United States News Digest
Six Members of Congress Sue President Bush for Abuse of Power on Iraq War
Six members of the House of Representatives filed a Federal lawsuit last week to force President Bush to seek a Congressional declaration of war for any war on Iraq. The coalition behind the suit includes six Democratic members of the House, several U.S. military, and parents of military personnel. House members, all Democrats, are John Conyers (Mich), Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), James McDermott (Wash), Jose Serrano (NY), Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), and Jesse Jackson, Jr. (Ill).
The plaintiffs' lead attorney, John Bonifaz, said, "A war against Iraq without a Congressional declaration of war will be illegal and unconstitutional." The lawsuit cites Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which states: "Congress shall have power ... (to) declare war," arguing that the Iraq resolution that passed in Congress in October 2002 did not declare war and unlawfully ceded that decision to President Bush.
Conyers told a press conference, "The Founding Fathers did not establish an imperial Presidency with war-making powers. The Constitution clearly reserves that for Congress."
Three civilian co-plaintiffs to the suit founded "Military Families Speak Out," for those who oppose this war and have family in the military.
Gen. Zinni Blasts Wars Without End
On Feb. 11, Gen. Anthony Zinni (USMC ret), former head of the Central Command, which covers Iraq, the entire Near East, and Afghanistan, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he continued to oppose war on Iraq. Zinni gave serious testimony about the consequences that are not considered by the neo-conservative warmongers. He said, (1) there is no short war; and (2) Afghanistan after the Soviet Union left proves that the idea that "anything is better than what you have" is a fallacy.
On the first point he said, "I want to make one other point ... The idea that there's an exit strategy or we leave is naive. You stay. The Gulf War may have ended in 1991, but CENTCOM for 12 years after was in Iraq, flew over it, no-fly zones, no-drive zones, maritime intercept operations, occasional bombings, an average presence of 23,000 troops from all services. The war never ended. We aren't going to go home from whatever we do in Iraq...." (emphasis added).
On Afghanistan, Zinni said, "I want to address the issue of anything is better than what you have.... I would say that we threw the Soviets out of Afghanistan with the idea that [having the] Soviets out has got to be better than anything that can follow, and we left them with the Taliban eventually. So anyone that has to live in this region and has to stay there and protect our interests year in, year out doesn't look at this in sort of finite terms, as a start and an end, as an exit strategy...."
At the hearing, the ranking Democrat, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del) made a similar point, accusing the Bush Administration of ignoring the American population, who are demanding to know what are the consequences.
George W. Bush and 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf'
Law enforcement and intelligence professionals fear that the frequent intelligence failures and exaggerations are making the population more vulnerable to terrorism. One comment on Feb. 14 was that President Bush should read "The Boy Who Cried Wolf!"the fable about the shepherd boy whose prank of calling for help as a joke finally backfired when nobody heeded a real threat.
The comment followed the news that the terrorism informant who was source of the warning that led to last week's raising of the terror threat level to Orange, or High, failed his polygraph test. Law enforcement officials in Washington, D.C. and New York revealed that "a key piece of the information leading to recent terror alerts was fabricated" by him, reported ABC News on Feb. 14.
"The informant described a detailed plan that an al-Qaeda cell operating in either Virginia or Detroit had developed a way to slip past airport scanners with dirty [i.e. radioactive, or chemical or biological] bombs encased in shoes, suitcases, or laptops." But the information turned out "to be fabricated," after the source was subjected to a lie-detector test. Former CIA counter-terrorism chief Vince Cannistraro, now a consultant to ABC News, said, "This person did not pass." But the polygraph was not given to the informant, until after the alert was publicized.
Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge came under hostile questioning the same day, but defended the orange alert, because the warning did not rest on "just one source." But after millions of Americans bought duct tape and plastic sheeting to protect their homes, as the government told them to, Ridge said, "I want to make something very, very clear at this point. We do notwe do not want individuals or families to start sealing their doors or their windows...." Ridge said, "we didn't tell you to use these materials, just to buy them." He was asked if the government did not "unnecessarily scare the population." This is not the first time that a captured accused terrorist, or criminal has "made up a huge story and scared a lot of people." A previous case was Christmas Eve, when Bush personally announced a nationwide manhunt for five "Middle Eastern men" entering the country from Canada. The story turned out to be false, and the alert was called off.
Washington Insider Believes Iraq War Can Still Be Stopped
Jessica Tuchman Mathews, the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the author of a proposal for "coercive inspections" in Iraq, told EIR's Jeff Steinberg that she is still "cautiously optimistic" that an Iraq war can still be prevented. On Sunday, Feb. 9, she had penned a Washington Post op ed promoting robust "coercive inspections" of Iraq, backed by the deployment of UN blue-helmet troops, as an alternative to a U.S. invasion.
In the on-the-record discussion, she reviewed the history of her proposal, which was first presented, privately, to Administration officials in August 2002. She worked on the proposal with Gen. Charles Boyd, the head of the Washington office of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Rolf Ekeus, the former UN chief weapons inspector in Iraq. Their involvement, she said, gave the plan both military and diplomatic credibility, and she believes that the early-October 2002 speech by President Bush, in which he shifted the Iraq agenda from "regime change" to "disarmament," was a reflection of their input. Following the President's State of the Union message and Colin Powell's disastrous performance at the UN Security Council, she decided to revive her proposal, and wrote the op ed. She told Steinberg that she wrote it in the belief that it was still possible to revive the "coercive inspections" plan and avoid a disastrous war.
Since the article appeared in the Sunday Post Outlook section, she has received hundreds of e-mails, faxes, and letters, and only five people who wrote disagreed, calling her an "appeaser." She cited the "stiffened opposition" from the Europeans, which no one had anticipated, as another factor in her "cautious optimism" that the war can be avoided through this "middle ground" between war and inaction on the issue of weapons of mass destruction. She also concurred that the global financial and monetary crisis would be greatly exacerbated by a war.
Kofi Annan Reiterates He Wants Inspections To Continue
On Saturday, Feb. 8, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan delivered a lecture at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., at the invitation of Gen. Anthony Zinni (USMC-ret), who is on the faculty there. Annan reiterated that inspections can work, and should continue. He added that any action against Iraq must take place under a United Nations umbrella. On Feb. 18, Annan will be going to Baghdad to meet with Iraqi leaders.
At his speech in Virginia, Annan warned the U.S. "against attacking Iraq on its own, arguing collective action under a UN umbrella would have greater legitimacy and better odds of success," wire services reported. Annan said force was the last resort, but if the inspectors' report (given Feb. 14) showed Iraqi non-compliance, then "the Council must face up to its responsibilities."
"This is an issue not for any one state alone, but for the international community as a whole," Annan said. "When states decide to use force, not in self-defense but to deal with broader threats to international peace and security, there is no substitute for the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations Security Council."
Clinton Targets Cheney and Lewis Libby on Rich Case
Appearing on NBC-TV's Today show on Feb. 11, former President Bill Clinton was asked about the Marc Rich pardon, and for the first time, zeroed in on Dick Cheney's chief of staff and the Bush Administration as the real pals of organized-crime figure Marc Rich, whom Clinton pardoned on his way out of office in January 2001. An excerpt follows:
KATIE COURIC: In this month's edition of the Atlantic Monthly, James Fallows writes, "Clinton had the worst beginning of an ex-presidency since Richard Nixon flew to San Clemente in 1974." Certainly you did ignite a fire storm of criticism with your pardon of Marc Rich. Had you the opportunity to do it over again, would you have pardoned him?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: No, I would have waited and let President Bush do it, because Vice President Cheney's chief of staff was his main lawyer, and there would have been no media fire storm and he wouldn't be being investigated. That only happens to us. There's a double standard there. It's been two years now, and the Justice Department has not charged him. So if I was wrong and they're right, why don't they charge him and get the taxpayers some money? I'm still waiting.
House and Senate Kill Bill To Authorize Pentagon Spy Agency
On Feb. 12, the leaders of the House of Representatives followed the Senate in killing Adm. John Poindexter's "Total Information Awareness" Pentagon spy program. The program would assemble Internet data on individuals (credit-card purchases, travel data, etc.), allegedly to look for terrorist profiles. A Senate amendment to the 2003 spending bill would ban all funds until after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld provides a full and detailed report to Congress, and even then would ban any TIA spying on U.S. citizens.
John P. Murtha (D-Penna), ranking member of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, said "Jerry [Lewis, (R-Calif), the chairman] is against it [the TIA], and I'm against it, so we kept the Senate amendment." He added, speaking of the Pentagon, "They've got some crazy people over there." Thus, if the 2003 spending bill ever becomes law, which it may or may not, Adm. Poindexter's "TIA" program will be dead.
Poindexter was convicted of crimes in the 1984-6 Iran-Contra secret government operations of Ollie North and company. Poindexter had been National Security Adviser under President Ronald Reagan.
Missouri Prosecutor Argues Innocence Not an Impediment to Execution
Citing earlier U.S. Supreme Court decisions, a Missouri prosecutor argued before the State Supreme Court that judges must ignore whether a Death Row inmate is actually innocent, as long as his "Constitutional rights" have not been violated. How executing an innocent person is not a violation of Constitutional rights is hard to figure.
Assistant Attorney General Frank Jung of Missouri, the home state of the messianic U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, told members of the state court Feb. 4 that the execution of Death Row inmate Joseph Amrine should proceed, regardless of his actual guilt or innocence. According to the Kansas City Star Feb. 6, the judges were "incredulous."
One asked: If a defendant is innocent, but no error [at trial] was made, should the defendant still be executed? Jung said that even if DNA evidence conclusively exonerated an inmate, the court would still need a Constitutional violation to stop an execution. Another asked: "Is it not cruel and unusual punishment to execute an innocent person? Jung replied, "If there is no underlying constitutional violation, there is not a right to relief." And another: "So you would put an innocent man to death as long as he had a fair trial?" Jung replied that the Supreme Court (under the leadership of Confederates William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia) has adopted the view that innocence should be considered only if a Constitutional violation has occurred. The Missouri Supreme Court, which turned down Amrine's appeals in 1987 and 1990, last year found the evidence murky enough to justify a new hearing.
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