DETROIT -- Rummy went on a rant and the entire cast of Bush war-mongers is confused, dazed, and trying to salvage credibility -- and, more importantly -- political support for the chaos they've created.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is scrambling to keep his all-powerful department in control of just about everything around the world. But, alas, even his crotchety confidence is showing some frazzle. But that's actually a good thing.
Field Marshall Rumsfeld, in a rare moment shelving his usual arrogance and petulance, wrote a thoughtful memo to his top subordinates raising important and fundamental questions about the effectiveness of the military campaigns to root out terrorism.
The memo was leaked to USA Today, and the Fox News Channel dutifully reported Rumsfeld was "livid." That means Rummy himself authorized the leak, and he turned to the government's favorite news agency to cover his tracks.
The memo underlines the lie the Bush administration tries to sell in its P.R. campaign to convince us that things are hunky-dory in post-war Iraq and terrorism around the world is on the run.
Rummy says flat-out, "We are having mixed results with (tracking down) al-Qaeda." I'll say. Then he gets to a crunch issue that should have been addressed in government war councils long ago.
"Does the U.S. need to fashion a broad, integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists? ... How do we stop those who are financing the radical madrassa schools?"
Most of the money for those little academies of hate has always and continues to come from Saudi Arabia and the fanatic Wahhabis. You can find the training schools for the next generation of terrorists primarily in Yemen, Pakistan (where bin Laden is probably holed up), still some in Afghanistan, and into Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Notice Iraq doesn't make the list. It never was fertile ground for al-Qaeda, but the war and occupation there have made it a symbol and recruitment tool for terror. The shift of focus away from al-Qaeda and the shaping of intelligence to make Iraq the center of the war on terror have created dire consequences and made our nation less secure.
In a chilling analysis in the current issue of "The New Yorker," Seymour Hersh details how the Bush administration twisted intelligence reports to give decision-makers the "facts" they wanted to make the case against Saddam.
Hersh writes the president had made up his mind to go to war with Iraq before U.N. weapons inspectors even arrived there and the plans to remove Saddam were hatched long before Sept 11.
"The undeclared decision had a devastating impact on the continuing war against terrorism. The Bush administration took many intelligence operations that had been aimed at al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups around the world and redirected then to the Persian Gulf. Linguists and special operations were reassigned and several ongoing antiterrorism intelligence programs were curtailed," Hersh reports.
That helps explain why Afghanistan remains a wild mess and bin Laden makes videos in his cave-motel and plots more terror.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is preparing to release a scathing report slamming the CIA for overstating the weapons of mass destruction and terrorist threat of Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
The Washington Post reports the committee staff found troubling the disputed information, single sources and circumstantial evidence the CIA used in preparing important intelligence documents. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the committee, said, "I worry about the credibility of the intelligence community," and he added the president was "ill-served" since the CIA information was "sloppy." How convenient.
Remember, CIA Director George Tenet already took the fall for the fabricated story the president used so effectively in his State of the Union address -- that Saddam Hussein was shopping for enriched uranium in Niger.
The CIA took responsibility for the lie, but until this day, the White House has refused to identify which speechwriter and who else in the administration insisted on including the lie in the speech.
Months later, after the CIA told the White House repeatedly that the Niger uranium story was a hoax, Bush embellished the tale. He told a crowd in Cincinnati that if Iraq got its mitts on a chunk of enriched uranium, "it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year."
Then, using rhetoric rooted in lies to support his rush to war, the president warned, in solemn tones, "Facing clear evidence of peril we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun, that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
Bush lied like hell, scared the hell out of the American people, got the war he wanted, and now the world is paying a hell of a price for his dirty deeds. But George W. Bush is the last person on earth who will take any responsibility for the planned deception.
Enter the CIA.
Blame the intelligence community and the White House is off the hook.
Notice that every time CIA Director Tenet takes the rap and sells out the committed professionals in the agency, the White House praises his work and gives him another vote of confidence. That's no coincidence, folks.
Besides the president himself, the person most responsible for the phony weapons of mass destruction case is Vice President Dick Cheney, who still repeats some of the lies even Bush has tossed.
Cheney and his henchmen would drive up to CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., and look over the shoulders of career CIA analysts, questioning the quality and accuracy of their work, chiding them for not looking hard enough for evidence to support their preconceived conclusions about Iraq.
The only "clear evidence" in this process was the ham-handed intimidation Cheney used to get his way. Rumsfeld joined in the pressure when he created a new unit in the Department of Defense, the Office of Special Plans, to generate "refined" intelligence for his use.
These political operatives sidestepped the Pentagon's own intelligence arm and the CIA, and came up with information Rumsfeld and Cheney wanted to hear -- Saddam was ready to unleash terror on the world and he must be stopped now. A colossal lie, obvious now to all with eyes to see.
A former CIA administrator says the White House "had exerted unprecedented pressure on the CIA and other intelligence agencies to find evidence that Iraq had links to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda and that Baghdad was trying to build a nuclear bomb."
Vince Cannistraro, former CIA operations chief, told the British Financial Times that the Bush administration's exposure of a CIA undercover operative was part of a campaign to discredit U.S. intelligence agencies for not supporting claims that Saddam was preparing threatening weapons.
Cannistraro says CIA officer Valerie Plame's cover was blown for vengeance. "She was outed as a vindictive act because the agency was not providing support for policy statements that Saddam Hussein was reviving his nuclear program."
The CIA had sent Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, to Niger to check out the enriched uranium claims. He was most skeptical.
Other fronts of absurdity, obfuscation and denial are emerging as the Bush administration tries to keep a grip on events. Secretary of State Powell says he's pleased other nations will kick in $13 billion in aid to help rebuild Iraq. Most of that money is in the form of loans. Interestingly, the president and most of the Republicans in Congress say no to loans and insist the entire $87 billion they want for Iraq be in the form of giveaway grants and the American taxpayers will pickup the whole tab. People should be outraged with that one.
The federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is getting stonewalled. I, for one, am not the least bit surprised. George W. Bush opposed the creation of the commission for more than a year and only yielded under pressure from the families of the murdered.
Then he named Henry Kissinger, the truth's undertaker, to be the chairman of the independent commission. When old Henry refused to reveal the foreign governments he's working for, that ploy failed.
Thomas Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now chairman and he's trying hard to get the job done. He says the White House is withholding key documents and he's being forced to subpoena information.
George W. Bush doesn't want the public to know about the warnings he ignored and the depth of the involvement important Saudis had in the attacks.
Another point Rumsfeld made in his memo is telling. He said, "Today, we lack metrics to know if we're winning or losing the war on terrorism."
As long as Bush is in the White House, we're losing.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | October 28 2003 |