United States News Digest
9/11 Commission Findings Confirm LaRouche Assessment
A review of pertinent parts of the Final Report of the 9/11 Commission, shows that the Commission has stuck to its guns on key findings that correspond to Lyndon LaRouche's assessment of the roots of the 9/11 plot, as was described in an article by Jeffrey Steinberg in the July 2 issue of EIR. This centered around LaRouche's evaluation that there had been either a high-level covert operation involving contaminated elements of the U.S. national security command, or that there had been a take-down of the system of internal U.S. security, which left the country vulnerable to such an attack.
What is remarkable is that, despite heavy pressure from the Bush-Cheney Administration, the findings of the Final Report do not measurably differ from the findings reported in the Commission's staff statements, which were issued simultaneously with its hearings on various subject-areas.
Some key findings, which tend to affirm LaRouche's assessments, are:
* That the incoming Bush Administration had received numerous briefings and reports on the international terrorist threat, and that National Security Council counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, a holdover from the Clinton Administration, had warned the incoming Bush-Cheney Administration of the terrorist danger, and insisted that "We urgently need ... a Principals level review on the al-Qaeda network." The Administration did not respond; no such Principals meeting on terrorism was held until Sept. 4, 2001, although there were 32 Principals meetings on other topics.
* That President Bush put Dick Cheney in charge of efforts to prepare for a terrorist attack in early May 2001, but that Cheney's task force did almost nothing, and "was just getting underway" four months later, at the point of the 9/11 attacks.
* That Attorney General John Ashcroft also was key in sabotaging any counter-terrorist preparations. The Report notes that FBI counter-terror chief Dale Watson charged that Ashcroft and the new Justice Department leadership "were not supportive" of the FBI's counter-terrorism strategy. Watson told the Commission "that he almost fell out of his chair" when he saw a May 2001 Justice Department budget guidance memo, which did not even mention counter-terrorism as a DOJ priority.
The Commission Report also repeats, word-for-word, the section of the earlier staff statement which indicated that Vice President Cheney had issued an order to shoot down suspected hijacked civilian aircraft, without prior authorization from the President.
The Final Report also notes that there were a number of contacts between Iraq and Osama bin Laden, but it concludes: "But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al-Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States."
Some Urge Caution on 9/11 Panel's Recommendations
While some members of Congress are calling for fast action on the 9/11 Commission's recommendations, the speed at which Congress can actually act, this late in a Presidential election year, remains an unanswered question. Adding to that impediment are notes of caution from many other members against acting too quickly before fully examining the ramifications of all of the commission's recommendations. Rep. Peter King (R-NY), a member of the House Select Homeland Security Committee, noted that "it took 50 years for this current intelligence system to develop...." While agreeing that reforms have to be made as quickly as possible, he said, "I wouldn't want to do it in a matter of weeks or even a few months...."
Adding to King's words of caution were Senators Chuck Hagel (R-Neb) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WVa). Hagel told the July 27 Washington Post, "We must be careful with what we do, and not overreact to political momentum and pressure.... Intelligence is finely tuned; there is no margin for error." Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the Select Intelligence Committee, warned that "Changing organizations to solve one problem can create weaknesses elsewhere. We must also remember that there are no easy solutions or silver bullets."
The issue that is creating the most concern is the proposal to create a post of National Intelligence Director within the White House. Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner (R-Va) has expressed concern that putting an intelligence director in the White House risks politicizing the position. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich) told CNN on July 25 that the greatest issue "is whether or not we can separate any kind of political pressure from the intelligence assessments.... We have got to make sure that the assessments which are provided are free from politics."
Byrd Hits Senate Cowardice on Iraq War
In a striking contrast to Senators John Kerry and John Edwards defending their votes for the Iraq war, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WVa) said in a July 24 interview with Salon.com that most Senators were cowardly and failed to carry out their responsibility when the Bush Administration sought their support for the Iraq war, based on misleading information.
"We don't ask enough questions," Byrd, who is the Dean of the Senate and a Constitutional scholar, said in an interview with Salon. "We didn't in the run-up to the war. The Senate was silent. And having come to the Senate when I did, and having seen and heard and worked with the type of Senators who were here, when I compare that in my own mind with our virtual cowardice about the war, the buildup to it, I'm very disappointed. I'm chagrined."
"We failed" on the question of the war, Byrd continued. "We relegated ourselves to the sidelines. How many times? How many times did I hear the words, 'Let's get this thing behind us. Let's talk about something else. It would be better for us in the election if we changed the subject.'"
When asked why Democratic Senators were so silent, Byrd said that Senators who were running for reelection "were afraid," that they "didn't want to be charged with being unpatriotic.... They believed the garbage that was being spewed out by the administration."
Byrd cited Vice President Cheney's speech to the VFW in August 2002, where he said that there was no doubt that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, as an example of how the Cheney-Bush Administration misled the Congress.
Asked if this administration is even worse than the Nixon Administration, Byrd answered: "Of course it is." He noted that in this administration, there are "some carry-overs from the Nixon Administration who are right smack in the middle of the arrogance," including Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.
Homeland Security Buildup Decimating City Police Forces
Cities across the nation are slashing their police forces and eliminating specialized law enforcement units that helped reduce crime in the 1990s, amid Federal aid cutbacks and Federally mandated redeployments of police to combat terrorism, according to a July 27 report in the New York Times. Police chiefs lament the destructive impact on crime-fighting, even as money flows to Homeland Security.
Cleveland, for example, has laid off 250 police officers15% of its total force, this year. Moreover, the city has re-assigned detectives to patrol duties, eliminated gang and auto-theft squads, and closed mini-stations in poor neighborhoods.
Many of the nation's 17,000 police forces have been ordered by the Federal government to deploy more officers to fight terrorism. Combined with sharp cutbacks in Federal and state aid to local police departments, this has led to officers "sitting in patrol cars waiting for calls for service after a crime has been committed," complained Donald Pussehl Jr., the police chief in Saginaw, Michigan.
"They are robbing Peter to pay Paul," charged Joe Polisar, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the police chief in Garden Grove, California, referring to Federal money taken from local police departments, being used to set up Homeland Security programs.
Computer Loses Voting Records in Florida
Most of the electronic voting records from the 2002 elections in Miami-Dade County, Florida, have been lost as a result of computer crashes, raising further concerns about the unreliability of touch-screen voting machines, according to media accounts July 28. A citizens' group uncovered the loss of the records, after requesting all audit data from the gubernatorial primary; there now is no computer data for that election.
Numerous problems afflicted Miami-Dade voting in that primary: touch-screen machines took much longer than expected to boot up; polling places opened late; and poorly-trained poll workers started up and shut down the machines incorrectly. The ACLU found that 1,544 votes, or 8%, were "lost"a figure which is considered unusually high. One study found that voters using touch-screen machines were six times more likely to have a "no vote" recorded, as voters using optical scanning devices.
Bush on Anti-Depressants To Control His Behavior
The sometimes-reliable Washington leak sheet, Capitol Hill Blue, reported July 28 that President Bush is being given powerful anti-depressant drugs to control his erratic behavior, depression and paranoia; the anti-depressants were prescribed by White House physician Col. Richard Tubb after Bush flew off the handle at a July 8 press conference, where he was asked about his relationship to indicted Enron chief Kenneth Lay.
Capitol Hill Blue says that its previous reports on Bush's mood swings and obscene outbursts were confirmed in the recent book on Bush, Bush on the Couch, by prominent psychiatrist Dr. Justin Frank, which diagnosed Bush as a "paranoid meglomaniac" and an "untreated alcoholic."
One long-time GOP consultant is quoted as saying that he is advising his Republican Congressional candidates to keep their distance from the President. "We may have to face the very real possibility that the President of the United States is loony tunes," he says. "That's not good for my candidates, it's not good for the party, and it's certainly not good for the country."
Then, the July 29 edition of Capitol Hill Blue reports that a sullen Bush "is withdrawing more and more from aides and senior staff, retreating into a private, paranoid world where only the ardent loyalists are welcome."
A top Republican adviser says: "The George W. Bush we see today is not the same, gregarious, back-slapping President of old. He's moody, distrustful, and withdrawn."
Only close advisers such as Karl Rove and Karen Hughes are allowed into the tight inner circle around Bush. Among Cabinet members, only Attorney General John Ashcroft remains part of the inner circle, with both of them believing they are on a mission from God.
Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge is said to be complaining that he gets very little time with the President, and that he gets most of his marching orders from Ashcroft, who is called "Bush's Himmler" by Ridge's staff.
"Too many make the mistake of thinking Dick Cheney is the real power in the Bush Administration," says a senior Homeland Security aide. "They're wrong. It's Ashcroft and that is reason enough for us all to be very, very afraid."
But, the article notes, Cheney does remain part of Bush's tight inner circle, while Defense Secretary Rumsfeld is said to have fallen out of favor, and is planning on leaving, no matter what happens in November.
White House aides say that the West Wing has been overtaken by a "siege mentality," which some compare to the last days of Richard Nixon.
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