Policy Issues

Bush's Lead Balloon*

We did not expect President Bush to come before the United Nations in the middle of his re-election campaign and acknowledge the serious mistakes his administration has made on Iraq. But that still left plenty of room for him to take advantage of this one last chance to appeal to an increasingly antagonistic world . . instead, Mr. Bush delivered an inexplicably defiant campaign speech in which he glossed over the current dire situation in Iraq for an audience acutely aware of the true state of affairs, and scolded them for refusing to endorse the American invasion. . .Mr. Bush might have done better at wooing broader international support if he had spent less time on self-justification and scolding and more on praising the importance of international cooperation and a strengthened United Nations. Instead, . . . a perverse kind of alchemy, transforming a golden opportunity into a lead balloon. NY Times Editorial, 9/22/04 MORE

The Bush Myth*

In early 2002 the Bush administration, already focused on Iraq, ignored pleas to commit more forces to Afghanistan. As a result, the Taliban is resurgent, and Osama is still out there.  In the buildup to the Iraq war, commanders wanted a bigger invasion force to help secure the country. But civilian officials, eager to prove that wars can be fought on the cheap, refused. And that's one main reason our soldiers are still dying in Iraq.  This past April, U.S. forces, surely acting on White House orders after American television showed gruesome images of dead contractors, attacked Falluja. Lt. Gen. James Conway, the Marine commander on the scene, opposed "attacking out of revenge" but was overruled - and he was overruled again with an equally disastrous decision to call off the attack after it had begun. "Once you commit," General Conway said, "you got to stay committed." But Mr. Bush, faced with the prospect of a casualty toll that would have hurt his approval rating, didn't. Krugman, NY Times, 9/14/04 MORE

Bush's Myopic Vision*

Iraq will be lucky if it manages to avoid a breakup and civil war, says a new report from Britain's highly regarded Royal Institute of International Affairs. Moreover, Iraq could become the spark for a regionwide upheaval.  In a bleak assessment of where Iraq stands nearly 18 months after it was invaded, the institute's Middle East team focused on the internal forces dividing the country. . .The "default" scenario, though, is the violent breakup of Iraq, the report said. "Under this scenario, Kurdish separatism and Shitte assertiveness work against a smooth transition to elections, while the Sunni Arab minority remains on the offensive," it said. The breakup could occur regardless of whether "the U.S. cuts and runs" or whether "U.S. forces try to hold out and prop up the central authority," it said. L.A. Times 9/3/04 More

Bush's Hiroshima

William Perry, the former secretary of defense, says there is an even chance of a nuclear terror strike within this decade - that is, in the next six years.  "We're racing toward unprecedented catastrophe," Mr. Perry warns. "This is preventable, but we're not doing the things that could prevent it."  . . .The Bush administration responded aggressively on military fronts after 9/11, . . .But the White House has insisted on tackling the most peripheral elements of the W.M.D. threat, like Iraq, while largely ignoring the central threat, nuclear proliferation. The upshot is that the risk that a nuclear explosion will devastate an American city is greater now than it was during the cold war, and it's growing.  KRISTOF, NY Times, 8/11/04

Bush Grants bin Laden's Wish*

the intelligence community is at war with the White House, . . .[The} conflict went public last week with news of the impending publication of Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terrorism, a book by an anonymous author who is known to be a senior CIA official and former chief of the agency's Osama bin Laden station.  The invasion of Iraq was "an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat," the author writes. "There is nothing that bin Laden could have hoped for more than the American invasion and occupation of Iraq." . . .The military has made no secret of its fury with Rumsfeld and his coterie of neoconservatives at the Pentagon. Rumsfeld has been faulted for committing too few troops and too little planning  Joe Kein, Time, 6/26/04

The Fruit of Bush's Incompetent Foreign Policy*

Two-and-a-half years after a U.S.-led war ousted the Taliban regime, poppies -- the raw material for heroin -- are appearing all over Afghanistan.  . .After the Taliban banned the cultivation of opium poppies four years ago, the size of the crop shrank dramatically. Now, Afghan opium is once again the source of 70 percent of the world's heroin. Last year, Afghan drug farmers and traffickers earned $2.3 billion, . . .
The drug trade also provides cash for Taliban and al-Qaida fighters as well as for regional warlords. . .Some foreign policy analysts place part of the blame for the drug bonanza on a decision by the Bush administration to station a relatively small number of troops in Afghanistan after the war that removed the Taliban regime in November 2001. JOHN OTIS, Houston Chronicle, 6/20/04

Bush's Imperial Hubris*

A senior US intelligence official is about to publish a bitter condemnation of America's counter-terrorism policy, arguing that the west is losing the war against al-Qaida and that an "avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked" war in Iraq has played into Osama bin Laden's hands.
Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, due out next month, dismisses two of the most frequent boasts of the Bush administration: that Bin Laden and al-Qaida are "on the run" and that the Iraq invasion has made America safer. His book describes the Iraq invasion as "an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat but whose defeat did offer economic advantage. Julian Borger, The Guardian, 6/19/04

Duped*

Much of Chalabi's dubious intelligence was funneled to the DIA through top Pentagon civilians. Under Secretary Feith himself signed a long and detailed summary of the intelligence linking Saddam to terrorists and WMD. . .But Chalabi has clearly lost his get-out-of-jail-free card. . . .the FBI, NEWSWEEK has learned, is investigating whether Chalabi and his aide passed classified information to the Iranian government, as well as who in the U.S. government might have leaked it. A few American spooks even speculate that Habib has been working for Tehran all along—to the point of spreading disinformation about Saddam's WMD stockpiles to help lure the Americans into toppling Saddam,  Evan Thomas and Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, 5/31/04 Issue

Bush, Rumsfeld Incompetent*

Retired Marine General Anthony Zinni, former chief of U.S. Central Command, accused senior Pentagon officials of failure in executing the Iraq war and told CBS' "60 Minutes" Sunday they should resign. "Somebody has screwed up. And at this level and at this stage, it should be evident to everybody that they've screwed up. And whose heads are rolling on this? That's what bothers me most," Zinni said without naming names. Zinni told "60 Minutes": "I think there was dereliction in insufficient forces being put on the ground and (in not) fully under-standing the military dimensions of the plan."  "If you're the secretary of defense and you're responsible for that. If you're responsible for that planning and that execution on the ground.  "If you've assumed responsibility for the other elements, non-military, non-security, political, economic, social and everything else, then you bear responsibility," Zinni said.  REUTERS, 5/23/04

Bush Military Intelligence Policy*

The Army general who first investigated abuses at Abu Ghraib prison stood by his inquiry's finding that military police officers should not have been involved in conditioning Iraqi detainees for interrogation, even as a senior Pentagon civilian sitting next to him at a Senate hearing on Tuesday disputed that conclusion.
The officer, Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that it had been against the Army's doctrine for another Army general to recommend last summer that military guards "set the conditions" to help Army intelligence officers extract information from prisoners. He also said an order last November from the top American officer in Iraq effectively put the prison guards under the command of the intelligence unit there.  ERIC SCHMITT, NY Times, 5/12/04

Bush's War Crimes*

New Yorker Magazine said in its new edition that the report by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba found that reservist military police at the prison were urged by Army military officers and C.I.A. agents to "set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses."

According to the magazine, the Army report offered accounts of gruesome abuse that included the sexual assault of an Iraqi detainee with a chemical light stick or broomstick. . . General Karpinski, who is still the commanding officer of the 800th Military Police Brigade, said the special high-security cellblock at Abu Ghraib had been under the direct control of Army intelligence officers, not the reservists under her command.  PHILIP SHENON, NY Times, 5/2/04

Sovereignty to Whom?

L. Paul Bremer III, the civilian administrator in Iraq, is scheduled to hold a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill early this week, two senior senators said Sunday. They warned that the June 30 date for transferring sovereignty to the Iraqis might be premature.
Asked on the ABC News program "This Week" if that date was unrealistic, Richard G. Lugar, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, said, "It may be, and I think it's probably time to have that debate." . . .Mr. Biden said: "We're about to give over authority to an entity that we haven't identified yet, knowing that whatever that entity is, there's going to be overwhelming turmoil between June 30 and January, when there is supposed to be an election. Who is the referee? Who is the graybeard?"  FELICITY BARRINGER, NY Times, 4/5/04

Bush's War Stories

1.  Most media outlets represented WMD as a monolithic menace, failing to adequately distinguish
between weapons programs and actual weapons . . .

2.  Most journalists accepted the Bush administration’s formulation of the “War on Terror” as a campaign against WMD, in contrast to coverage during the Clinton era,

3.  Many stories stenographically reported the incumbent administration’s perspective on WMD

4.  Too few stories proffered alternative perspectives to official line, a problem exacerbated by the journalistic prioritizing of breaking-news stories

Susan D. Moeller, Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, 3/9/04

Army War College Author's Critique of Bush War on Terrorism

Of particular concern has been the conflation of al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as a single, undifferentiated terrorist threat. This was a strategic error of the first order because it ignored critical differences between the two in character, threat level, and susceptibility to U.S. deterrence and military action. . . The GWOT [Global War on Terrorism] as it has so far been defined and conducted is strategically unfocused, promises much more than it can deliver, and threatens to dissipate scarce U.S. military and other means over too many ends. It violates the fundamental strategic principles of discrimination and concentration.  Jeffrey Record, Army War College, December 2003

Bush's New Speak Democracy*

Though he has delivered several speeches promising to put democracy promotion at the center of U.S. foreign policy, President Bush has been building relationships with several leaders who appear to be moving their countries in the opposite direction.. . .another disturbing case is emerging in Thailand, where a populist prime minister's steady accumulation of power . . . This year Mr. Thaksin launched a "war on drugs" that led to the killings of some 2,500 suspected dealers; human rights groups charge that many were the victims of extra-judicial assassinations by officially sponsored death squads. . .A U.S. administration intent on promoting democracy might be expected to quickly distance itself from such a leader. Instead, the Bush administration has embraced Mr. Thaksin. Wash. Post Editorial 12/26/03

Bush Should Have Focused on al Qaeda, Not Saddam*

Federal officials said yesterday that because fresh intelligence suggests al Qaeda is planning multiple catastrophic terrorist attacks in the United States, they were raising the national threat alert status to "high risk," or code orange, a step administration officials previously had said they were reluctant to take except in the most unusual circumstances. . . "The strategic [intelligence] indicators, including al Qaeda's continued desire to carry out attacks against our homeland, are perhaps greater now than at any point since September 11th," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said   John Mintz
 Washington Post 12/22/03

"the capture of Saddam has not made America safer." Howard Dean

Fear Defeats U.S.*

On Wednesday, for the 50th anniversary, the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission gathered all the Marshall scholars now in Britain and British dignitaries who have supported the program, with Prince Charles presiding. The event, held at the University of London, was timed for the Bush visit, because Secretary of State Colin Powell [was to be] the keynote speaker . . But there was no Colin Powell.
A few hours earlier, the organizers were told that Mr. Powell was canceling, because of "security concerns." Every American I talked to was both sad and embarrassed . . .
Terrorists win when they prevent us from enjoying and spreading our values. We defeat them not just by how we react, but by how we don't react.  Friedman, NY Times, 11/23/03

Bush and Friends*

Tom Malinowski, from Human Rights Watch, perfectly described Mr. Bush's core problem: When you look at the muted reaction to the president's important speech on the need for democracy in the Arab world, you see that "President Bush has moral clarity, but no moral authority." He has a vision — without influence among the partners needed to get it moving. His is a beautifully carved table — with only one leg. . . .

But [the recent Bush] policy shift is not enough. It needs shifts toward Europe and the Middle East, too. It is amazing, British officials say, how little the Bush team has done to shore up Mr. Blair for taking his hugely important (and unpopular) pro-war stance. Mr. Blair needs the U.S. to drop its outrageous steel tariffs, to provide a workable alternative to Kyoto, to hand over the nine U.K. citizens held in Guantánamo Bay    Friedman,  NY Times 11/20/03

The Anti-Bush*

As we see everyday in Iraq, the United States military is the only super military in the world. We can win any military conflict all by ourselves but we can't build the peace all by ourselves. So what does that mean? Among other things, it means that we have to bring economic opportunity to the 50 percent of the globe's population that lives on $2 a day or less. It means more trade with developing nations. It means more aid that works properly. It means another round of debt relief tied to economic development, education, health care. It means funding projects that will build successful, functioning, sustainable economies in poor countries across the globe. It means educating the world's people who presently can't be part of positive interdependence. William J. Clinton
YaleGlobal, 7 November 2003

Bush Confused *

In recent weeks, President Bush has declared that his administration is making great progress in its diplomatic effort to disarm both countries, putting together coalitions of neighboring countries to pressure the two surviving governments of what he famously called the "Axis of Evil."
But the essence of the Central Intelligence Agency report about North Korea is that that country is speeding up its weapons production. And Iran's decision to allow the international agency into facilities that were previously closed to inspectors may, diplomats said, blunt Mr. Bush's effort to seek some kind of sanctions in the United Nations, leaving Iran with an advanced nuclear infrastructure DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD, NY Times 11/12/03

Did Bush want Victory or War?*

As American soldiers massed on the Iraqi border in March and diplomats argued about war, an influential adviser to the Pentagon received a secret message from a Lebanese-American businessman: Saddam Hussein wanted to make a deal.

Iraqi officials, including the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, had told the businessman that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction, and they offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct a search. The businessman said in an interview that the Iraqis also offered to hand over a man accused of being involved in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 who was being held in Baghdad. At one point, he said, the Iraqis pledged to hold elections. . .

No meetings took place, and the invasion began on March 20. Mr. Hage wonders what might have happened if the Americans had pursued the back channel to Baghdad. . . "At least they could have talked to them," he said.  JAMES RISEN, NY Times, 11/6/03

Unworthy Rumsfeld *

For months, as security conditions have worsened in Afghanistan and as U.S. troops have fought a costly war against a stubborn resistance in Iraq, Mr. Rumsfeld's habit has been to insist in public that "the progress has been quite good," that "it's gotten better every week" and that nothing has happened that has surprised him or was not anticipated in the Pentagon's prewar planning. . . .

Mr. Rumsfeld might find it useful to say what he really thinks in public from now on. Who knows, maybe someone other than his four top aides will have something valuable to tell him in response.   Washington Post Editorial 10/25/03

Other  Issues

Bush's Disastrous Path*

Mr. Bush and other administration officials often talk about the 10.5 million Afghans who have registered to vote in this month's election, citing the figure as proof that democracy is making strides after all. They count on the public not to know, and on reporters not to mention, that the number of people registered considerably exceeds all estimates of the eligible population. What they call evidence of democracy on the march is actually evidence of large-scale electoral fraud. . . Yet Mr. Bush and his Congressional allies seem to have learned nothing from their failures. If Mr. Bush is returned to office, there's every reason to think that they will continue along the same disastrous path. . . Abu Ghraib has largely vanished from U.S. political discussion, largely because the administration . . .[has] been so effective at covering up high-level involvement. . . To much of the world, America looks like a place where top officials condone . . torture of innocent people, and suffer no con-sequences.  Krugman, NY Times, 101/04

Bush Backs Off Saudis*

Shortly after George W. Bush took office, he told us reluctantly, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the FBI, "were told to back off the Saudis.". . .This is not a story of what George Bush knew but rather of his very-unfunny ignorance. And it was not stupidity, but policy: no asking Saudis uncomfortable questions about their paying off roving packs of killers, especially when those Saudis are so generous to Bush family businesses. Yes, Bill Clinton was also a bit too tender toward the oil men of Arabia. But this you should know: In his last year in office, Clinton sent two delegations to the Gulf to suggest that the Royal family crack down on "charitable donations" from their kingdom to the guys who blew up our embassies.   But when a failed Texas oil man took over the White House in January 2001, demands on the Saudis to cut off terror funding simply stopped.  Greg Palast, 9/10/04
MORE

Bush, The Saudis & 9/11*

In his new book, Graham claims the president coddled the Saudis and pursued a war against Saddam Hussein that only diverted resources from the more important fight against Al Qaeda. Graham was furious when the White House blacked out 28 pages of the inquiry's final report that dealt with purported Saudi links to the 9/11 plot. Graham says much of the deleted evidence centered around the activities of a mysterious Saudi then living in San Diego named Omar al-Bayoumi, whom Graham calls a Saudi government "spy." Al-Bayoumi befriended two of the key 9/11 hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, when they first arrived in the country. . .Bayoumi was essentially a "ghost employee" of a Saudi contracting firm called Ercan, whose owner was an alleged early supporter of Osama bin Laden.  Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, 9/5/04  MORE
NEWSWEEK ON SAUDI TIES

Rumsfeld, Feith Hoodwinked Again*

Nevertheless, two Pentagon officials, . . .who worked . .for  Douglas Feith, met secretly with Ghorbanifar to discuss Iran.  AP, 8/28/04

Bush-Cheney's Intelligence*

• CIA NOMINEE LED EFFORT TO GUT INTELLIGENCE

• CHENEY LED EFFORT TO BLOCK KEY INTELLIGENCE REFORMS

• CHENEY LED EFFORT TO SLASH SIZE OF MILITARY

• CHENEY LED EFFORT TO ELIMINATE CRITICAL DEFENSE PROGRAMS

• BUSH ADMINISTRATION TOOK FOCUS OFF BIN LADEN

• BUSH ADMINISTRATION TERMINATED PROGRAM THAT TRACKED AL QAEDA

• BUSH ADMINISTRATION BEGAN EFFORT TO CUT COUNTERTERRORISM PROGRAMS
  Center for American Progress, 8/24/04

Bush and the Nuclear Codes*

Nearly everyone has now seen, or heard of, the scene from Fahrenheit 9/11 where George Bush sits passively and glazed for seven minutes in a Florida school room after he has been informed of a second hijacked plane hitting the Twin Towers. The words spoken to him were, “We are under attack, Mr. President.”. . .
The 9/11 Commission Report tells us that during those dreadful minutes, Vice President Cheney was, in effect, calling the command shots. . .Consider our nuclear weapons system, which is designed so that the president always has the nuclear code with him . . . But after Bush’s performance on September 11, 2001, perhaps it would be better to have the football travel with . . . the Deputy Secretary of Agricul-ture.  Gerald Rellick, Intervention, 8/12/04

Indefensible Defense Budgeting
[W]hen it comes to the military budget, President Bush has failed to acknowledge either the real costs of his policies or the need for a radical shift from expensive superweapons to increased numbers of adequately trained and equipped ground forces. . . .A new report from the Government Accountability Office of Congress shows that the administration has consistently underestimated the actual costs of the Iraq war, forcing the military to cut corners in ways that increase today's risks and tomorrow's expenses. While waiting for the latest supplemental spending, the military has had to postpone repairs of worn-out equipment and delay training exercises - and it still had to take money meant for other things to meet immediate needs. It's inexcusable that a country spending more than $400 billion a year on defense is facing squeezes like this NY Times Editorial, 7/25/04

Right Axis. Wrong Evil.

President Bush says he's now investigating Qaeda-Iran ties, and whether Iran helped the 9/11 hijackers.  Whoops. Right axis. Wrong evil.  It's like Emily Latella - "What's all this fuss I hear about making Puerto Rico a steak?" - except the U.S. can't simply shrug "Never mind" because 900 American troops are dead.  The Bush administration had no good intelligence, so it decided to invade the Ira- that was weaker.  The war was based on phony W.M.D. analyses and fallacious welcome scenarios drummed up by the neocon Chihuahua Ahmad Chalabi. 
Mr. Bush should have worried about the Axis of Evil in the order of the threat posed: North Korea, which has nukes; Iran, which almost has nukes; Iraq, which wanted nukes.  Dowd, NY Times, 7/21/04

The Arabian Candidate

President Bush isn't actually an Al Qaeda mole, with Dick Cheney his controller. Mr. Bush's "war on terror" has, however, played with eerie perfection into Osama bin Laden's hands - while Mr. Bush's supporters, impressed by his tough talk, see him as America's champion against the evildoers.  Last week, Republican officials in Kentucky applauded bumper stickers distributed at G.O.P. offices that read, "Kerry is bin Laden's man/Bush is mine." Administration officials haven't gone that far, but when Tom Ridge offered a specifics-free warning about a terrorist attack timed to "disrupt our democratic process," many people thought he was implying that Al Qaeda wants George Bush to lose. In reality, all infidels probably look alike to the terrorists, but if they do have a preference, nothing in Mr. Bush's record would make them unhappy at the prospect of four more years. Krugman, NY Times, 7/20/04

Iran Now in Bush's Sights *

Bush named Iran as part of the Axis of Evil along with North Korea and Iraq almost three years ago. A US government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that military action would not be overt in changing Iran, but rather that the US would work to stir revolts in the country and hope to topple the current conservative religious leadership.  The official said: “If George Bush is re-elected there will be much more intervention in the internal affairs of Iran.”. . . There was embarrassment for the Bush administration last week when it emerged a tight deadline was being pushed for the capture of Osama bin Laden to generate headlines during the Democratic Convention when presidential rival John Kerry will be grabbing the limelight.  Jenifer Johnston, UK, 7/18/04

Iraq Funds Mismanaged*

U.S. oversight over the spending of Iraq's oil revenue has been inadequate to ensure the money was used for its intended purposes, a U.N.-mandated monitoring body said on Thursday. . . The monitoring body said despite repeated requests it had not been given access to U.S. audits of noncompetitive bids for Iraq contracts by Halliburton, the Texas oil services firm once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, and other firms. . .Under international law, the Coalition Provisional Authority -- which ceased to exist last month with the handover of power to an interim Iraqi government -- could use the oil money only for the benefit of Iraqi people. . ."While we have no evidence of misappropriations, there are strong indications in the report that the controls in the spending ministries are very weak," said Bert Keuppens, the IMF's member on the board.   Lesley Wroughton, Reuters, 7/15/04

Is the CIA Really That Dumb? *

With a bipartisan Senate committee report exposing colossal blunders by the intelligence community in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the political debate over whether the United States went to war on false pretenses took another turn for the worse for the Bush White House. . . .And David Johnston writes in a New York Times news analysis that even the issue of pressure on the CIA is not resolved.  "Although the Senate Intelligence Committee found no evidence that the Bush admin-istration had tried to coerce the C.I.A. to produce exaggerated prewar warnings about Iraq's weapons programs, its findings did little to still the furious debate about whether the White House and the Pentagon tried to influence the agency's conclusions. Dan Froomkin, Washington Post, 7/12/04

No Faith in Feith *

"The committee's report fails to fully explain the environment of intense pressure in which the intelligence community officials were asked to render judgments on matters relating to Iraq when the most senior officials in the Bush administration had already forcefully and repeatedly stated their conclusions publicly," said Sen. John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV (D-W. Va.), the committee's ranking minority member. . .Of particular concern was an intelligence meeting in August 2002 attended by representatives from the office of Doug Feith, the Pentagon's deputy undersecretary for policy and a fervent proponent of the war. The Pentagon officials criticized the CIA's failure to turn up a link between Bin Laden and Hussein and presented evidence that they said had been ignored.  T.Christian Miller and Maura Reynolds, LA Times, 7/10/04

Osama by the Dem Convention or Else*

A controversial article in the July 19th issue of The New Republic suggests that the Bush administration is ramping up pressure on Pakistan to capture Osama bin Laden in time to shape the U.S. election. . . .the U.S. is dangling a $3-billion aid package and even missiles which could help tilt the regional nuclear balance of favour in Pakistan's favour in exchange for the al Qaeda leader and other "high value targets" (HVTs).  "If we don't find these guys by the election, they are going to stick this whole nuclear mess up our asshole," the magazine quotes on Pakistani general in Washington as saying.  The magazine paints President George Bush as desperate to regain ground against the Democrats on his top issue before Americans head to the polls in November. CTV.ca News, 7/8/04

Bush Should Have Known*

The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has been a gift-wrapped, gilt-edged recruiting tool for Al Qaeda and its offshoots. . . . There were warnings. Recruiting by Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups was already surging in early 2003 in response to the buildup for war with Iraq. On March 16, 2003, three days before the start of the war, The Times reported: "In recent weeks, officials in the United States, Europe and Africa say they had seen evidence that militants within Muslim communities are seeking to identify and groom a new generation of terrorist operatives. An invasion of Iraq, the officials worry, is almost certain to produce a groundswell of recruitment for groups committed to attacks in the United States, Europe and Israel." Herbert, NY Times, 7/2/04

Who Lost Iraq?

[G]iven Mr. Bremer's economic focus, you might at least have expected his top aide for private-sector development to be an expert on privatization and liberalization in such countries as Russia or Argentina. But the job initially went to Thomas Foley, a Connecticut businessman and Republican fund-raiser with no obviously relevant expertise. In March, Michael Fleischer, a New Jersey businessman, took over. Yes, he's Ari Fleischer's brother. Mr. Fleischer told The Chicago Tribune that part of his job was educating Iraqi businessmen: "The only paradigm they know is cronyism. We are teaching them that there is an alternative system with built-in checks and built-in review."  Krugman, NY Times, 6/29/04

Bush's Colossal Blunder*

The American response to Sept. 11, 2001, led to Baghdad. The Bush administration warned that Iraq was in league with al-Qaida, and that there was a very real danger that Iraq's vast store of chemical and biological weapons could fall into al-Qaida's hands. Today we know that both assertions were false. The 9/11 commission found that there was no collaboration between Iraq and al-Qaida. The occupying U.S. Army in Iraq has found no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. The rationales for war came up wanting. . .The war in Iraq is proving to be a colossal blunder. Al-Qaida had no meaningful connection to Iraq before the war, but Washington has played right into Osama bin Laden's hands by blindly sending troops into the seething desert nation.  Editorial, Baltimore Sun, 6/18/04

Bush's America: Feared & Distrusted*

"Never in the two and a quarter centuries of our history has the United States been so isolated among the nations, so broadly feared and distrusted," the statement says. The document accuses Bush of adopting "an overbearing approach to America's role in the world" that has weakened U.S. security and "led the United States into an ill-planned and costly war from which exit is uncertain." (Video: Officials criticize Bush) The statement lists challenges to the United States including terrorism, weapons proliferation, environmental degradation and population growth. Implicitly endorsing Democrat John Kerry, it asserts that Bush has shown himself incapable of rising "to the responsibilities of world leadership. It is time for a change."  Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY, 6/16/04

Bush Cheney 9/11 Lies*

The staff of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks sharply contradicted one of President Bush's central justifications for the Iraq war, reporting on Wednesday that there did not appear to have been a "collaborative relationship" between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. . . the commission's staff said its investigation showed that the government of Mr. Hussein had rebuffed or ignored requests from Qaeda leaders for help in the 1990's, a conclusion that directly contradicts a series of public statements President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made before and after last year's invasion of Iraq in justifying the war. . . The vice president as recently as Monday said in a speech that he believed that the former Iraqi president was a "patron of terrorism'' and "had long-established ties with Al Qaeda."  PHILIP SHENON and CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS, NY Times, 6/17/04

WAR: CIA vs. DOD*

 The struggle between the CIA and the Defense Department reached a bizarre climax a few weeks ago when Ahmed Chalabi's office was very publicly ransacked by officers working under the command of the CIA; the Iraqi exile leader was later accused of leaking vital information to Iran, among other allegations. The abrupt fall from grace of the man hand-picked by neoconservative policymakers to lead post-Saddam Iraq, says Powers, lays bare the brutal turf war between the two sides.
"It reveals an extraordinary level of bitter combat between the CIA and the Pentagon. It's astonishing that the CIA actually oversaw a team of people who broke into Chalabi's headquarters -- which was paid for by the Pentagon -- and ransacked the place. The CIA single-handedly destroyed him." Mark Follman, Salon, 6/14/04

Bush Foreign Policy Disaster*

[Thomas] Powers, the author of "Intelligence Wars: American Secret History From Hitler to Al Qaeda," charges that the Bush administration is responsible for what is perhaps the greatest disaster in the history of U.S. intelligence. From failing to anticipate 9/11 to pressuring the CIA to produce bogus justifications for war, from abusing Iraqi prisoners to misrepresenting the nature of Iraqi insurgents, the Bush White House, the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies they corrupted, coerced or ignored have made extraordinarily grave errors which could threaten our national security for years. By manipulating intelligence and punishing dissent while pursuing an extreme foreign-policy agenda, Bush leaders have set spy against U.S. spy and deeply damaged America's intelligence capabilities. Mark Follman, Salon, 6/14/04

Bush Nuclear Insanity*

As the world's strongest nuclear and conventional power, America should want to freeze weapons development and halt nuclear proliferation. Yet the Bush administration's proposed military budget moves in a different and more dangerous direction by seeking a sharp increase in the funds for research on two new kinds of nuclear bombs. . .The administration also wants money to study much more powerful nuclear explosives for use against suspected underground bunkers containing biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. Just imagine launching nuclear bunker busters based on weapons intelligence as unreliable as that circulating before the Iraq war. Even if underground sites were accurately identified, the resulting nuclear explosions could spread the blast, radiation and toxins over populated areas.  NY Times Editorial, 6/8/04

Bush Acquiesces to Korea*

The place we should really lose sleep over is North Korea, not Iraq. That's because President Bush is in effect acquiescing as North Korea builds up its nuclear arsenal.  An administration that was panicked about Iraq's virtually nonexistent nuclear programs is blasé as North Korea reprocesses plutonium, enriches uranium and gets set to produce up to 200 atomic weapons by 2010. North Korea balances its budget by counterfeiting American $100 bills, so counting on its scruples not to sell a nuclear warhead to terrorists seems a dangerous bet. . . President Bush has refused to negotiate directly with the North Koreans, and the result is that Kim Jong Il is now pursuing both the plutonium and uranium approaches and could eventually produce several dozen warheads a year.  Kristof, NY Times, 1/10/04

Bush Vengeance

The Pentagon has barred French, German and Russian companies from competing for $18.6 billion in contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq, saying it was acting to protect "the essential security interests of the United States."

The directive, issued Friday by Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, represents the most substantive retaliation to date by the Bush administration against American allies who opposed its decision to go to war in Iraq. . . ."It strikes me that we should do whatever we can to draw in the French, the Germans, the Russians and others into the process," said the congressman, Representative Christopher Shays [Rep.] of Connecticut.  DOUGLAS JEHL, NY Times 12/10/03

Thanksgiving "Letter from Tikrit"*

Memo to: President Bush

From: Saddam Hussein

Dear Bush: Well, it's been a while since we last communicated. It's not easy getting tapes out from this basement in Tikrit, but I thought it was time we had a little chat. Heard your speech on Arab democracy on the BBC Arabic Service. I'll give you this, Bush, you and Blair do understand the stakes. It's your willpower I doubt. . . .  MORE

THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, NY Times, 11/27/03

Bush Helps Drug Companies Take Lives*

"An F.T.A.A. agreement with strong I.P. [intellectual property] provisions threatens to have a catastrophic impact on the lives of millions of people living with H.I.V./ AIDS and other diseases," warns Doctors Without Borders. . .
Even now, ahead of the F.T.A.A., Guatemala and Honduras avoid using generic antiretrovirals for fear of offending the U.S. Guatemala, for example, has 67,000 people, including 5,000 children, with H.I.V. or AIDS. Most will die. Astonishingly, the country spends most of its scarce AIDS money on brand-name drugs rather than cheaper generics, . . .

I find it appalling that we Americans are putting a priority on patents rather than patients, and that we are prepared to sacrifice sick people like Mr. Sánchez, Ms. Gerónimo and Rony — just so companies like Bristol-Myers Squibb can increase their dividends.  KRISTOF, NY Times, 11/22/03

Bush's Afghanistan Mess*

The United Nations refugee agency announced today that it was temporarily pulling 30 foreign staff members out of large areas of southern and eastern Afghanistan and closing refugee reception centers in four provinces, officials said.

. . .The suspension of operations comes after three attacks on United Nations offices and staff members in the last week by suspected Taliban fighters.

The shootings and bombings, which appear to be growing both in sophistication and lethality. . . The group appears to be trying to gain support from ethnic Pashtuns already frustrated by a lack of aid from the international community and a lack of power in the national government.  DAVID ROHDE, NY Times 11/18/03

Bushification of Afghanistan*

"There is a palpable risk that Afghanistan will again turn into a failed state, this time in the hands of drug cartels and narco-terrorists," Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, writes in a grim new report on Afghanistan. . ..In at least three districts in the southeast, there is no central government representation, and the Taliban has de facto control. . . . An analyst in the U.S. intelligence community, who seeks to direct more attention to the way narco-trafficking is destabilizing the region, says that Afghanistan now accounts for 75 percent of the poppies grown for narcotics worldwide. . . If Afghanistan is a White House model for Iraq, heaven help us.   Kristof, NY Times 11/15/03

Bush Supports our Troops*

The Bush administration is seeking to block a group of American troops who were tortured in Iraqi prisons during the Persian Gulf war in 1991 from collecting any of the hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen Iraqi assets they won last summer in a federal court ruling against the government of Saddam Hussein.

In a court challenge that the administration is winning so far but is not eager to publicize, administration lawyers have argued that Iraqi assets frozen in bank accounts in the United States are needed for Iraqi reconstruction and that the judgment won by the 17 former American prisoners should be overturned. . . .

In a sworn court filing in the case for the former prisoners, L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator in Iraq, said the money won by the former prisoners had already been "completely obligated or expended" in reconstruction efforts.  PHILIP SHENON
NY Times, 11/10/03

Bush vs. CIA *

Vince Cannistraro, former CIA operations chief, charged yesterday: "She [Valerie Plame] was outed as a vindictive act because the agency was not providing support for policy statements that Saddam Hussein was reviving his nuclear programme.". . .

In written testimony, he said that Vice-President Dick Cheney and his top aide Lewis Libby went to CIA headquarters to press mid-level analysts to provide support for the claim [that Iraq had links to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.]  Mr Cheney, he said, "insisted that desk analysts were not looking hard enough for the evidence". . .

Other agency officials, . . . said "The US government has never before released the name of a clandestine officer," said Jim Marcinkowski, a former CIA case officer. . .

The Republican-controlled Senate intelligence committee . . .will conclude that the CIA overstated any evidence about Iraq's weapons programmes and ties to terrorism.  Edward Alden , Financial Times, 10/25/03

The Bush Crusade *

For [U.S. deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence] Gen. Boykin, terrorism is a conflict in which "the enemy is a guy named Satan," . . .troubling is Gen. Boykin's offensive assessment of Islam. [In defending his statements, he]  argues that his reference to idol worship refers to Somali warlord Osman Ato's "worship of money and power." A reading of [Boykin's] speech [to the National Prayer Breakfast] undercuts that . . . "[Alto]went on CNN and he laughed at us, and he said, 'They'll never get me because Allah will protect me. Allah will protect me.' Well, you know what, I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol." Gen. Boykin says that when Mr. Ato was captured three days later, the general went into Ato's cell and delivered a message: "Mr. Ato, you underestimated our God."

. . . Statements such as this feed the conviction of many in the Islamic world that the fight against terrorism is also a battle against Islam.  Washington Post Editorial 10/19/03

Murdoch's Fox in the Bush*

researchers discovered that large minorities of Americans entertained some highly fanciful beliefs about the facts of the Iraqi war. Fully 48 percent of Americans believed that the United States had uncovered evidence demonstrating a close working relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Another 22 percent thought that we had found the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And 25 percent said that most people in other countries had backed the U.S. war against Saddam Hussein. . . .

The fair and balanced folks at Fox, the survey concludes, were "the news source whose viewers had the most misperceptions." Eighty percent of Fox viewers believed at least one of these un-facts; 45 percent believed all three. . .

Take a wild flight of fancy with me and assume for just a moment that one major goal over at Fox is to ensure Bush's reelection.  Meyerson, Washington Post 10/15/03

Connect the Dots

The Economist quoted a World Bank study that said a Cancún agreement, reducing tariffs and agrisubsidies, could have raised global income by $500 billion a year by 2015 — over 60 percent of which would go to poor countries and pull 144 million people out of poverty.

Sure, poverty doesn't cause terrorism — no one is killing for a raise. But poverty is great for the terrorism business because poverty creates humiliation and stifled aspirations and forces many people to leave their traditional farms to join the alienated urban poor in the cities — all conditions that spawn terrorists.  Friedman, NY Times, 9/25/03

AIDS, ED and Bush

AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis are all worsening in the third world and now kill a combined six million people per year. This slaughter is one of the central moral challenges we face today, yet Western governments have abdicated responsibility, and Western medical science is uninterested in diseases that kill only poor people. Many times more money addresses erectile dysfunction than malaria.

For all my admiration of Mr. Gates's work in Africa, I believe there are two important areas where his effort falls short.

First, he waffles on public policy issues. If he used his megaphone to nudge President Bush to fund fully his pledges on AIDS spending, or if he pressed South Africa's president to tackle AIDS aggressively, he might be able to save many thousands more lives. With a person infected with H.I.V. every 6 seconds, this is no time for him to be so deferential.  NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, NY Times, 9/24/03

The Rich and the Poor *

Cancún means "snakepit" in the local Mayan language, and it lived up to its name as the host of an important World Trade Organization meeting that began last week. Rather than tackling the problem of their high agricultural tariffs and lavish farm subsidies, which victimize farmers in poorer nations, a number of rich nations derailed the talks.

The failure by 146 trade delegates to reach an agreement in Mexico is a serious blow to the global economy. And contrary to the mindless cheering with which the breakdown was greeted by antiglobalization protesters at Cancún, the world's poorest and most vulnerable nations will suffer most.  NY Times Editorial 9/16/03

Foreign Views of U.S. Darken Since Sept. 11

In the two years since Sept. 11, 2001, the view of the United States as a victim of terrorism that deserved the world's sympathy and support has given way to a widespread vision of America as an imperial power . . .

The war in Iraq has had a major impact on public opinion, which has moved generally from post-9/11 sympathy to post-Iraq antipathy, or at least to disappointment over what is seen as the sole superpower's inclination to act pre-emptively, without either persuasive reasons or United Nations approval.

To some degree, the resentment is centered on the person of President Bush, who is seen by many of those interviewed, at best, as an ineffective spokesman for American interests and, at worst, as a gunslinging cowboy knocking over international treaties and bent on controlling the world's oil, if not the entire world.  RICHARD BERNSTEIN, NY Times 9/11/03

The Light Goes On *

SIXTY-FOUR PERCENT of respondents said that the U.S. military presence in the Middle East increased the likelihood of terrorism, 77 percent thought there were widespread negative feelings towards the U.S. in the Islamic world that enhanced terrorist recruiting, and 54 per cent thought the US had been too assertive in its foreign policies . . . The findings were part of a comprehensive survey of U.S. foreign policy attitudes released this week by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (Pipa) at the University of Maryland . . .Large majorities also thought the U.S. should make greater efforts to improve relations with the Muslim world. Edward Alden
FINANCIAL TIMES at MSNBC 9/10/03

Bush Bait-and-Switch *

It's now clear that the Iraq war was the mother of all bait-and-switch operations. Mr. Bush and his officials portrayed the invasion of Iraq as an urgent response to an imminent threat, and used war fever to win the midterm election. Then they insisted that the costs of occupation and reconstruction would be minimal, and used the initial glow of battlefield victory to push through yet another round of irresponsible tax cuts. . .Yet in the speech on Sunday he was still up to his usual tricks. Once again, he made a rhetorical link between the Iraq war and 9/11. This argument by innuendo reminds us why 69 percent of the public believes that Saddam was involved in 9/11, despite a complete absence of evidence. . .  he declared that Saddam "possessed and used weapons of mass destruction" — 1991, 2003, what's the difference? Paul Krugman, NY Times 9/9/03

Bush Betrays Africa

In his last State of the Union address, the president announced a new program to fight AIDS in Africa and pledged $15 billion over the next five years. . .

The Senate is scheduled to vote soon on an appropriations bill that contains $2 billion for the AIDS initiative — only $500 million more than this year's spending. The House has approved even less. This is the White House's doing. It is twisting arms to get Congress to cut its own program. The House and Senate had authorized $3 billion for next year.

This undercutting of trumpeted compassion initiatives is a habit with the president because of his devotion to tax cuts for the wealthy. But officials are arguing that AIDS money cannot be spent wisely because the office of the AIDS coordinator — and Africa — is not ready.  Both assertions are nonsense.  NY Times Editorial, 9/4/03

Is our Future in Iraq or in Educating our Kids? *

When the Bush administration first indicated that it wanted to require states to eliminate the achievement gap between rich and poor students by 2014, states with large poor populations were hesitant, believing that the federal government would never ante up the necessary dollars. This turned out to be the case, when the House shortchanged No Child Left Behind by about 30 percent, providing $6 billion less than Congress originally called for when it authorized the bill.. . .If the administration continues along its current path, the opportunity for school reform will surely slip away.  NY Times Editorial 8/31/03

Other Ways to Use $70 Billion:  Fighting famine inside Ethiopia means providing not only emergency food but also programs to help people emerge from the trap of destitution. Rural Ethiopians need more markets for their crops and better roads to be able to move their products to other parts of the country. They could use projects to make water accessible to poor peasants, seed banks and programs to increase livestock supplies. And they need better health care — the government spends only $1.50 per person for health care each year, although Ethiopia now has more than two million people with the AIDS virus, and the infection is exploding.  NY Times Editorial 7/28/03

Bush's Hollow Words:  Two weeks after President George W. Bush toured Africa with promises of vast increases in spending on global AIDS, the House of Representatives approved Thursday a spending measure that would bring total spending on the epidemic next year to roughly $2 billion - $1 billion short of the amount set out in a bill Bush had signed in May.  . . . "The rhetoric surrounding the signing of the HIV/$ AIDS bill and his trip to Africa was hollow.  Sheryl Gay Stolberg, NYTimes, Int'l Heral Tribune, 7/24/03

World Trade Rules: The Poor Get Poorer:  No matter h