A concerted campaign of deceit

Everyone remembers a statement here and a statement there made by president Bush and members of his administration regarding the threat Iraq supposedly posed to America before we invaded her. Thinking of these statements in isolation, it's easy to write them off as simple misstatements or misunderstandings. It's more difficult to call them outright lies.

However, congress's committee on government reform released a report called Iraq on the Record: The Bush Administration's Public Statements on Iraq. The report is a "comprehensive examination of the statements made by the five Administration officials most responsible for providing public information and shaping public opinion on Iraq." It chronicles what clearly was a concerted campaign of deceit perpetrated by the administration against the American people to justify Bush's desire to invade Iraq.

Iraq on the Record identifies that five officials, president George Bush, vice president Richard Cheney, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of state Colin Powell, and national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, made misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq in 125 public appearances. The report and an accompanying database identify 237 specific misleading statements by the five officials. They were all made in the year preceding the invasion and during a short period following it.

The campaign started on March 17, 2002, when Cheney said what we now know to be an outright lie: "We know they have biological and chemical weapons." The report documents the lies through January 22, 2004, when Cheney said, "there's overwhelming evidence that there
was a connection between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi government."

Bush himself participated in the campaign. In fact, on October 7, 2002, three days before the congressional votes on the Iraqi war resolution, President Bush gave a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio, with eleven misleading statements, the most by any of the five officials in a single appearance. Bush's biggest whopper had to have been his statement in the January 28, 2003, State of the Union address that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

To grasp the scope of the campaign, Americans should read Iraq on the Record so they can get a real sense of the sheer volume of lies and deception. It lists not only the statements by Bush and Cheney, but also those by Powell, Rice and, of course, Rumsfeld -- probably the most forked-tongued member of the administration.

After that, America should juxtapose the report with the following dialogue between Bush and a Cox News reporter today:

BUSH: The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.

QUESTION: What did Iraq have to do with it?

BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?

QUESTION: The attack on the World Trade Center.

BUSH: Nothing, except it's part of -- and nobody has suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a -- the lesson of September 11th is take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody's ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.

Taking the Lebanese side

I've had a hard time finding sound justification for condemning Israel's current defensive action in Lebanon. While I find the loss of innocent lives in Lebanon a tragedy, I consider it equally tragic when Hezbollah indiscriminately bombs civilian population centers in Israel, killing unsuspecting women and children. To paint Israel as the "bad guy" in this conflict simply because they are killing more Lebanese people than Hezbollah is killing Israelis is to discount innocent human life. Who's to say that X lives are move valuable than Y lives? Therefore, I do not begrudge the tactics Israel has chosen to defend herself. The best defense is a good offense, I say.

That said, after all the fallacious and biased reasons I've heard warranting the claim that Israel is in the wrong which have left me unconvinced, I've finally found one person who makes a sound case for denouncing Israel. It comes as no surprise to me that it is George Galloway, Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, that does so. He first caught my ear when I heard him speaking truth to power before the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Later I discovered him denouncing the Iraq War when he accused Christopher Hitchens of being prepared to "fight to the last drop of other people's blood." What a profound way to portray chicken-hawks like Hitchens!

Earlier this week I found Galloway on Sky News being interviewed by Anna Botting. As one would expect from an outlet like Sky News, Murdock's British version of FOX News, Botting took a conspicuously unbalanced pro-Zionist position during the interview. Nonetheless, in spite of the host's decidedly advantageous control over the interview and her position contrary to Galloway's, he still managed to thoroughly dominate the debate and leave Botting embarrassingly incapable of making her point.

Galloway's main point was that the media views the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict through a zoom lens, focusing only on the past four weeks. He claims that there is decades of history in the Middle East which is much more damning of Israel than what has transpired since Hezbollah kidnapped the two Israeli soldiers and bombed northern Israel just a few weeks ago. Granted, Galloway unconvincingly claimed that Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization -- there are plenty of grounds to demonstrate to the contrary (in the interest of focus, I'll save that for another blog). However, the bulk of his responses to Botting made a sound case that Israel is in the wrong regarding the current conflict.

Personally, I'm not ready to condemn Israel in this regard. Nonetheless, Galloway has certainly opened my eyes to a perspective that I did not have before. I'm not going to try to make Galloway's case here because I could never write as eloquently as he speaks. Instead, I'm going to recommend viewing his interview, whether you would be swayed by Galloway or not, if for nothing else than to be better informed about the Lebanese viewpoint when you defend Israel's action the next time you debate it.

Not just his John Hancock

It's not a surprise that president Bush lasted almost six years into his presidency before he vetoed a bill. He has no need to veto a bill, even if he disagrees with it. Instead, he simply writes a statement with his signature on the bills that he doesn't like that says, in effect, he'll ignore the law when he decides he wants to. He cites executive authority as his grounds for being above the law.

For example, H.R. 2863 had McCain's amendment which prohibited American troops from committing torture. When Bush signed this Department of Defense, Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill, he added statements like:

The Supreme Court of the United States has stated that the President's authority to classify and control access to information bearing on the national security flows from the Constitution and does not depend upon a legislative grant of authority ... The executive branch shall construe Title X not to create a private right of action ... Because the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and take care that the laws be faithfully executed cannot be made by law subject to a requirement to consult with congressional committees or to involve them in executive decision-making, the executive branch shall construe the provision to require only notification.

These and other clauses in his signing statement are just fancy words that say Bush considers himself above the law and will ignore it when he sees fit. Bush did not explain why he wanted to be exempt from the prohibition against torture since he says in no uncertain terms that, "We do not torture." Regardless, this is not an isolated incident. Bush used similar statements when he recently signed H.R. 4939. In fact, he has challenged more than 750 laws in more than 100 signing statements.

America is tiring of this. Last month, an American Bar Association task force recommended that Congress pass legislation providing for some sort of judicial review of the signing statements. Senator Arlan Specter has responded. He said on the floor of the Senate, "We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will ... authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements with the view to having the president's acts declared unconstitutional."

It's about time. Congress has abdicated their authority to this president for too long. If congress doesn't wrest the legislative branch's supposedly equal power back from the executive branch soon, they'll lose so much power that they'll never be able to.

Terror detainees protected by the Bush administration

President Bush said in no uncertain terms of the detainees in American custody that, "We do not torture." Considering the unambiguously humane manner in which they must be treated, it's unclear why the attorney general, Alberto Gonzalez, feels it necessary to ask Republican congressmen to write new law. He's asking them to write legislation that would grant U.S. personnel involved in the terrorism fight new protections against prosecution for past violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996. Why would they need protection from prosecution if they do not torture?

Perhaps it's not torture the administration is concerned about. The War Crimes Act of 1996 actually permits capital punishment if US-held detainees die in custody. That could be particularly bad for some members of the Third Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division. A sergeant from the brigade said he had witnessed a deliberate plot by his fellow soldiers to kill three handcuffed Iraqis and a cover-up in which one soldier cut another to bolster their story. The squad leader threatened to kill anyone who talked. The three detainees were shot and killed by the soldiers. Apparently, Gonzalez thinks troops committing brutal acts such as these will need protection from prosecution when they have their day in court.

Meanwhile, the White House is also busy making their recommendations on how to conduct detainees' days in court when they are prosecuted for terror. Under these recommendations, hearsay evidence would be allowed unless it was deemed to be unreliable. Defendants also would be barred from their own trials if it were necessary to protect national security. Since it would not be permissible to implement these recommendations under the more defendant-friendly courts martial system, the administration is recommending that enemy combatants be tried under the more stringent military tribunal system. The Bush administration clearly feels that people suspected of terror do not warrant the same legal rights as those suspected of murder.

Apparently, Bush is so confident that detainees captured by those under his command are treated with the greatest fairness and care that there's no need for them to have the basic human rights that the US Constitution provides people being tried in a court of law. He's somehow convinced that the detainees are terrorists even though they have not been tried in a court of law or permitted to present any evidence that might show that they did not commit the crimes of which they're accused (if any charges have been levied at all).

Mutiny in the CIA

President Bush is losing control of his own administration. Never mind that he is the chief executive at the top of the chain of command of all administrative agencies. He is now being undermined from the highest ranks of the CIA.

Republican congressman and chairman of the House intelligence committee, Peter Hoekstra, wrote a private letter to Bush on May 18. In it, he expressed concerns that the CIA deputy director, Stephen Kappes, engaged in a leak offensive to undermine the president's administration. He went on to say that Stephen Kappes was part of a "a strong and well-positioned group within the agency" that "intentionally undermined the administration and its policies."

This dissidence is well deserved and it should come as no surprise. After all, once you start connecting the dots, it becomes clear that nothing has caused greater damage to the CIA's integrity and reputation than Bush's envoy, Dick Cheney.

Two out of three branches of government agree that Bush is wrong

Although the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is part of the Republican-dominated legislative branch of government, it's still critical of the leader of the Republican party. Earlier this week, the GAO released a report regarding rebuilding Iraq. The GAO found that the Bush administration's planning efforts for stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq fall short in at least three key areas:

1. It only partially identifies which U.S. agencies are responsible for implementing key aspects of the strategy or resolving conflicts among the many implementing agencies.
2. It does not fully address how U.S. goals and objectives will be integrated with those of the Iraqi government and the international community, and it does not detail the Iraqi government's anticipated contribution to its future security and reconstruction needs.
3. It only partially identifies the current and future costs of U.S. involvement in Iraq, including the costs of maintaining U.S. military operations, building Iraqi government capacity at the provincial and national level, and rebuilding critical infrastructure.

Releasing the report to a House subcommittee, David M. Walker, the U.S. comptroller general, told the congressmen that President Bush did not give proper consideration to conditions on the ground and said the administration is not demanding accountability for the $1.5-billion per week that the United States spends in Iraq.

That same day, Bush was touting a projected deficit of $296-billion. However, the White House's own Office of Management and Budget (OMB) projects a deficit of $423-billion. For 2007, it still expects a $354-billion deficit. Perhaps Bush should consult his own budget office before spouting numbers. Furthermore, the Wall Street Journal reports that economic policy experts believe that the Bush tax cuts aren't going to create enough growth either to solve the nation's long-term fiscal challenges or to erase what is still a significant budget deficit.

Before we look at the Supreme Court's finding that Bush's tribunals violate not only the Geneva Convention, but also U.S. military rules, let's stop here. After all, it's no fun if the title of the post doesn't sound a little like TV commercials we see promoting consumer products. It would have been too unbelievable had we heard "three out of three dentists surveyed choose..."

Be afraid, be very afraid!

After bouncing from yellow to orange to yellow to orange to yellow countless times, Bush's Homeland Security Advisory System on the threat level no longer terrorizes Americans as he intended it to do. As his primary tool for keeping Americans in line with his agenda, Bush constantly has to find new tactics to frighten America. His latest is to have foiled bomb plots "leaked" to the press.

Today's story is about a disrupted plot by eight terrorists to blow up a commuter train tunnel connecting New Jersey and Manhattan. After painting this scary story as "what we believe was the real deal" by FBI assistant director Mark Mershon, he put America at ease by assuring us that US authorities had collaborated with foreign ones to break up the attack before it occurred. So just how well developed was the plan and how real was the danger?

Mershon conceded that the plot was in its preliminary stages. He said, "They were about to go to a phase where they would attempt to surveil targets, establish a regimen of attack and acquire the resources necessary to effectuate the attacks." When you analyze the statement, you realize that means the terrorists had not even begun to even attempt surveillance of the tunnel. In fact, none of the suspects had ever even been to the United States. What Mershon really said was that the terrorists had not even formulated a systematic plan of attack or acquired the materiel and equipment needed to execute the non-existent plan. What the plot boiled down to was nothing more than some extremists brainstorming by email some outlandish ideas of how they might try to hurt America. Considering how much Bush has driven foreigners to hate America, this sort of thing must go on countless times every day around the world.

We found out more about this when New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly was interviewed on the News Hour today. He validated the fact that the plot was nothing more than transmissions on the Internet and:

"...was still very much in the planning phase. Nothing of an operational nature had gone forward. They had not obtained, again, to the best of our knowledge, the means to go forward with actually executing this plan."

How dangerous are these terrorists really? Even though their whereabouts are known, other than their "ringleader," the other seven are simply "being observed" rather than captured. This should come as no surprise considering how tenuous any credible connection with al Qaeda or other known terrorist organizations elsewhere in the world is. Kelly admitted that such connections are yet "to be determined" (i.e. not established). Regardless, he went on to say that "al Qaeda is, in many ways, a -- you know, a philosophy or an inspiration these days. It's not the -- you know, a tightly-knit organization that perhaps it once was."

This plot was just the second in a series. A couple of weeks ago, federal agents captured the "Miami Seven" -- a group of homeless religious fundamentalists living in a warehouse. They were accused of plotting to bomb Chicago's 110-story Sears Tower and wage other attacks inside the United States. However, like the plot broken up today, FBI deputy director John Pistole admitted it was "more aspirational than operational." That's quite the understatement. Anyone who watched CNN's interview of member Brother Corey on television could see that this troupe is sadly lacking in the capability of fully rational thinking.

So be afraid, America, be very afraid! Thank Bush's administration for their crack detective work to intercept these grave threats to our safety. As long as Bush keeps you terrorized, he holds on to the last shred of undeserved credibility in his arsenal.