The Guardian Unlimited has broken a story that the US “[t]he United States is conducting a secret 'dirty tricks' campaign against UN Security Council delegations in New York as part of its battle to win votes in favour of war against Iraq. Details of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New York, are revealed in a document leaked to The Observer. The disclosures were made in a memorandum written by a top official at the National Security Agency - the US body which intercepts communications around the world - and circulated to both senior agents in his organisation and to a friendly foreign intelligence agency asking for its input. The memo describes orders to staff at the agency, whose work is clouded in secrecy, to step up its surveillance operations 'particularly directed at... UN Security Council Members (minus US and GBR, of course)' to provide up-to-the-minute intelligence for Bush officials on the voting intentions of UN members regarding the issue of Iraq.” -- Guardian Unlimited [IF true, the prestige of the US around the world will sink to new lows.]
SINS OF THE FATHER
A German magazine releases a story NOT yet running in the US that Iran is suing the US in the world court because the TW I gave Iraq the capability of developing chemical weapons. “[T]he USA [is alleged to have] violated the Friendship Treaty which both countries had signed in 1955. It is this Treaty which constitutes the legal basis for these proceedings, according to a 1996 decision by the highest court of the United Nations. Both delegations will be able to argue their positions in detail during the next three weeks.” – D.C [English Translation], Spiegel [original article in German]
SINS OF THE SON
TW’s is having trouble with the facts – again. “There was only one problem with President George W. Bush's claim Thursday that the nation's top economists forecast substantial economic growth if Congress passed the president's tax cut: The forecast with that conclusion doesn't exist. Bush and White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer went out of their way Thursday to cite a new survey by "Blue-Chip economists" that the economy would grow 3.3 percent this year if the president's tax cut proposal becomes law. That was news to the editor who assembles the economic forecast. "I don't know what he was citing," said Randell E. Moore, editor of the monthly Blue Chip Economic Forecast, a newsletter that surveys 53 of the nation's top economists each month. "I was a little upset," said Moore, who said he complained to the White House. "It sounded like the Blue Chip Economic Forecast had endorsed the president's plan. That's simply not the case." -- Newsday
As all Junkies know, TW’s tax cut will cause massive budget deficits well into the future. So, how does TW respond? The Federal Government will simply stop providing economic forecasts that extend the traditional 10 years into the future. “Acknowledging the difficulty of accurately predicting the federal government's revenues and expenses even a year in advance, the Bush administration is abandoning the practice of providing 10-year fiscal forecasts. The new policy makes sense, but the change probably owes more to embarrassment than to realism.” -- Houston Chronicle
TW AND TERRORIST CONNECTIONS
In a developing story, it appears that TW has a relationship with a suspected terrorist in the US – knowing that the person, Sami Al-Arian, was a suspected terrorist. The plot thickens even more. It appears that Al-Arian helped organize Muslims in Florida to vote for TW in the 2000 election. Here are the facts. “Al-Arian, a Florida professor indicted last week for his alleged role as a leader of a Palestinian Islamic terrorist group, attended a group meeting in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building with White House political director Karl Rove in June 2001. Al-Arian was part of a 160-person group from the American Muslim Council that was briefed by Rove on President Bush's faith-based agenda and other issues, according to AMC spokesman Faiz Rehman. Rehman characterized the meeting as routine, and said that Al-Arian had attended such events before. But according to press reports, Al-Arian had already been under federal investigation for six years for suspected ties to the Islamic Jihad terrorist group at the time of the 2001 meeting. Further, the White House confirmed reports that Al-Arian had been flagged by the Secret Service as a potential terrorist. According to a report published in the current issue of Newsweek, White House aides, reluctant to create an incident, let him participate in the event despite the warning. Vice President Dick Cheney, who had been scheduled to meet with the group, canceled his appearance, reportedly under pressure from Jewish activists and conservative critics.” – Forward Salon magazine asks the poignant question, “If the government has long known that Sami Al-Arian was supporting terrorism, why did the controversial professor win an invitation from Karl Rove? – Salon [These articles are must reads for all Junkies!]
SAYING NO TO FAMILIES
TW is at it again! TW prohibits States from using unemployment compensation funds to pay workers during family leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. Under Clinton, the Federal Government permitted States to determine whether or not to use unemployment funds to fund such leave. TW is rolling back those regulations. Some 70% of Americans support using unemployment benefits for leave under the FMLA. – Tom Paine [Where are the Dems!]
TW’S WORLD OF GOOD AND EVIL
Australia may soon be on TW’s “evil list.” The minority party in Australia is opposing TW’s war without UN authorization. The American ambassador publicly and specifically attacked the head of the minority party. “Federal Labor backbencher Laurie Brereton has demanded the United States recall its ambassador to Australia after he accused the ALP of making a "rank appeal to anti-Americanism, to anti-George Bush feeling". Tom Schieffer's [the US Ambassador] comments in The Bulletin magazine have also upset Labor leader Simon Crean, who says it is unprecedented interference in Australian politics. . . . I believe that Mr Crean should go on record as saying what . . . Schieffer did was totally unacceptable. . . . I think it has to be made, time and time again because the United States has a record of not really welcoming decisions taken by democratic governments which they disagree with. . . . And it's almost as though democracy is seen by the US as acceptable for only so long as it produces decisions which are agreeable to by the United States. . . . The United States is very jealous of keeping its politics clean of foreign intervention and that includes activities of foreign ambassadors making public statements direct to the American people - they're not fond of that at all. . . . It simply smacks overly of a partisan relationship with a political party in Australia. – Public Record
Add Syria to TW’s List of Good and Evil. “U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said in meetings with Israeli officials on Monday that he has no doubt America will attack Iraq, and that it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea afterwards. Bolton, who is undersecretary for arms control and international security, is in Israel for meetings about preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction.” – Ha’aretz
TW makes a direct threat to France. “The United States fired a warning shot Tuesday across the bows of France, the leading critic of its Iraq policy, saying it would view any French veto of a new U.N. resolution authorizing force as ‘very unfriendly.’ The U.S. ambassador in Paris issued the warning after France said it and Germany opposed what it called a shift toward "a logic of war" and circulated a rival proposal that would give U.N. weapons inspectors at least four months to scour Iraq. Even as he spoke, other members of the decision-making U.N. Security Council added their voices to the chorus of skepticism over the resolution, clouding Washington's hopes of winning the nine votes needed to pass it by mid-March.” -- Washington Post
TW’s threat did not work. On the very next day, Russia, who most observers thought would not veto a UN Resolution for war, now says that it, too, may exercise its veto rights. – ABC
THE WORLD’S LIST
The US is quickly becoming a member on the world’s list. “Just a couple of weeks ago, the United States stood up for brave, endangered Turkey, insisting that NATO come to its defense against Saddam Hussein, even as France and Germany balked. We eventually prevailed, and soon Turkey got the chance to repay the favor by letting us deploy troops there to invade Iraq. Instead, the government in Ankara replied: How much of our gratitude would you like to buy? Turkey was one of the many countries that willingly provided crucial help to us during the 1991 gulf war. It's also one of the many that see the coming war as foolish. On Iraq, the world is increasingly divided into two camps--the United States, and everyone else. And the division may turn out to be permanent. The president says this time we're prepared to rely on "a coalition of the willing." But a lot of arm-twisting and palm-greasing has been required to get any cooperation. As Harvard international relations scholar Stephen Walt says, what the administration has assembled is really "a coalition of the coerced, the cowed and the co-opted." -- Chicago Tribune
US Embassies around the world are reporting increasing sentiment against the US. “The messages from U.S. embassies around the globe have become urgent and disturbing: Many people in the world increasingly think President Bush is a greater threat to world peace than Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. ‘It is rather astonishing,’ said a senior U.S. official who has access to the reports. ‘There is an absence of any recognition that Hussein is the problem.’ One ambassador, who represents the U.S. in an allied nation, bluntly cabled that in that country, Bush has become the enemy.” – Seattle Times
A Liberal PM in Canada after speaking about the coming war in Iraq calls Americans “bastards,” and immediately apologizes. -- CBC
This article documents that TW’s policies are driving our former Arab friends away from the US. “A generation of Arabs wooed by the United States and persuaded by its principles has become among the most vociferous critics of America's world view. Within its ranks are affluent businessmen with ties to the West, U.S.-educated intellectuals and liberal activists. Their ire is directed not at U.S. culture, but at preparations for a war that they believe has left them voiceless, discredited and isolated in a landscape almost universally opposed to U.S. policy. To them, the Bush administration's talk of a more democratic Arab world is rendered hollow by its policy toward the Palestinians and Iraq. They see their desire for more secular, progressive societies overwhelmed by growing radicalism and religious fervor, a tide so pronounced that it has caught even mainstream Islamic activists off guard. In sentimental tones, they lament the end of an era in which the United States appeared as a beacon.” -- Washington Post [A must read for all Junkies.]
ECONOMY
Then -- 2000
“In the first year of [TW’s] presidency, [TW] and his budgetary advisers predicted federal budget surpluses totaling $5.6 trillion over 10 years.”
Now -- 2002
“The federal deficit for fiscal 2002, which ended in October, was about $300 billion. The president's budget for 2003 predicts another deficit on the order of $300 billion. . . . Buried in the budget [TW] presented to Congress is the prediction that budget surpluses will return by 2004-2005 if Congress passes none of the additional tax cuts Bush is asking for. If Congress passes the tax cuts, the administration predicts, high deficits likely will continue indefinitely. By the administration's own admission, the status quo would do more for surplus-producing economic growth than adoption of the president's agenda.” -- Houston Chronicle [Where are the Dems!!!]
David Broder of the Washington Post gets it right. He talks to those engaged in health care and other public service providers, all of whom are reporting that TW’s policies are hurting their programs. He concludes, “The message from all of them: The gains that have been made, slowly and painfully in the past decade, may well be reversed now.” – Washington Post
GOING UP IN CIGARETTE SMOKE
“Accusing President Bush's administration of being beholden to cigarette multinationals, a coalition of American medical groups demanded that the United States withdraw altogether from international anti-tobacco negotiations and stop sabotaging the planned treaty. Just days away from the scheduled completion of the talks, Thailand, Saudi Arabia and other developing countries complained that the U.S. delegation was using strong-arm tactics and financial threats to try to force through its will. ‘At this critical juncture, the United States government is working methodically to weaken virtually every aspect of this treaty,’ said John Seffrin, chief executive officer of the American Cancer Society. ‘We call on the U.S. government to observe the first rule of the Hippocratic Oath: Do No Harm.’ . . . The vast majority of countries want the treaty to introduce sweeping restrictions against tobacco, including a total advertising ban and tough labeling controls to introduce graphic images of health problems and to stop use of terms such as "mild" and "light." Developing nations also want the agreement to state that health should be given priority over trade in international law — thus protecting them from potential U.S. action in the World Trade Organization if they try to impose restrictions on cigarette imports. The United States — home to the world's biggest cigarette exporter, Philip Morris — has flatly rejected an advertising ban, saying it would violate constitutional principles of free speech. In view of this, the current draft text would allow countries with constitutional objections to impose restrictions, while other nations would introduce a complete ban after three years. But there is particular anger at perceived U.S. attempts to water down many other parts of the treaty — such as on labeling — and insistence on the right to use reservations to exempt it from individual provisions it doesn't like. Thailand's Hatai Chitanondh said that the U.S. delegation had told the meeting that it would stop funding anti-tobacco programs and transferring know-how if it didn't get its way on exemptions. ‘It's very arrogant,’ complained Chitanondh. ‘The United States has the technology and sophisticated tobacco control programs and yet they are behaving like this toward the rest of the world.’ A member of Saudi Arabia's delegation, who asked not to be identified, said his government took offense at a U.S. State Department letter stressing that the tobacco treaty should not seek to undermine the WTO's free trade provisions. . . . ‘I am ashamed of the role my government has played in the negotiations,’ said Alfred Munzer of the American Lung Association. “It has clearly sacrificed long-term improvement in global public health to serve the interests of an industry whose product is responsible for four million deaths annually from cancer, heart disease and emphysema.’ – CBS
WAR
THEN – ONE MONTH AGO
TW estimates that the war with Iraq will cost about 60B$, the same amount that the 1991 war in Iraq cost.
NOW
The Pentagon has begun telling the White House and Congress that defeating Iraq and occupying the country for six months could cost as much as $85 billion, according to sources — considerably more than what senior administration officials have been saying in public. Combined with aid for regional allies such as Turkey, the price tag for the conflict could top the $100-billion mark, twice the war costs cited just last month by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and an amount that the White House dismissed as outlandish last fall.
TW “recently told Sen. Peter Fitzgerald he would order the assassination of Saddam Hussein ‘if we had intelligence on where he was now and we had a clear shot,’ the Illinois senator said Monday. Such an order would represent a major shift away from a nearly 30-year U.S. ban on assassinating foreign leaders. That ban was put into place during the Ford administration in response to criticism of CIA-backed plots in the 1960s and 1970s. . . . Illinois' senior senator, Democrat Dick Durbin of Springfield, cautioned against such a policy. ‘I would say we ought to take care not to go too far on this issue,’ said Durbin, who sits on the Senate's intelligence panel. ‘In the world we live in today, any elected official would be fair game for retaliation.’” – Daily Herald
TW is telling the UN the decision for war has already been made. “’In meetings yesterday with senior officials in Moscow, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton told the Russian government that "we're going ahead,’ whether the council agrees or not, a senior administration official said. ‘The council's unity is at stake here.’ A senior diplomat from another council member said his government had heard a similar message and was told not to anguish over whether to vote for war. ‘You are not going to decide whether there is war in Iraq or not,’ the diplomat said U.S. officials told him. ‘That decision is ours, and we have already made it. It is already final. The only question now is whether the council will go along with it or not.’ -- Washington Post
Even US allies are starting to crack. PM Aznar of Spain has warned TW that SOD Rumsfeld is hurting TW’s war effort! “The Spanish prime minister has asked President George W Bush to rein in his defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, whom he accuses of stoking anti-war sentiment in Europe with his hawkish rhetoric. [Aznar] told the president that Mr Rumsfeld's words were making his job more difficult. . . . Mr Aznar said: ‘I did tell the president that we need a lot of [secretary of state] Colin Powell and very little of Rumsfeld.’ . . . At a weekend meeting at Mr Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, the Spanish leader also stressed the importance of staying with the United Nations on Iraq and trying to make immediate progress in the Israel-Palestinian peace process. . . . Mr Rumsfeld's hawkish stance on Iraq and apparent disdain for detractors of the Bush administration were reflected recently when he compared dovish Germany with Libya and Cuba. Both those countries are on the US State Department's list of sponsors of terrorism.” -- Telegraph [Rumsfeld’s remarks about Germany ran in TPJ two weeks ago.]
TW pays a high price at the Ankara bazaar. TPJ published a recount of negotiations between TW and Turkey on the cost the US would pay for using Turkish military bases and to compensate Turks for disruption to their economy. TW initially offered 6B$ and the Turks demanded 50B$. The Turks struck the better end of the bargain, announcing that the US will pay between 20 and 30B$ to use bases in Turkey and the negotiations are still not done; 6B$ in grants, 8.5B$ “bridging loan” and 30B$ in loan guarantees. – Bloomberg [Junkie, TW pays for disruption to Turk economy – US citizens are paying for their disruption in higher gas and heating oil costs and unemployment. Some deal. Where are the Dems!]
Despite some 30B$, the Turkish Parliament rejects TW’s offer and fails to authorize American troops in Turkey! – Yahoo [Junkies should recall that Turkey is an Arab nation with a democratic form of government – the type of government that TW wants to build throughout the Middle East! And even they don’t support him!]
MoveOn lead a virtual protest on Congress on February 26th. The result: hundreds of thousand of emails, faxes and phone calls swamped Congressional phone lines. “Tom Andrews, a former Democratic representative from Maine who is running the organization, said more than 500,000 people had signed up on the Internet to take part and a half a million more were also expected to participate without registering on the group's web site (Moveon.org). ‘We have hundreds of thousands of calls and faxes that we know are going in. It's a first-of-its-kind protest and a tremendous success already," he said. "People are making their voices heard loud and clear -- don't invade and don't occupy Iraq.’ -- Reuters
The casualties of TW’s war sometimes boomerang! A senior State Department official stationed in Athens is resigning because of TW’s unrelenting desire for war. “J. Brady Kiesling, political officer at the U.S. embassy in Athens, said in a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell that Bush's policies are ‘driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon’ for the past century. The letter was quoted by The New York Times. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher confirmed that Powell had received a letter from Kiesling. ‘This is a place where people have all kinds of ways of expressing their views,’ Boucher said. ‘It's too bad the gentleman didn't feel he could continue in the Foreign Service, given his views. But these things happen.’” -- CNN This is the hyperlink to the actual letter of resignation. – NYT
Why all of the concern? Well, TW proudly hails that he has brought “democracy” to Afghanistan. The Charlotte Observer has this to say: More than a year after U.S. forces toppled the Taliban government that sheltered Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan is a fractured country torn by ethnic strife and divided regional loyalties. Its roads are impassable and unsafe, plagued by bandits. Regional armies owe no allegiance to the national government, and neither do political leaders who run their provinces like little countries. Opium production is surging. According to a U.N. report, about 3,400 tons of opium were produced in Afghanistan last year, making it the largest opium producer in the world. An international military coalition led by the United States holds Afghanistan together -- barely. But after nearly a year of relative quiet, the coalition has stumbled into a series of skirmishes with pro-Taliban and al-Qaida fighters who evidently don't think the war is over. It is a sobering lesson about the limits facing an outside power trying to rebuild a country divided by ethnic and tribal factionalism. And it suggests something of the monumental tasks the United States may face in Iraq -- an equally diverse country -- should it topple Saddam Hussein, as it did the Taliban. -- CO
SAY WHAT?
An incredible story is being published that TW gave safe passage out of Afghanistan to al Qaeda forces that were surrounded by US troops during the Afghan War. “In a PBS "NOW" interview, Seymour Hersh tells how al Qaeda got away. Pakistan Intelligence [ISI] was with al Qaeda, training them, and they requested Musharraf to ask the US to help them escape. Musharraf, fearing a revolt amongst his own Muslim fundamentalists, asked the US to let his troops out. In a decision that "must have" gone at least as high as Donald Rumsfeld, if not the White House, Rumsfeld ALLOWED these terrorists to escape. Sy Hersh: “I am here to tell you it was authorized - Donald Rumsfeld who - we'll talk about what he said later - it had to be authorized at the White House. But certainly at the Secretary of Defense level. Jane Wallace: “What did we do that? Why we would put our special forces guys on the ground, surround the enemy and then-- fly him out?” Sy Hersh: “With al Qaeda?” Jane Wallace: “With al Qaeda. Why would we do that, assuming your story is true?” Sy Hersh: “We did it because the [Pakistan] ISI asked us to do so." -- NOW [This link is to the entire incredible interview.]
HOMELAND SECURITY
Dems have been noting that TW, while promising to “secure” our homeland, has not provided the funds to do so adequately. The issue is obviously resounding as TW accuses House Republicans of failing to provide the necessary funds. “President Bush's campaign to enact his domestic agenda and win reelection next year is creating political problems for congressional Republicans. Bush, accused by Democrats of shortchanging homeland security, is blaming the GOP-controlled Congress for underfunding programs to guard against terrorism. Mr. Bush told the National Governors Association this week that Congress ‘did not respond to the $3.5 billion we asked for -- they not only reduced the budget that we asked for, they earmarked a lot of the money’ for other unrelated programs. ‘Tactically, that was a stupid thing for the [White House] to do,’ a senior House GOP aide said yesterday.” – Washington Post
POLLS
CNN polls “registered voters.” A CNN poll has TW’s overall approval rating at 57%, the lowest since 911. The percentage indicating they would vote to reelect TW falls to 47%, the lowest since 911 and -4% since the previous poll. 45% favor TW’s economic plan and 40% oppose. “On Iraq, the support for invading that country seemed to hinge on several factors. One example: Forty percent of those polled said they would support an invasion of Iraq with U.S. forces only if the United Nations approves another U.S. resolution against Iraq. And support for an invasion drops significantly if Saddam destroys missiles cited by U.N. weapons inspectors, falling from 71 percent to 33 percent.” – CNN [Junkie: these poll numbers reflect TW’s continuing decline, but polls this far from an election really have no correlation to the probability of Dem success. But, being Junkies, we love the numbers.]
LOGGING
TW refuses “wilderness protection to millions of acres of Alaska's Tongass National Forest. The decision by the U.S. Forest Service, rebuffing an effort by environmentalists to limit logging, formally affirms a recommendation the Forest Service made last May. Environmental groups said the decision could open more than a million acres of old-growth forest to logging, particularly if the administration or federal courts reverse the Clinton administration's restrictions on forest road building.” – Washington Post
CHILD HEALTH CARE
TW THEN -- Egleston Children's Hospital, Atlanta, Georgia 3/1/01
“This is a hospital, but it's also - it's a place full of love. And I was most touched by meeting the parents and the kids and the nurses and the docs, all of whom are working hard to save lives. I want to thank the moms who are here. Thank you very much for you hospitality…There's a lot of talk about budgets right now, and I'm here to talk about the budget. My job as the President is to submit a budget to the Congress and to set priorities, and one of the priorities that we've talked about is making sure the health care systems are funded.” – House Appropriations
TW NOW
TW’s first budget proposed cutting grants to children’s hospitals like the one he visited by 15% ($34 million). His 2004 budget additionally proposes to cut 30% ($86 million) out of grants to children’s hospitals.