In this issue:

John Dean Raises Serious New Charges

Movement Grows To 'Bring 'Em Home' From Iraq

California Recall Outcome Will Shape 2004 Elections

West Nile Explodes Nationwide— Stop It Cold With DDT

From Volume 2, Issue Number 34 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Aug. 26, 2003

United States News Digest

John Dean Raises Serious New Charges

"Nixon never set up a hit on one of his enemies' wives," wrote John W. Dean, the former Presidential counsel to Richard Nixon, and key Watergate witness, in a blistering condemnation of the Bush Administration—especially "the Vice President, Cabinet officers, and top White House officials"—for the "outing" of Valerie Plame Wilson, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. These are criminal violations, under Federal statutes under which people should go to jail, he wrote in an article published in findlaw.com Aug. 15.

Dean also blasted columnist Robert Novak for being the first to eagerly and cynically blow this story, attributing it to "two senior Administration officials."

But Novak did nothing to "dig" for the story. Rather, said Dean, it was fed to him, and to other news agencies.

"Why is the Administration so avidly leaking this information? The answer is clear. Former Ambassador Wilson is famous, lately for telling the truth about the Bush Administration's bogus claim that Niger uranium had gone to Saddam Hussein, and the Bush Administration is punishing Wilson by targeting his wife. It is also sending a message to others who might dare to defy it, and reveal the truth.... [Mrs. Wilson's] future, if not her safety, are now in jeopardy."

Dean asks, "Will they get away with it?" calling this "arguably worse" than anything that Nixon's White House ever did. And the leaks violate U.S. law, says Dean. "The ONLY question is: Whodunnit?

"The Espionage Act of 1917 and the Intelligence and Identities Protection Act of 1982 may both apply," writes Dean, citing a 1984 case under the Espionage Act that sent the leaker to jail for giving classified pictures to Jane's Defence Weekly. A mid-1980s case sent a CIA clerk to prison for two years under the Agent Identities Act for giving away identities she had learned in her job.

Dean says that all of the conditions for prosecution of the leaker—someone "on the inside"—not the journalists, have been met. He then details how the White House and Bush himself—the son of a former Director of the CIA—have done nothing to investigate this incident, which Dean calls "the most vicious leak I have seen in over 40 years of government-watching."

Dean also defends and praises Sen. Durbin, who demanded an investigation into the Plame/Wilson leak, and has found himself under attack for ... "leaking information."

Dean says that Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla) has said the Wilson leak will be part of the House Intelligence Committee's investigation, and that the FBI has also opened an investigation.

Movement Grows To 'Bring 'Em Home' From Iraq

The following article by Carl Osgood initially appeared in New Federalist newspaper.

The National Press Club was the scene, on Aug. 13, of a packed and emotionally charged press conference by the groups Military Families Speak Out and Veterans for Peace, demanding that the occupation of Iraq be ended and that the American military forces there be brought home to their families and loved ones. Nancy Lessin, a co-founder of Military Families Speak Out, whose stepson just returned from duty in Iraq, noted President Bush's "bring 'em on" comments, calling them "three words of false bravado uttered by Bush from a safe and secure location at the White House," as opposed to the troops in Iraq, who are seeing violence and death every day amidst terrible living and working conditions. "They shouldn't be there," she said, given that there was no immediate threat to the U.S.; no weapons of mass destruction have been found, nor, she said, any link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

Another speaker at the press conference, Susan Shuman of Shelburne, Mass., reported that her son, a member of the Massachusetts National Guard who has been in Iraq since late March, works 20 hours a day, in 120-degree heat, is rationed to two liters of water a day, and has eaten nothing but MREs for 130 days. She also reported that her son has said to her in e-mails that conditions are far worse than has been reported in the press, with major violent incidents occurring at the rate of 30-40 per day. The truth is, according to her son, that the country is in chaos, there has been a lack of planning and a lack of basic equipment and supplies for the troops. They have become oppressors, and they are stuck in a quagmire.

When Pentagon acting spokesman Larry DiRita was asked later that afternoon about the charges by these families that the Bush Administration has "betrayed" the troops, about all he could do was express his sympathy for them, and admit that Iraq "remains a dangerous place." Director of Operations Lt. Gen. Norton Schwartz chimed in on the importance of the troop rotation plan announced a few weeks ago. "Each individual," he said, "will know when they will be coming home." - Gulf War Syndrome II? -

Meanwhile, rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices are not the only perils facing U.S. troops in Iraq. Steve Robinson, the executive director of the National Gulf War Resources Center, reported to this news service on Aug. 15 that the Defense Department is once again lying about the health conditions those troops are facing. While the Department of the Army has reported that 17 soldiers have been evacuated from Iraq and surrounding countries with an unexplained, pneumonia-like illness (two have died), Robinson told EIR that he has been told by contacts of his in the U.S. military in Germany that in fact, the actual number is in the hundreds. Robinson has joined with the families of the two dead soldiers, to demand that the DOD involve the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the epidemiological investigation that the Army Surgeon General has initiated, and that the DOD be more responsive to requests for information regarding the deaths of the two soldiers.

The treatment of military personnel involved in the present operations in Iraq is a lightning rod issue for veterans of the 1991 Gulf War, because of the fact that they've been fighting for 12 years for recognition and treatment of their illnesses. Robinson said that this record shows that the Pentagon should not be allowed to investigate itself.

More generally, Robinson's organization is also demanding clarification on other non-combat deaths. He pointed out that the definition of a "non-combat casualty" is now so broad that it could include anything—suicide, homicide, wilful misconduct. "We don't know what that means," he said. A review of Pentagon press releases identifying casualties in Iraq, shows 21 non-combat-related deaths of soldiers between July 1 and Aug. 15, including three who allegedly died in their sleep, two who fell off roofs of buildings, and one who died of a "non-hostile gunshot wound." "We're concerned about the way they're reporting causes of death," he said.

The Pentagon announcements show that, in many cases, they are not reporting causes of death. Robinson fully expects there will be hearings in Congress on the issue of the health protection of the deployed troops, come September.

California Recall Outcome Will Shape 2004 Elections

The "recall" election scheduled against California Governor Gray Davis, coming as it does in the most Democratic-dominated state in the Union, will be critical in shaping the political climate for the 2004 elections. What is in process is an attempt to shatter both the Democratic Party, and the political process as a whole.

One critical element which the recall sponsors did not expect, however, was the energy blackout crisis of Aug. 14. This puts a spotlight on California, the scene of the biggest energy crisis until now, and the deregulation policies which spawned it. It also hands sane people, especially the LaRouche Youth Movement, a crucial weapons, because behind "Arnie," are the same "free trade" maniacs behind the energy deregulation insanities, typified by the now-bankrupt Enron Corporation, which looted California to the bone. They include the American Enterprise Institute, Washington ideologue Grover Norquist, and the London Adam Smith Institute.

Most telling, are the hard-core top advisers of the "Terminator." One is Warren Buffett, the mega-speculator, who is the second richest man in the world. Another is former Secretary of State George Shultz, who, in an earlier incarnation during the Nixon Administration, played a seminal role in the Aug. 15, 1971 decoupling of the U.S. dollar from gold, thereby wrecking the postwar Bretton Woods system, and setting in motion the "floating-exchange-rate" disaster of the past three decades. A third is former Republican California Governor Pete Wilson, who brought the deregulation insanity into California in the first place.

Interestingly, on Aug. 18, no less of a "Democrat" (for the Democratic Leadership Council, of course) than Lazard Freres banker Felix Rohatyn weighed in behind Schwarzenegger's policy team. Rohatyn told the Los Angeles Times that financier Warren Buffett "can bring integrity to the process." Rohatyn said he is "quite certain that Warren believes this situation is serious" in the California economy, adding, ominously, "There isn't a single thing I knew how to do [in New York City] that Warren Buffett isn't able to do better."

For those who remember Rohatyn's "Big Mac" of 1975, that should be a chilling foretaste of what the bankers are planning for California, if the population does not rally to defeat the recall, and follow the policy lines of LaRouche.

West Nile Explodes Nationwide— Stop It Cold With DDT

The nation is still weeks away from the peak season for the mosquito-borne West Nile Virus (WNV), yet the U.S. Centers for the Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that by Aug. 14, the number of cases of WNV had tripled nationally from the previous week. Just a week before that, the CDC had reported that the cases of WNV had tripled over the previous week. The year 2003 is on the way to outstripping last year's West Nile epidemic, which the CDC says was "unprecedented in its scope and scale."

So far, in 2003, the CDC has documented 536 cases of the virus in all but seven states, with 11 fatalities; it cautions that the number is increasing dramatically.

We have a major public health emergency—as WNV whips through the nation each summer with greater intensity and deadly impact, since its advent in New York City in 1999. The Federal government has refused to take the leadership needed to launch a national military-style mosquito eradication program, like the one in the American South that saved thousands of lives during World War II through judicious use of DDT. Now, with the explosion of WNV, more and more policymakers are echoing Lyndon LaRouche's call to reverse the ban on DDT and use it to conquer mosquito vector diseases like West Nile, Dengue fever, and malaria, which kill a million people a year.

Humans usually contract WNV when bitten by an infected female mosquito; the disease can cause mild symptoms or severe, potentially fatal, neurological illnesses, including encephalitis and meningitis. At least 40 mosquito species are known to be West Nile transmitters—and they are out in every region, day and night. In 2002, probably hundreds of thousands of people contracted WNV in 48 states. There were 4,100 confirmed cases, and 284 deaths (11, 000 horses contracted it; 1 million birds died). An unknown number of other patients experienced long-time neurological damage or polio-like paralysis. - Colorado: Health Emergency -

The worst outbreak in the nation this year is in Colorado, where more than 50% of all WNV cases are found. Colorado's 392 human cases, with seven fatalities, are occurring alongside West Nile-infected animals and birds in nearly every county in the state. Larimer and Weld Counties have declared a public health emergency and requested Federal money for mosquito spraying. Even Dr. Lyle Peterson, acting director of the CDC's Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases in Colorado now has the virus, after he was bitten on a trip to the mailbox.

Dr. Jim Olson, an entomologist with a Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, warned that bird-reservoired, mosquito-borne viruses tend to build up during the early to middle part of the summer: "Mosquito-borne diseases like West Nile then begin to spill over into the human population in late summer, from August until the coming of cold weather.... Thus, the chances for people to be encountered by an infected mosquito go way up." That is, unless we take the steps outlined by LaRouche to obliterate the disease-carrying insects now.

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