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archived: 27 July - 2 August, 2003 Back Next FABRICATING WAR “A conference of top-level military analysts was told Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- a message that later fell on deaf ears in the American capital, analysts say. Former Canadian military officer-turned-analyst, Sunil Ram remembers the January 2001 conference Understanding the Lessons of Nuclear Inspections and Monitoring in Iraq: A Ten-Year Review. What he heard at the meeting he has repeated for months, he says, getting little attention from the mainstream media: that U.S. President George W. Bush had no grounds to base the invasion of Iraq on the disarmament issue. ‘The people doing the presentation were weapons inspectors and former weapons inspectors and senior members of (U.S. government) agencies,’ Ram said in an interview. ‘These were the guys on the ground (in Iraq) who had this stuff (weapons facilities) taken apart.’ The conclusion they reached, says Ram, was that ‘Iraq's nuclear weapons program (didn't exist) because (the Iraqi government) had dismantled it.’” – Information Clearing House “Raymond McGovern, a former CIA analyst and supervisor, says, ‘Never before in my 40 years of experience in this town has intelligence been used in so cynical and so orchestrated a way.’ McGovern is one of several retired intelligence analysts who say they are speaking out for those who can't inside the CIA. ‘The Agency analysts that we are in touch with are disheartened, dispirited, angry,’ he says. ‘They are outraged.’” – CBS News In fact, the White House continues to carry the claims that Bush made in 2002 about Iraq on its official website. Here are two: The danger is grave and growing. The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons and is rebuilding facilities to make more. It could launch a biological or chemical attack 45 minutes after the order is given. The regime is seeking a nuclear bomb -- and, with fissile material, could build one within a year.
FAILING AT PEACE In Afghanistan, “Sixteen US troops and several Afghan militiamen were killed in two separate encounters near Spin Buldak and Urzagan on Friday [July 18th]. Reports reaching from across the border said, Taliban and Hizb-e-Islami fighters in a joint operation in Urzagan area ambushed a US convoy and killed 12 US troops and four Afghan soldiers. A Taliban commander was also injured seriously. The Taliban also killed four US soldiers in Spin Boldak during another ambush, reports said. The attackers managed to escape.” – Daily Times [Pakistan] “The deputy secretary of defense said yesterday that some key assumptions underlying the U.S. occupation of Iraq were wrong, tacitly acknowledging the judgment of current and former U.S. officials critical of the occupation planning. Paul D. Wolfowitz, briefing reporters after a 41/2-day trip to Iraq, said that in postwar planning, defense officials made three assumptions that ‘turned out to underestimate the problem,’ beginning with the belief that removing Saddam Hussein from power would also remove the threat posed by his Baath Party. In addition, they erred in assuming that significant numbers of Iraqi army units, and large numbers of Iraqi police, would quickly join the U.S. military and its civilian partners in rebuilding Iraq, he said. But Wolfowitz, who traveled to southern, central and northern Iraq, reported that the south and north are ‘impressively stable’ and said that throughout the country, ‘we are making a great deal of progress.’ His acknowledgment that some assumptions were wrong faintly echoed one of the primary complaints registered by many current and former U.S. officials since before the occupation began. The reconstruction effort, they said, was also undermined by unresolved logistical problems and secretive decision-making by the Defense Department civilians who led the planning. The planning, they said, was also poorly coordinated by the White House.” – Washington Post The wrong assumptions are costing Americans billions of dollars. One interesting web site keeps a running cost of the war. – Cost of War President George Bush is targeting the international treaty to save the ozone layer which protects all life on earth from deadly radiation, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. New US demands - tabled at a little-noticed meeting in Montreal earlier this month - threaten to unravel one of the greatest environmental success stories of the past few decades, causing millions of deaths from cancer. The news comes at a particularly embarrassing time for the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who pressed the President in their talks in Washington last week to stop his attempts to sabotage the Kyoto Protocol which sets out to control global warming: one of the few international issues on which they differ. Now, instead of heeding Mr. Blair, Mr. Bush is undermining the ozone treaty as well, by seeking to perpetuate the use of the most ozone-destructive chemical still employed in developed countries, otherwise soon to be phased out. Ironically, it was sustained pressure from the Reagan administration, in which Mr. Bush's father served as vice-president that ensured the treaty was adopted in the first place. It has proved such a success that environmentalists have long regarded it as inviolable.” – Independent The effect of Bush’s new environmental rules has real, serious impact on local communities. “First his 9/11 Special Master denounced Staten Island as a ‘Third World country.’ Now President George Bush has declared war on the residents of this borough using weapons of mass destruction – chemical poisons that would be outlawed in any conflict against Iraq, al Qaeda or the other enemies of the United States. That is not an overly dramatic analysis of what the effects could be on Staten Island of the shocking new Bush environmental policy which was dropped like a bombshell when the White House thought that the fewest number of people would be looking. On November 22 the Bush Administration announced what The New York Times has called ‘the most sweeping move in a decade to loosen industrial air pollution rules.’ And nowhere in the nation will the effects of that loosening be felt more dramatically than on Staten Island. In an astounding show of cowardice, the White House waited until Bush himself was in Europe to make the announcement of the dramatic change in Environmental Protection Agency policy. EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman, the former New Jersey governor who has become a lightning rod for criticism from environmentalists, also failed to appear at the press conference, even though she was quoted extensively in the press release. It was left to an assistant administrator of EPA in a briefing for the media – at which no cameras were permitted – to reveal that the administration is weakening the rules which formerly required the owners of industrial facilities to install costly pollution control equipment when they modernize their operations.” – Staten Island Register Bush loses no opportunity to appear as the grateful Commander and Chief of the armed forces who are fighting in Iraq. Just recall the aircraft carrier photo op off the California coast. Bush’s public relations demonstrating himself as a commander belie the harsh realities of his actual policies regarding the men and women in uniform and expose him as a leader who cannot be trusted. Consider these policies: School Cuts: “On some U.S. military installations, particularly those overseas, the Department of Defense operates its own school system. But around 85 percent of military children are in non-DOD schools. The federal Impact Aid program is the primary means by which the federal government helps to ensure Federal funds for Impact Aid in the current fiscal year total $1.2 billion. About half of these funds, however, are targeted to schools to support the education of non-military children such as children who live on Indian reservations and children who reside in federally sponsored public housing. President Bush’s fiscal year 2004 budget plan proposes to cut Impact Aid funding by a total of $206 million below current year levels. In addition, the Administration is proposing that the entire reduction be taken from the portion of the Impact Aid program designed to support the education of military children. This would be accomplished by eliminating basic support payments for military and civilian children whose families do not actually live on military bases, but in surrounding communities.” – House Appropriations Committee No Military Tax Cuts: A new report by the Democratic staff on the House Appropriations Committee this week asserts that Bush, by cutting about $200 million in the program that provides assistance to public schools serving military bases, would pare education funding disproportionately for children of soldiers who fought in Iraq. That adds to several complaints the staff has assembled: Bush's signature on the latest tax cut, which failed to extend a child tax credit to nearly 200,000 low-income military personnel . . .” – Washington Post Health Care: “Organizations representing millions of America’s veterans are urging Congress to fully fund medical care for their sick and disabled comrades, many of whom have been put on long waiting lists or have been denied treatment because of budget shortfalls. Noting that the Bush Administration’s proposed budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) would do little to end severe rationing of health care, the authors of The Independent Budget (http://www.independentbudget.org/) are calling on lawmakers to add some $2 billion to the President’s request for veterans health care and enact legislation to guarantee adequate funding to meet current and future needs. The Independent Budget developed by AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America and Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States identifies a $2 billion budgetary shortfall that seriously compromises the government’s ability to provide adequate medical care to veterans.” – PVA Press
Pay More For Drugs:
“The so-called VA-HUD bill would provide $27.2 billion for veterans'
healthcare in 2004, an increase of $1.4 billion. But it includes a White
House proposal to cut costs by charging some veterans enrollment fees of
$250 a year and doubling the amount they now pay for prescription drugs.
Many lawmakers doubt the changes are tenable with U.S. troops in Iraq.” –
Reuters
Cancelled War Pay/Benefits: “According to Army Times, proposals that would have added ‘various pay-and-benefits incentives to the 2004 defense budget’ are now considered "wasteful and unnecessary" by the Republican-controlled Congress. The June 30th Army Times editorial said the troops were getting the "nickel-and-dime treatment" from the Republican-controlled Congress. Some might call it getting the shaft. According to Army Times, the GOP-controlled Congress has: Canceled a "modest proposal" to increase the benefit from $6,000 to $12,000 to families of soldiers who die on active duty; and "Roll[ed] back recent modest increases in monthly imminent-danger pay (from $225 to $150) and family-separation allowance (from $250 to $100) for troops getting shot at in combat zones[.]” – Working For Change COMPASSION? “The House Appropriations Committee, with support from the White House, last night voted down making $100 million in emergency funding available to the Corporation for National Service, which is in the process of radically cutting back AmeriCorps and other community service programs despite the president's promise to greatly increase the country's commitment to service opportunities. The Senate had already approved the emergency funding; so there's a chance it will still happen, unless the White House further escalates its hypocritical hostility to national service. As it stands, the president and his House Republican allies are already ignoring a massive outpouring of bipartisan support for AmeriCorps from around the country, including letters asking for emergency funding signed by 43 Governors, 155 Mayors, 186 college and university presidents, and 1,180 community-based organizations. In addition, 64 newspapers have published editorials calling on the president and Congress to act now to avoid the disruption and possible termination of hundreds of AmeriCorps-related community service initiatives.” – DLC [Junkie: North Carolinians should be proud of Rep. David Price, NC – 4th, who helped lead the Dems on this issue in committee. See Tar Heel Dems for more on Rep. Price.] |