United States News Digest
Scowcroft Sends a Message
General Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor to former President George Bush ("41"), and the head of the current President Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), gave an interview to the German-language edition of the Financial Times, published Nov. 17, in which he slammed the Bush Administration's policy of "democratizing" Iraq. Scowcroft was in Berlin, Germany, attending a policy symposium. He criticized the U.S. government for attempting to use Iraq as a base for democratizing the Middle East, warning that such an effort is both unrealistic and highly dangerous. He cited the case of Algeria, where a similar "democratization" effort 12 years ago led to a bloody civil war. He also warned that plans to reduce the number of U.S. troops inside Iraq was another bad mistake, echoing the statements recently by Gen. Anthony Zinni and others, that more American troops are going to be needed to stabilize the situation in Iraq.
Scowcroft warned that, the longer the U.S. waits to reinforce the troop presence, the more incalculable the consequences. He declared that the U.S. was pursuing a wrong policy, driven by a missionary zeal, which has not been thought out. If the U.S. wants to help launch democracy in the region, they should start with Palestine, or even with Iran, where there is a recent history of free elections. He returned to the Iraq fiasco, noting that the Administration went to war with Iraq, based on the assumption that Iraq had large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and had ties to al-Qaeda. When both assumptions proved false, the Administration foisted the democracy argument. As an alternative, Scowcroft called for the U.S. to pursue close cooperation with its allies and NATO partners.
Given Scowcroft's position, this interview sends a powerful message to the Bush Administration, which is otherwise floundering, due to its failure to break with the neo-con agenda. It reflects a major faction within the Republican establishment that disagrees with Cheney's flightforward, and is prepared, in some degree, to act.
Cheney Exposed on ABC-TV's 'Nightline'
Despite concerted efforts by Vice President Dick Cheney and the neo-con "Plumbers" (see InDepth) to stop any investigation into Cheney's role in securing the war against Iraq, and manipulating President Bush and the Congress, the story won't be snuffed out.
On Nov. 13, ABC-TV's Nightline program, aired a scathing attack on Cheney, as a sullen right-wing extremist, who has unprecedented power, and was the architect of the Iraq war fiasco, and virtually every other significant decision nominally made by the President. The show featured interviews with Richard Clarke, former White House counterterror czar, former CIA official Vince Cannistraro, columnist Robert Novak, former Clinton National Security Council aide Ivo Daalder, Heritage Foundation fellow John Hulsman, and historian Doug Brinkley.
Nightline host Ted Koppel started out the show, "For a while there, we were going to call this program, 'Dick Cheney, the American Prime Minister.' But that, we concluded, would have gone way too far. That would have suggested that Cheney was actually running things, and that President Bush was merely the symbolic head of government, rather like one of the crowned heads of Europe. There is no evidence to support that. By the same token, describing Dick Cheney as simply Vice President of the United States doesn't go nearly far enough."
The broadcast highlighted Cheney's mega-staff, which functions as a second National Security Council, often beating out the actual NSC with policy papers which then shape the Administration's decisions. Given Cheney's close ties to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Koppel noted, the State Department often found itself out-voted automatically on major policy issues. "As one former top official in the Bush Administration told me," Koppel told the audience, "Cheney gets two whacks at every issue. He's in the interagency meetings where policy is considered.... then, he is usually the last person to talk to the President privately before a decision is made."
Cannistraro nailed Cheney for his visits to the CIA, where he grilled analysts who failed to produce data backing up conclusions he had already reached. An unnamed senior military official, Koppel reported, said Cheney's "staff's reports were distorted and ideological."
Doug Brinkley, the author of a new book on John Kerry and Vietnam, said, "I think Dick Cheney, while on one hand has been the most influential Vice President in American history, has now become a bit of a political albatross for the sitting President, for these reasons. If the war in Iraq is not going well, and post-war Iraq is not jelling, that we're getting Americans killed all the time, somebody's going to have to be sacrificed on the altar. It's the thought in a close election that Dick Cheney is going to go campaigning around the country, state by state, in what could very well be a referendum on the war in Iraq and post-war Iraq. I think you will see him stepping aside, staying on as a senior adviser, and filling in as one of the great speakers for the conservatives for Bush. But I think you're going to have to have somebody more vigorous on the campaign trail."
Koppel noted that the Vice President was asked to appear on the show, but his office never even responded. "If the Vice President would like to chat anytime soon, his place or ours, we'd be only too delighted. I'm not counting on it." While past Veeps had good reason to stay in the background, not so Cheney. "Dick Cheney is a mover and shaker of the first order. That is the President's prerogative. But when an elected official in this country is granted an extraordinary amount of power and influence, there ought to be some transparency and accountability, which means something more than giving an occasional speech to a conservative foundation and making a couple of appearances on Meet the Press." Koppel concluded.
Fight in Congress Over Iraq 'Intelligence'
A debate over pre-Iraq war "intelligence" broke out in the House Intelligence Committee session on Nov. 18. While the spotlight has been on the Senate Intelligence Committee over misinformation, lying, and leaks regarding Iraq intelligence, the parallel House Committee held a closed-door, classified session to investigate Bush Administration pre-war claims about Iraq. At a conference on fusion energy Nov. 18, Rep. Rush Holt, (D-N.J.), a former fusion scientist, arrived directly from the Committee meeting. He said he had queried "a senior intelligence analyst" who had helped develop the National Intelligence Estimate a year ago.
Holt said that since chief U.S. weapons inspector Dr. David Kay "had searched and searched," and not found any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD), he asked the intelligence analyst about it. The analyst said he was "absolutely certain" Iraq had WMD. "What evidence do you have?" Holt asked. The analyst said he had 27 years of experience in the intelligence community, and offered other obfuscations. Holt asked again for any evidence, but got none. Holt asked if the country were "well served by a senior intelligence analyst who speaks in absolutes, in the absence of evidence." The intelligence community, Holt said, is supposed "to watch for self-deception" on the part of the Administration, and "be a safeguard against that."
Holt also criticized the House energy bill as a "grab-bag of special interests that doesn't do what the country needs." To the fusion scientists at the meeting, Holt advised that they maintain their integrity, and continue to refuse to talk in "absolutes."
Cheney's Lies About al-Qaeda Slipped Into Bush's London Speech
In his Whitehall speech in London on Nov. 19, President Bush read the following words about post 9/11 terrorism: "The attacks that followedon Bali, Jakarta, Casablanca, Bombay, Mombasa, Najaf, Jerusalem, Riyadh, Baghdad, and Istanbulwere not dreams. They're part of a global campaign by terrorist networks to intimidate and demoralize all who oppose them."
On Nov. 12, EIR had reported on a New York Times article in which unnamed Bush Administration officials complained about Vice President Dick Cheney's continuing efforts to link the recent bombings in Iraq, with the bombings in Bali, Casablanca, and Riyadh, which authorities believe were carried out by al-Qaeda-linked groups. These officials said that Cheney, by implying that al-Qaeda is operating inside Iraq today, is attempting to reinforce his discredited claim that Saddam Hussein was linked to al-Qaeda before the war.
"At this point, it isn't clear who's responsible for those bombings," one unnamed Administration official was quoted as saying. The official said that it is "premature" for Cheney to even suggest that al-Qaeda terrorists are responsible for the bombings within Iraq. "We just don't know," he said.
EIW is investigating the connections between Dick Cheney's insistence on the al-Qaeda/Saddam/Sept. 11 connection and the recent leaked memo by Cheney's neo-con insider, Under Secretary of Defense Doug Feith. The links asserted in the memo were denounced as "inaccurate" by the Defense Department.
Arnie Promises Government by Referendum
California's "former" Hitler admirer and new governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, on his first day in office Nov. 17, promised government by referendum, budget cuts, and layoffs, while conducting a charm offensive with the press.
In his first press conference, Schwarzenegger presented a picture of the fascist state he hopes to create, complete with direct "democracy" instead of representative government. The reaction of the star-struck media to this horror show was typified by this headline in the Sacramento Bee: "He Meetsand Charmsthe Press." Veteran reporters, obviously under the sway of their brush with glamor and celebrity, overlooked the preposterous proposals put forward, which threaten the survival of the nation's wealthiest and most populous state.
Schwarzenegger made the following proposals:
* Place a $15 billion bond issue on the March ballot as a referendumYes or No to huge borrowing, to cover the expected budget deficit. He had made no mention of such massive borrowing while campaigning;
* A second ballot initiative, tied to the first, to place a spending cap on the state budget. Schwarzenegger said he would not allow the first, without the second. The effect of the two ballot initiatives would be to take the state budget out of the hands of elected legislative representatives, and put it into the hands of the vox populi.
* Cut $11 billion from the state's $29 billion workman's compensation system, to give "relief to businesses" (at the expense of injured employees);
* More lay-offs of state workers, though the compassionate Austrian emigré promised, "I could guarantee you that I will not lay anyone off in December, or before Christmas."
However, LaRouche Youth Movement organizers, during a lobbying day on Nov. 18 in Sacramento, upset the apple cart, organizing a core of Democrats to pledge that they will mobilize for a fight against the Beastman Governor. Some Republicans privately acknowledged concern with the gigantic size of the bond offering, which will lock in interest payments for 30 years, on top of the massive budget deficit.
Recall Drive Against D.C. Mayor Williams
A recall drive against Washington, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, who shut down D.C. General Hospital in 2001 on behalf of Wall Street's Financial Control Board, is being organized by Barbara Lett Simmons, one of Washington D.C.'s representatives on the Democratic National Committee, and the senior member of the State Democratic Committee for the District of Columbia. Simmons has spoken at a number of Lyndon LaRouche's webcasts in Washington.
The Mayor's attacks on health care, as well as on education, will be a central feature of the recall drive. Since a Mayor cannot be recalled during either his first or last year in office, the petition campaign will begin in January, Simmons said on Nov. 18. According to the timetable, the actual recall election will probably take place sometime during next year's September-to-November period.
Bush '41' Gives 'Excellence' Award to Senator Kennedy
President George "41" Bush sent an interesting message from Texas to President George "43" Bush on Nov. 7, by granting The George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service, to Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass), a frequent and eloquent critic of the war in Iraq, along with many of Bush's domestic policies. Said George 41: "The good Senator's prescription for what ails America may be different than mine, but it is born of patriotism and compassion." To which Kennedy responded: "Three generations of Bushes and Kennedys have devoted their lives to public service. The friendship between our families and our respect for each other go back for more than half a century."
Bush Sr. also quipped: "It is a well known political fact of life, particularly here in Texas, that when you want to fire up a Republican crowd and give them a little red meat, nothing works quite like jumping on Ted Kennedy." But despite the obvious political humor, Washington took note that it was not Bush "41"'s former cabinet secretaries, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who were granted the Bush Award in Texas, but rather the Senator who publicly called Bush, Jr.'s war in Iraq "a fraud made in Texas."
The Excellence award has been given by Bush Sr. only twice before, to heads of state, Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
Judges Question 'Enemy Combatant' Denial of Legal Rights
Two judges of the three hearing a habeas corpus petition for Jose Padilla on Nov. 17, questioned the constitutionality of holding a U.S. citizen as an "enemy combatant" without any legal rights, according to the New York Law Journal. Padilla has been held incommunicado since June 2002. One judge said that to give the Executive such power would be a "sea change in the constitutional life of this country and ... unprecedented in civilized society." Said another, "As terrible as 9-11 was, it didn't repeal the Constitution."
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