• Just before 9-11, Bush ignored warnings of a coming Osama bin Laden terror attack, but it was Reagan who, as part of his campaign against the Soviets in Afghanistan, boosted fanatical jihadists and gave bin Laden his start.⁴¹⁴²⁴³

• Bush, on his first week in office, planned for carving up the oil fields after an Iraq invasion, but it was Reagan who took the solar panels off the White House and returned the nation to its oil-guzzling ways.⁴⁴⁴⁵

• To muster support for invading Iraq, Bush published phony intelligence reports, like those claiming that Iraq was working with al-Qaeda.⁴⁶ In that he followed the lead of Reagan, who, to gain support for aid to brutal regimes in Latin America, set up “The Office of Public Diplomacy” to use CIA propaganda techniques against the American people, and who, to gain support for his military build up, edited radio transcripts to give the false picture that the Soviets willfully shot down civilian flight KAL-007.⁴⁷⁴⁸

• Bush, in his “Global War on Terror”, pursued torture of captives and dragged the nation’s honor into the muck, but he was just bringing home the policy of Reagan, who supported torture by Latin American regimes fighting leftist rebellions.⁴⁹⁵⁰

• Bush broke laws with programs such as his domestic warrantless wiretapping, just like Reagan, with programs such as the Iran-Contra caper, which secretly bypassed Congress’s ban against aiding the brutal Contra rebels against the people of Nicaragua.⁵¹⁵²

• Bush pushed corporate deregulation and slowed anti-fraud enforcement during a time of massive Wall Street fraud, which helped bring about the Bush Economic Crash — putting millions out of work and causing trillions in bank bailouts, but he was riding out the deregulation wave started by Reagan, who signed the deregulation law that brought about the huge Savings and Loan Crash in the 80’s.^53545556

• Bush fiddled for eight years while global warming climate change mindlessly marched ahead, and, like Reagan, ignored and cut enforcement of environmental standards.⁵⁷⁵⁸

Now, President Obama has just signed a law to plan remembrances for Reagan on the 100th anniversary of his birth (on Feb 6, 2011).⁵⁹ Let’s take the occasion to do more than honor Reagan with a postage stamp — let’s honor our country by teaching a factual history of his regime and its effects to our children.

Sources

⁴⁰ ‘‘Bush’ sewage plant proposal makes ballot’ – AP, July 18, 2008

A measure seeking to commemorate President Bush’s years in office by slapping his name on a San Francisco sewage plant has qualified for the November ballot.

…

“We think that it’s important to remember our leaders in the right historical context,” said McConnell, a member of the group that was formed after friends came up with the renaming idea.

“In President Bush’s case, we think that we will be cleaning up a substantial mess for the next 10 or 20 years,” he said. “The sewage treatment facility’s job is to clean up a mess, so we think it’s a fitting tribute.”

⁴¹ ‘The Bush-Bin Laden Symbiosis’ By Robert Parry, August 11, 2006

The CIA tried to warn Bush about the threat with the hope that presidential action could energize government agencies and head off the attack. On Aug. 6, 2001, the CIA sent analysts to Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, to brief him and deliver a report entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.”

Bush was not pleased by the intrusion. He glared at the CIA briefer and snapped, “All right, you’ve covered your ass,” according to Suskind’s book.

Then, ordering no special response, Bush returned to a vacation of fishing, clearing brush and working on a speech about stem-cell research.

⁴² ‘Ronald Reagan: Worst President Ever?’ By Robert Parry, June 3, 2009

[The Afghanistan] war was dramatically ramped up under Reagan, who traded U.S. acquiescence toward Pakistan’s nuclear bomb for its help in shipping sophisticated weapons to the Afghan jihadists (including a young Saudi named Osama bin Laden).

⁴³ ‘Pakistan and the ‘Global War on Terrorism’‘ by Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, January 8, 2008

In December 1984, the Sharia Law (Islamic jurisprudence) was established in Pakistan following a rigged referendum launched by President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Barely a few months later, in March 1985, President Ronald Reagan issued National Security Decision Directive 166 (NSDD 166), which authorized “stepped-up covert military aid to the Mujahideen” as well a support to religious indoctrination.

…

“ … the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.

“The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, …” (Washington Post, 23 March 2002)

⁴⁴ ‘Bush’s Belated Accountability Moment’ By Nat Parry, ConsortiumNews.com, November 12, 2006

In Ron Suskind’s The Price of Loyalty, O’Neill described the first NSC meeting at the White House only a few days into Bush’s presidency. An invasion of Iraq was already on the agenda, O’Neill said. There was even a map for a post-war occupation, marking out how Iraq’s oil fields would be carved up.

O’Neill said even at that early date, the goal of invading Iraq was clear. The message from Bush was “find a way to do this,” according to O’Neill, who was forced out of the administration in December 2002.

⁴⁵ ‘Prodigal Sun’ – Mother Jones, March 2000

The [DOE’s Solar Energy Research Institute] study, a yearlong investigation by some of the nation’s leading scientists, provided a convincing blueprint for a solar future. It showed that alternative energy could easily meet 28 percent of the nation’s power needs by 2000. The only thing that solar and wind and other nonpolluting energy sources needed was a push, the study concluded — the same research funding and tax credits provided to other energy industries, and a government committed to lead the way to reduced reliance on fossil fuels. … [Reagan’s] Energy Secretary Jim Edwards killed the study, all right, but not before it had been published in the Congressional Record.

… The budget for the solar institute — which President Jimmy Carter had created to spearhead solar innovation — was slashed from $124 million in 1980 to $59 million in 1982. Scientists who had left tenured university jobs to work under Hayes were given two weeks notice and no severance pay. The squelching of the institute — later partly re-funded and renamed the National Renewable Energy Laboratory — marked the start of Reagan’s campaign against solar power. By the end of 1985, when Congress and the administration allowed tax credits for solar homes to lapse, the dream of a solar era had faded. The solar water heater President Carter had installed on the White House roof in 1979 was dismantled and junked. Solar water heating went from a billion-dollar industry to peanuts overnight; thousands of sun-minded businesses went bankrupt. “It died. It’s dead,” says Peter Barnes, whose San Francisco solar- installation business had 35 employees at its peak. “First the money dried up, then the spirit dried up,” says Jim Benson, another solar activist of the day.

⁴⁶ ‘Pentagon Officer Created Phony Intel on Iraq/al-Qaeda Link’ By Matt Renner, t r u t h o u t, Friday 06 April 2007

Newly released documents confirm that a Pentagon unit knowingly cooked up intelligence claiming a direct link between Iraq and al-Qaeda in order to win support for a preemptive strike against the country.

A report prepared by the Defense Department’s Inspector General for Carl Levin, the Democratic Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, explicitly shows how former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith used his Defense Department position to cook intelligence claiming a connection between the terrorist organization and Saddam Hussein’s regime.

…

But according to the IG’s declassified report, “a Senior Intelligence Analyst working in the Joint Intelligence Task Force-Combating Terrorism (JITF-CT) countered point-by-point, each instance of an alleged tie between Iraq and al-Qaida …”

⁴⁷ ‘Iran-Contra’s ‘Lost Chapter’‘ – By Robert Parry, June 30, 2008

That chapter — which we are publishing here for the first time — was “lost” because Republicans on the congressional Iran-Contra investigation waged a rear-guard fight that traded elimination of the chapter’s key findings for the votes of three moderate GOP senators, giving the final report a patina of bipartisanship.

…

The American people thus were spared the chapter’s troubling finding: that the Reagan administration had built a domestic covert propaganda apparatus managed by a CIA propaganda and disinformation specialist working out of the National Security Council.

“One of the CIA’s most senior covert action operators was sent to the NSC in 1983 by CIA Director [William] Casey where he participated in the creation of an inter-agency public diplomacy mechanism that included the use of seasoned intelligence specialists,” the chapter’s conclusion stated.

“This public/private network set out to accomplish what a covert CIA operation in a foreign country might attempt — to sway the media, the Congress, and American public opinion in the direction of the Reagan administration’s policies.”

However, with the chapter’s key findings deleted, the right-wing domestic propaganda operation not only survived the Iran-Contra fallout but thrived.

⁴⁸ ‘GOP & KAL-007: ‘The Key Is to Lie First’‘ By Robert Parry

One of the baldest — and now admitted — lies was the case of Korean Air Lines flight 007. On the night of Aug. 30, 1983, the KAL 747 jumbo jet strayed hundreds of miles off-course and penetrated some of the Soviet Union’s most sensitive air space, by flying over military facilities in Kamchatka and Sakhalin Island.

Over Sakhalin, KAL-007 was finally intercepted by a Soviet Sukhoi-15 fighter. The Soviet pilot tried to signal the plane to land, but the KAL pilots apparently did not see the repeated warnings. Amid confusion about the plane’s identity — a U.S. spy plane had been in the vicinity hours earlier — Soviet ground control ordered the pilot to fire. He did, blasting the plane out of the sky and killing all 269 people on board.

The Soviets soon realized they had made a horrendous mistake. U.S. intelligence also knew from sensitive intercepts that the tragedy had resulted from a blunder, not from a willful act of murder (much as on July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes fired a missile that brought down an Iranian civilian airliner in the Persian Gulf, killing 290 people, an act which Reagan explained as an “understandable accident”).

But in 1983, the truth about KAL-007 didn’t fit Washington’s propaganda needs. The Reagan administration wanted to portray the Soviets as wanton murderers, so it brushed aside the judgment of the intelligence analysts. The administration then chose to release only snippets of the taped intercepts packaged in a way to suggest that the slaughter was intentional.

⁴⁹ ‘Report: Torture started with Bush’ By Mark Benjamin, Salon.com

“The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive (interrogation) techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees.” That is one of the raw conclusions of a two-year Senate investigation into torture.

…

According to the report, the torture ball started rolling with the president and his Feb. 7, 2002, memorandum stating that the Geneva Conventions didn’t apply to al-Qaida or the Taliban. The CIA and the Department of Defense began scurrying to establish their brutal interrogation regimes, while the White House and top Bush administration officials brushed aside legal hurdles and approved specific, horrifying techniques.

⁵⁰ ‘Lost History: ‘Project X’ & School of Assassins’ By Robert Parry © 1996

For years, human rights activists have accused the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas of teaching torture and assassination techniques to military officers from around the Western Hemisphere. For just as long, the Pentagon has denied the charge.

Then, late on Friday afternoon, Sept. 20, the Pentagon released a report admitting that some of those concerns were well-founded. From 1982-91, the School of the Americas used seven U.S. Army intelligence training manuals, written in Spanish, which advocated executions, torture, blackmail and other forms of coercion, including the kidnapping of a target’s family members.

…

… In winning the election in 1980, President Reagan had publicly renounced President Carter’s strong emphasis on human rights.

In the months immediately after Reagan’s election, right-wing Salvadoran “death squads” went on a rampage of political slaughter, including the rape-murder of four American churchwomen. In 1981-82, the “death squads,” often consisting of plain-clothes soldiers, butchered thousands of perceived leftists with little criticism from a White House that was drawing a line against communism. In December 1981, a U.S.-trained Salvadoran battalion swept through the remote village of El Mozote and massacred about 800 men, women and children.

The Reagan administration also warmed up to the Guatemalan army as it launched extermination campaigns against suspected leftist strongholds among that country’s Indian population. Most controversial of all, the CIA began organizing the Nicaraguan contra rebel army to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government. The contras, too, gained a quick reputation for human rights atrocities during raids into northern Nicaragua.

⁵¹ ‘Spying on the Nation’ – Frontline, PBS

Although the president told the nation that his NSA eavesdropping program was limited to known Al Qaeda agents or supporters abroad making calls into the U.S., comments of other administration officials and intelligence veterans indicate that the NSA cast its net far more widely. AT&T technician Mark Klein inadvertently discovered that the whole flow of Internet traffic in several AT&T operations centers was being regularly diverted to the NSA, a charge indirectly substantiated by John Yoo, the Justice Department lawyer who wrote the official legal memos legitimizing the president’s warrantless wiretapping program. Yoo told FRONTLINE: “The government needs to have access to international communications so that it can try to find communications that are coming into the country where Al Qaeda’s trying to send messages to cell members in the country. In order to do that, it does have to have access to communication networks.

⁵² ‘Weinberger, Bushes & Iran-Contra’ By Robert Parry, March 29, 2006

In the early-to-mid 1980s, Ronald Reagan had sought to avoid a head-on clash with Congress by taking his foreign policy underground, using cutouts like Israel to ship missiles to Iran and White House aide Oliver North to funnel supplies to the contra rebels fighting in Nicaragua.

After those operations were exposed in 1986, Congress also tried to avert a constitutional showdown by papering over the illegal presidential actions and accepting the cover story that top officials, such as Reagan and Bush, were mostly out of the loop.

But those unresolved constitutional questions exploded back to the surface after Sept. 11, 2001, when George W. Bush asserted virtually unlimited presidential authority to override or ignore federal law as Commander in Chief. In effect, the younger George Bush was staking out power openly that Reagan and the elder George Bush had exercised only in secret.

⁵³ ‘Bush and Ken Lay: Slip Slidin’ Away’ By Sam Parry, February 6, 2002

Other parts of the Bush energy plan tracked closely to recommendations from Enron officials. Seventeen of the energy plan’s proposals were sought by and benefited Enron, according to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., ranking minority member on the House Government Reform Committee. One proposal called for repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, which limits the activities of utilities and hindered Enron’s potential for acquisitions.

⁵⁴ ‘Bush II Slowed SEC During Financial Fraud Fury’ – The Paragraph, June 18th, 2009

⁵⁵ ‘An Inside Story of Wall Street Bank Crashes’ – The Paragraph, December 26th, 2008

⁵⁶ ‘Reagan Did It’ By PAUL KRUGMAN, May 31, 2009

“This bill is the most important legislation for financial institutions in the last 50 years. It provides a long-term solution for troubled thrift institutions. … All in all, I think we hit the jackpot.” So declared Ronald Reagan in 1982, as he signed the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act.

…

The immediate effect of Garn-St. Germain, as I said, was to turn the thrifts from a problem into a catastrophe. The S.& L. crisis has been written out of the Reagan hagiography, but the fact is that deregulation in effect gave the industry — whose deposits were federally insured — a license to gamble with taxpayers’ money, at best, or simply to loot it, at worst. By the time the government closed the books on the affair, taxpayers had lost $130 billion, back when that was a lot of money.

But there was also a longer-term effect. Reagan-era legislative changes essentially ended New Deal restrictions on mortgage lending — restrictions that, in particular, limited the ability of families to buy homes without putting a significant amount of money down.

These restrictions were put in place in the 1930s by political leaders who had just experienced a terrible financial crisis, and were trying to prevent another. But by 1980 the memory of the Depression had faded. Government, declared Reagan, is the problem, not the solution; the magic of the marketplace must be set free. And so the precautionary rules were scrapped.

⁵⁷ ‘The four global warming impact studies Bush tried to bury in his final days’ by Joseph Romm, Grist, 21 Jan 2009

… For eight years [the Bush administration] have avoided their statutory obligation to detail the impacts of climate change on this country. And they have systematically muzzled government climate scientists from discussing those impacts with the public or the media.

It was easier to find people in the Bush administration to talk about torture or warrantless wiretaps, than it was to get someone to speak on (or off) the record on the likely impact of Bush’s policy of unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions on Americans.

On Friday January 16, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program actually released four major Synthesis and Assessment reports. You may remember the last report the CCSP released — U.S. Geological Survey stunner: Sea-level rise in 2100 will likely “substantially exceed” IPCC projections, SW faces “permanent drying” by 2050. I was told by scientists knowledgeable about the CCSP process that all of the major impact reports were slowed down in the review process to make sure they came out after the election.

…

These are all substantive and comprehensive studies, almost on a par with the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment.

⁵⁸ ‘A look back at Reagan’s environmental record’ Grist, 10 Jun 2004

“The Reagan administration adopted an extraordinarily aggressive policy of issuing leases for oil, gas, and coal development on tens of millions of acres of national lands — more than any other administration in history, including the current one [Bush II],” said the Wilderness Society’s David Alberswerth.

Before delving further into Reagan’s track record, it’s worth recalling his infamous public statement that “trees cause more pollution than automobiles do,” and that if “you’ve seen one tree you’ve seen them all.” This is not, in other words, a president who demonstrated much ecological prowess.

…

The list of rollbacks attempted by these administrators is as sweeping as those of the current [Bush II] administration. Gorsuch tried to gut the Clean Air Act with proposals to weaken pollution standards “on everything from automobiles to furniture manufacturers — efforts which took Congress two years to defeat,” according to Clapp. Moves to weaken the Clean Water Act were equally aggressive, crescendoing in 1987 when Reagan vetoed a strong reauthorization of the act only to have his veto overwhelmingly overridden by Congress. Assaults on Superfund were so hideous that Rita Lavelle, director of the program, was thrown in jail for lying to Congress under oath about corruption in her agency division.

The gutting of funds for environmental protection was another part of Reagan’s legacy. “EPA budget cuts during Reagan’s first term were worse than they are today,” said Frank O’Donnell, director of Clean Air Trust, who reported on environmental policy for The Washington Monthly during the Reagan era. “The administration tried to cut EPA funding by more than 25 percent in its first budget proposal,” he said. And massive cuts to Carter-era renewable-energy programs “set solar back a decade,” said Clapp.

Topping it all off were efforts to slash the EPA enforcement program: “The enforcement slowdown was staggering,” said a staffer at the House Energy and Commerce Committee who helped investigate the Reagan administration’s enforcement of environmental laws during the early ’80s. “In the first year of the Reagan administration, there was a 79 percent decline in the number of enforcement cases filed from regional offices to EPA headquarters, and a 69 percent decline in the number of cases filed from the EPA to the Department of Justice.”

⁵⁹ ‘Obama designates day for Reagan’ By Michael Collins June 2, 2009

… [Nancy Reagan] stood with her hand on Obama’s shoulder as he signed the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission Act into law.

The bill will create an 11-member panel that will recommend and carry out plans to celebrate Reagan’s 100th birthday, such as special stamps or commemorative coins. No federal money can be spent on the commission or its activities.

Sewage pipe image found HERE.

By Quinn Hungeski – Posted at G.N.N. & TheParagraph.com

Memorial Day 2008

I realized that I was in a unique position to speak out on behalf of Soldiers and their families. I had a moral obligation and duty to do so.x¹¹

…

The only way to stabilize Iraq and allow our military to rearm and refit for the long fight ahead is to begin a responsible and deliberate redeployment from Iraq and replace the troops with far less expensive and much more effective resources — those of diplomacy and the critical work of political reconciliation and economic recovery.

In October 2005, Congressman John Murtha (D-PA), a long-time Marine, decorated Vietnam War veteran and then-ranking member on the defense appropriations committee, caused a stir when he proposed a complete pull-back of troops from Iraq to begin immediately.x¹² When told that two Republican senators argued that they had never met a soldier that wanted to start pulling out, Murtha responded:

Is that right? What do you think they’re going to tell you? We’re here to talk for them! We’re here to measure the success. … We are here — we have an obligation to speak for them.

In March of this year, U.S. veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations testified at hearings called “Winter Soldier”.x¹³ Aaron Hughes, an Iraq veteran and an organizer of the hearings, described the idea of Winter Soldier:

This is a moment when veterans won’t let anyone else speak for us. We hear from the pundits, we hear from the politicians, we hear from the generals, but we don’t hear from the soldiers who’ve walked the streets, who’ve been there and know what it’s about. We’re the ones who can bring out the cruelties and dehumanization in US foreign policy.x¹⁴

Among those testifying at Winter Soldier was Jason Hurd, who was with Tennessee’s 278th Regimental Combat Team in Iraq.x¹⁵ Here is one of the stories he told:

My platoon specifically was tasked with running security escort for two explosive ordnance teams, one US Navy and one Australian EOD team. On day one, the US Navy team took us all aside for some specialized training. They took us aside and said, “Look, EOD teams are some of the most highly targeted entities in Iraq. The reason being is because, hey, we’re the guys that go out and we disarm car bombs, we mess up the tactics and the operations of the insurgency. That’s why we’re highly targeted. So you guys have to use more aggressive tactics to protect us.”

And they explained to us that what we were to do is keep a fifty-meter perimeter, a fifty-meter bubble around our trucks at all times, whether we were driving down the road or whether we’re stationary. And if anything comes in that fifty-meter bubble, we’re to get it out immediately. If it doesn’t want to move, we use what are called levels of aggression. Your first option is to try to push it out by using hand signals, hand and arm signals. Your next option is to fire a warning shot into the ground. And from there on, you walk bullets up the car. And your last option is to shoot the person driving the car. This is for our own protection. Car bombs are a real danger in Iraq. In fact, that’s the vast majority of what I saw in Baghdad, is car bombings. My unit adhered strictly to these guidelines for a few weeks.

But as time went on and the absurdity of war set in, they started taking things too far. Individuals from my unit indiscriminately and unnecessarily opened fire on innocent civilians as they’re driving down the road on their own streets. My unit — individuals from my platoon would fire into the grills of these cars and then come back in the evenings after missions were done and brag about it. They would say, ‘Hey, did you guys see that car I shot at? It spewed radiator fluid all over the ground. Wasn’t that cool?’ I remember thinking back on that and how appalled I was that we were bragging about these things, that we were laughing, but that’s what you do in a combat zone. That is your reality. That is how you deal with that predicament.

Hurd ended his testimony like this:

And I’d like to sum it up like this: the prevailing sentiment in Iraq is this — another time that I was out on patrol in the Kindi Street area as I said, part of our mission was to meet and greet the local population and find out what their problems were — and so, I approached a man with my interpreter on the side of the road, and I asked him, I said, ‘Look, are your lives better because we’re here? Are you safer? Do you feel more secure? Do you feel like we are liberating you?’ And that man looked at me straight in the eye, and he said, ‘Mister, we Iraqis know that you have good intentions here. But the fact of the matter is, before America invaded, we didn’t have to worry about car bombs in our neighborhoods, we didn’t have to worry about the safety of our own children as they walked to school, and we didn’t have to worry about US soldiers shooting at us as we drive up and down our own streets.’

Ladies and gentlemen, the suffering in Iraq is tearing that country apart. And ending that suffering begins with a complete and immediate withdrawal of all of our troops. Thank you very much.

Updates:

• Later, in December 2007, Batiste favored the ‘surge’.
• Video of Jason Hurd’s testimony here.
• Video of all Winter Soldier testimony here.

Sources

¹⁰ ‘Somebody Had to Speak Out. If Not Me, Who?’ — Maj. Gen. John Batiste Fired by CBS News for Anti-Iraq War ‘Advocacy’‘ – Democracy Now!, May 25, 2007

¹¹ ‘Gen. Batiste’s Op-Ed That The WSJ And The Washington Times Didn’t Want You To See’ – Ret. Maj. Gen. John Batiste, 2007-08-22

¹² ‘The Obligation to Speak for the Soldiers’ – The Paragraph, 2006-05-31

¹³ ‘Winter Soldier FAQ’ – Iraq Veterans against the War

What is the history of Winter Soldier? – In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” In 1971, a courageous group of veterans exposed the criminal nature of the Vietnam War in an event called Winter Soldier. Once again, we will demand that the voices of veterans are heard.

What will happen? – Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan will feature testimony from U.S. veterans who served in those occupations, giving an accurate account of what is really happening day in and day out, on the ground.

Why is IVAW doing this? – We are fighting for the soul of our country. We will demonstrate our patriotism by speaking out with honor and integrity instead of blindly following failed policy. Winter Soldier is a difficult but essential service to our country.

¹⁴ ‘Winter Soldiers to Testify Against War’ By Maya Schenwar, TruthOut.org, Saturday 01 March 2008

¹⁵ ‘Winter Soldier: US Vets, Active-Duty Soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan Testify About the Horrors of War’ – Democracy Now!, March 17, 2008

Tehran’s feeling pretty cocky right now because they’ve been able to inflict pain on us in Iraq and Afghanistan. [The trick is] to try to figure out what it is they really want and then, maybe — not that we’re going to play Santa Claus here or the Good Humor Man — but the fact is that everyone needs something in this world, and so most countries that are functional and are contributing to the world have found a way to trade off their strengths for other strengths to help them out. These guys are trying to go it alone in this respect, and it’s a bad gene pool right now. It’s not one with much longevity. So they play that card pretty regularly, and at some point you just kind of run out of games, it seems to me. You’ve got to play a real card.x⁸⁰

~~~

It is my belief that today, there is far too much talk of war and not enough talk about moving things forward in this region and taking care of the many needs of the people …x⁸¹

This constant drumbeat of conflict is one that strikes me as not helpful, not useful for the people, and I wish we could get moving to things that are more constructive for the region.

…

[I]t is certainly my hope and expectation that there is no war and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to find ways in which we can get countries to sit together for the benefit of everyone involved. So whether now or in the future, war is not a good idea.

Adm. Fallon – pushes diplomacy (U.S. Navy)

Bush & McCain – push wider war

Further Reading

‘Crushing the Ants — Admiral Fallon and His Empire’ By CHRIS FLOYD, CounterPunch, March 7, 2008

Sources

⁸⁰ ‘The Man Between War and Peace’ – By Thomas P.M. Barnett, Esquire, March 2008

⁸¹ ‘Far too much talk of war’ – Al Jazeera

⁸² ‘Dissenting Views Made Fallon’s Fall Inevitable’ By Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service, WASHINGTON, Mar 11, 2008

… Fallon almost certainly knew that he would be fired when he agreed to cooperate with the Esquire magazine profile in late 2006.

…

The resignation brings to an end a year, during which time Fallon clashed with the White House over policy toward Iran and with Gen. David Petraeus and the White House over whether Iraq should continue to be given priority over Afghanistan and Pakistan in U.S. policy.

Fallon’s greatest concern appears to have been preventing war with Iran. He was one a group of senior military officers, apparently including most of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who were alarmed in late 2006 and early 2007 by indications that Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were contemplating a possible attack on Iran.

…

Col. W. Patrick Lang, a former intelligence officer on the Middle East for the Defence Intelligence Agency, told the Washington Post last week that Fallon had said privately at the time of his confirmation that an attack on Iran “isn’t going to happen on my watch”, When asked how he could avoid such a conflict, Fallon reportedly responded, “I have options, you know.” Lang said he interpreted that comment as implying Fallon would step down rather than follow orders to carry out such an attack.

As IPS reported last May, Fallon was also quoted as saying privately at that time, “There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box”. That was an apparent reference to the opposition by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to an aggressive war against Iran.

Even before assuming his new post at CENTCOM, Fallon expressed strong opposition in mid-February to a proposal for sending a third U.S. aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, to overlap with two other carriers, according to knowledgeable sources. The addition of a third carrier was to part of a broader strategy then being discussed at the Pentagon to intimidate Iran by making a series of military moves suggesting preparations for a military strike.

The plan for a third carrier task force in the Gulf was dropped after Fallon made his views known.

Fallon reportedly made his opposition to a strike against Iran known to the White House early on in his tenure, and his role as CENTCOM commander would have made it very difficult for the Bush administration to carry out a strike against Iran, because he controlled all ground, air and naval military access to the region.

But Fallon’s role in regional diplomacy proved to be an even greater source of friction with the White House than his position on military policy toward Iran. Personal relations with military and political leaders in the Middle East had already become nearly as important as military planning under Fallon’s predecessors at CENTCOM.

Fallon clearly relished his diplomatic role and did not hesitate to express views on diplomacy that were at odds with those of the administration. Last summer, as Dick Cheney was maneuvering within the administration to shift U.S. policy toward an attack on bases in Iran allegedly connected to anti-U.S. Shiite forces in Iraq, Fallon declared in an interview, “We have to figure out a way to come to an arrangement” with Iran.

⁸³ ‘Petraeus Promotion Frees Cheney to Threaten Iran’ by Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service, WASHINGTON, Apr 23, 2008

⁸⁴ ‘Iraq Study Group Report: Executive Summary’ 6 December 2006

Our most important recommendations call for new and enhanced diplomatic and political efforts in Iraq and the region, and a change in the primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq that will enable the United States to begin to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly. We believe that these two recommendations are equally important and reinforce one another.

The United States should immediately launch a new diplomatic offensive to build an international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region. This diplomatic effort should include every country that has an interest in avoiding a chaotic Iraq, including all of Iraq’s neighbors. Iraq’s neighbors and key states in and outside the region should form a support group to reinforce security and national reconciliation within Iraq, neither of which Iraq can achieve on its own.

Given the ability of Iran and Syria to influence events within Iraq and their interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq, the United States should try to engage them constructively. …

⁸⁵ ‘Cheney’s Iran Fantasy’ by Joe Klein, Time, May 25, 2007

Last December, as Rumsfeld was leaving, President Bush met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in “The Tank,” the secure room in the Pentagon where the Joint Chiefs discuss classified matters of national security. Bush asked the Chiefs about the wisdom of a troop “surge” in Iraq. They were unanimously opposed. Then Bush asked about the possibility of a successful attack on Iran’s nuclear capability. He was told that the U.S. could launch a devastating air attack on Iran’s government and military, wiping out the Iranian air force, the command and control structure and some of the more obvious nuclear facilities. But the Chiefs were—once again—unanimously opposed to taking that course of action.

⁸⁶ Gen. Petraeus’ Testimony to the Senate Armed Services Comm. – 2008-04-08

⁸⁷ ‘Iranian general played key role in Iraq cease-fire’ By Leila Fadel, McClatchy Newspapers, Sunday, March 30, 2008

Iraqi lawmakers traveled to the Iranian holy city of Qom over the weekend to win the support of the commander of Iran’s Qods brigades in persuading Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr to order his followers to stop military operations, members of the Iraqi parliament said.

Sadr ordered the halt on Sunday, and his Mahdi Army militia heeded the order in Baghdad, where the Iraqi government announced it would lift a 24-hour curfew starting early Monday in most parts of the capital.

But fighting continued in the oil hub of Basra, where a six-day-old government offensive against Shiite militias has had only limited gains.

So far, 488 people have been killed and more than 900 wounded in the offensive, Iraqi Interior Ministry officials said.

⁸⁸ ‘President Bush Discusses Iraq’ 2008-04-10

The regime in Tehran also has a choice to make. It can live in peace with its neighbor, enjoy strong economic and cultural and religious ties. Or it can continue to arm and train and fund illegal militant groups, which are terrorizing the Iraqi people and turning them against Iran. If Iran makes the right choice, America will encourage a peaceful relationship between Iran and Iraq. If Iran makes the wrong choice, America will act to protect our interests, and our troops, and our Iraqi partners.

⁸⁹ ‘ Remarks By John McCain To The Members Of The Veterans Of Foreign Wars (VFW)’ April 7, 2008 “We must press ahead against … the Iranian-backed Special Groups …”

⁹⁰ ‘When Did Iran Start Beating Its Wife Again?’ by Jeff Huber, ePluribus Media, 04/28/2008

“Shipments of arms” continue to flow from Iran to Iraq, according to the article. Iran seems to be focusing now on “training Iraqi Shiite fighters inside Iran.” The Iranians provide “weapons to militias fighting the Shiite-led government in Baghdad as well as to militias supporting that government.” “American commanders” now have “a clearer picture of how Iranian weapons have entered Iraq.” “Iran’s Quds Force” has developed “a formal and sophisticated training program.”

By what burden of proof did these condemning allegations earn their way into America’s newspaper of record? Why, by the brave new world order’s highest standard of bedrock evidence: the testimony of anonymous “officials.”

⁹¹ ‘Will Bushies Sell Iran War ‘Product’?’ – The Paragraph, 2007-09-08

⁹² ‘British soldiers back in Basra as hundreds of Iraqi troops desert’ By Kim Sengupta, The Independent, 07 April 2008

The British return to Basra comes days after the Government announced that Gordon Brown’s pledge to reduce troop levels by 1,500 this spring could not be fulfilled because of security concerns. The development comes alongside the disclosure that up to 1,500 Iraqi soldiers refused to fight, or deserted in the operation against the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Shia militia. The numbers, according to Iraqi and American sources, included dozens of officers and at least two senior field commanders. …

In addition to those who refused to follow orders, about 100 members of the Iraqi security forces simply changed sides, to the Mehdi Army. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has faced strong criticism over the operation, which he had led after flying from Baghdad to Basra and which ended, critics say, in a stalemate with an Iranian-brokered peace deal.

…

… The offensive which took place concentrated … on Mr al-Sadr’s forces while the Badr Brigade, which has links to Mr Maliki’s government, and the Fadilla group of Basra governor Mohammed Waeli were not targeted.

So if you reflect back on those five years, I think it’s been a difficult, challenging, but nonetheless successful endeavour and that we’ve come a long way in five years and it’s been well worth the effort.x⁶⁰

But Cheney’s happy talk fades fast into the sad reality of Iraq. There violence has killed 100,000’s of citizens and thousands of U.S. and allied soldiers, and kills more day-by-day.x⁶¹ There violence has driven millions of citizens from their homes. There the five years of violence and neglect have destroyed the infrastructure, and millions of citizens lack safe drinking water and electricity. There half the citizens who need a paying job can’t find one. There, where the country’s major income is oil, it has not flowed for a single day as it had before the invasion. There the U.S. government has spent a half trillion dollars, and spends three billion a week more to maintain the occupation, its massive embassy in the “green zone”, its new military bases, and the lush profits of its corporate contractors.x⁶²

Sen. John McCain, to whom President Bush wants to pass the war baton, also visited Baghdad this week, and also spoke happily: “We find a continued success of the strategy …”, and “The surge is working.” But the time for the “surge” is up, and it has failed. Its benchmarks have not been met and there is no exit in sight for U.S. troops.x⁶³ That does not seem to faze McCain. Instead of an exit plan, he has a staying dream, where the Iraqi government and people welcome U.S. troops for “maybe a hundred years”.x⁶⁴ But since Bush war policy has played out in the torture at Abu Ghraib, the siege of Fallujah, and loose rules of engagement, such welcome seems unlikely.x⁶⁵x⁶⁶x⁶⁷ So what way forward do we have? Southern Iraq gives a clue: since the British occupation troops left Basra, violence has dropped 90%.x⁶⁸

Bush & McCain make up – August 2004. Now Bush wants to pass the war baton to McCain.

Sources

⁶⁰ ‘Headlines for March 18, 2008 — Suicide Bomber Kills 42; Cheney & McCain Cite Success in Iraq’ Democracy Now!

⁶¹ ‘IRAQ: Five Years, And Counting’ – Inter Press Service, Analysis by Dahr Jamail, 2008-03-18

⁶² ‘War Profiteers Profits Over Patriotism in Iraq’ by Robert L. Borosage, Eric Lotke and Robert Gerson; Campaign fo America’s Future; September 2006 – pdf file

⁶³ Despite Failure To Meet Bush’s Original Goals, McCain And Lieberman Declare ‘The Surge Worked’ – Matt, ThinkProgress.org, Jan 10th, 2008

Despite the failure of the surge to meet its political goals, war hawks are rushing to declare victory. Writing in the Wall Street Journal today, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) declare that “the surge worked.”

Here are a few examples of how their claims of “victory” do not correspond with the reality in Iraq:

CLAIM: “The surge worked.”

FACT: In October, the Government Accountability Office assessed that of the eight political benchmarks set forth by President Bush and Congress, the Iraqi government had only “met one legislative benchmark and partially met another.” Since then, progress has stalled on key areas laid out by Bush: an oil law, de-Baathification reform, a process for amending the Constitution and provincial elections.

CLAIM: “Conditions in that country have been utterly transformed from those of a year ago, as a consequence of the surge.”

FACT: Though the “surge” has helped Sunni Arabs in Anbar province push al Qaeda in Iraq to the sidelines, the decision to turn on al Qaeda was not caused by the “surge.” U.S. commanders wisely “took advantage of these changing dynamics,” but they did not cause them. Additionally, as al Qaeda’s presence has decreased, sectarian strife has increased.

CLAIM: “We have at last begun to see the contours of what must remain our objective in this long, hard and absolutely necessary war — victory.”

FACT: Only politicians and pundits are speaking of victory. At the end of last year, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, cautioned that “recent security gains are fragile and still reversible.” “We are trying to be cautious as we describe the progress that is taking place in Iraq,” Petraeus told Foreign Affairs. “There are a number of concerns that we do have.”

⁶⁴ ‘McCain in NH: Would Be ‘Fine’ To Keep Troops in Iraq for ‘A Hundred Years’‘ by David Corn, 2008-01-03

After the event ended, I asked McCain about his “hundred years” comment, and he reaffirmed the remark, excitedly declaring that U.S. troops could be in Iraq for “a thousand years” or “a million years,” as far as he was concerned. The key matter, he explained, was whether they were being killed or not: “It’s not American presence; it’s American casualties.” U.S. troops, he continued, are stationed in South Korea, Japan, Europe, Bosnia, and elsewhere as part of a “generally accepted policy of America’s multilateralism.” There’s nothing wrong with Iraq being part of that policy, providing the government in Baghdad does not object.

In other words, McCain does not equate victory in Iraq — which he passionately urges at campaign events — with the removal of U.S. troops from that nation.

⁶⁵ ‘America Puts Brakes on Drive for More War’ The Paragraph, 2006-11-30; footnotes 120-122

⁶⁶ ‘The Real ‘Surge’ of 2007: Non-Combatant Death in Iraq and Afghanistan’ By Neta C. Crawford, Catherine Lutz, Robert Jay Lifton, Judith L. Herman, Howard Zinn – Carnegie Council, January 22, 2008

The U.S. says it takes particular care in both Afghanistan and Iraq to avoid killing or injuring non-combatants. And it is true that the rules of engagement have become more restrictive and that the U.S. has used more precision guided munitions in both conflicts than in any previous wars. So, what explains this surge in non-combatant deaths? There are three main factors.

First, the United States has significantly increased “close air support” operations in both countries. In other words, when U.S. and NATO ground forces come into contact with insurgents, the U.S. has increasingly tended to call on helicopters and fixed wing aircraft to fire on targets. While pre-planned attacks can take risks to civilians into account through “collateral damage estimates,” close air support operations are done on the fly and often with poor intelligence. The majority of the deaths recorded in the last year were caused in these operations.

Second, while the Pentagon has increasingly restricted the rules for when its soldiers can use deadly force, the rules of engagement are too permissive, permitting the use of force if the soldier feels threatened with “hostile intent.”

Third, U.S. forces are understandably stressed and therefore sometimes too quick to fire in ambiguous situations. Troops rotations are long, combat stress is high, and returning soldiers report attitudes of contempt for Iraqi and Afghan civilians. This combination of contempt, fear, and fatigue is a toxic brew.

⁶⁷ ‘US/IRAQ: Rules of Engagement ‘Thrown Out the Window’‘ By Dahr Jamail, Inter Press Service, March 15, 2008

⁶⁸ ‘In Basra, violence is a tenth of what it was before British pullback, general says’ The Associated Press, November 15, 2007

• “We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq.“ (2003-03-08)x⁶⁵ Bush spoke that to the nation two weeks before launching the invasion of Iraq, and after spending a half-year beating the war drum. The Bush regime planned for an Iraq invasion on its first week in office, and conjured up intelligence that was “being fixed around the policy.“x⁶⁶x⁶⁷ A month and a week before that statement, Bush met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and told him that the start of bombing was “penciled in” for March 10th.x⁶⁸

• “We gave him (Saddam Hussein) a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power.“ (2003-07-14)x⁶⁹ Actually, Hussein was complying with the UN resolution and weapons inspectors were making good progress, when Bush warned them to get out just before he launched the “shock and awe” attack.x⁷⁰ In the years since, Bush has often repeated this false history.

• “If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.“ (2003-09-30)x⁷¹ Bush was playing dumb about the leak that blew the cover of covert CIA agent Valeri Plame. Actually, Bush had authorized such leaks in a vain try at smearing Plame’s husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, who had publicly undermined one of Bush’s false bases for invading Iraq — that the country was developing nuclear weapons.x⁷² But one could say that part of Bush’s statement was true: one of the leakers, Cheney’s top aide I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, who was convicted of lying to FBI agents about the leak program, was “taken care of” when Bush commuted his jail time.x⁷³

• “*By the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires – a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so.*” (2004-04-20)x⁷⁴ At the time Bush spoke this, he had the National Security Agency (NSA) tapping into phone and internet communications at the data switches of AT&T and Verizon — all without a court order.x⁷⁵x⁷⁶

• “Both those men are doing fantastic jobs, and I strongly support them.“ (2006-11-1)x⁷⁷ Bush said this about Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and went a step further, as the reporter wrote: “[Bush] replied in the affirmative when asked if he wanted Messrs. Rumsfeld and Cheney to stay with him until the end.” But Bush had already decided to oust Rumsfeld, and three days later did so. While this lie is not as weighty as the others, it is special in that Bush admitted he was lying. After ousting Rumsfeld, he told the same reporter: “The reason why is I did not want to make a major decision in the final days of the campaign. The only way to answer that question, and get it on to another question, was to give you that answer.“x⁷⁸

Further Reading

‘Log of lies from the Bush-Cheney administration’ – Unknown News

‘George W. Bush IS a Liar’ by Robert Parry, ConsortiumNews.com, 2006-04-14

Sources

⁶⁰ ‘Press Conference by the President’ 2007-12-04

Q Mr. President, thank you. I’d like to follow on that. When you talked about Iraq, you and others in the administration talked about a mushroom cloud; then there were no WMD in Iraq. When it came to Iran, you said in October, on October 17th, you warned about the prospect of World War III, when months before you made that statement, this intelligence about them suspending their weapons program back in ’03 had already come to light to this administration. So can’t you be accused of hyping this threat? And don’t you worry that that undermines U.S. credibility?

THE PRESIDENT: David, I don’t want to contradict an august reporter such as yourself, but I was made aware of the NIE last week. In August, I think it was Mike McConnell came in and said, we have some new information. He didn’t tell me what the information was; he did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze. Why would you take time to analyze new information? One, you want to make sure it’s not disinformation. You want to make sure the piece of intelligence you have is real. And secondly, they want to make sure they understand the intelligence they gathered: If they think it’s real, then what does it mean? And it wasn’t until last week that I was briefed on the NIE that is now public.

⁶¹ ‘National Intelligence Estimate: Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities’ November 2007

⁶² ‘Cheney Tried to Stifle Dissent in Iran NIE’ By Gareth Porter, IPS, 2007-11-08

⁶³ ‘Press Conference by the President’ 2007-10-17

⁶⁵ ‘War on Terror – President’s Radio Address’ 2003-03-08

⁶⁶ ‘Will Bushies Sell Iran War ‘Product’?’ source 75 the Paragraph 2007-09-08

⁶⁷ ‘America Puts Brakes on Drive for More War’ source 103 The Paragraph 2006-11-30

⁶⁸ ‘Bush Was Set on Path to War, British Memo Says’ By DON VAN NATTA Jr., March 27, 2006

“Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning,” David Manning, Mr. Blair’s chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.

“The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March,” Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president. “This was when the bombing would begin.”

⁶⁹ ‘President Reaffirms Strong Position on Liberia – Remarks by the President and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in Photo Opportunity The Oval Office’ 2003-07-14

⁷⁰ ‘Bush’s Favorite Lie’ by Robert Parry, ConsortiumNews.com, 2007-11-09

⁷¹ ‘President Discusses Job Creation With Business Leaders’ University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, 2003-09-30

⁷² ‘George W. Bush IS a Liar’ by Robert Parry, ConsortiumNews.com, 2007-11-09

Bush had included the bogus Niger claim in his State of the Union Address in January 2003. But Wilson’s first-hand account of his assignment in 2002 to check out the Niger suspicions – and his conclusion that the evidence was weak – represented the first major assault on Bush’s pre-war intelligence from a mainstream government figure.

The White House struck back, organizing anti-Wilson leaks to friendly reporters. Privately, Bush declassified information that tended to bolster his Niger claim – even though by then its truthfulness had been discredited by U.S. intelligence agencies.

With President Bush’s clearance, Vice President Dick Cheney dispatched his chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, to leak information to Washington Post investigative reporter Bob Woodward on June 27, 2003. Libby approached New York Times correspondent Judith Miller on July 8 and Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper on July 12.

⁷³ ‘Bush Commutes Libby’s Prison Sentence’ By Amy Goldstein, Washington Post Staff Writer, Tuesday, July 3, 2007

⁷⁴ ‘President Bush: Information Sharing, Patriot Act Vital to Homeland Security – Remarks by the President in a Conversation on the USA Patriot Act’ Kleinshans Music Hall, Buffalo, New York, 2004-04-20

⁷⁵ ‘Big Brother Bad Idea Still Breathing’ source 25, The Paragraph 2007-10-28

⁷⁶ ‘A Simple Censure is Warranted’ The Paragraph 2006-04-03

⁷⁷ ‘Bush Stands By Cheney, Rumsfeld’ By TERENCE HUNT, Associated Press, November 2, 2006

⁷⁸ ‘VIDEO: Bush Admits He Lied About Rumsfeld For Political Purposes’ – Think Progress, 2006-11-08

• In 2004, just before the election, [Petraeus] said there was “tangible progress“ in Iraq and that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward.” (The ad did not bother to refute this one.)

• And last week Petraeus … said “We say we have achieved progress …” [But] every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed.

• … the General claims a reduction in violence. That’s because … the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabs on violence. For example, deaths by car bombs don’t count. … assassinations only count if you’re shot in the back of the head — not the front. … there have been more civilian deaths and more American soldier deaths in the past three months than in any other summer we’ve been there.

• We’ll hear of neighborhoods where violence has decreased. But we won’t hear that those neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed.

• Most importantly, General Petraeus will not admit what everyone knows; Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war.

• We may hear of a plan to withdraw a few thousand American troops. But we won’t hear … a timetable for withdrawing all our troops. General Petraeus has actually said American troops will need to stay in Iraq for as long as ten years.

So we can see that this ad was not an attack on the U.S. military. And it is not a personal attack to dispute someone’s claims with facts.x⁰⁵ Are the Senate (all the Republicans and half the Democrats) and the President saying that someone wearing four stars should not get criticism for public comments? And why is a general making public comments in support of the President’s war policy anyway? We have a Defense Secretary for that.x⁰⁶ So to me, the Senate’s resolution and the President’s comments were “over the top”.

Sources

⁰¹ MoveOn ‘Betray Us’ Ad – copy with source links

⁰² “Over the top”:

Some Democrats (including John Kerry and Jack Reed) have publicly distanced themselves from the ad, saying it was over the top. (Both Kerry and Reed voted against the resolution. – hungeski) – MSNBC

‘Do you want to distance yourself from that ad?’ asked anchorman John Roberts (of Sen. Clinton). ‘Was that MoveOn.org ad over the top?’ – report on CNN interview

‘The personal attacks on General Petraeus were way over the top,’ said Michael Noonan, a defense scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and an Army Reserve officer who served in Iraq. – The Seattle Times

“There’s room for reasonable people to disagree over Gen. David Petraeus’ take on Iraq. But MoveOn.org’s personal attacks on him go way over the top.” – Kansas City Star

Sen. Bob Corker and Rep. Zach Wamp on Monday denounced an ad taken out in the New York Times by MoveOn.org ad attacking Commanding General David Petraeus. … Rep. Wamp said, “… That they would do this the day before the sixth anniversary of 9/11, to me is outrageous. It is over the top and I think the American people should reject it.” – The Chatanoogan

⁰³ H.R.1585: Senate Amendment on Petraeus [¶]

⁰⁴ Bush: MoveOn.org ad on Petraeus ‘disgusting’ – CNN, September 18, 2007

⁰⁵ ‘Our ad on General Petraeus’ – MoveOn.org

As long as General Petraeus is “untouchable” the President can continue to hide behind him. That’s why the public needs to know that Petraeus is neither objective nor trustworthy when it comes to assessing progress in Iraq.

…

Moreover, every word of the ad was entirely accurate—the General has in fact cooked the books, and in doing so, he betrayed the public trust.

⁰⁶ ‘Corrupting the Military: Petraeus as Bush’s Political Spear-Carrier’ – Steven C. Clemons, The Washington Note, September 05, 2007

Quoted from article by By Bruce Ackerman in the Financial Times: President George W. Bush’s campaign to stay the course in Iraq is taking a new and constitutionally dangerous turn. When Senator John Warner recently called for a troop withdrawal by Christmas, the White House did not mount its usual counterattack. It allowed a surprising champion to take its place. Major General Rick Lynch, a field commander in Iraq, summoned reporters to condemn Mr Warner’s proposal as “a giant step backwards”.

It was Maj Gen Lynch who was making the giant step into forbidden territory. He had no business engaging in a public debate with a US senator. His remarks represent an assault on the principle of civilian control — the most blatant so far during the Iraq war.

Sources

⁹⁰ ‘FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive: Usama bin Laden’

USAMA BIN LADEN IS WANTED IN CONNECTION WITH THE AUGUST 7, 1998, BOMBINGS OF THE UNITED STATES EMBASSIES IN DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA, AND NAIROBI, KENYA. THESE ATTACKS KILLED OVER 200 PEOPLE. IN ADDITION, BIN LADEN IS A SUSPECT IN OTHER TERRORIST ATTACKS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.

⁹¹ ‘Transcript of bin Laden Video Address’ 2007-09-06, pdf image

⁹³ ‘FOX News attempts to connect Osama bin Laden with American left and Democrats’ – Raw Story, September 8, 2007

⁹⁴ ‘Brooks: In His New Tape, Bin Laden Sounds Like He’s Been ‘Reading Lefty Blogs’’ – Think Progress, September 8, 2007

⁹⁵ ‘Bush-Bin Laden Symbiosis Reborn’ By Robert Parry, Consortiumnews.com, September 8, 2007

In a new video, al-Qaeda leader bin Laden again taunts Bush, the United States – and then the Democrats for not forcing an American withdrawal from Iraq, which should help guarantee that the Democrats won’t dare press for a withdrawal from Iraq.

At a summit of Pacific Rim leaders in Sydney, Australia, President Bush then did his part, highlighting bin Laden’s Iraq comments:

“I found it interested that on the tape Iraq was mentioned, which is a reminder that Iraq is part of the war against extremists. If al-Qaeda bothers to mention Iraq, it’s because they want to achieve their objectives in Iraq, which is to drive us out.”

Except that U.S. intelligence has long concluded that al-Qaeda really wants the opposite: to bog the United States down in a hopeless, bloody war in Iraq that has been a boon for recruiting young jihadists, raising money and protecting al-Qaeda’s leadership holed up in base camps inside Pakistan.

⁹⁶ ‘Bush Agrees Bin-Laden Helped in ‘04’ By Robert Parry July 14, 2006

⁹⁷ ‘Bin Laden’s ‘Nice Favor’ for Bush Helped al-Qaeda’ – The Paragraph, June 24th, 2007

Last week, almost five years to the day after Cheney’s speech to the V.F.W., Bush gave a speech to the American Legion laying out themes for an attack on Iran, which, like Iraq, is on Bush’s “axis of evil” list⁸⁰. Bush said that Iran could get a nuclear weapon that would put the region “under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust,” and that Iran is supporting “Shia extremists” to attack U.S. troops in Iraq. But, having made false claims before to sell a policy for war, Bush’s claims now carry no factual weight⁸¹. Even so, inside reports say that another marketing push for war is coming, but this time it is unlikely that the autocratic Bush would seek authority from Congress⁸²x⁸³x⁸⁴. Yet cold analysis shows that an attack on Iran would double the damage to U.S. security — creating even more enemies, further weakening the military and budget, and rallying the Iranian population around the most warlike and repressive of its leaders⁸⁵x⁸⁶. So, faced with signs that Bush would proceed on such a damaging course, what can the U.S. Congress do to protect the country? One idea is to bring to the House floor H.R.333, the bill to impeach Cheney, who has several times publicly threatened Iran — including once from an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf⁸⁷x⁸⁸. Such a bold move by Congress could knock the gust out of the campaign for the new war “product⁸⁹“.

Sources

⁷⁰ ‘Marketing Iraq: Why now?’ By William Schneider, CNN, September 12, 2002

“To those who say we want more evidence that there’s a real threat, the Administration says we can’t wait for a smoking gun to turn up, said National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice. “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,”

⁷¹ ‘Commentary: Bush Administration’s Marketing of the Possible War Against Iraq’, Morning Edition, NPR, September 17, 2002

⁷³ ‘Vice President Speaks at VFW 103rd National Convention’, The White House, August 26, 2002

It is a certainty that the al Qaeda network is pursuing such weapons, and has succeeded in acquiring at least a crude capability to use them.

…

… containment is not possible when dictators obtain weapons of mass destruction, and are prepared to share them with terrorists who intend to inflict catastrophic casualties on the United States.

…

But we now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Among other sources, we’ve gotten this from the firsthand testimony of defectors — including Saddam’s own son-in-law, who was subsequently murdered at Saddam’s direction. Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon.

(Actually, Saddam’s son-in-law, Hussein Kamel reported the contrary: “All weapons— biological, chemical, missile, nuclear, were destroyed.”)

…

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

⁷⁴ ‘Bush II Cooked Intelligence to Get Iraq War Powers’ – The Paragraph, September 29th, 2005

⁷⁵ Text of the Downing Street Memo a document containing meeting minutes transcribed during the British Prime Minister’s meeting on July 23, 2002

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

⁷⁶ ‘BUYING THE WAR’ – Bill Moyers’ Journal, PBS, April 25, 2007

… “What the conservative media did was easy to fathom; they had been cheerleaders for the White House from the beginning and were simply continuing to rally the public behind the President — no questions asked. How mainstream journalists suspended skepticism and scrutiny remains an issue of significance that the media has not satisfactorily explored,” says Moyers. “How the administration marketed the war to the American people has been well covered, but critical questions remain: How and why did the press buy it, and what does it say about the role of journalists in helping the public sort out fact from propaganda?”

⁷⁷ ‘Congressional Resolution on Iraq – Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF)’ Passed by House and Senate October 2002

⁷⁸ ‘Report: Iraq ‘cause celebre’ for jihadists’ BY TIMOTHY M. PHELPS, Newsday, September 27, 2006

“We assess that the Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives … the Iraq conflict has become the ‘cause celebre’ for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.” – from declassified part of CIA National Intelligence Estimate

⁷⁹ ‘Cost of Iraq war nearly $2b a week’ By Bryan Bender, The Boston Globe, September 28, 2006

⁸⁰ ‘President Bush Addresses the 89th Annual National Convention of the American Legion’, Reno, August 28, 2007

… Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.

…

Recently, coalition forces seized 240-millimeter rockets that had been manufactured in Iran this year and that had been provided to Iraqi extremist groups by Iranian agents. The attacks on our bases and our troops by Iranian-supplied munitions have increased in the last few months — despite pledges by Iran to help stabilize the security situation in Iraq.

… [Iran’s leaders] cannot escape responsibility for aiding attacks against coalition forces and the murder of innocent Iraqis. The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops. I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities.

⁸¹ ‘Do We Have The Courage To Stop War With Iran?’ by Ray McGovern, AfterDowningStreet.org, 2007-08-31

A “final” draft of the follow-up NIE mentioned above had been completed in Feb. 2007, and McConnell no doubt was briefed on its findings prior to his testimony. The fact that this draft has been sent back for revision every other month since February speaks volumes. Judging from McConnell’s testimony, the conclusions of the NIE draft of February are probably not alarmist enough for Vice President Dick Cheney. (Shades of Iraq.)

…

There they go again—those bureaucrats at the International Atomic Energy Agency. On August 28, the very day Bush was playing up the dangers from Iran, the IAEA released a note of understanding between the IAEA and Iran on the key issue of inspection. The IAEA announced:

“The agency has been able to verify the non-diversion of the declared nuclear materials at the enrichment facilities in Iran and has therefore concluded that it remains in peaceful use.”

The IAEA deputy director said the plan just agreed to by the IAEA and Iran will enable the two to reach closure by December on the nuclear issues that the IAEA began investigating in 2003. Other IAEA officials now express confidence that they will be able to detect any military diversion or any uranium enrichment above a low grade, as long as the Iran-IAEA safeguard agreement remains intact.

⁸² ‘Post Labor Day Product Rollout: War with Iran’ – Barnett R. Rubin, Informed Comment Global Affairs, August 29, 2007

According to this report, as in 2002, the rollout will start after Labor Day, with a big kickoff on September 11. My friend had spoken to someone in one of the leading neo-conservative institutions. He summarized what he was told this way:

They [the source’s institution] have “instructions” (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don’t think they’ll ever get majority support for this—they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is “plenty.”

⁸³ ‘Rollout to War with Iran: An Update’ – Barnett R. Rubin, Informed Comment Global Affairs, September 1, 2007

Update: Since I posted the original note on this topic Wednesday night, there have been several developments. Several more well-informed people have called to discuss it — all of them with confirming information. No one called to say I was wrong.

⁸⁴ ‘Bush Acts as Dictator During Endless “War”’ – The Paragraph, January 9th, 2006

⁸⁵ ‘IRAN:CONSEQUENCES OF A WAR’ by Paul Rogers, Oxford Research Group, February 2006

Although U.S. or Israeli attacks would severely damage Iranian nuclear and missile programmes, Iran would have many methods of responding in the months and years that followed. These would include disruption of Gulf oil production and exports, in spite of U.S. attempts at preemption, systematic support for insurgents in Iraq, and encouragement to associates in Southern Lebanon to stage attacks on Israel. There would be considerable national unity in Iran in the face of military action by the United States or Israel, including a revitalised Revolutionary Guard.

One key response from Iran would be a determination to reconstruct a nuclear programme and develop it rapidly into a nuclear weapons capability, with this accompanied by withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. This would require further attacks. A military operation against Iran would not, therefore, be a short-term matter but would set in motion a complex and long-lasting confrontation. It follows that military action should be firmly ruled out and alternative strategies developed.

⁸⁶ ‘Experts Speak: No Good Military Options in Iran’, Think Progress, 2006-04-10

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT: “[A] military strike would be disastrous for the United States. It would rally the Iranian public around an otherwise unpopular regime, inflame anti-American anger around the Muslim world, and jeopardize the already fragile U.S. position in Iraq. And it would accelerate, not delay, the Iranian nuclear program. Hard-liners in Tehran would be proven right in their claim that the only thing that can deter the United States is a nuclear bomb. Iranian leaders could respond with a crash nuclear program that could produce a bomb in a few years.”

⁸⁷ ‘House Resolution 333 Impeaching Richard B. Cheney’ – pdf / Supporting Documentation

⁸⁸ ‘On Carrier in Gulf, Cheney Warns Iran’ By DAVID E. SANGER, New York Times, May 11, 2007

“With two carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we’re sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike,” [Cheney] said. “We’ll continue … delivering justice to the enemies of freedom. And we’ll stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region.”

⁸⁹ ‘Four words Bush needs to hear’ by Devin, Daily Kos, Sep 04, 2007

Making the case against war with Iran after the machinery is rolling will be pointless. We need our leaders in Congress to get off the sidelines and declare that any expansion of U.S. aggression in the Middle East without explicit approval from Congress will be met with articles of impeachment, period, full stop.

Doing so will fundamentally change the debate; we would then be talking about whether or not Bush has the implicit authority to wage war with Iran simply because he chooses to, or because he thinks the 2002 AUMF gives him the authority, and that is a good thing.

Sources

²¹ One Percent Doctrine – Ron Suskind

²² ‘Bush Agrees Bin-Laden Helped in ‘04’ By Robert Parry, ConsortiumNews.com, July 14, 2006

²³ ‘Excerpts: Bin Laden video’ – BBC transcript of al-Jazeera broadcast, Friday, 29 October, 2004

… it seemed to [Bush] that being preoccupied with the little child’s talk about her goat and its butting was more important than being preoccupied with the planes and their ramming into the skyscrapers.

This gave with three times the period required for carrying out the operations, praise be to God.

Your security does not lie in the hands of Kerry, Bush, or al-Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands. Each and every state that does not tamper with our security will have automatically assured its own security.

²⁴ ‘Bush’s Killer Iraq Talking Points’ By Robert Parry, ConsortiumNews.com, May 30, 2007

As U.S. intelligence has been reporting internally for years, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003 was a boon to al-Qaeda, diverting U.S. forces away from its leaders hiding along the Pakistan-Afghan borders while helping al-Qaeda attract thousands of new recruits, build a battle-tested force in Iraq, and reestablish its financial infrastructure.

²⁵ ‘The Constitution in Crisis’ – House Judiciary Committee report, August 2006, P.90 – pdf file P.83

The Department of Justice also bears significant responsibility for the acts of torture and other legal violations by virtue of the extreme and narrow legal views it has adopted. These are set forth in an August 1, 2002 memo setting forth an inappropriately narrow definition of torture and in Mr. Gonzales=s January 2005 confirmation hearing testimony on the jurisdictional reach of bans on CID. An August 1, 2002 Department of Justice memo addressed to then-White House Counsel Gonzales creates a definition of torture that is contrary to international law, domestic law, and legislative intent.628 The memo claims that torture consists of extreme acts under U.S. law, inflicting severe pain that must be of an intensity akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure. According to the memo, severe mental pain requires suffering not just at the moment of infliction but it also requires lasting psychological harm, such as seen in mental disorders like posttraumantic [sic] stress disorder.

²⁶ ‘Rumsfeld okayed abuses says former U.S. general’ – Reuters, Saturday, November 25, 2006

Karpinski, who ran the prison until early 2004, said she saw a memorandum signed by Rumsfeld detailing the use of harsh interrogation methods.

“The handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written: “Make sure this is accomplished,”” she told Saturday’s El Pais.

²⁷ ‘Bush’s Bloody Flip-Flop’ By Robert Parry, ConsortiumNews.com, September 14, 2004

A flip-flop by George W. Bush worsened the military-political debacle in Fallujah last April when the Bush administration overruled the Marine commanding general twice, first ordering him to undertake a retaliatory assault against the rebellious Iraqi city and then abruptly reversing direction three days later.

…

The Fallujah attack enflamed anti-Americanism throughout the Middle East and made the city’s name a rallying cry for Iraqi insurgents. Though Fallujah is located in the Sunni Triangle, rival Shiite communities to the south joined in collecting and delivering relief supplies.

The civilian deaths in Fallujah also brought a new round of international condemnation of the United States for allegedly engaging in a collective punishment of a population, a violation of international law. …

²⁸ ‘The Bush-Bin Laden Symbiosis’ By Robert Parry August 11, 2006

According to two polls taken during and after the videotape’s release, Bush experienced a bump of several percentage points, from a virtual tie with Kerry to a five or six percentage point lead. Tracking polls by TIPP and Newsweek detected a surge in Bush support from a statistically insignificant two-point lead to five and six points, respectively.

²⁹ ‘Baghdad Shias Believe Killings May Increase Once U.S. led Forces Depart but Large Majorities Still Support Withdrawal Within a Year’ – World Public Opinion, November 20, 2006

…Seven out of ten Iraqis overall—including both the Shia majority (74%) and the Sunni minority (91%)—say they want the United States to leave within a year.

By September, the proportion of Shias in Baghdad saying they approved of striking American-led forces had risen to 60 percent. In the rest of the country, Shia support for attacking foreign troops rose … to 63 percent.

…

… 100 percent of Sunnis in Baghdad said in September that they approved of attacks on U.S.-led forces, up 44 points since January (57%). In the rest of the country, nine out of ten Sunnis (91%) said they favored such attacks.

³⁰ ‘Civil War – Lost in Transition’ – Mother Jones, March 1, 2007

As Iraq has descended into civil war, it hasn’t been easy to measure just how violent it has become. Estimates of civilian casualties vary by a factor of nearly 10, and both the Pentagon and the Iraqi government have been criticized for ignoring or downplaying reports of attacks and deaths. What is beyond doubt is that the bloodshed is mounting and more and more civilians are dying.

³¹ ‘Documentary filmmaker says Iraq troops training may be arming America’s enemies’ by Michael Roston, Raw Story, Tuesday February 6, 2007

“We’re not training the Mahdi Army by intent, but we’re providing training for people who may take our training program and then go join the militias,” Smith told Koppelman. He added, “As early as August ’04, there are photographs of uniformed Iraqi police celebrating with the Mahdi Army after a battle in Najaf.”

[Television journalist Mark] Smith does not only single out the Mahdi Army. He also notes the heavy infiltration of the police by the Badr Corps, the militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

“There are numerous reports of whole units of Badr Corps coming intact into the ministry to work in the police forces,” Smith warns.

³² ‘Iraq Effect’ By Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, Mother Jones, March 1, 2007

Our study shows that the Iraq War has generated a stunning sevenfold increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and thousands of civilian lives lost; even when terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is excluded, fatal attacks in the rest of the world have increased by more than one-third.

We are not making the argument that without the Iraq War, jihadist terrorism would not exist, but our study shows that the Iraq conflict has greatly increased the spread of the Al Qaeda ideological virus, as shown by a rising number of terrorist attacks in the past three years from London to Kabul, and from Madrid to the Red Sea.

³³ ‘Report: Iraq ‘cause celebre’ for jihadists’ BY TIMOTHY M. PHELPS, Newsday Washington Bureau Chief, September 27, 2006

“We assess that the Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives … the Iraq conflict has become the ‘cause celebre’ for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.” – from declassified part of CIA National Intelligence Estimate

Four years ago Congress was told we have no alternative but to go to war. That was wrong. Now Congress is telling the American people we have no alternative but to continue the war and that by continuing the war for just another year or two, we will then be able to end the war. War equals peace? I don’t think so.

This war has achieved a momentum that has swept up into its tragic hold people of otherwise good will who would vote to continue a war when they really want peace and when the American people want peace.

I believe you cannot say that you are for peace and vote to keep this war going. … You cannot say you are for peace and give the President enough money not just to keep this war going, but to attack Iran if he so chooses.

Kucinich’s words carry weight, because he has been right about the Iraq war all along. In the fall of 2002, when Congress was considering the act that gave President Bush war powers in Iraq, Kucinich handed out to his fellow congressmen an analysis of the bill that time has largely proved correct⁵³x⁵⁴:

• “This language is so broad that it would allow the President to order an attack against Iraq even when there is no material threat to the United States.”

• “A unilateral attack on Iraq by the United States will cause instability and chaos in the region and sow the seeds of future conflicts all over the world.”

• “Unilateral action against Iraq will cost the United States the support of the world community, adversely affecting the war on terrorism.”

• “There is no credible evidence that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.”

• “There is no connection between Iraq and the events of 9/11.”

The House passed the Iraq war powers act with near unanimous Republican support, but Kucinich’s fellow Democrats voted heavily against it (126-80)x⁵⁵.

Kucinich went on in his speech to boost the Iraq bill that he proposed – H.R. 1234⁵⁶:

… what Congress has the power to do is to stop the war now, use the money in the pipeline to bring the troops home, set in motion a diplomatic process that would involve the world community in moving into Iraq as our troops move out.

H.R. 1234 would put into effect Kucinich’s twelve-point Iraq plan that he drew up working with military experts and U.N. peacekeeping and security experts⁵⁷. The bill is based on several findings, among which are that the U.S. occupation fuels the insurgency in Iraq, and that a U.S. declaration of intent to withdraw would give an opening to start negotiations for a peaceful settlement. The bill makes several policy statements, among which are that the U.S. should end the occupation now while a U.N.-led peacekeeping force comes in, that the Defense Department should use readily available existing funds to bring the troops home, and that the Defense Department should order a return of all U.S. contractors and turn over all contracting work to the Iraqi government. The bill would require troops to be withdrawn within three months and prohibit use of funds for continued deployment, except for a safe and orderly withdrawal, the negotiations, and the peacekeeping force. H.R. 1234 now waits in committee.

Like the Iraq funding bill the House passed, the one the Senate is considering has a troop withdrawal clause⁵⁸. But Bush said he would veto any bill with such a requirement. If Bush vetoes the war funding, and if Kucinich is right about enough money being in the pipeline for withdrawal, then the only responsible course that I see would be to end the occupation as laid out in H.R. 1234. But what if Bush, hell-bent for Iraq from his first day in office, holds out to cause a funding crisis with the two-billion-dollar-a-week occupation (while blaming Democrats for it)x⁵⁹x⁶⁰? How could we break this impasse? Something Kucinich said on the House floor two weeks ago points to one way⁶¹:

Since war with Iran is an option of this Administration, and since such war is patently illegal, then impeachment may well be the only remedy which remains to stop a war of aggression against Iran.”

Sources

⁵⁰ ‘Supplemental budget with Iraq War timeline passes House by razor-thin margin’ by Michael Roston, Raw Story, March 23, 2007

⁵¹ H.R. 1591: U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Health, and Iraq Accountability Act, 2007

⁵² ‘H.R. 1234 IS THE VEHICLE FOR PEACE’ – Rep. Kucinich (D-OH), U.S. House of Representatives, 2007-03-23

⁵³ ‘Pre-Iraq-war documents reveal Kucinich 2002 analysis accurately predicted subsequent events’ – Kucinich news release, 2007-03-08

⁵⁴ ‘Analysis of Joint Resolution on Iraq’ by Dennis J. Kucinich – pdf

⁵⁵ H. J. Res. 114 [107th]: Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002

⁵⁶ H.R. 1234 – full text

⁵⁷ `HR 1234 The Plan to End the Iraq War’ – kucinich.us, 2007-01-12

⁵⁸ ‘Senate panel passes war-funding bill – with Iraq deadline’ – Associated Press, 2007-03-22

⁵⁹ ‘America Puts Brakes on Drive for More War’ – The Paragraph, 2006-11-30

⁶⁰ ‘Cost of Iraq war nearly $2b a week’ By Bryan Bender, The Boston Globe, September 28, 2006

⁶¹ ‘IRAN’ – Rep. Kucinich (D-OH), U.S. House of Representatives, 2007-03-15