In this issue:

Do Democrats Have the Guts To Go After Cheney?

Sen. Byrd Wants 'Full Congressional Hearings' on Iraq War Lies

Treasury Official Wants Government Debt Ceiling Eliminated

Arthur Schlesinger Assails Imperial Iraq War Manipulations

Distortions Made in Intelligence on Cuba, Too

Brownback Attacks French for Terror Crackdown!

Lugar Blasts Post-War Iraq Stabilization Effort

U.S. Reconstruction Effort in Iraq Going Nowhere

Rumsfeld Must Be Desperate

From Volume 2, Issue Number 26 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published July 1, 2003

United States News Digest

Do Democrats Have the Guts To Go After Cheney?

The Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee will begin their own inquiry on the questions about intelligence used to promote war against Iraq, announced Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) on June 27. Levin's action is viewed as unusual, on a committee that normally stresses bipartisan cooperation. However, Levin said that he had urged the committee chairman, Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), to move ahead with reviewing documents and conducting interviews of defense, military, and intelligence personnel, and urged that there be hearings—both open and closed. But, he said, Warner has decided to wait until the Senate Intelligence Committee completes its review of documents received by the CIA. Therefore Levin has decided not to wait, but has directed his staff to proceed with interviews and obtaining of documents. In a letter to Levin, Warner said, "This is clearly your prerogative" to proceed in this manner.

But, as Lyndon LaRouche, the 2004 Democratic Party Presidential pre-candidate is warning, the Democratic Leadership Council, a key force in the Democratic Party, is acting as the "protection racket" for Vice President Dick Cheney (see EDITORIAL, this issue).

If the Democrats have the moral courage to go for the truth, and work with LaRouche, then any number of the current actions and investigations could clean out the "perpetual war" nest from government.

*The Democrats' Senate Armed Services Committee hearings called by Levin would focus on the Defense Department, over which the committee has oversight jurisdiction, and which is the largest producer of intelligence, and also a major user of intelligence. Levin said that the committee has a "heavy responsibility" to review the intelligence used by the Pentagon prior to and during the war, and the effect that intelligence had on Pentagon planning and operations.

*On June 26, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) submitted an amendment during floor debate in the House, to the 2004 Intelligence Authorization bill. The amendment was to require the CIA Inspector General to audit all telephone and electronic communications between Vice President Dick Cheney and the CIA regarding Iraqi weapons. Kucinich cited the Washington Post story about Cheney travelling often to the CIA to review Iraq intelligence and putting pressure on CIA analysts to make their assessments meet Administration policy objectives. The amendment was defeated 347-76. Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) offered an amendment for U.S. Comptroller General to study U.S. intelligence sharing with UN inspectors (or the lack thereof); this was defeated 239-185. And Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) sought the creation of a special committee to investigate the Iraq intelligence failures; this was ruled out of order on procedural grounds.

Of special note is that Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, opposed the Kucinich amendment, and other moves of this type. Harman is a leading member of the Democratic Leadership Council, and says that Intelligence Committee chairman Porter Goss (R-Fla.) had promised her open hearings, which she hopes will be in July.

Sen. Byrd Wants 'Full Congressional Hearings' on Iraq War Lies

The fight that Lyndon LaRouche has defined against the treasonous Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and its coverup for the Straussian liars responsible for the Iraq war, is the path to making Sen. Robert Byrd's courageous and precise call for investigations, a reality.

In a Senate floor speech June 24, Byrd (D-W.Va.) said, "Congress has the obligation to investigate the use of intelligence information by the administration in the open. We must not go down the road of coverup. That is the road to ruin.

"For the first time, the United States has gone to war because of intelligence reports claiming that a country posed a threat to our nation," Byrd said.

"Congress should not be content to use standard operating procedures to look into this extraordinary matter," he said.

"We should accept no substitute for a full, bipartisan investigation by Congress into the issues of our pre-war intelligence on the threat from Iraq and its use."

He called the current hearings "timorous," and the proposed closed-door hearings, "measures that fall short of what the situation requires."

"Congress should begin an immediate investigation into the intelligence that was presented to the American people about the pre-war estimates of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and the way in which that intelligence might have been misused."

Byrd said that "it is the President who appears to me to be intent on revising history," not the anti-war critics, whom Bush accused of "revisionist history." Byrd added, "Seven weeks after declaring victory in the war against Iraq, we have seen nary a shred of evidence to support his claims of grave dangers, chemical weapons, links to al-Qaeda or nuclear weapons."

Treasury Official Wants Government Debt Ceiling Eliminated

Embarrassed by the exploding U.S. budget deficit, and consequently by the exploding U.S. government debt outstanding, Brian Roseboro, Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets, told the Washington Post on June 27 that he favors eliminating the U.S. debt ceiling. He stated that there are a several alternatives to the debt ceiling, and that his "personal preference" would be to "do away with a notional debt limit and grant the Treasury 'ever-green' borrowing authority, that is, the authority to borrow as needed to fund Congressionally approved expenditures."

Roseboro claimed that he is making this proposal because each time the debt ceiling has to be raised by Congress, there is a Congressional debate on it, which causes "the markets" to become nervous. He then laid out an alleged "chain of events," that this could cost the U.S. government slightly higher interest rates, and thus financing costs, which would add to the U.S. debt outstanding. But while this argument is remotely plausible, this is not the real reason Roseboro is making his proposal. On May 23, the U.S. Congress voted to raise the U.S. government debt ceiling from $6.4 trillion, to $7.38 trillion. Each time the U.S. Congress votes to raise the debt ceiling, it makes public that the U.S. debt is out of control. It would appear that the Bush-Cheney Administration would prefer to have no Congressional limit on how high the Administration can drive the debt, and simultaneously, have no Congressional debate on the debt, keeping the crisis out of the public realm!

Arthur Schlesinger Assails Imperial Iraq War Manipulations

Former John F. Kennedy adviser and Presidential historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. penned a powerful op-ed assailing the Bush Administration's doctrine of preventive war, and warning that the issue of Iraq's still-missing WMD will continue to haunt the Bush Presidency, undermine the President's credibility, and, ultimately, cause the entire new "Bush Doctrine" to be trashed.

"The weapons of mass destruction issue—where are they?—will not subside and disappear, as the administration supposes (and hopes)," he wrote. "The issue will build because many Americans do not like to be manipulated and deceived. It will build because elements in Congress and in the media will wish to regain their honor and demonstrate their liberation from Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld." He also cited the growing scandal in Britain over the same issue of falsification of intelligence, citing Robin Cook's recent appearance before the Commons. "Hyped intelligence produces a credibility gap," he warned.

Distortions Made in Intelligence on Cuba, Too

An unnamed senior intelligence expert testified in closed-door Congressional hearings that he had been pressed by Undersecretary of State John Bolton to distort intelligence on Cuba, reported the New York Times June 27. In closed hearings that began last week before the House Intelligence Committee, a senior intelligence expert on chemical and biological weapons, identified by some as Christian Westermann, gave testimony that he had felt pressed by the White House to tailor his professional analysis on Cuba, and other matters, to conform to the Administration's views. Members of Congress described the testimony as a dramatic moment; this is the first member of the intelligence community in active service, to make such a charge to Congress.

The official testified that he had felt pressure from John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control And International Security, dating back to a confrontation the two men had over Bolton's public assertions last year that Cuba had a biological weapons program. The expert stated those assertions were not supported by intelligence. He also said he never changed the wordings of his reports in response to Bolton's pressure.

Westermann is an analyst in the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research. His testimony has caused a stir in House and Senate intelligence committees and he said he was willing to testify further. A State Department official close to Bolton scoffed that the official doesn't have anything concrete that he can point to. "We're in a period where people are looking for particular evidence of intelligence being altered, and he's talking about mood swings."

Brownback Attacks French for Terror Crackdown!

Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) wrote a stinging protest letter to the French government, following the raids on the Paris headquarters of the Mujahideen e-Khalq, a group on the U.S. State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The letter was delivered to the French Ambassador in Washington, Jean-David Levitte, and excerpts were published this week by AFP. While the State Department praised the French authorities for cracking down on the group, Brownback, the American Enterprise Institute, other neo-con bastions, and other members of Congress (including some duped Democrats) told the French to let the MEK members go. Brownback, who spoke on May 6 at an AEI event, along with "universal fascist" Michael Ledeen, and Clash of Civilizations creator Bernard Lewis, is preparing a law for regime change in Iran, like the Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998.

Lugar Blasts Post-War Iraq Stabilization Effort

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), reporting back from his weekend trip to Baghdad, blasted the lack of postwar preparation by the Bush Administration, and the Pentagon in particular, during a press conference June 24. He particularly went after the notion that we'll be in Iraq "only as long as we have to, and not a day longer," an assertion that has often been made in the Pentagon briefing room. "Again and again, I've said at least five years for a plan. This idea that we will be in just as long as we need to and not a day more—we've got to get over that rhetoric! It is rubbish! We're going to be there a long time. We must reorganize our military to be there a long time," which means that the U.S. should reorganize its military for less dependence on reservists. "Our finances, that is the U.S. budget, has got to contemplate something more than the blithe thought that we put $2.4 billion in a supplemental, but we don't have the slightest idea beyond that."

He had earlier complained that in spite of his "tenacious probing, I do not have in my mind's eye a budget for Iraq for one year, three years, five years. I think we're going to have to have that." He might have added that there is absolutely no provision in the fiscal year 2004 budget for the occupation of Iraq.

Lugar did not want to get into a discussion about either the preventive war doctrine or the growing scandal about distorted pre-war intelligence. What he did say that people should question was, "Well, because you rushed into it so fast, your preparation for after the war was inept," and so on. He did note the presence of two intelligence groups, "two parallel intelligence groups, although they had different functions, one operating broadly under George Tenet and the CIA and that umbrella, and a separate organization at the Department of Defense offering intelligence information.... I would just simply say there were people who had very strong ideological views on how this ought to happen" and so, one of the arguments is "were people exaggerating?" He said, "There should be no fooling around or adulteration of intelligence, and I would guess the Administration ought to get that sorted out."

U.S. Reconstruction Effort in Iraq Going Nowhere

Former U.S. Ambassador Timothy Carney, now a part of the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) operation in Iraq, just back from a 90-day mission in Iraq, reports that the low priority and scarce resources given to Iraqi reconstruction were glaringly obvious during his time there. The ORHA team was reduced to—literally—throwing cash at state workers to try to push some liquidity into the economy.

Carney's statements amount to an indictment of the "contracting out" process, which he says covers virtually all services. That brings to the fore, in the view of Lyndon LaRouche, the role of Dick Cheney's Halliburton, which is the greedy kingpin in this process.

Carney says that the May 12 arrival of Presidential envoy Paul Bremer was welcomed by ORHA, which saw Bremer as giving the reconstruction effort more civilian authority, but Bremer's obsession with security left ORHA's efforts in the dust. Carney sums up the problems as lack of transparency, failure to bring Iraqis into the reconstruction effort, excessive response to provocations, failure to "marry the civilian and military staffs" (he says of the latter that their "lack of vision was exceeded only by the lack of competence"), and service so poor by contractors like Raytheon and MCI that they merit investigation.

Rumsfeld Must Be Desperate

The London Guardian June 28 wrote that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is discussing the idea of an international peacekeeping force that could be deployed to maintain order in the world's trouble spots. Rumsfeld reportedly told industry leaders at a dinner in Washington last week, "I am interested in the idea of our leading, or contributing in some way, a cadre of people in the world who would like to participate in peacekeeping or peacemaking." He added that he thought it would be a good idea for the U.S. to provide some leadership and training to "other countries' citizens who would like to participate in peacekeeping," so there would be a ready cadre of people prepared for such operations.

The motivation for this idea seems to be the fact that more than half of the U.S. Army's operational strength is deployed in peacekeeping operations in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and is, therefore spread very thin. Not to mention the high—and growing—cost of the imperial occupation of Iraq, and signs that the war may be just beginning.

All rights reserved © 2003 EIRNS