Answering the HIV/AIDS Injection Question + Obama throws Wright under the Bus

Over the past weekend Wright has managed to change a lot of hearts and minds, by explaining and displaying that he is not the crazed militant blackified "wackadoddle" that the media has portrayed him as - but not all.

Even though his statement of "God Damn America" - if you listen to all of it - can be understood as stemming from Deuteronomy and the idea that God does not BLESS violence against innocents, and that God does not bless a nation that acts as if it where God Itself. We should not trust in government, any government, we should trust in God.

Even though his statement about "Chickens coming home to roost" can be understood as a quote by Ronald Reagan's Ambassador to Iraq, Edward Peck, as he spoke on Fox News and that the point he was making is simply that "Violence Begets Violence", and that proper response to 9/11 is to seek God's guidance , not lash out in indiscriminate rage.

But it's not so easy to understand or explain "The Government Lied about the invention of HIV/AIDS as a means of means of genocide against people of color."

(As I type this Barack is throwing Wright under the Bus on MSNBC)

In my last diary I tried to point out how the original report on Wright's sermons by ABC was a deliberate HIT PIECE. Wright was Swiftboated They had gone through all the footage and specifically chose to highlight the most incendiary statements made by the Reverend, while deleting the sections which would have made what he was saying fairly easy to understand.

It's become clear from Wright's appearance on Bill Moyer's that the rest of the news media, simply didn't bother to do any in-depth analysis and simply repeated what ABC reported. They were LAZY and as a result...

We were duped.

But even in that diary, some people just couldn't get over the HIV/AIDs issue.

The hatred and resentment being spewed by that man from the pulpit is a disgrace to every American in this age, of every race. It should be condemned by everyone.

Wright is trying to turn the battle against AIDS into a weapon in his war against white America. It's simply insane to believe such nonsense. And anyone who advocates such policies from the pulpit is simply a disgrace.

That's someone from Dailykos saying that.

Here's the clip, taken from O'Reilly, it appears at the 1:30 mark.

Look, I don't agree with the AIDS comment - I think his facts are wrong - but it's not like the only reason he could have said it is because he's some kind of white-hating racist. He was criticizing the lies of the U.S. Government, not white people.

In that particular segment Wright also criticized the U.S. Government for lying to us about links between Saddam and Al Qeada. Guess what - they did lie.

In order to justify the invasion of Iraq under requirements put forth in the Iraq Authorization of Force, the President was required to issue a document to Congress which explained why further diplomacy would not be effective. Besides the usual claims of WMD, which were mostly based on Secretary Powell's now completely discredited UN Report, and over-stated claims of foot-dragging by the Iraqis over weapons inspections, the report (pdf) says this:

In addition, the Secretary of State’s address to the UN on February 5, 2003 revealed a terrorist training area in northeastern Iraq with ties to Iraqi intelligence and activities of al Qaida affiliates in Baghdad. Public reports indicate that Iraq is currently harboring senior members of a terrorist network led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a close al Qaida associate. In addition, Iraq has provided training in document forgery and explosives to al Qaida.

Other terrorist groups have been supported by Iraq over past years. Iraq has a long history of supporting terrorism, and continues to be a safe haven, transit point, and operational node for groups and individuals who direct violence against the United States and our allies.

Those are Lies.

Saddam was not "harboring" Zarqawi who was in the UN controlled northern section of Iraq, he was trying to capture and kill him. It's like saying Bill Clinton "harbored" Ted Kazcinski the Unibomber because he took so long to figure out which shack he was hiding in.

Saddam did not provide "explosives training" to al Qaida, that was a lie which came from Ibn Sheik al-Libi, after he was tortured in Egypt

Our President used a lie - obtained via torture - to justify a War with an unarmed country.

Is this not a considerably worse situation than the AIDS claim?

Wright went on from that to say that the Government Lied to us about WMD's in Iraq. He said that if they don't find WMD's "they'll act like the L.A.P.D. and plant the evidence".

Ok, first of all, he's clearly referring the LAPD Rampart Scandal where a group officers actually committed bank robbery, shot unarmed suspects, stole drugs from the evidence room and Planted Evidence which led to the overturning of nearly 100 convictions.

The proof of what Wright was suggesting, that people in the government would make it up if they couldn't find weapons was proven true by Rep. Peter Hoekstra and Sen. Rick Santorum claimed "We Found the WMD", except that - they didn't.

While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible Indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter,

We have people in Congress today, who actually think Hoekstra was right, people who think Global Warming is nothing more than a kooky hoax and that the internet is a series of tubes - and Rev. Wright is supposed to be the crazy one?

Ok, so what about the AIDS?

Let first just put the Tuskegee Experiment and Reagan's sluggish response to AIDS to the side.

The question is this - did the Government Lie to us about how HIV came about?

Well, even if wasn't invented as a "means of genocide against people of color" - it has Become a means of genocide against people fo color. The AIDS epidemic in Africa has become practically catostrophic. From Time Magazine.

AIDS is taking lives in Sub-Saharan Africa, swallowing families, communities, hopes. So far 17 million have died. At least 25 million may follow.

25 Million People! Y'know what? That's Genocide.

So has the U.S. Government lied to us about it?

Yes, they have.

The U.S. Government claims that their Abstinance initiatives are "working
" in Africa.

Earlier this year, the Bush Administration persuaded Congress to authorize $15 billion over the next five years to fight the AIDS pandemic in Africa and the Caribbean. The U.S. Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003 is a bold legislative effort.1 About 42 million people worldwide are dying of AIDS or are infected with the HIV virus that causes the disease. Of these individuals, 29 million live in Africa. In addition, Africa is home to a staggering 11 million orphans who have lost their parents to AIDS.

The Bush Administration is basing its AIDS initiative on the success of Uganda, which has experienced the greatest decline in HIV prevalence of any country in the world.2 Studies show that from 1991 to 2001, HIV infection rates in Uganda declined from about 15 percent to 5 percent. Among pregnant women in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, HIV prevalence dropped from a high of approximately 30 percent to 10 percent over the same period.3 How did Uganda do it?

The best evidence suggests that the crucial factor was a national campaign to discourage risky sexual behaviors that contribute to the spread of the disease. Beginning in the mid-1980s, the Ugandan government, working closely with community and faith-based organizations, delivered a consistent AIDS prevention message: Abstain from sex until marriage, Be faithful to your partner, or use Condoms if abstinence and fidelity are not practiced.

This sounds all well and good, but the U.S. has place a high priority on abstinence and both in Africa and America implemented a dangerous campaign that Condoms Don't Work.

The religious right has begun whipping up the hysteria, calling the Lantos bill the "Pro-Aborts Emergency Plan for Abstinence Reduction." In fact, the bill would do nothing to alter the long-standing ban on U.S. funding for abortion. What it would do is increase the availability of contraception for poor African women -- and that is desperately overdue.

Religious groups are fixated on the need to stop HIV transmission through premarital and extramarital sex, but what's killing African women by the millions is unprotected sex with their husbands. Yet the United States spends more on promoting abstinence and fidelity programs ($198 million in fiscal 2007) than on promoting condom use ($147 million in 2007). Roughly 10 million African girls under the age of 18 are married each year, many to older men who seek HIV-free brides. To those wedded to HIV-positive men [sic], marriage often means a death sentence. They have little power to control their husbands' condom use or extramarital behavior; they are more likely than young men to contract HIV; and those who know they're infected and do not want to bear children often have no access to contraception.

The fact is that Bush's polices are hurting the the fight against AIDS.

FACT — BUSH’S AIDS POLICIES DIVERT FUNDS TO FAILED ABSTINENCE-ONLY PROGRAMS: Bush’s policy states that one-third of money allocated for HIV prevention overseas go to abstinence-only programs. "In fact, a full two-thirds of the money for the prevention of the sexual spread of HIV goes to abstinence." [American Prospect, 7/10/07]

FACT — BUSH’S ANTI-CONDOM STANCE ‘DOING DAMAGE TO AFRICA’: The Center for Disease Control states that latex condoms are "highly effective in preventing...sexual transmission of HIV." Yet Bush’s ABC policy — Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condoms — relegates condom use to a last resort option. In 2005, the UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa said, "There is no doubt in my mind that the condom crisis in Uganda is being driven by [US policies]. To impose a dogma-driven policy that is fundamentally flawed is doing damage to Africa." [CDC, 10/20/06; The Observer, 7/11/04; The Guardian, 8/30/05]

FACT — GLOBAL GAG RULE FORCES ‘A CRUEL CHOICE’ ON FOREIGN NGOS: Bush’s "global gag rule" withholds U.S. aid from any organization that mentions abortion as an option in family planning. The report found that the "the leading providers of family planning" in 13 developing nations are "no longer receiving USAID contraceptives." [Memo for the Administration of United States Agency for International Development, 1/22/01; Global Gag Rule Impact Project]

Not only is there evidence that these wrong-headed policies are proving increasing dangerous for Africa, they are proving dangerous in America where HIV infection within the Black community is rising dangerously.

"After 10 years and $1.5 billion in public funds these failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs will go down as an ideological boondoggle of historic proportions," said James Wagoner, President of Advocates for Youth.

"The tragedy is not simply the waste of taxpayer dollars, it is the damage done to the young people who have been on the receiving end of distorted, inaccurate information about condoms and birth control. We have been promoting ignorance in the era of AIDS, and that’s not just bad public health policy, its bad ethics".

So the final question is - was HIV/AIDs "invented"?

The answer to that may not be as simple as it might seem. There has been a debate between doctors and scientist about whether or not the early testing of the Oral Polio Vaccine in Africa had anything to do with causing the HIV virus to spread from monkey's to humans.

San Antonio physician Eva Lee Snead was the first person to propose the hypothesis that AIDS could have crossed to humans via an infected polio vaccine.[21] However she also argued, incorrectly, that SV-40 might be a precursor to HIV.[21]

In May 1987, Louis Pascal heard a radio broadcast by Dr. Snead explaining her hypothesis. Based on information in medical journals published in the 1950s and 1960s, and the information about the the first cases of HIV infection, he concluded that Dr. Hilary Koprowski's CHAT Type 1 vaccine administered in Belgian Congo between 1957 and 1960 was a likely source

But the theory has had it's critics.

Journalist Edward Hooper, who had already begun to investigate the origin of AIDS when the OPV hypothesis was first put forward gradually became convinced of its truth. After nine years of investigations, he detailed the hypothesis and evidence in his 1999 book, The River. Hooper further expanded on these allegations in a 2000 meeting in London, at the Royal Society, although these claims were later rebutted in detail by some of the scientists who were present at the meeting.[29] In 2001, Dr. Hilary Koprowski responded by making a detailed rebuttal of the points made in the book, also in a talk to the Royal Society.[30] However in 2004, the Origin of Aids, a TV documentary strongly supportive of the OPV hypothesis, appeared on television stations globally.

Now I'm not particularly convinced on this issue one way or the other. But it looks to me like the detracters of the theory currently have the upper hand. Still, the point is what Wright said about the government LYING, about HIV/AIDS becoming a genocide for black people, particularly in Africa, is true. The "invention" part - not so much. However, even that is not completely out of the question. Not yet.

I admit this is a certain amount of speculation on my part about what Rev. Wright was actually talking about with that statement and as far as I have seen he hasn't been asked about it or given a detailed answer. I may be completely wrong just as much of the media has been totally wrong about Wright, but frankly, has anyone even serious bothered to think about this?

Haven't they all just considered it a "wacky conspiracy theory", just like the idea our government lied to us about WMD's, they lied to us about torture, and they lied to us about domestic spying?

If the wing-nuts had their way - all us this stuff would be just considered wacky left-wing craziness. Bill Keller at the New York times would be up on treason charges for reporting about the CIA's secret prisons, and Scooter Libby - who actually did commit treason - has been unfairly persecuted.

Update Right now Barack is distancing himself completely from Wright, and comments such as these and his performance at the National Press Club (which I haven't seen). Barack sounds personally ticked-off, and he feels that Wright was Grandstanding and that I can understand. He doesn't agree with Wright sure - if you don't really dig under the surface, of course the comments seem inflammatory and offensive - but I wonder if he isn't playing directly into the false media meme's that have been put forward on all of this? On the other hand, I'm finally glad to see Barack being willing to Start A FIGHT!. Good on 'em, even if had to be Wright he started the fight with.

Now he can finally show us some toughness.

Both Wright and Obama have a right to stake their own independent ground I'm staying with Obama, but that doesn't mean we should simply turn a blind-eye to the truth (and even the problematic parts) of what Wright actually has said. Not all of it was wrong, and quite a bit of it was dead-on-target.

Update 2: Wright was asked the AIDS question at the National Press Club.

MODERATOR: In your sermon, you said the government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. So I ask you: Do you honestly believe your statement and those words?

WRIGHT: Have you read Horowitz’s book, "Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola," whoever wrote that question? Have you read "Medical Apartheid"? You’ve read it?

(UNKNOWN): Do you honestly believe that (OFF-MIKE)

WRIGHT: Oh, are you — is that one of the reporters?

MODERATOR: No questions -

(CROSSTALK)

WRIGHT: No questions from the floor. I read different things. As I said to my members, if you haven’t read things, then you can’t — based on this Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything.

"Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola" by Dr. Leonard Horowitz is described by Amazon this way:

Health professionals and those involved in infectious disease research will find Emerging Viruses startling: Harvard researcher Horowitz's studies gather evidence to conclude that AIDS and the Ebola viruses evolved during cancer virus experiments in which monkeys were infected with viral genes from other animals. Certain to spark controversy, this provides quite a different view of virus mutations and evolution.

So we have a Harvard researcher who'se been writing about this. He may be a wackadoddle, but I don't know. H seems to be following a Different theory than the one involving Polio, in this case we're talking about Cancer virus experiments and I admit I know nothing about that subject.

The other book "Medical Aparthied" is about Tuskegee.

Again, I don't know if it's fair to completely blow this off without doing the research - problem is, we can bet that no one in the press will do that.

Vya

The Insane Plan of Extending the Surge Escalation!

From the AP: Analysis: Iraq surge may be extended

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is laying the groundwork to extend the U.S. troop buildup in Iraq. At the same time, the administration is warning Iraqi leaders that the boost in forces could be reversed if political reconciliation is not evident by summer.

This approach underscores the central difficulty facing President Bush. If political progress is not possible in the relatively short term, then the justification for sending thousands more U.S. troops to Baghdad — and accepting the rising U.S. combat death toll that has resulted — will disappear. That in turn would put even more pressure on Bush to yield to the Democratic-led push to wind down the war in coming months.

If the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki does manage to achieve the political milestones demanded by Washington, then the U.S. military probably will be told to sustain the troop buildup much longer than originally foreseen — possibly well into 2008. Thus the early planning for keeping it up beyond late summer.

The first step toward building a politcal solution would be to work with powerful coalitions like that of Moqtada al-Sadr to help bring consensus into how Iraq will be governed. Unfotunately that cat is long out of the bag...

"Radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr pulled his six ministers out of Iraq’s beleaguered coalition government on Monday as he pushed his demand for a rapid withdrawal of US troops from the country." Prime Minister Maliki’s government is expected to survive.

Unfortunately, survival of the government is not enough. As Harry Reid has pointed out the the War is already lost.

The war in Iraq "is lost" and a US troop surge is failing to bring peace to the country, the leader of the Democratic majority in the US Congress, Harry Reid, said Thursday.

"I believe ... that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week," Reid told journalists.

Reid said he had delivered the same message to US President George W. Bush on Wednesday, when the US president met with senior lawmakers to discuss how to end a standoff over an emergency war funding bill.

"I know I was the odd guy out at the White House, but I told him at least what he needed to hear ... I believe the war at this stage can only be won diplomatically, politically and economically."

Which is exactly what the ISG report said, not it hasn't stopped the Reich-wing attack dogs from biting.

But then Reid's comments shouldn't be a surprise to anyone since the Pentagon has now given up on "Standing the Iraqis Up, so we can Stand Down".

Military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces. Training Iraqi troops, which had been the cornerstone of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy since 2005, has dropped in priority, officials in Baghdad and Washington said. ... Pentagon officials said they know of no new training resources that have been included in U.S. plans to dispatch 28,000 additional troops to Iraq."

And as we've seen, the Iraq Surge is working so well that we've had record numbers of military and civilian deaths over the last couple of months.

Yesterday was the deadliest day since the escalation strategy began, resulting in the deaths of over 200 people. A car bomb killed 140 in a single blast at the Sadriyah marketplace, making it the deadliest single such car bomb attack since the US-led invasion four years ago. Many Iraqis today are expressing their outrage over the impact that escalation is having on their lives:

"After two months of the security plan in the hot areas of the city, the attacks have moved to the cold, quiet areas to make them hot, while the hot areas burn," said [Iraqi parliament member] Nasar al-Rubaie.

Aljazeera.net reported that locals "cursed at the security plan of the prime minister" in the scene of the bombings. The website added that when Iraqi Army units appeared on the scene, outraged locals hurled insults at the soldiers and chased them out of the area. A US Army patrol entered the district shortly afterwards, only to be received by stones and slugs thrown by the residents. The American force withdrew from the scene as well.

"Where is the government? Where is the security plan?" [65-year-old Abu Adnan] raged, while bystanders crowded to see the three metre (yard) wide and two metre deep hole ripped out of the black tarmac by the force of the car bomb.

"How could anyone bring a car bomb to this place? What were those innocents guilty of?" [28-year-old Imad Basim] demanded. "Where is the government and its security plan?"

The increasing presence of the U.S. occupation is fueling a bloody cycle of violence: it motivates terrorists to carry out attacks; the locals blame the attacks on the U.S.; the terrorists then find a new recruiting pool willing to carry out new attacks.

So it's seem the perfect definition of something or the other to continue on the course that's already been set until the inevitable finally sinks in, or the next President takes office - whichever comes first.

The latter preferably sooner than 2009.

Vyan

Unwinding the Ultimate Libby Verdict Spinout

In just the last few days we've heard just about every excuse imaginable about why and how I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was wrongfully convicted for Perjury, Obstruction of Justice and Lying to the FBI.

We've heard - ad nauseum - about how there was "No Underlying Crime". We've heard the question repeated "Where was Karl Rove and Richard Armitage?" since both of them had leaked Valerie Plame-Wilson's identify to Robert Novak - not Libby.

But the absolutely ultimate argument, one which I first heard on the day of the verdict from Los Angeles Right-Wing Radio Host Tom Zeigler on KFI AM, is that Libby's Perjury conviction was unjustified because Bill Clinton wasn't removed from office and prosecuted for his (alleged) lies in the Jones case.

During his radio show Zeigler jumped on the statements made by Patrick Fitzgerald after the verdict was read.

It's sad that such a high-ranking U.S. Official lied.

Zeigler, like so many have, claimed that there wasn't any real crime here - alleging that Valeria Plame-Wilson was not a covert agent - but also that while in the Clinton case there was evidence of an underlying crime of sexual harrasment since bill Clinton has surrendered his law license and paid a $50,000 settlement to Paula Jones.

Zeigler also claimed this case had "nothing to do with the Iraq War since the 16-words were technically true"

Pardon me if this is a bit long - I've got a whole lotta debunking to do.

Part 1. Plame-Wilson and the Underlying Crime

First of all, Valerie Plame-Wilson actually WAS A COVERT AGENT. This has been reported by Newsweek, her CIA collegue Larry Johnson has confirmed her status as has her husband Ambassador Joseph Wilson (From Countdown)

WILSON: Well, clearly, the evidence that was—that came out during the course of this trial demonstrated that there was an obsession not with getting the facts out, but with destroying and impugning my integrity. And they used Valerie‘s employment and her status as a covert officer to do so.

And that wasn't the only time he said it.

OLBERMANN: The vice president issued a statement today saying he‘s very disappointed with the verdict. The president was quoted today as saying he was saddened for Scooter Libby and his family. Has any sadness ever been expressed by anyone in the administration to you or to your family?

WILSON: No, not at all. And I would have appreciated the president acknowledging some sadness for the fate of his covert CIA officer, who spent 20 years serving her country, many of those overseas, many of those in what‘s known as nonofficial cover, where she didn‘t even have the benefit of diplomatic protections if she‘d been picked up for espionage.

So why didn't Fitzgerald issue charges for Espionage and/or violations of the IIPA? Wilson has one reason.

Had there been a prosecution for the underlying crime, you can be sure that Mr. Libby‘s defense would have asked for every classified document that ever touched his desk during the six years that he was in office.

So I think the indictment was narrowly drawn, and it was understood that prosecuting under the underlying case, the IIPA, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, might be too difficult because of the way that the act is drafted, and by the possibility of classified information not being available for the defense.

Bingo. Another factor in enforcing either the espionage act or the IIPA is the requirement that the perpetrator has full knowledge that the information that is being divulged is classified and that in the case of a CIA agent, that the agent is specifically an undercover operative.

Nowhere in this trial was it established that "Scooter" Libby knew that Plame was covert, but it is reasonable to infer that he might have suspected since some of those who told him about her suspected it.

From the FDL Liveblog - direct examination of Robert Grenier (CIA's "Mission Manager" for IRAQ).

I was going over it in my mind. I was hoping that I hadn't mentioned anything to Mr. Libby, I really didn't remember anything new. But what I did remember was the way I felt immediately after.

I briefly felt guilty, that I had relayed too much information. I was going through a mental justification about why it was alright to have relayed this to Mr. Libby.

Q. What part were you having concerns about. Having mentioned that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, revealing the identity of an agency officer, although it was indirect.

I didn't know her name, so I didn't give her name, but by saying Joe Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, I was revealing the identity of a CIA officer. It wasn't absolutely necessary, that is information that we guard pretty closely, and if we don't have to say it, we don't.

Grenier himself didn't know Valerie and didn't know her status when mentioned her to Libby on June 11th. But what's really interesting is what Grenier said on cross-examination.

Z If the person at the CPD that you spoke to did not tell you Wilson's wife was covert. Why were you feeling uncomfortable.

G Because I knew that that person could be undercover. We were talking about a unit in DO the vast majority of whose employees are undercover.

There was evidence presented at trial that this possibility crossed Libby's mind as well, since he went to David Addington about it and asked him "how can you find out if someone is Covert at CIA?"

Addington also provided Libby with a fresh copy of the IIPA, which clearly indicates that prior knowledge of the agents status is a pre-requisite to violation of that statute.

(a) Disclosure of information by persons having or having had access to classified information that identifies covert agent Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not uthorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

This may be in many ways exactly why Libby, Armitage, Fleischer and Rove were not charged with violations of this act - however they, particularly Libby, may still be potentially liable for violations of their Classified Information Non-Disclosure Agreement which requires that a person with a security clearance, prior to sharing classified information with anyone, verify the level of classification of that information as well as the level of access and need to know of anyone with which they potentially might share that information. Anyone with a high-level security clearance would have had this repeatedly drumed into their heads - particularly anyone at CIA, State or the White House - I know I did when I held a Top Secret/SAR clearance while working at Northrop-Grumman during the 80's. This may also be why Grenier felt "guilty" for oversharing information with Libby, that's exactly what you're not supposed to do, no matter who it is.

In other words - Ignorance is no Excuse!

The CINDA required Libby to find out if his suspicions about Plame, since she worked at CPD "where the vast majority of personell were under-cover" was accurate or not prior to sharing it with anyone - including Judith Miller, Matt Cooper and Ari Fleischer.

The record indicates he didn't do that - so I'm real sorry Tom - but there was an underlying crime in this case. Violations of the CINDA are not just covered by the IIPA, but also by Sections 641 (Theft), 794, 795, (Espionage) 798 (Disclosure of Classifed Information), 952 (Revealing Diplomatic Codes) and 1924 (Unauthorized Removal/Retention of Classified Info) of the U.S. Criminal codes.

Not to mention Treason!

Libby (and Cheney) would have been well aware of this, particularly when their media point person Cathie Martin balked when classified elements of NIE became part of the anti-Wilson talking points - all of this is why he made of a bogus story about Tim Russert and lied under oath. It was a desperate attempt to avoid his own (and Cheney's) criminal liabiliy for their actions.

It's also most likely that the reason Fitzgerald didn't charge Libby under laws relevant to CINDA is the fact that CHENEY IS THE ONE WHO ORDERED MARTIN TO STAND DOWN AND LIBBY TO TAKE POINT after she noted her unease at revealing classified information to reporters.

From Martin's Testimony.

I was still not certain about NIE and was a little uncomfortable talking about the NIE and I was aggravated that Scooter that I was calling reporters and I wasn't.

...

F What happened the rest of the week in terms of your access to comm strategy.

M I was not involved any more with senior people, I was involved with my staff.

F Were you the only press person who was excluded at that part.

M My understanding was everyone was in the dark.

Cheney froze Martin and her entire staff out and tasked the job of contacting reports to Libby who was clearly acting under his orders. Without Libby testifying truthfully to this and providing documentation to verify exactly what Cheney told him to do - or not to do - Fitz has no more case. Hence has he chosen to make the investigation inactive unless he gets a Proffer from Libby.

And to be fair, although the NIE was retroactively declassified via Executive Order to accomodate Cheney, the INR document on Wilsons trip and Plame's status wasn't and therefore deliberately revealing information from either - since they too were classifed - would still be a violation of Section 798 at the very least.

We don't need no stinking IIPA to find the crime here. What we do need is honest testimony from Libby.

Part 2. The Jones Case

Although Tom seemed to have omitted it in is rant about the Libby cases parallels to Clinton the "underlying crime" in the latter case was actually thrown out of court. The udge found Paula Jones accusations to be without merit and dimissed the case.

Yes, it's true that Clinton reached a settlement only because she was certain to appeal the judge's decision and keep this thing dragging up and down the court systems for years. She'd already been to the Supreme Court once. It wasn't an admission of guilt, he didn't apologize, he simply wanted the case to finally go away and it did.

Yes, it's true that Clinton agreed to have his law license suspended fo one year - based on inaccuracies in his testimony at the Jones deposition but I'm going to make a dramatic claim here so take a breath... CLINTON DIDN'T DELIBERATELY LIE UNDER OATH OR COMMIT PERJURY.

As was widely discussed at the time, perjury is only valid when it concerns a material fact. The question of whether Clinton made unwanted advances on Jones while Governor is significantly different from whether Lewinsky made advances on Clinton - which were reciprocated - while he was President. Hence, the Judge ruled that Lewinsky was immaterial to the Jones case.

Perjury also requires at least two independant witnesses who can confirm that the accused has provided false information to the court. In Libby's case there were 8 or 9 people who could confirm that the first time he'd heard about or discussed Wilson's wife working at the CIA wasn't from Tim Russert, including Russert. In the Jones case there was a State Trooper present or at least very near the events in question, and his story differed from both Jones and Clinton's - although it should note that no one ever accused Clinton of lying about Jones herself. In the Lewinsky situation - it was literally "He Said - She Said" and you can't prosecute a perjury case on that basis.

Neither of these point are why I say Clinton didn't commit perjury. These are simply the reasons why Clinton would have never been convicted of it, and why Ken Starr never even tried to seek an indictment - he knew didn't stand a chance in court. But he did stand a chance in Congress, and that's why and how Clinton's "secret" grand jury testimony wound up in the hands of the Judiciary commitee and on nation wide television.

For political points.

No, the reason I say Clinton didn't Lie is because he literally didn't lie. What he said in the Paula Jones deposition was technically and literally true, because a lot of the questions he were asked were based on incorrect information and he chose not to fix their mistakes.

For example they asked him if he'd ever been alone with Ms. Lewinsky in the Oval Office. In his report to Congress Ken Starr alleged that Clinton had denied being alone with her - but that simply isn't true.

Q. Mr. President, before the break, we were talking about Monica Lewinsky. At any time were you and Monica Lewinsky alone together in the Oval Office?

A. I don't recall, but as I said, when she worked at the legislative affairs office, they always had somebody there on the weekends. I typically worked some on the weekends. Sometimes they'd bring me things on the weekends. She – it seems to me she brought things to me once or twice on the weekends. In that case, whatever time she would be in there, drop it off, exchange a few words and go, she was there. I don't have any specific recollections of what the issues were, what was going on, but when the Congress is there, we're working all the time, and typically I would do some work on one of the days of the weekends in the afternoon.

Q. So I understand, your testimony is that it was possible, then, that you were alone with her, but you have no specific recollection of that ever happening?

A. Yes, that's correct. It's possible that she, in, while she was working there, brought something to me and that at the time she brought it to me, she was the only person there. That's possible.

People have argued that this was a lie, but the fact is that according to the Starr Report nothing inappropriate or intimate occured between Clinton and Lewinski in the Oval Office. There was an adjacent room were the intimate activities took place. So in all honesty, he gave an honest answer about he and Monica being alone together in the Oval. Yes, it most likely happened - but there was essentially nothing to it.

If they'd asked him about the other room that would have been a different story - but they didn't and Clinton was not under any obligation to answer questions that they didn't ask, or didn't ask correctly.

The key question in both the Jones deposition and Grand Jury revolved around the issue of "Sexual Relations" - but one thing that is often left out of this discussion is the fact that Clinton was provided an "Official Definition" of this term by the Jones attorneys.

That definition included a laundry list of things that one person could do to or with another person. Clinton, according to his statements to the GJ, had read that definition carefully prior to both his testimonies, and he argued that he didn't do any of the things on the list (he didn't touch her body in specific places in order to create arousal) - but that Ms. Lewinsky had. She touched and aroused him, he didn't touch her.

Q: [I]s oral sex performed on you within that definition as you understood it, the definition in the Jones --

A: As I understood it, it was not; no.

For the most part Lewinsky's own detailed account (thanks to the Tripp tapes) of their various escapades matches Clinton's with two exceptions. According to her he once touched her breast (through her clothes - something that can happen inadvertandly on a crowded elavator), and the second time was the infamous "cigar incident." (And even then - he still didn't touch her! IMO that reticence on his part probably wasn't coincidental, I suspect he was establishing a sort of plausible deniability by not doing anything himself that could be construed as "harrasment" on his part. She came after him, not the other way around.)

Leaving aside the issue that Lewinsky wasn't "testifying" during her phone calls with Tripp as she vented (often going into extended crying jags) about her troubled relationship with Clinton, and the very strong likelyhood that she may have embellished some things here and there in the heat of the moment - we are still left with a two-sided square. What he said about a pair of intimate moment two years after the fact compared to what she'd said inadvertantly on tape a year and a half previously while emotionally distraught.

Can you remember exactly where you may have or may not have touched an intimate partner two years later? If they kept a diary of your most intimate encounters - would that diary and your recollection match up perfectly? I doubt it.

IMO these are not the most fertile grounds for a perjury conviction. People may fairly disagree with Clinton's opinion of the Jones provided definition of "sexual relations" - but that doesn't make him a liar or a perjurer, not in these instances.

Now I'm not a total "Clinton apologist" on this issue, I'm just saying he was extremely careful while testifying and that nearly everything he said in court was accurate - if anything he went out of his way to make sure it was literally and technically true. He did make some mistakes but only he and the judge actually know what they were in detail (based on his letter of apology to the court). All of that not withstanding It is fair and neccesarily to note that Clinton did lie to his Wife and Family. He also lied to his staff when he called Lewinsky a "Stalker". That was indeed a "cover story".

For that he should be, and has been punished - by them. He nearly got divorced as a result, destroyed his relationship with his daughter, and many of his staff left him in disgust.

Ken Starr argued that these statments themselves, although not under oath, were "Obstruction of Justice" and "Witness tampering" - even though at the time there was no witness list for the Jones hearings. Later after testifying at the Jones deposition Clinton quized his Secretary Bettie Currie about Lewinsky.

"You were always there when she was there, right? We were never really alone."

"You could see and hear everything."

"Monica came on to me, and I never touched her, right?"

"She wanted to have sex with me, and I can't do that."

Starr said this was witness tampering, but at this point in time there was a Jones witness list and Currie wasn't on it. It's far more logical and likely that Clinton was trying to figure out how the Jones attorney's had gotten their information about Lewinsky. IMO He was trying to find the leak and verify what he thought Currie knew - not feed her talking points to give a court (or the Press ala Cheney's hand written notes on Wilson's op-ed).

The differences between these cases really couldn't be more stark. Fitzgerald was very careful and methodical. He has not chosen to put forward wild charges which he can't sustain in court, he has not suffered from the type of rampant leaks that Starr's office did. After the original independant Counsel Robert Fisk cleared the Clinton's any involvement in White-water - he was replaced by Starr who after prosecuting Jim and Susan McDougal still found nothing on the Clinton's even after Jim eventually agreed to cooperate in order to avoid dying in prison.

Ultimately Jim still wasn't able to give them anything on the Clinton's and did tragically die in prison.

He locked Susan McDougal in Maximum Security and solitary and she never cracked. She continued to refuse to sign Starr's pre-written Proffer alleging bank fraud by the Clinton's because it was a lie.

He found nothing against them on White-water, but kept investigating it anyway. He found nothing on Travel-Gate. Nothing on File-gate. Nothing improper in the suicide of Vince Foster. Eventually thanks to Jonah Goldberg's mom he got in touch Linda Tripp and her illegal wiretaps of Monica Lewinsky and rode that horse straight into the loving embrace of the Republican Congress.

A Congress where both the Speaker and the Chairman of the Judiciary committee had both engaged in extra-marital affairs of their own yet had the temerity to claim the moral high-ground while condeming Clinton.

Starr never had a legitimate criminal case against the Clintons and it's completely ridiculous to ever allege that Scooter's conviction is similar to Clinton's Impeachment with anything other than a passing similarity. One was entirely a matter of maintaining the integrity of the criminal justice system, the other was a matter of political expediency and payback - I think most of us well understand which is which.

Part 3. The War Connection

In this third and final section I will address Zeigler's contention that the "16 words were completely accurate" in that Saddam Hussein did try to acquire uranium from Niger.

Ok, Joe Wilson found when he went to Africa that.

Former Prime Minister Mayaki told Joe he had rebuffed an effort in June of 1999 to arrange a meeting with the Iraqis

Mayaki had rebuffed the meeting because of the UN Sanctions on Iraq and his presumption that the only possible reason for the meeting was an attempt by Iraq to gain access to Niger's only real export - Yellowcake Uranium.

He also learned fromFormer Minister of Enerty Manga that...

"there were no sales outside of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since the mid-1980s". He went on to tell Ambassador Wilson that the uranium was tightly controlled and accounted for from the time it is mined until the time it is loaded onto ships.

In fact, the Nigerian government had no real control or access to the yellowcake at all. It was entirely under the perview of the IAEA and the french companies who owned the mine which means that even if Prime Minister Mayaki had taken the meeting with the Iraqis he couldn't have given them what it was he assumes they would have asked for.

The only way for Iraq to get ahold of Yellowcake would have been either through the IAEA or the French. (Fat chance!) It doesn't even make sense for them to try and go through Niger because that door-way was sealed shut.

Another problem in this "Saddam was trying to get Uranium" bugaboo is the fact that the reason Joseph was sent to Africa was to confirm the accuracy of a sales receipt from Niger to Iraq for tons of Yellowcake. So allegedly Saddam wasn't trying to get the uranium - he already had it. (What?!?)

Except that he didn't.

The receipt was a forgery.

Long before that document appeared they had already bought 1,000 tons of Yellowcake in the 80's which was now under the control of the IAEA.

Let's also add to this pile, the fact that according to the Duelfer Report Iraq had essentially dismanted it's Nuclear Program back in 1991.

Saddam Husayn ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf war. ISG found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program.

Efforts that could preserve the progress and talent that had been developed up to the 1991 war included keeping the nuclear cadre engaged in a variety of projects, such as rebuilding of Iraq’s infrastructure. However, the nuclear program was ended and the intellectual capital decayed in the succeeding years.

These facts were revealed and confirmed to the IAEA in the mid-90's by Gen. Hussein Kamel when he defected. Additionally there was confirmation from Iraqi Foreign Minister Sabri whose information pointing out the Iraq WMD stockpile had been destroyed in the early 90's was relayed to both the President and Vice President in personal briefing by Tenet in 2002.

So here's the question - why was Iraq trying in 1999 to have a meeting with Nigerian Officials supposedly to buy Uranium, which they had already bought 15 years previously, for which there was a shiny new (duplicate/forged) receipt, in support of a program that had been shutdown 8 years before and hadn't been restarted?

Only Logical Answer: They weren't!

And George Tenet had repeated told this to the White House prior to the State of the Union - only to be ignored and have his objections distorted.

The officials made the disclosure hours after they were alerted by the CIA to the existence of a memo sent to [Bush]'s deputy national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, on Oct. 6. The White House said Bush's chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson, on Friday night discovered another memo from the CIA, dated Oct. 5, also expressing doubts about the Africa claims.

The disclosures punctured claims made by [Condoleezza Rice] and others in the past two weeks. Rice and other officials had asserted that nobody in the White House knew of CIA objections, and that the CIA supported the Africa accusation generally, making only technical objections about location and quantity. On Friday, a White House official mischaracterized the CIA's objections, saying repeatedly that [George J. Tenet] opposed the inclusion in Bush's Oct. 7 speech "because it was single source, not because it was flawed."

Tenet's memo and phone calls to the White House resulted in the Niger claims being pulled from the President's Cincinati speech in Oct 2002 - only to be reinserted at the State of the Union for 2003.

After the Wilson Op-ed and Libby's inquires to the CIA and State (which eventually resulted in the outing of Plame) the White House received this answer from CIA and Tenet.

CIA analysts wrote then-CIA Director George Tenet in a highly classified memo on June 17, 2003, "We no longer believe there is sufficient" credible information to "conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad." The memo was titled: "In Response to Your Questions for Our Current Assessment and Additional Details on Iraq's Alleged Pursuits of Uranium From Abroad."

Please note that this was before Libby talked to Judith Miller on June 23rd and told her the exact opposite by claiming that the evidence supporting Iraq's WMD and Nuclear ambitions were "even stronger" in the classified portions of the NIE than most of what Congress had seen prior to voting for the war.

This was a flat-out lie.

The classified portions of the NIE were where the State Dept Alleged that the Niger documents were forgeries. It was where the Energy Dept argued that the anondyne coating on the aluminum tubes that Iraq had bought made in unsuitable for use in a centerfuge.

So just who'se bullshitting who here?

Libby in leaking Plame's familial link to Wilson and alleging nepotism was simply keeping the same spin going that had been used to trick Congress into supporting an unjustified War in the first place.

It's that simple, it's that plain - and it's a sad shame that anyone has to spend this much energy to prove it while debunking bat-shit crazy wing-nuts, but unfortunately that's the world we're living in.

Libby may indeed be pardoned just as Susan McDougal eventually was - it's clearly in Bush and Cheney's own self-interest to do so, particularly with members of his Jury advocating it - but until that time, let's try and keep all the other Libby/Clinton parallels to a minimum, ok?

Vyan

Bush's Endgame : Circle the Wagons, Scorch the Earth

The last few days have brought some rather strange events. All of a sudden Bush has done an about face on his Domestic Spying Program (or has he?)

At the same time 11 U.S. Attorney's have found themselves suddenly jobless, while AG Gonzales blamed the lawyers for Bush's lack of successful terrorism prosecutions and decided yet again to threaten Judges not to mess with the President - and oh yeah - the "Scooter" Libby trial has begun selecting it's jury.

Could all this just be a coincidence?

I think not.

We already know from prior experience that Bush doesn't do anything unless he basically has no choice. He didn't go to Congress over his Military Commissions and decide to eviscerate Habeas Corpus until after the Hamdan Decision cut he previous AUMF and Unitary Executive arguments to ribbons and exposed his administration to possible War Crimes charges.

He didn't deciderer to finally run Dumpsfeld over with the Bus - despite his three previous resignations - until after the November election clearly didn't go his way and he was looking a string of democratic subpeonas square in the face.

Hamdan and Rumsfeld were his biggest potential criminal liabilities - so like any good chess player, he sacrificed those peices essentially placing his primary scapegoat for Abu Ghraib outside the government and off his table.

So just what could it be this time?

Maybe it was the fact that further evidence that U.S. has been spying on innocent Americans - who just happen to lawfully oppose the War and Bush Policy - was revealed on Tuesday.

A Defense Department database devoted to gathering information on potential threats to military facilities and personnel, known as Talon, had 13,000 entries as of a year ago -- including 2,821 reports involving American citizens, according to an internal Pentagon memo to be released today by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Pentagon memo says an examination of the system led to the deletion of 1,131 reports involving Americans, 186 of which dealt with "anti-military protests or demonstrations in the U.S."

Titled "Review of the TALON Reporting System," the four-page memo produced in February 2006 summarizes some interim results from an inquiry ordered by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld after disclosure in December 2005 that the system had collected and circulated data on anti-military protests and other peaceful demonstrations.

Pardon me, but when exactly did the Defense Department find a loophole around Posse Commitatus so that they could perform law enforcement on U.S. Soil?

And now that they've chosen to delete all that data, no one will be able to discover exactly where they got their information (NSA, AT&T?) who they were targetting, why, and who else they might have shared their information with (the FBI, local law enforcement, the IRS?)

All of these numerous criminal violations for torture, war crimes and domestic espionage have all stemmed from a demented interpretation of a single clause in the Constitution.

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;

According to the Bushites this clause gives the President near absolute power to conduct War and Espionage - even against American citizens on American soil. They have told the courts that they have "No business" meddling in National Security. From Gonzales.

"We want to determine whether he understands the inherent limits that make an unelected judiciary inferior to Congress or the president in making policy judgments," Gonzales says in the prepared speech. "That, for example, a judge will never be in the best position to know what is in the national security interests of our country."

Apparently Judge Ann Diggs-Taylor vehement disagreed with this view in her NSA Wiretap ruling.

On August 17, in the first and only ruling by a federal court to strike down the controversial program, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ruled that the warrantless wiretapping program is illegal.

"There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all ‘inherent powers’ must derive from that Constitution," Judge Anna Diggs Taylor said in a widely quoted opinion.

Now we have the revelation that Bush had decided to completely reverse himself on not going to the FISA court with his "Terrorist Surveillance Program" - sort of. From Thinkprogress.

Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) criticized the Justice Department’s new approach to warrantless domestic spying, charging that it relies "on a blanket, ‘programmatic’ approval of the president’s surveillance program, rather than approval of individual warrants." Administration officials "have convinced a single judge in a secret session, in a nonadversarial session, to issue a court order to cover the president’s terrorism surveillance program," Wilson said.

In any case, the shift yesterday "doesn’t mean the government can’t still gather personal information about Americans without a court order," a USA Today editorial states. "How? Through something called a National Security Letter. Unlike the warrantless wiretapping program, these letters don’t violate any laws, though perhaps they should."

So apparently Judges have no business involving themselves in National Security - unless the Bush administration gets them to do as their told. Interesting.

And let's not forget that in addition to National Security Letters, Bush still has his illegal Data-mining program up and running.

Just in case their attempts to bully Judges doesn't work, Bushites have decided to take another take - Kill the Lawyers.

First there are the ones who would dare to fullfil their obligation and oath to represent "Enemy Combatants".

CULLY STIMSON, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Somebody asked, Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there? And you know what? It‘s shocking. The major law firms in this country, Pillsbury Winthrop, Jenner and Block, Wilmer Cutler Pickering, Covington and Burling here in D.C., Sutherland Asbill Brennan, Paul Weiss Rifkin, Mayer Brown, Weil Gotshal, Pepper Hamilton Venable, Alston and Bird, Perkins Coie, Hunton and Williams, Fulbright Jaworski, all the rest of them, are out there representing detainees.

And I think, quite honestly when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms. And I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks.

Clearly this is a replay of the sacking Lt. Cmd Swift for winning the Hamdan case. Let's create a deterent for reputable and competent firms to take these cases - cause gee-whiz they just might win them and we can't have that now can we?

Now with the Libby Trial coming fully-online and the Vice-President slated to testi-lie we have Gonzales latest Gambit - knee-cap anyone who might be inclined to come after his boss for perjury (or obstruction, or war crimes) in the same way that so-to-be former US Prosecutor Carol Lam came after Duke Cunningham.

In her tenure leading the Southern District, which covers San Diego and Imperial counties, she prioritized prosecuting political corruption and health care fraud. She oversaw the government's case against Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the former Republican congressman who pleaded guilty to taking $2.4 million in bribes, and her office won corruption convictions of two San Diego city councilmen.

Not exactly the kind of prosecutor the Bush wants to keep around - not while they can circumvent Congress to get their own private hack into that position thanks to Arlen Specter.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) confirmed that as Judiciary Committee chairman last year he made a last-minute change to a bill that expanded the administration's power to install U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval.

Seizing upon the new authority granted by Congress last March, the White House has pushed out several U.S. Attorneys, and begun to replace them without the Senate's consent.

"I can confirm for you that yes, it was a Specter provision," a spokesperson for the senator wrote to me in an email earlier today, responding to repeated inquiries.

So with the lingering help of the 109th Congress, Bush is doing everything he can to dive for the finish line of his Presidency. He's implemented this surge, while defying the both the ISG and Congres merely to stall for time.

It's all part of his End-Game Strategy, which can be summed up simply - Get out without Getting Impeached and Prosecuted.

And his primary aider and abetter in this remains Alberto Gonzales. Jonathan Turley on Countdown last night.

TURLEY: Well, you know, Gonzalez has always acted more general than attorney in his position. He seems just inherently hostile to the rule of law. This administration for a long time said the problem was with these defendants. They shouldn‘t be allowed in court. And then the problem became the attorneys. And they prevented attorneys from meeting them. Then the problem became habeas corpus. And now the problem is the judges.

What‘s exactly left? I mean, everything is the problem, because they‘re acting outside the rule of law. And so, they‘re really hearing whistles down the track here, one coming from Congress, one coming from the courts, and both saying the same thing, that this president has been routinely and flagrantly violating the constitution that he took an oath to uphold.

That he has, but the game isn't over yet - there are still several moves to be made, subpeona's to be issued - witnesses to grill over a slow fire - and revelations to uncover which are far more likely to drive Bush's approval rating and the resistance to outright impeachment and removal from office ever lower and lower.

And the one thing they don't realize, is that the crazier and more desperate their tactics become - the less likely their are to win this game, especially in front of the Senate Judiciary Commitee (where Gonzales is scheduled to appear today- only under oath this time!)

It ain't over till it's over Mr. Bush, and I despite all this thrashing about by AG Gonzales - it won't end well for you (particularly when you have witless dolts like Dinesh D'Souza on your team)

Now it's our move, let's make it a good one.

(My own personal recommendation would be to Impeach Gonzales First for the total B.S. he's about to unload on Congress over their off-again on-again support for the FISA Court)

Vyan

The CYA, er - ISG Report

From the Washington Post

Panel To Urge Pressure On Iraq
Study Group to Present Its Report to Bush Today

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group plans to recommend to President Bush that he threaten to reduce economic and military support for Iraq's government if it fails to meet specific benchmarks intended to improve security in the country, a source familiar with the report said yesterday.

The 120 page report providing 79 specific suggestions, but is this the formation of a new plan - or simply a laundry list of things the Bush Administration has already failed, and will simply never do?

The congressionally chartered panel, which is due to deliver its much-anticipated report to Bush at the White House this morning and then unveil it to the public, outlined diplomatic and military ideas intended to change the course of the 44-month-old war. Among other things, the source said, the report urges Bush to aggressively tackle the Israeli-Palestinian dispute to reduce the broader regional tensions fueling the Iraq conflict.

Oh yeah, like that's gonna happen. Just where was Bush during the Lebanon/Israeli War of 2006, clearing brush in Crawford while hiding out from Cindy Sheehan again?

The latest details to emerge from the commission's report help flesh out a plan that also calls for the United States to withdraw nearly all combat units by early 2008 while leaving behind tens of thousands of troops to advise, train and embed with Iraqi forces. The report suggests that the Bush administration open talks with Iran and Syria about ways to end the violence in Iraq and proposes holding a regional conference to bring together all of Iraq's neighbors.

This in contrast to "We Win unless we Leave?" and the view that talking with Terrorist States is Appeasment - not gonna fly in BushWorld.

Even the Wapo knows this is a non-starter with Bush.

Some proposals in the report track measures that the administration is already carrying out or is considering, but several directly challenge Bush in areas in which he has refused to compromise. The president has rejected talking with Iran and Syria and has resisted linking the Iraq war to the Palestinian issue. He has dismissed timetables for troop withdrawals, although the panel cites 2008 as a goal rather than a firm deadline. He has also declined to punish Iraqis for not making progress in establishing security

What we are going to see here is a repeat of what we saw following the 9/11 Commission Report. Bush will thank the panel members for their kind suggestions, then pat them on the head and send them away.

Congress has to pick up this ball and ram it down Bush's throat one hearing at a time. And signs are that they're planning to do exactly that, and then some.

Pelosi :

"The bipartisan Iraq Study Group has concluded that the President's Iraq policy has failed and must be changed. As the November elections clearly demonstrated, that is an assessment shared by the American people.

"If the President is serious about the need for change in Iraq, he will find Democrats ready to work with him in a bipartisan fashion to find a way to end the war as quickly as possible. We are committed to ensuring that the ideas of the Iraq Study Group, as well as the ideas of other thoughtful people inside and outside of government, are given full consideration in that process."

And if the President isn't serious, what then?

From Thinkprogress.

President Bush "may not be in much of a hurry to accept [ISG co-chairman Jim] Baker’s ideas about [Iraq] — or much else. Asked if Baker would help implement the report, a spokesman for Mr. Bush said, ‘Jim Baker can go back to his day job.‘"

Reactions from the Troops (Via Boston Globe)

Spc. Eisenhower Atuatasi, 26, of Westminster, Calif.: "There's no way we're leaving in two years no matter what any recommendation says."

Staff Sgt. Rony Theodore, 33, of Brooklyn, N.Y.: "All of us want to change what we're doing because we're not doing very much."

Sgt. Christopher Wiacik, 28, of Livonia, Michigan: "It's just a study group. It's not really going to affect the president. I don't see any major changes happening until presidential elections start. I think both sides will promise to get troops out and give timelines then, but not before. We're just sitting around not making any progress. It's annoying. You're not motivated to help anybody. I don't want to live my life like this."

Spc. Richard Johnson, 20, of Bridgeport, Conn.: "It's like holding a child's hand. How long can you hold onto his hand before he does something on his own? How much longer do we have to get shot at or blown up?"

First Lieutenant Gerard Dow, 32, of Chicago, Ill.: "In Iraq, we try to win the hearts and minds of population. They want Americans out of here. They blame us for all their problems. They look at us as the terrorists and then they turn around and help the terrorists who are trying to kill us.... U.S. soldiers are dying trying to help people who don't want their help."

In the end I believe these troops are absolutely correct. This report changes nothing, except for this -- the Debate About Iraq is Over - The Murtha/Kerry Wing have won it, hands down. Murtha's Redeployment strategy and Kerry's Regional Talks approach from two years ago have been completely vindicated.

As I told Randi Rhodes yesterday when I called in to her show, just like the Dumpsfeld Memo, the ISG report itself is one big CYA document that provides the GOP cover as well as a roadbloak to further progress on Iraq. The recommendations provided are essentially a line in the sand between Democrats and the White House - This far and no farther.

Thus we get Redeployment with no Date Certain. We get a discussion of training the Iraqi Forces, with little discussion of how to give them something to actually fight for, rather than against themselves.

If Democrats attempt to seriously address the 3 critical issues of Iraq...

• How did we get into this War in the First Place when there were no WMD's, No Nuclear program and no ties to Al-Qaeda
• How and why has it been persecuted so badly - Whack-a-mole style.
• How do we get out without it all going up in smoke!

but do so by "crossing the line of consensus" created by the ISG, they are certain to be accused of vindictive partisianship.

They're on a Witch-hunt. They just want to Embarriss the President

I'm sure that Russ Feingold's statements from Countdown last night are likely to generate exactly that kind of response from the Right.

Feingold: But the fact is, this commission was composed apparently entirely of people who did not have the judgment to oppose this Iraq war in the first place, and who did not have the judgment to realize it was not a wise move in the fight against terrorism.

So that‘s who‘s doing this report. And then I looked at the list of who testified before them. There‘s virtually no one who opposed the war in the first place, virtually no one who‘s been really calling for a different strategy that goes for a global approach to the war on terrorism.

So this is really a Washington inside job, and it shows not in the description of what‘s happened, that‘s fairly accurate, but it shows in the recommendations. It‘s been called a classic Washington compromise that does not do the job of extricating us from Iraq in a way that we can deal with the issues in Southeast Asia, in Afghanistan, and in Somalia, which are every bit as important as what is happening in Iraq.

So this report does not do the job, and it‘s because it was not composed of a real representative group of Americans, who believe what the American people showed in the election, which is that it is time for us to have a timetable to bring the troops out of Iraq.

...

But the problem is, the bottom line here is, what are we going to so we can allocate our resources around the world to the battle against terrorism? This report keeps us in Iraq. This report keeps our resources there. One of the things I really noticed is they said we should put our very best people embedded in the Iraqi army. Well, that‘s nice, but that means they won‘t be in Afghanistan. And we are losing ground to the Taliban in Afghanistan, which, as I remember, is where the attacks came from on 9/11.

See, he just can't help himself from Criticizing Bush, h e's got Bush on the Brain!"

Oh yeah, and just how is ole Osama doing anyway?

Clearly, the ISG Report is not the end of the battle to end the Iraq War - nor will it help us continue the global fight against terror - the ISG is only the beginning, now the real work begins.

Isn't it interesting that the ISG calls for the troops to be redeployed right in the middle of the 2008 primary season?

In many ways this report has just fired the starting gun on the 2008 Presidential Race, where the best positioned candidate will probably be the one who comes up with the best solution to Iraq. Just as when Senator George Mitchell years ago took it largely upon himself to go to Northern Ireland and attempt to find compromise between the Protestants, IRA and England in order to help end that situation, what this situation may call for is an intrepid Senator to Run past the Whitehouse go the middle-east and begin working on negotiations in the region and between the Shiia and Sunni leadership by him or herself.

Oh and isn't it also interesting that before the ISG has completely cooled down from the printing press Senator John Kerry has already supported Prime Minister al-Maliki's call for a regional summit and is already on his way to Syria to begin diplomatic talks that the White House will probably never have?

Although he's been counted out since Pronoun-Gate, I don't think we've seen the last Presidential Race by Kerry.

The next two years stand to become very interesting times, indeed.

Vyan

Running Iraq just like Saddam

In recent days Bill O'Reilly has been again named "Worse Person in the World" by his best gadfly/nemesis Keith Olberman for suggesting that America should "run Iraq the way that Saddam did" in order to bring order to the chaos in the region.

On the same night as Olbermann's rebuke O'Lielly continued his diatribe going on to argue that American is losing the war because of the ACLU, Amnesty International, The International Red Cross, President Jimmy Carter and Air America Radio who have all heavily critized the U.S. for violating Geneva Conventions and committing possible War Crimes.

Although it's easy to blow-off these comments by O'Reilly, I think his statements betray a mentality that has been at work all along - and ultimately knocks down the final piece of the "Noble Mission" canard.

We didn't go to Iraq to suppress WMD's - Saddam didn't have them and we knew it - and we didn't go to spread "democracy", not if we have to implement totalitarianism in order to do it.

We went there to project American Power, in an infantile display of dicks-man-ship - just as O'Reilly and his "Get Tough" rhetoric reveals.

Here's how O'Reilly laid it out.

O'REILLY: "Talking Points" believes the Bush administration has to stop being defensive about waging war. At this point, the new Iraqi government should declare martial law in areas controlled by insurgents. That means anyone can be arrested and shoot-on-sight curfews.

Saddam was able to control Iraq, as you know, and defeat insurgencies against him. The new Iraqi government can do the same, but it needs to get much tougher.

Let's examine for a moment how Saddam was able to defeat those insurgencies shall we? Following the first Gulf War, with his own forces essentially decimated by the air-barrage of U.S. B-52s, Saddam surrendered to U.S. led coalition forces - there was both a Shi'ite rebellion in southern Iraq and a Kurdish rebellion in the North against Saddam. His response to these insurrections was swift and brutal.

He used nerve toxin on them. Y'know - Weapons of Mass Destruction.

O'Reilly is far from alone is his view that America needs to take off the "Kid Gloves". Micheal Scheuer, former head of the CIA's Bin Laden desk has long argued for a Total War strategy against Islamic extremism.

I've found Scheuer's writing most useful for it's detailed insights into Bin Laden and Al Qaeda's over-arching strategy of prompting an American financial collapse - like that with brought the Soviet Union to an end following years of endless, fruitless battle in Afghanistan - rather than a strict military defeat. He also suggests that our best choices are to change our policies toward the Muslim world and attempt to reach-out and prove we aren't the enemy of Islam that they seem to think we are.

This makes sense, but Scheuer is a pragmatist and he realizes that this type of radical shift in strategy is highly unlikely, therefore he points out what just might be the inevitable. In his book "Imperial Hubris" he makes the following arguement.

Killing in large numbers is not enough to defeat our Muslim foes. With killing must come a Sherman-like razing of infrastructure. Roads and irrigation systems; bridges, power plants, and crops in the field, fertilizer plants and grain mills-- all these and more will need to be destroyed to deny the enemy it's support base. Land mines, moreover, will be massively reintroduced to seal borders and mountain passes too long, high, or numerous to close with U.S. soldiers. As noted such ations will yield large civilian casualties, displaced populations, and refugee flows. Again, this sort of bloody mindednes is neither admirable nor desirable, but it will remain America's only option so long as she stands by her failed policies toward the Muslim world.

Scheuer supports the doctrine of Total War and essentially idolizes Sherman, who burned an enourmous swath through the south in order to break the back of the Rebellion during our own Civil War. Tactics not unlike those used by Saddam Hussein. He argues that our efforts in Afghanistan have been "dainty" and largely ineffective -- the bulk of Taliban and Al Qaeda forces were able to easily avoid being captured or killed and have since spread worldwide, metastesizing (sp) into a Cancer that now affects Chechnya, Malaysia and has prompted the bombings of Schools, Planes (Russia), Trains (Madrid) and Subways (London).

He's not exactly a Bush fan, and is fervent against the Iraq war. But neither was a he a fan of Clinton. His biggest error in my opinion is his failure to recognize our success in Bosnia by using an overwhelmingly powerful force comprised of equal parts American, European and Russian forces against the massive confusion, chaos, ethnic cleansing of the Balkans. As well as our success against the attempted disruption and insurgency by Al Qaeda (which as documented by Richard Clarke in his book "Against All Enemies" was anticipated and thwarted).

O'Reilly and Scheuer are far from alone in their way of thinking.

O'REILLY: All right, Colonel Hunt, I think we're at a tipping point here in the Iraq war. I think if America does not stop being on the defensive, and I mean militarily and in the war of public opinion, that we gotta get out of there. We either have to fight the war and win the war, or get the hell out.

HUNT: Yeah, I totally agree. We take the gloves off. Military leaders, take the gloves off. The soldiers know what they do. Get out of the way. Politicians, get out of the way.

But of course, like all True-Blue and RED Conservatives, O'Reilly can't help but find Liberals to Blame for our sad state of affairs in Iraq.

The Bush administration also needs to begin challenging those who are helping the enemy. The ACLU, for example, opposes just about every anti-terror strategy. This organization should be exposed.

The BBC also helps the enemy by consistently slanting the Iraq war coverage and portraying the coalition as villains. The vile Air America Radio network does the same thing.

O'REILLY: All right, do you believe it's a tipping point, general?

McINERNEY: Yes, I do, Bill. And it's a tipping point in the will of the American people. We can't lose over there militarily. It's the will of the American people. And I call them "ACE" Democrats or "ACE" liberals -- aid and comforting the enemy.

O'Leilly also made the arguement that the ACLU and President Carter have hurt America by proclaiming that we torture detainees, even though America official policy is against torture. Well, sure the official policy says one thing - but apparently the Army Field Manual now says something completely different.

The problem with all of this is the very strong probability that America took the "gloves" off a long time ago. We already run Iraq just like Saddam did.

The 2004 attack on Fallujah which preceeded the first Iraqi election follows almost exactly the script that both Scheuer and O'reilly describe -- establish Marshall Law, completely disrupt the infrastrucure and oh yeah - use Chemical Weapons. (In this case, White Phosphorous, which literally melts skin).

The recent tragedy in Haditha also seems to support the contention that U.S. Forces are far from "holding back" in Iraq.

This entire line of reasoning ignores one crucial fact. We Don't Have A Large Enough Troop Footprint To Implement this kind of Strategey.

We don't have the manpower to implement Marshall Law and a "shoot on sight" curfew in Ramadi and also keep the insurgents from gaining a foothold elsewhere. The sad lessons of Fallajah and Afghanistan are that you have to cover every possible escape before you try and spring a trap. Besides that, we already have destroyed their infrastructure - and we haven't fixed it since.

As Sheuer points out the only reason America has to consider implementing overwhelming brutality and excise the Geneva Conventions fron the Army Field Manual - is because we've been dealing from a position of Bad Faith during this entire conflict. All of our justifications have been wrong. Saddam wasn't a threat to us, he didn't have WMD's, he didn't have Nukes, he wasn't tied to Al Qaeda - and he'd destroyed his WMD's in 1991 (as revealed by the Dulfer Report).

While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible Indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad's desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered.

This information was provided to the Bush Administration long before the invasion by Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri, and confirmed by Saddam's pre-war declaration.

If our sole reasons for getting rid of Saddam was to end the "Rape Rooms" and then our people turn around and re-use the exact same facilities for the exact same purpose - what have we managed to accomplish other than changing the guards on the doorway to hell?

Our Administration Lied about the reasons for the War from Day One.

They used Bad Faith. The only true use of military force is bring someone to the negotiating table who is otherwise unwilling, but if they simply can't trust anything you say -- we should they bother showing up no matter how much force you use? Bad Faith poisons all the waters.

I've often begun to wonder, why did Saddam hide the fact that he had destroyed his WMD stockpile? Could it have been the strong likelyhood of a renewed Kurdish and Shi'ite rebellion if they knew his primary weapon against them was disabled? Was he just buying time to reconstitute his decimated Army? And if we had Let the Inspectors Finish Their Job and reveal that Saddam was disarmed, would his worst fears have come true and the violent insurgency that is now killing our soldiers would instead have gone and captured Saddam instead? (Especially since there some indications that Kurdish forces were the ones to capture Saddam, not U.S.)

The New York Times, Amnesty International, President Carter, the ACLU and Air America Radio didn't create this situation. Bush and his neo-con supporters did.

Being willing to Use the Big Stick doesn't end the story, you have to know how to clean up the mess after you use it.

We have to change direction as both John Murtha, John Kerry and Russ Feingold have pointed out - but it's fairly unlikely that this will occuring during the Bush Administration and we can expect nothing more than further Abu Ghraib's and Haditha's for the forseeable future.

Vyan

Bushco still banking on the Big Lie

In his dustup with Helen Thomas the other day, President Bush besides ignoring the obvious facts that his biographer has shown [That he did intend to invade Iraq long before he was even President, and that once sworn in spent his very first NSC briefing talking exclusively about Saddam - while ignoring Al Qaeda ] Bush yet again continued to perpetrate the Biggest Lie of his Administration.

Bush claims that Saddam Hussein failed to "disarm and disclose" in accordance with UN Resolution 1441.

Now, we all certainly know there were no WMD's in Iraq when we invaded -- but we seem to have completely forgotten that Hussein told us there were no WMD's three months before the War, and BushCo completely ignored him.

Transcript of the exchange with Helen on March 21, 2006

Q I'd like to ask you, Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is, why did you really want to go to war? From the moment you stepped into the White House, from your Cabinet -- your Cabinet officers, intelligence people, and so forth -- what was your real reason? You have said it wasn't oil -- quest for oil, it hasn't been Israel, or anything else. What was it?

THE PRESIDENT: I think your premise -- in all due respect to your question and to you as a lifelong journalist -- is that -- I didn't want war. To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect --

Q Everything --

THE PRESIDENT: Hold on for a second, please.

Q -- everything I've heard --

THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me, excuse me. No President wants war. Everything you may have heard is that, but it's just simply not true.

Ok, let's have a short reality break here...

Mickey Herskowitz who had struck a deal to ghost write Bush's autobiography said that...

"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," "It was on his mind. He said to me: 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He said, 'If I have a chance to invade·.if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency....

And we all know this claim was merely an echo of the 1998 PNAC letter to Bill Clinton on Iraq.

Bush v Helen continues...

My attitude about the defense of this country changed on September the 11th. We -- when we got attacked, I vowed then and there to use every asset at my disposal to protect the American people. Our foreign policy changed on that day, Helen. You know, we used to think we were secure because of oceans and previous diplomacy. But we realized on September the 11th, 2001, that killers could destroy innocent life. And I'm never going to forget it. And I'm never going to forget the vow I made to the American people that we will do everything in our power to protect our people.

So his attitude changed on September 11th, did it? Then why did Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill state that from the very first meeting of the Bush's national Security Council in January 2001 he had Iraq on the brain.

"From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," says O'Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.

"From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime," says Suskind. "Day one, these things were laid and sealed."

As treasury secretary, O'Neill was a permanent member of the National Security Council. He says in the book he was surprised at the meeting that questions such as "Why Saddam?" and "Why now?" were never asked.

"It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying `Go find me a way to do this,'" says O'Neill. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap."

Back to the Bushwacker...

Part of that meant to make sure that we didn't allow people to provide safe haven to an enemy. And that's why I went into Iraq -- hold on for a second --

Q They didn't do anything to you, or to our country.

THE PRESIDENT: Look -- excuse me for a second, please. Excuse me for a second. They did. The Taliban provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That's where al Qaeda trained --

Q I'm talking about Iraq --

THE PRESIDENT: Helen, excuse me. That's where -- Afghanistan provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That's where they trained. That's where they plotted. That's where they planned the attacks that killed thousands of innocent Americans.

Ok, I think most of us agree that chasing down al Qaeda in Afghanistan was a reasonable choice. It's too bad Bush botched the job, let most of al Qaeda escape across the borders and let Bin Laden out of Tora Bora - but it was at least a step in the right directly. It's immediately after that, that things went off the rails.

I also saw a threat in Iraq. I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. That's why I went to the Security Council; that's why it was important to pass 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world said, disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences --

Q -- go to war --

THE PRESIDENT: -- and therefore, we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did, and the world is safer for it.

Ok, this right here is the money quote. Most people have noted what I mentioned previously about PNAC, Herskowitz and O'Neill but this is the crucial LIE right here and it has two parts.

1) Saddam did not deny the inspectors.

From the White House Press Briefing of November 26th, 2002.

QUESTION: Ari, can I go back to the U.N. weapons inspectors? Tomorrow they're going to be actually doing the first of their inspections. Is there any message to the inspectors? Is there any message to the Iraqis?

MR. FLEISCHER: The President's message to both the inspectors and the Iraqis is that the Iraqis need to disarm for the sake of peace. And the President is pleased that the United Nations has passed a strong resolution that will allow the inspectors to have more tools to do their jobs to verify that Saddam Hussein has disarmed. Iraq has until December 8th to list the weapons of mass destruction for the United Nations Security Council resolution, and after December 8th that will begin a process where we will find out whether the Iraqis told the truth or not. So they have this date that is approaching. After that date a process begins. And the President wants to make certain that process leads to two things -- one, the truth, and the truth must lead to disarmament.

2) Saddam did fully disclose!

On December 7th, one day ahead of schedule, Iraq provided a full and complete declaration - as required by UN Resoution 1441 - on the status of their WMD Stockpiles and capabilites. The 12,000 page reported stated that their stockpiles were either depleted or destroyed and their programs for replenishing them were null and void.

The President stated that the U.S. would "take some time" to review the declaration...

Iraq is now required by the United Nations to provide a full and accurate declaration of its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs. We will judge the declaration's honesty and completeness only after we have thoroughly examined it, and that will take some time. The declaration must be credible and accurate and complete, or the Iraqi dictator will have demonstrated to the world once again that he has chosen not to change his behavior.

At this point I also want to mention a another peice of hay that Bill O'Reilly has been pounding on. Namely a March 12th New York Times Report that three months before the invasion Saddam revealed to his Generals that they had no more WMD's. O'Reily has claimed that since Saddam's own generals didn't know - how could we expect the President to know, and those who've accused him of being a "Liar", including former President Jimmy Carter, Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, and Democratic Sens. Harry Reid (NV), Richard J. Durbin (IL), John Kerry (MA), Edward Kennedy (MA), Patrick Leahy (VT) and also entertainers like Will Smith, Chevy Chase, Johnny Depp, Ron Reagan Jr., Mike Farrell, and Barbra Streisand - should all apologize.

Media Matters does a good job of shooting this bogus canard down, by pointing that out even without the NYT article, many of Bush's claims and statments just don't hold water - but there's more.

The real problem with O'Reilly's argument is that through their December 7th Declaration Iraq told us exactly the same thing that he told his Generals ; they had no more WMD's. The Bush Administration just didn't listen.

Here's what then NSA Director Condoleeza Rice said about the Declaration on January 23rd.

And instead of full cooperation and transparency, Iraq has filed a false declaration to the United Nations that amounts to a 12,200-page lie.

For example, the declaration fails to account for or explain Iraq's efforts to get uranium from abroad, its manufacture of specific fuel for ballistic missiles it claims not to have, and the gaps previously identified by the United Nations in Iraq's accounting for more than two tons of the raw materials needed to produce thousands of gallons of anthrax and other biological weapons.

Basically they used one lie, about the Niger Uranium, to call Saddam a liar? Jesus Jiminy Christmas.

Here's more from Bush's 2003 State of the Union.


The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax -- enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn't accounted for that material. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin -- enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He hadn't accounted for that material. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands. He's not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them -- despite Iraq's recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq [Might one of these be Curveball?], in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.

But then we didn't really even need Saddam's declaration for proof, back in 1995 a defecting Iraqi General by the name of Hussein Kamel had claimed to have personally given the order to destroy Saddam's WMD stockpiles following the first Gulf War.

When the inspectors arrived they stated that they weren't finding any weapons or evidence of a Nuclear program, some even going so far as to say that the U.S. provided intelligence was "garbage". After four months of searching in February of 2003 the UNSCOM and IAEA inspectors had found absolutely nothing - no mobile biological labs - zip. Just a set of al samoud missles which were outside the guidelines of 1441, which they destroyed, but no actually WMD.

So we have a declaration from Iraq that they have to WMD's, we have inspectors on the ground who say - "They have no WMD's", we have a defector who says "We destroyed the WMD's" and what does Bush do?

He ignores it and claims that "Iraqi operatives continue to play a shell game with inspectors, moving suspected prohibited materials to different locations every 12 to 24 hours".

Then on March 17th, he orders the invasion.

All the decades of deceit and cruelty have now reached an end. Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing. For their own safety, all foreign nationals -- including journalists and inspectors -- should leave Iraq immediately.

Ok, so the inspectors were still in Iraq until March 17th were they? That's interesting since so many of Bush's supporters like to claim that Saddam pushed out the inspectors. No, Bush made the decision. He set the timetable, the interrupted the inspection process which as we now know would have eventually confirmed the Iraqi Declaration just as the Dulfer Report eventually revealed.

Chemical Weapons: While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad's desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered.

Biological Weapons: In practical terms, with the destruction of the Al Hakam facility, Iraq abandoned its ambition to obtain advanced BW weapons quickly. ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes. Indeed, from the mid-1990s, despite evidence of continuing interest in nuclear and chemical weapons, there appears to be a complete absence of discussion or even interest in BW at the Presidential level.

Nuclear: Saddam Husayn ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf war. ISG found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program.

The fact is that the Iraqi Declaration - was absoluately correct. They had no WMD's and they told us so months before the War.

Bush supporters, the few that are left such as O'Reilly, Hannity and Gingrich, like to claim that "these mistakes are in the past"... but the truth is that these failures are the results of hubris and poor judgement. The facts were rigth in front of them, but they preferred to believe forged documents from Niger and Curveball instead.

These are the same types of mistakes we continue to see from this administration over and over again, from Katrina to Dubai. Ignoring mine safety, and muzzling Scientists while pushing forward the Intelligence Design agenda. These lies continue to poison the well of Democracy in Iraq with endless Bad Faith from this President and this Administration - leading it increasingly into a a Civil War which will continue to cost Iraqi and American lives and drain the U.S. Treasury.

And the lies just keep coming...

Vyan