he too tried to wave off the memo by asserting his own version of what happened three years ago -- and by insinuating that the American press somehow deserved blame for a story that it had scarcely dared to report. "Well, I -- you know, I read kind of the characterizations of the memo, particularly when they dropped it out in the middle of [Blair's] race," he said. "I'm not sure who 'they dropped it out' is, but -- I'm not suggesting that you all dropped it out there." At that the reporters in the White House press room laughed along with Bush. That was some funny joke, especially coming from a president whose administration has so successfully intimidated the national media. "And somebody said, well, you know, we had made up our mind to go to use military force to deal with Saddam. There's nothing farther from the truth," he continued. "My conversation with the prime minister was, how could we do this peacefully? what could we do?" Nobody asked Bush to explain why the memo quotes Foreign Secretary Straw telling Blair and his other colleagues that according to his contacts in Washington, "it seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided." And incidentally, nowhere in the memo does Blair contradict any of his ministers' damning assertions about his friend Bush. There remain many more questions to be asked and answered, now that the forbidden issue has been broached in our own press. Will the American media rectify its original error and pursue the story of the Downing Street documents? Or will it again drop the subject, even though both the president and the prime minister have implicitly confirmed the memo's authenticity? Past performance on this and other stories displeasing to the White House suggests that their unconvincing and incomplete answers will be allowed to stand, even though the president's popularity and public support for the war have reached new lows. For anyone who recalls the blazing indignation of the Washington press corps and the nation's talking heads after Bill Clinton lied about his sad philandering, the passive media response to this president's fatal dishonesty is astonishing. He brandishes the "smoking memo" in their faces and laughs -- and they laugh with him. This is at Salon but won't link for fear it will all be deleted Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=seemslikeadream@rigorousintuition>seemslikeadream</A> at: 6/11/05 7:03 pm

by **seemslikeadream** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 9:01 pm

All my Five Star Trust links here <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3832033&mesg_id=3836663">www.democraticunderground...id=3836663</a>

Dark clouds in Bush's future?

Re: re: The Case for Impeachment builds ...

Re: Impeachment NOW!

Re: Impeachment NOW!

A DSM strategy

E-mailing your local reps:

loved your post sunny...

Re:OHIO = PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN QUESTION

Re: Another Downing St Memo – Wrongfooting Saddam

Re: Re: SEVERAL OTHER POTENTIAL SCANDALS

Re:

re: Several 'other' potential scandals (coming to light) ...

Re:Manhattan's veteran DA Robert Morgenthau FIVE STAR TRUST

Re: Bush Campaign Behind Election Fraud ...

Re:History will hold Bush / Blair accountable for their lies

Re:Five Star Trust

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