United States News Digest
Obey Calls on Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz To Resign
Representative David Obey (D-Wisc.), the ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, sent a letter to President Bush on Sept. 5 suggesting that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, two of the leading chickenhawks in the Administration, be "allowed" to "return to the private sector."
Obey said that miscalculations by Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld have cost American lives in Iraq and damaged the nation's fiscal health. He also said that the Pentagon should be relieved of its role in determining foreign policy. "It is impossible to review the record of the past year and not conclude that they have made repeated and serious miscalculations," he wrote.
The Wisconsin Democrat's criticism of the war policy continued on Sept. 6. In an interview with the Capitol Times of Madison, Wisc., Obey called Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz "raving romantics." He said that, before the March invasion, "they had wildly romantic ideas about how easy it was going to be to turn Iraq into a second coming of New Hampshire in terms of democracy."
Obey said that he had thought long and hard before suggesting to President Bush that two members of his Administration should leave. "But the more I looked at what is happening in Iraq, at what is happening with our allies, and at what is happening here in the United States, the more I came to the conclusion that this was necessary."
In a Sept. 8 interview with CNN's Soledad O'Brien, Obey was even more explicit as to the source of Rumsfeld's and Wolfowitz's miscalculations. After rejecting the intelligence they were getting from the CIA and the Defense Department, Obey said Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz "set up their own intelligence operation to get more comfortable intelligence estimates." He further noted that they pushed the State Department's post-invasion planning efforts aside, "and the result is what you see in Iraq every day."
Drumbeat Sounds To Dump Pentagon Straussian Wolfowitz
In its Oct. 26, 2001 issue, EIR reported that the " 'Wolfowitz Cabal' is an Enemy Within U.S.," warning that this grouping was openly talking about "embarking on the next Hundred Years' War." EIR wrote, "Here we will name the names of the fanatics in this anti-Iraq grouping who have become known as the 'Wolfowitz cabal,' named for Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz." For this grouping "Iraq is just another stepping stone to turning the anti-terrorist 'war' into a full-blown 'Clash of Civilizations' where the Islamic religion would become the 'enemy image' in a 'new Cold War.' "
But pitching a "Hundred Years' War" was not what Wolfowitz and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld brought to President Bush. Instead, the Pentagon forecast a "cakewalk" that would pay for itself. Now that Iraq is described as a "black hole," a "quagmire," a "guerrilla war," "Vietnam in the desert," and America's "Gaza Strip," it is widely reported that Bush is said to have concluded that he was "misled" about what to expect when Baghdad fell. The knives are out for Paul Wolfowitz.
*On Sept. 8, in the London Financial Times, Stephen Walt, the Dean of the Harvard University Diplomatic School called on Bush to fire Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice. Walt wrote that "Bush needs a Mideast exit plan," warning that the "U.S. now stands on the brink of a costly quagmire," because "the President went to war on the basis of very bad advice. He should, therefore, get rid of the people who gave it to him, and bring in an new team with a fresh perspective.
"President George W. Bush should start by asking for the resignations of the people who got us into this messbeginning with Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, his deputy, and national security advisor Condoleezza Rice. The architects of this war have been proven wrong on almost every account."
*In the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Sept. 8, the deputy-editor of the Editorial page, Jay Bookman, recounts the promises by Paul Wolfowitz and his closest associates such as Under Secretary Doug Feith, that the "occupation" would be five to six months (where we are now), and that Iraq's oil wealth would make it unnecessary to ask other countries for financial help with reconstruction.
Wolfowitz "and his colleagues ought to be fired," Bookman says. "Not only did they believe those fantasies, they also made their ideological pipe dreams the basis of our postwar planning, and today we're reaping the consequences."
*"Wolfowitz is gone," declared Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), according to the Wall Street Journal of Sept. 9. Murtha, a Vietnam War veteran, is a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee who was a strong supporter of the 1990-91 Gulf War. Murtha's statement typifies the growing fury in Congress, even among some Republicans, over optimistic projections Wolfowitz gave just months ago for the occupation and rebuilding costs in Iraq. Wolfowitz told a House subcommittee in March that Iraq would generate $50-100 billion per year in oil revenues over the next two or three years, so it could finance its own reconstruction; now, Iraqi oil revenue are projected at zero this year, $12 billion next year, and $20 billion for 2005 and 2006.
Tide Begins To Turn Against Bush on Capitol Hill
Small numbers of Republicans worried about getting re-elected next year, crossed to the Democratic side of the aisle in a series of votes on Sept. 9 and 10 to hand President Bush political defeats on domestic policies.
The turn began in the House on Sept. 9 when House leaders included a 4.1% pay raise for Federal employees, in the Transportation, Treasury and General Government appropriations bill. The Bush Administration had requested only a 2% raise for Federal employees, with a 4.1% raise only for military personnel. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) argued that Congress should uphold the principle of pay parity, calling it "a matter of fairness" and also "an effective method of ensuring ... quality Federal employees." The bill passed by a vote of 381 to 39.
However, it was the issue of outsourcing of Federal jobs which is bringing on veto threats from the White House. During the debate, the House voted 220 to 198 against plans by the Office of Management and Budget to overhaul its rules for outsourcing. The vote came on an amendment by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) that would force the OMB to return to an earlier version of the rules, known as Circular A-76. The OMB has been seeking to reduce the amount of time it takes to run competitions to outsource government work, from the present two to four years, down to 12-18 months. Van Hollen charged that the proposed revision of A-76 is "part of an ideologically run agenda to contract out" more Federal government jobs. He said that under the present rules, Federal employees win about 60% of the competitions, but under the revision, that would drop to about 10%, according to written statements circulated by the Private Contractors Association. "It rigs the process against Federal employees, and it is a bad deal for taxpayers," he said.
The turn against the Bush Administration did not stop with the House. On Sept. 10, the Senate voted 54 to 45 to prohibit the enforcement of a new overtime rule promulgated by the Department of Labor, that would make it easier for employers to reclassify employees such that they would no longer be eligible for overtime compensation. The vote came on an amendment, sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Ia.), to the appropriations bill funding the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. The Democrats, using figures supplied by organized labor, argued that the new rules would make some 8 million workers ineligible for overtime pay. Six Republicans crossed over to vote with the Democrats.
Marine General: Infrastructure, Jobs Key to Iraqi Security
Marine Lieutenant General James T. Conway, the commander of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, during a briefing at the Pentagon said, in response to a question from EIR, that rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, especially the electricity grid, "will have a very positive effect on security." He noted that none of the factories are working, in part because of the lack of dependable electricity, and that has meant that young Iraqis, especially, have few ways to make a living. "If we can get them into the factories, get them into the militia, get them into the new Iraqi army, I think we'll be helping ourselves in the process," but that that "has to happen pretty quickly." He further noted that the Iraqis are impatient and that they're holding the U.S. to the "man on the Moon standard." "In their mind," he said, "it should have happened, yesterday, and so we probably can't do it too soon."
Conway's command is in the process of turning over responsibility for the area of southern Iraq around Najaf over to the Polish-led multinational division. He reported that there are still about 8,000 Marines left in Iraq but that they'll be pulling out over the next two weeks.
Bush's $87-Billion Iraq Request Faces Scrutiny
President Bush's Sept. 7 announcement that he would be seeking $87 billion in supplemental funding for U.S. operations in Iraq may meet resistance. Most of the Republican leadership, and at least a few Democrats, are promising to move the money as fast as possible "to help the troops." But most Democrats and even a handful of Republicans are warning that the White House and the Pentagon will have to answer a lot of questions before the money is released.
A statement by House Appropriations Committee chairman Bill Young (R-Fla.) was indicative of the GOP response. "It is my intention," he said, "to aggressively expedite the President's request.... We have troops in harms way and we should provide them every resource available to ensure their safety." Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), speaking at a Sept. 9 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, claimed that the $87 billion was accounted for in the fiscal 2004 budget plan and so would not add to the deficit.
However, hinting of the resistance under the surface, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who was one of the first three Senators to visit Iraq after the war, told a Washington conference that he and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee leadership, chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and ranking Democrat Joe Biden (D-Md.), will demand answersnot evasionsabout where the money will go, when, and why, and may tie their approval to the White House asking support of the United Nations.
Anti-war Democrats see the request as an admission of the Bush Administration's policy failure. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), speaking to reporters on Sept. 10, said that Democrats want "an accounting, that what the President is requesting" will make our troops "more safe and more secure...." She added that "if we're going to spend billions and billions of dollars rebuilding the infrastructure and creating jobs in Iraq, we should be spending at least that much rebuilding the infrastructure and creating jobs in the United States."
Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.), the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, warned that the $87 billion would only be a down payment on a policy which is going to cost a lot more. Representative Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), also a member of the appropriations panel, said the request "confirms that the Administration went to war unprepared to secure the peace." She backed the request for the money, however. While none have apparently spoken out publicly against Bush's policy, a few Republicans are reported to be quietly concerned about having to go back home to explain why the U.S. should spend so much money in Iraq while their constituents are losing their jobs.
Nuclear Physicist Edward Teller Dies at 95
On Sept. 9, Dr. Edward Teller, a most controversial figure in science, died at his home in California. Teller, who worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic (fission) bomb during the Second World War, helped design the hydrogen (fusion) bomb afterwards. He was a strong promoter of the civilian uses of nuclear energy for electricity production, underground explosions for excavation for great projects, and propulsion for space. He campaigned for decades against the imposition of government secrecy in science.
Teller became well known for his lobbying for, and promotion of, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program that President Reagan announced on March 23, 1983.
Last year, writing a reply to the Daily Telegraph's review of Teller's memoirs, Lyndon LaRouche stated: "Dr. Edward Teller and I never got along well personally, after my mid-1907s attack on his role in promoting the energy policies of Nelson A. Rockefeller's Commission on Critical Choices. Nonetheless, on some issues, including what became known as President Ronald Reagan's SDI, Teller and I came to a degree of agreement on the issues which brought us into common cause against both Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov and nuclear madmen such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samuel P. Huntington, and the ultra-utopian nest around Lt. Gen. (ret) Daniel P. Graham's Heritage Foundation."
Dr. Teller, LaRouche reported, was "pushed" into supporting the SDI by some of his "young friends" at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, promoting the development, in particular, of nuclear-pumped, space-based x-ray lasers for strategic defense. Later, these same "friends," he states, unfortunately convinced Teller to compromise with Graham and his utopian ideologues. But, as LaRouche has often quoted him, and similar to LaRouche's own thinking, Teller understood that a science-driver cooperation program for SDI, "would go beyond merely military concerns, to promote ... 'the common aims of mankind.' " On July 23, 2003, President Bush awarded Edward Teller the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which was accepted for him by his daughter.
Revive John Quincy Adams, Says Writer
Revive the legacy of America's founders by recalling the "1821 words of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams," writes American commentator Ilana Mercer in the Toronto Globe and Mail. The Adams quote Mercer cites, says, "America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher of the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."
Mercer, a columnist for the conservative webservice WorldNetDaily, says that Bush has "junked the American Constitution" in his push for promoting "global freedom," etc., "with blood and treasure not his own." Iraq is a "quagmire," and this is creating a "warfare state" that is "more intractable" than the "welfare state." She says "the U.S. is desperate" and the American people should stop "lapping up" Bush's gibberish ("the political equivalent of speaking in tongues") and go back to John Quincy Adams.
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