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Archive for 1-15 October 2003
 

15 October 2003

What 'sensibility' looks like...
Congressman Kucinich's Iraq Strategy
An Open Letter to Ohio’s Tenth Congressional District:
EXCERPT: People are asking, is there a way out? I believe there is. I am writing to share with you a plan that will get the UN in Iraq and the US out. This plan could bring the troops home by New Year’s day, it will cost much less than the President’s, and it will increase American security.
•The President must go to the UN and announce the US intention to hand over all administrative and security responsibilities to the UN.
•The UN would help Iraqis move quickly toward self-determination. The UN, not the US, will administer Iraq’s oil revenues. It will be necessary to renounce clearly and unequivocally any interest in controlling Iraq’s oil resources.
•The UN will administer contracts to repair Iraq. War profiteering will no longer be practiced by the White House. It will be necessary to suspend all reconstruction contracts and close the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority, because of the suspicion caused by the sweetheart deals that the Administration has given to large American corporations. In its place, the UN would help Iraqis administer funds to employ Iraqis to repair the damage from the invasion.
•Bring US troops home as UN peacekeeping troops rotate into Iraq: The goal is to bring all US troops home by the new year, but in any case, to bring them home as quickly and as safely as possible with a planned and orderly withdrawal.
SEE ALSO: Kucinich: The War’s Impact On The Economy Another Reason To Vote Against President’s $87 Billion Request
SEE ALSO: Kucinich: Turkish Troops In Iraq Could Be Catastrophic
SEE ALSO: Kucinich: David Kay’s Congressional Testimony

SOLD: First, the Lincoln Bedroom and now, the Oval Office
Congress Weighs Corporate Tax Breaks
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post, 14 October 2003
EXCERPTS: Congressional tax writers are rushing to complete legislation that would offer tens of billions of dollars in new U.S. corporate tax breaks, many of them for overseas operations, setting off a lobbying battle between major domestic manufacturers and some of the largest multinational corporations in the world.... "This is a godsend for lobbyists," one of them said yesterday. "You wouldn't be a decent tax lobbyist if you didn't have tons of stuff in these bills."...
SEE ALSO: Molly Ivins: Business Scandals are Boring but Big (WFC)
SEE ALSO: Hard to Believe, But True--Bush Donors Score Policy Wins (AP)
SEE ALSO: Bush the Businessman (Uggabugga)
SEE ALSO: Bush Guts Clean Air Rules for Campaign Contributors (Public Citizen)

Taking Novak Up on His Challenge Over His One Regret
By Josh Marshall
The Hill, 14 October 2003
EXCERPT: When Robert Novak identified Valerie Plame as a CIA employee in his syndicated column July 14, did he think she was a covert agent, an analyst or just some Langley paper-pusher? It’s not an idle question, because what Novak knew is almost certainly what his sources knew. And what his sources — those “two senior administration officials” — knew is central to the current FBI investigation. ...There are at least three reasons to believe Novak knew a lot more about Plame’s status than he’s now letting on.

Dick Cheney's shining example of the American Way
White House Disclosures Lead to Halliburton
By Margie Burns
Progressive Populist, 14 October 2003
EXCERPT: While the months pass for US troops occupying Iraq, the financial value and taxpayer-funded cost of Halliburton's extensive Iraq contracts increase. Halliburton, a huge global conglomerate in the oil field business, landed a non-competitive-bid contract for work in Iraq that now looks almost open-ended. The cost, recently reported by the New York Times at over $2 billion, has led to inquiries being sent to the Office of Management and Budget by Reps. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and John D. Dingell (D-Mich.).

Congressmen Demand Answers on EPA's Potentially Illegal Advertising Campaign
TomPaine.com, 14 October 2003
EXCERPT: We are concerned that EPA's Clear Skies advertising campaign constitutes an inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars, quite possibly in violation of federal law, including the latest appropriations law under which EPA is currently funded. We also believe this action is unprecedented. We are not aware of any previous occasion on which the agency ran a paid advertising campaign designed to favorably influence how millions of individuals view a pending legislative proposal.

Nobel prize-winning economist says Bush will lead no big recovery
Joseph Stiglitz Blows the Whistle on Dubyanomics
By Faisal Islam
Observer (UK), 12 October 2003
EXCERPT: This month the Nobel prize-winning economist returned to Britain as an acidic economic polemicist, with a more direct message about the US economy. There will not be a robust recovery, and the fault can be traced to Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan's actions during the Nineties, and the policy failures of President Bush.

Nascar, How Proud a Sound!
Baffler Issue No. 169, October 2003
EXCERPT: Many commentators have remarked that the United States is a nation of rank buffoons. Few, however, have carefully measured our nation's recent and steep tumble into idiocy, much less attempted a unified theory to explain it. In its sixteenth issue, "Nascar, How Proud a Sound," The Baffler reveals the shocking breadth of American ignorance, and argues that the nation's mental and moral decline-like that of the Roman Empire-is spreading from the better classes downward.

President Rallying Support in Polls
Rebound Sets Campaign Team into Action
By Mike Allen and Claudia Deane
Washington Post, 15 October 2003
EXCERPT: Heartened by opinion polls indicating President Bush's six-month slide may have ended, the White House has launched steps to reassure supporters before the 2004 campaign becomes fully engaged. Bush aides expressed relief at several polls this week, including a Washington Post-ABC News poll released yesterday, that found the president's approval rating stabilizing after a steady drop since Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was ousted in mid-April. Bush's approval rating in the Post-ABC poll was 53 percent. That is statistically unchanged from the end of last month, and 5 percentage points down from mid-September.

Battle Over Iraq Budget Begins
Senate Rebuffs First Challenges to Bush's $87 Billion Request
By Jonathan Weisman and Dan Balz
Washington Post, 15 October 2003
EXCERPT: The Senate easily defeated a Democratic effort yesterday to shift $5 billion in proposed Iraqi reconstruction aid to popular domestic programs, then crushed the first legislative attempt to convert President Bush's $20.3 billion Iraq rebuilding request into a loan.
Democratic Presidential Candidate Positions:
...One senator -- John Edwards (D-N.C.), a presidential candidate -- announced yesterday that he will oppose the $87 billion request. He called the administration's Iraq policy a failure and said Bush will change course only if someone "stands up to him and says 'no.' "...Edwards said he still believes his vote for that resolution was correct, that it is essential to continue to support U.S. forces in Iraq and that the United States has a responsibility to help rebuild that country. "But this president's policy is a failed policy" that endangers U.S. troops and undermines the prospects for turning over authority to run the country to the Iraqis, he said yesterday. ...Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), one of the administration's most stalwart supporters on Iraq, plans to vote for the $87 billion request, according to a spokesman. Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), a key White House ally on the war resolution vote last year, has not decided on the spending request, according to his spokesman. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who supported the president a year ago but criticized him for rushing to war, said yesterday he will oppose the spending measure unless it is amended to reduce Bush's tax cuts by $87 billion and brings other nations in to share the burden of reconstruction. That puts Kerry in about the same position as former Vermont governor Howard Dean, whose opposition to the Iraq war helped catapult him to the top tier of the Democratic presidential race. Last week in a New York Times interview, Dean declined to take a position on the spending request. But the next day, in a debate in Arizona, he said he would oppose the $87 billion request unless Bush accepted an equivalent reduction in his tax cuts. Retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who said he probably would have voted for the war resolution and later said he would have opposed it, has joined other Democrats in criticizing the administration's current course in Iraq. But spokeswoman Kym Spell said Clark had no position on the $87 billion request. "He's not in Congress," she said. "He's running for president." Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) opposes the $87 billion and wants to bring home the troops. Former ambassador Carol Moseley Braun would not say whether she would vote for the request as submitted by the White House. Al Sharpton has criticized the request. (BWUSA emphasis)

14 October 2003

Lugar Urges Bush to Control Policy Team
Senator pans Iraq plan; Kerry steps up attacks
By Dana Priest
WP in the Boston Globe, 13 October 2003
A key Republican legislator urged President Bush yesterday to take control of his fractious foreign policy team and plans for Iraq's reconstruction, as one Democrat deepened his criticism of the administration's arguments for going to war. "The president has to be president," Senator Richard G. Lugar, a Republican of Indiana who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" program. "That means the president over the vice president and over these secretaries" of state and defense. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice "cannot carry that burden alone," he added.

Hoping to Jump-Start Campaign, Kucinich Touts Antiwar Platform
By Michael Kranish
Boston Globe, 13 October 2003
US Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, a former Cleveland mayor and self-described progressive, sought yesterday to inject new energy into his presidential campaign with an official announcement of candidacy focused heavily on his opposition to the US occupation of Iraq.

Do we feel safer yet?
Pillow Bombs Feared on Planes
U.S. Says Al Qaeda Explosives Could Also Be Stuffed Into Coats, Toys
By John Mintz and Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post, 14 October 2003
Airport screeners in this country and overseas are on the lookout for suspicious pillows, coats and even stuffed animals after U.S. intelligence concluded that al Qaeda operatives are being trained to apply special chemicals to the material inside to transform them into bombs.

The EPA's Cost Underruns
By William K. Reilly
Washington Post, 14 October 2003
The federal government recently released an extensive analysis of the economic costs of some regulations. The study concluded that the benefits of Environmental Protection Agency regulations -- benefits to both health and the economy -- significantly exceeded the economic costs of complying with those regulations.

Don't Look Down: America's Risky Economic Status
By Paul Krugman
New York Times, 14 October 2003
EXCERPT: During the 1990's I spent much of my time focusing on economic crises around the world ‹ in particular, on currency crises like those that struck Southeast Asia in 1997 and Argentina in 2001. The timing of such crises is hard to predict. But there are warning signs, like big trade and budget deficits and rising debt burdens. And there's one thing I can't help noticing: a third world country with America's recent numbers ‹ its huge budget and trade deficits, its growing reliance on short-term borrowing from the rest of the world ‹ would definitely be on the watch list.

Bush's War on the Poor
By Jim Wallis
In These Times, 6 October 2003
EXCERPT: A budget is a moral document. It clearly demonstrates the priorities of a family, an organization, a government. A budget shows what we most care about. President Bush sent his budget to Congress in February (a budget that he said reflected his most important priorities) so it is worth paying close attention to. The president¹s budget of $2.23 trillion proposed a record deficit of $300 billion, speeded up billions of dollars of tax cuts that provide most of their benefits to the wealthiest Americans, called for huge increases for the Pentagon and slashed domestic spending‹including core government programs that create affordable housing, curb juvenile delinquency, hire police officers, bring aid to rural schools, help make childcare available to low-income working mothers and guarantee children¹s health insurance. There are the Bush priorities.
SEE ALSO: George Monbiot: Is America a Military State? (Guardian)

Apparently the corporate media isn't embedded enough...
Bush Tries to Get Past 'The Filter' of the Media
By Matt Bivens
The Nation, 13 October 2003
EXCERPT: President George Bush has been complaining about "the filter" of national media, which garbles his feel-good all's-well-in-Iraq message by reporting on the car bombings, the killed-in-action Americans, the fleeing foreign aid workers, the internal White House investigations and recriminations, etc. So this week, he and others in his Administration will be going around "the filter" to give interviews with local newspapers and small television stations. The idea is that journalists not used to dealing with Presidents and Cabinet secretaries will be more easily awed and deferential. In other words: We've reached the point in our Iraq adventure where the President de facto admits his policies can't stand up to even basic media scrutiny -- his only hope is to avoid questions, because he can't really answer them.
SEE ALSO: Clear Channel Rewrites Rules of Radio Broadcasting (CorpWatch)

Senators Say Bush Needs to Take Control
Iraq Policy Disputes Cited
By Dana Priest
Washington Post, 13 October 2003
EXCERPT: A key Republican lawmaker urged President Bush yesterday to take control of his fractious foreign policy team and plans for Iraq's reconstruction, as one Democrat deepened his criticism of the administration's arguments for going to war. "The president has to be president," Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "That means the president over the vice president, and over these secretaries" of state and defense. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice "cannot carry that burden alone."

Rice Fails to Repair Rifts, Officials Say
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice has a strong bond with President Bush, but some fault her for not ensuring Bush's wishes are carried out.
By Glenn Kessler and Peter Slevin
Washington Post, October 12, 2003
EXCERPT: Last week, the White House announced that national security adviser Condoleezza Rice had been given the new responsibility of managing the struggling effort to rebuild Iraq. In the words of one official, Rice would "crack the whip, frankly." The announcement was met by puzzlement throughout the foreign policy community: Isn't that what the national security adviser is supposed to do in the first place?

US Comptroller of the Currency is Shredding State Consumer Protection Laws
by Ralph Nader
Common Dreams, 11 October 2003
EXCERPT: Former corporate lawyer, John (Jerry) Hawke, the Comptroller of the Currency, has long laid claim to the title of terminator of state and local consumer protection laws. When national banks-Hawke's constituency-have gone to court to block consumer protections they have always found the Comptroller's legal staff eager and ready to join the case on their behalf. Not satisfied with the case by case assault on state consumer laws, Hawke now has expanded his war on consumers by publishing sweeping new regulations to reinforce the preemption of state law enforcement authority and to nullify virtually all state laws for national banks and their subsidiaries. The Comptroller's new power grab has generated a full-throated cry of outrage from consumer organizations, the National Conference of Legislatures and the National Governors Association which believe that Hawke is abusing the preemption authority of the National Banking Act of 1864. Many of Hawke's new regulations are designed to shore up the Comptroller's sole authority over real estate lending activities involving national banks. This means national banks will be able to thumb their noses at state efforts to control predatory lending scams and outrageous fees heaped on consumers.

Kucinich Announces Start of '04 White House Run
ASSOCIATED PRESS,13 October 2003
EXCERPT: Democrat Dennis Kucinich, the liberal four-term congressman who has been steadfast in his opposition to the Iraq war, formally kicked off his presidential bid Monday with a harsh critique of U.S. foreign policy. ``America cannot put its foot on the accelerator of war and advocate peace,'' the Ohio lawmaker, who favors a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, told several hundred cheering supporters in the chambers of the Cleveland City Council.
On the Net:
http://www.kucinich.us/index.htm

Bill Moyers on Big Media
Common Dreams, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: Big Media companies keep getting bigger -- ...(but) the Senate stopped the FCC in its tracks. There are enough votes to do the same in the House. But then, General Electric, owner of NBC; News Corp, owner of Fox; Viacom, owner of CBS; and Walt Disney, owner of ABC, brought on the hired guns ... the lobbyists ... to wage a Trojan War on Congress. A passel of former insiders moved through the revolving door, rolodex in tow, trading their influence for cash -- top aides of the Senate Majority Leader, the House Majority Whip and of John Ashcroft himself. Now the most powerful Republican in Congress, Tom Delay, the House Majority Leader, won't let a vote happen. The effort to reverse the FCC is dead in the water, sinking the democratic process with it.

Democrats Drop the Lunch Pail
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Washington Post, 14 October 2003
EXCERPT: There was a time when the Democratic Party followed the lead of that great political philosopher John Lennon in believing that a working-class hero is something to be. That time may be passing, and that could be a problem for Democrats. One of the most striking moments in last week's debate among Democratic presidential candidates in Phoenix was Sen. John Edwards's reply to a question from Jeff Greenfield of CNN. Greenfield made the point that two of the party's greatest heroes, Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, were patricians. Why, Greenfield wanted to know, did Edwards make such a big deal about his background as the son of a millworker? Edwards gave one of his better answers of the night. "The way you grew up," he said, can lend "credibility . . . to your vision." Because he was the first member of his family to go to college, Edwards said his plan to allow other Americans to have the same chance is "personal to me."

The Soviet Republic of Texas
Washington Post Editorial, 14 October 2003
EXCERPT: You might think America's rigged system of congressional elections couldn't get much worse. Self-serving redistricting schemes nationwide already have left an overwhelming number of seats in the House of Representatives so uncompetitive that election results are practically as preordained as in the old Soviet Union. In the last election, for example, 98 percent of incumbents were reelected, and the average winning candidate got more than 70 percent of the vote. More candidates ran without any major-party opposition than won by a margin of less than 20 percent. Yet even given this record, the just-completed Texas congressional redistricting plan represents a new low.

13 October 2003

Unmasking a CIA agent is bad, lying to Congress worse. With each U.S. death in Iraq, the case against the President grows stronger
Impeach Bush Now By JOHN MacARTHUR
Globe and Mail, 9 October 2003
EXCERPT: Now that the U.S. government's chief weapons inspector in Iraq has, in effect, confirmed an obvious truth -- that President George W. Bush and his closest advisers promoted a non-existent nuclear and chemical weapons threat from Iraq to justify a war -- an obvious question presents itself: Why aren't Americans talking seriously about impeachment?

  BushWhackedUSA Commentary 
Will the media sit and heel for the White House's new P.R. campaign?
Recycled Lies: Dick Cheney and the Lapdogs of War
By Eric Bosse
BushWhackedUSA, 11 October 2003
EXCERPT: In the bloody aftermath of the invasion, some in the media are hesitantly barking a new tune: skepticism. Due to the utter failure of weapons inspectors to find even one of Iraq¹s alleged ³weapons of mass destruction,² reporters are facing the fact that the administration used lies, half-truths and faulty intelligence to march the country down a path to war. In an attempt to drown out murmurs of dissatisfaction, the Bush team has again begun to howl. They still rely on the media¹s tendency to favor patriotic lies over unpopular truths. How the ratings hounds will respond remains to be seen.

Welcome to the Autumn Irony Festival
By Molly Ivins
Star-Telegram, 12 October 2003
Creators Syndicate
EXCERPT: Not that any of us is in a position to criticize the Great Scriptwriter in the Sky, but don't you think She's been going a little heavy on the irony lately?...El stinko to high heaven-o.
SEE ALSO: This is a week old Molly Ivin piece accounting for who in the administration said what, when. Superb.
Follow the Bouncing White House Ball
By Molly Ivins
Star-Telegram, 5 October 2003

Ramifications of CIA Leak Likely Large, Agents Worry
They say Bush officials' release of an officer's name may put others in the agency at great risk.
By Warren P. Strobel
Philadelphia Inquirer , 12 October 2003
EXCERPT: It's just a 12-letter name - Valerie Plame - but the leak by Bush administration officials of that CIA officer's identity may have damaged U.S. national security to a much greater extent than generally realized, current and former agency officials say.

Resistance to CAFTA Grows in Central Texas
Independent Media Center, 12 October 2003
EXCERPT: Delegates from the United States and Central American countries will meet in Houston next week to negotiate the expansion of the North American Free Trade Agreement. CAFTA, short for The Central American Free Trade Agreement, will open borders for industry, removing trade barriers from Canada to Panama, leaving many farmers and workers vulnerable to well-subsidized US farms and foreign investment.
CAFTA is an extension of the proven failure that is NAFTA, which will transfer wealth from the seven Central American nations to the industrialized North and local elite business owners, while garnering massive profits for transnational corporations. Multinational trade agreements with the U.S. have served to perpetuate local environmental, social and financial decline in underdeveloped areas of the world, as well as in the United States. CAFTA is the final major stepping stone in the move toward a Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA, which will open the entire Western Hemisphere (sin Cuba) to the neo-liberal economic model.

Risks for Cheney in Energy Policy Case
By Michael Kirkland
UPI Legal Affairs Correspondent
UPI, 11 October 2003
A straight forward description of the case leading up to a Supreme Court decision whether to hear it later in this term. EXCERPT: There is a small but politically potent case ticking away at the Supreme Court involving Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney is asking the justices to help keep meetings of the National Energy Policy Development Group confidential, in spite of lower-court rulings. At issue is whether Cheney allowed private energy lobbyists and big-name campaign contributors to participate in the work of the group, and if so, whether that information should be made public. Cheney, through the Justice Department, has asked the Supreme Court to review the case.

Failed State
The trail that took California from 1978 to Schwarzenegger
By Robert Kuttner
The American Prospect, 9 October 2003
EXCERPT: Trends and fads often start in California, and that thought should terrify anyone who cares about a functioning democracy. Tuesday's recall election is history's ironic revenge on a well- intentioned set of reforms championed by the Golden State's great progressive governor, Hiram Johnson.

Special Prosecutor Needed for CIA Leak
By James Orenstein
Chicago Tribune, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: It took more than two months for the U.S. Justice Department to launch an investigation after the FBI learned that "senior administration officials" may have illegally leaked the identity of a covert CIA operative. And when Justice Department officials finally did so, they broke basic investigative rules by ignoring an obvious conflict of interest and compounding the problem with inexplicable delays in securing the critical evidence.
SEE ALSO: Novak Got His Spin from Same Source as the Leak (Chicago Reader)
SEE ALSO: Reporters' Careerism Discouraged Stories on Leak (NYPress)

How Cheney lured W. to the dark side
A Tale of Two Fathers
By Maureen Dowd
EXCERPT: When Bush the Elder put Bush the Younger in the care of Dick Cheney, he assumed that Mr. Cheney, who had been his defense secretary in Desert Storm, would play the wise, selfless counselor. Poppy thought his old friend Dick would make a great vice president, tutoring a young president green on foreign policy and safeguarding the first Bush administration's legacy of internationalism, coalition-building and realpolitik. Instead, Good Daddy has had to watch in alarm as Bad Daddy usurped his son's presidency, heightened its conservatism and rushed America into war on the mistaken assumption that if we just acted like king of the world, everyone would bow down or run away.

Welfare Spending Shows Huge Shift
By ROBERT PEAR
New York Times, 13 October 2003
EXCERPT: New government figures show a profound change in welfare spending, shifting money from cash assistance into child care, education, training and other services intended to help poor people get jobs and stay off welfare. Cash assistance payments now account for less than half of all spending under the nation's main welfare program....Since the welfare law was signed in 1996, the number of people on welfare has plunged, to 5 million from 12.2 million, a 59 percent decline. The federal government provides a fixed amount to the states, $16.5 billion a year, regardless of how many people are on the rolls. ..."Falling caseloads amid rising poverty are cause for concern." The number of people in poverty rose to 34.6 million in 2002, from 31.6 million in 2000, the Census Bureau reported last month. But the number of people on welfare continued to decline, to 5 million in 2002, from 5.8 million in 2000. [BWUSA emphasis]

A Positive, Liberal Vision of The Future; 37 Ways Democrats Will Make the USA Better
by Rob Kall
OpEdNews.Com
EXCERPT: Right wingers repeatedly say liberals focus on the past and only attack republicans. Rush Limbaugh says that Liberals live and function in the past, just reacting to republicans, that we liberals have no vision for the future, how to make the world better, no plans,  while he and George Bush are the ones who envision the future. Now that's a frightening thought, only mollilfied by the reality that it is highly likely that Bush's Brain handles more than the next fumbling words out of his mouth. We on the left certainly have positive visions and plans. But it is true that these are not always articulated in any clear organized way. One reason is that the left does not have the equivalent of the conservative right's powerful, heavily funded policy promotion organizations, usually misleadingly labelled as thing tanks (like the Project for the New American Century, Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Judicial Watch and others.) And the DNC has failed to put forward such a positive vision.

Many Soldiers, Same Letter: Fake Support for the War
By Ledyard King
Gannett News Service, 11 October 2003
EXCERPT: Letters from hometown soldiers describing their successes rebuilding Iraq have been appearing in newspapers across the country as U.S. public opinion on the mission sours. And all the letters are the same. A Gannett News Service search found identical letters from different soldiers with the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, also known as "The Rock," in 11 newspapers, including Snohomish, Wash.

A wolf in sheep's clothing
Dishonest to the Core and Probably Nuts: Is Wesley Clark a Desirable Alternative to Bush?
By Glen Ford and Peter Gamble
Black Commentator, 9 October 2003
This excellent review challenges the logic of Wesley Clark's new book as well as the viability of his candidacy as an alternative to Bush. Thanks to his Pentagon connections, Clark now claims to have knowledge of half a dozen impending wars in Iraq. He says he has known this for two years(!) but chose to wait until now, when it's convenient for his book sales and his presidential campaign, to speak out.

11-12 October 2003

  BushWhackedUSA Comment 
Otherwise, we're doin' great...
Bush National Security Apparatus Shattered By Internal Wars
Here's a quick tally of current conflicts inside the administration:
1. CIA vs. The White House
2. State Department vs. Defense Department
3. National Security Advisor vs. Secretary of Defense
4. Rumsfeld vs. Military Brass
5. Neocons in Defense Department vs. Army and Air Force
6. Justice Department "investigating" the White House, State and Defense Departments

A Further Look At the Criminal ChargesThat May Arise From the Plame Scandal, In Which a CIA Agent's Cover Was Blown
By JOHN W. DEAN
FindLaw.com, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: Slowly, and steadily, more information about the unauthorized disclosure of Valerie Plame's CIA identity, and the reasons for it, have become available. As it has, I've been examining, assimilating, and trying to understand it. I've also realized that the apparent criminal activity may be more widespread than it initially appeared.

Bush Energy Policy: A Natural Disaster
By Merrill Goozner
The American Prospect, 9 October 2003
EXCERPT: The energy bill moving inexorably through Congress is like a massive oil spill heading for a pristine coastline -- there's not much one can do except contemplate the eventual cleanup costs. If September 11 changed everything in politics, you'd be hard pressed to tell from this special-interest giveaway. Two years after the attacks, the Republicans are about to pass legislation that does nothing to wean the United States from foreign oil, next to nothing to build a more fuel-efficient economy and precious little to promote alternative sources of energy -- policies that polls show most Americans would gladly support as the domestic component of the war on terrorism.

Special Interest Power
Drug Companies Rule in Washington
Survey Ranks Lobbyists for National Health Policy
Feminist Daily News Wire, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: A new survey reveals the top 25 most powerful movers and shakers influencing national health policy today. The survey, conducted by The Hill, a Capitol Hill publication, looked at 171 interest groups working on health policy and ranked the top 25 based on anonymous interviews with Congressional staffers. Of the 25 most powerful players, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PharMA) weighs in as the most influential, followed by the American Medical Association (AMA). The National Right to Life Committee ranks number eight, well above Planned Parenthood Federation of America (12), NARAL Pro-Choice America (14), the American Cancer Society (15), and the National Breast Cancer Coalition (21).

Kucinich Releases Plan to Bring Troops Home and End War Profiteering
Common Dreams, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: The war in Iraq is over and the occupation of Iraq has turned into a quagmire. The US troops have become the targets of criminals and terrorists who are flowing into Iraq for the chance to shoot Americans. The cost of the occupation keeps rising: The President has already asked for more than $150 billion to pay for it. And there is no end in sight. The UN is now in an impossible situation, where most of the members view the war and occupation of Iraq to be a US folly. Under these circumstances, the UN can¹t help. The US is stuck, mostly alone, with a costly, unpopular and unending occupation of Iraq. If we stay the course, it will do damage to American security. Iraq was not and is not a threat to the US, yet the demands of an occupation will overstretch our armed forces. And the extended deployment of reserve forces make us vulnerable at home because the reserve call ups include large numbers of firemen, policemen and other first responders who are needed for the homeland defense mission. People are asking, is there a way out? I believe there is.

Bush Taps Fundraiser to Advise U.S. on Intelligence
By Carl Weiser
Cincinnati Enquirer, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: Cincinnati investor William O. DeWitt Jr. has long been a friend of and fund-raiser for President Bush. Now he will be one of the president's advisers on one of the most important issues of the post 9-11 world: just how good America's intelligence gathering is.

America in Disrepair
By Stephen Pizzo
TomPaine.com, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: Talk about sticker shock. The condition of the country was far worse than anyone dared imagine. Engineers released their findings this September and, using a grammar school grading system, they assigned grades to describe the state of disrepair they found. The country's roads got a D+. Aviation infrastructure got a D. Schools a D minus. Wastewater treatment facilities, a D. Dams, a D. Hazardous waste storage a D+. And, even though the nation is a major oil producer, the energy sector got a D+. In all, the experts said it would take more than $1.6 trillion over the next five years to bring the country's infrastructure up to modern standards.

A Tale of Two Journalists: Ashcroft's Hypocrisy
By Matt Bivens
The Nation, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: Two different journalists refuse to reveal their sources to the Justice Department. One is a bit-player in a Houston crime drama. The Bush Administration declares it doesn't believe she's even a journalist, and has her locked up. The other's a long-time Washington fixture who holds the key to a burgeoning scandal: Who in the White House unmasked a CIA agent working to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction -- endangering that agent's life, and revealing CIA front companies she worked at? The Bush Administration's response: Yeah, we're probably not going to get to the bottom of that one. I'm not suggesting Robert Novak be locked up. I am suggesting that the Bush Administration is the very definition of shifty-eyed hypocritical cowardice.

David Corn: Press Bias Is Toward 'Officialdom'
Author Who Broke Novak Story Sees 'Pack' Mentality
By Seth Porges
Editor and Publisher, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: Some say the Washington press corps is biased toward the left or right. David Corn agrees there is bias but believes it is a "bias towards officialdom. ... It includes the White House, Congress and people in the cabinets." D.C. reporters, he says, are simply not comfortable doing "anything that could be seen as challenging the agenda or anything that could be seen too much as crusading."

Big Radio Rules in Small Markets
Center for Public Integrity, 2 October 2003
EXCERPT:  The greatest concentration of ownership in the radio industry can be found in smaller and medium-sized markets and not in large cities, with broadcast leviathan Clear Channel Communications Inc. by far the most dominant player in America's heartland, according to a new study of radio ownership by the Center for Public Integrity.

Interior Department Overturns Mining Decision
By SCOTT SONNER
AP in Findlaw.com, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: The Interior Department has overturned a Clinton administration opinion that reduced the amount of land for waste from mining operations, rolling back another environmental decision made under President Bush's predecessor. The department said its solicitor general under Clinton had misinterpreted the 1872 Mining Law by concluding that each 20-acre mining claim on federal land is limited to a single five-acre waste site. The old opinion had the effect of either reducing the amount of land a mining operation can use to dump waste - including cyanide and other chemicals used to separate ore from rock - or reducing the size of the mining operation itself. The new opinion by Deputy Solicitor Roderick Walston says each waste site is still limited to five acres, but how many may exist on each claim is not limited. [BWUSA italics]

U.S. May Expand Access To Endangered Species
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post, 11 October 2003
EXCERPT: The Bush administration is proposing far-reaching changes to conservation policies that would allow hunters, circuses and the pet industry to kill, capture and import animals on the brink of extinction in other countries. Giving Americans access to endangered animals, officials said, would feed the gigantic U.S. demand for live animals, skins, parts and trophies, and generate profits that would allow poor nations to pay for conservation of the remaining animals and their habitat.

Not That Kind of Christian
By Amy Sullivan
PoliticalAims.com, 9 October 2003
EXCERPT: It should go without saying, but let me just state for the record that I am fairly certain that Pat Robertson and I worship different Gods. First the Reverend (and I use that title hesitantly here) expressed his fervent hope that God "do something" to open up a seat on the Supreme Court -- like maybe strike dead a liberal to moderate justice or two. And now (thanks to an alert reader who pointed out this story), he has apparently endorsed the idea of blowing up the State Department with a nuclear device. I don't think I'm going out on too much of a limb in saying that this is not a view shared by many -- if any at all -- other Christians. So can we please stop treating this guy like an actual religious leader?

U.S. Plans for Mid-East Dominance Heads List of Year's Under Reported Stories
Independent Media Center, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: The media watchdog group Project:Censored gave a 20-year plan formulated by current members of the Bush Administration its top spot in the year's most under-reported stories. While the corporate media were regurgitating the Bush administration's lies about Weapons of Mass Destruction and giving Saddam Hussein's Human Rights Abuses record prominent play, what went unreported was the fact that people like Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, William Kristol and Dick Cheney have been putting together a plan for American Military Occupation of the Middle East and control of the region's oil for decades. Not only is it egregious that it fell to British papers like the Sunday Herald and smaller circulation periodicals like Harper's and Mother Jones to report this, but the plans of the Bush administration members were on the Internet the whole time and they still failed to get play in the media of record in the United States.  [BWUSA emphasis]

10 October 2003

Investigation critically flawed from its beginning
Leaking Problems
TomPaine.com, 9 October 2003
Senators Daschle, Biden, Levin and Schumer inform Bush of five serious missteps in the investigation into the apparent criminal leaking the identity of a covert CIA operative.
1. The Justice Department announced the investigation on Friday and then delayed official notification of the White House to preserve all evidence until Monday.
2. The White House requested and received a further 24 hour delay in implementing action to preserve evidence.
3. The Justice Department delayed for days extending the same instructions to the Departments of State and Defense.
4. White House spokesperson, Scott McClellan, inappropriately interviewed and made conclusions about the innocence of three White House officials: Karl Rove, Lewis Libby and Elliot Abrams
5. "Mr. Ashcroft's personal relationship and political alliance with you, his close professional relationships with Karl Rove and Mr. Gonzales, and his seat on the National Security Council all tie him so tightly to this White House that the results may not be trusted by the American people."

"Bloody optimism"
Bush Urges Public to Be Upbeat About Iraq
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: President Bush, launching a new bid to halt the long slide in support for the occupation of Iraq, urged Americans Thursday to be optimistic and assured the public that the U.S. efforts there are proceeding better than it appears. Addressing reservists and National Guardsmen at a time when more are expected to be sent to Iraq to quell violence and disorder, the president marked the sixth month of the fall of Baghdad by bidding Saddam Hussein "good riddance" and noting that the seemingly chaotic situation in Iraq is "a lot better than you probably think." Bush's twin speeches here in New Hampshire, to service members and business leaders, were meant to be the keynote of the administration's reply to critics urging a reduced U.S. commitment in Iraq. "Americans," the president said, "are not the running kind." Bush's speech, however, was delivered on one of the more violent days in postwar Iraq: An attack on a police station killed eight, a Spanish diplomat was slain and another U.S. soldier was killed in an attack on a convoy.

Lessons in Civility: No Polite Way to Assess Bush
By Paul Krugman
New York Times, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: Some say that the right, having engaged in name-calling and smear tactics when Bill Clinton was president, now wants to change the rules so such behavior is no longer allowed. In fact, the right is still calling names and smearing; it wants to prohibit rude behavior only by liberals. But there's more going on than a simple attempt to impose a double standard. All this fuss about the rudeness of the Bush administration's critics is an attempt to preclude serious discussion of that administration's policies. For there is no way to be both honest and polite about what has happened in these past three years.

Democratic Rivals Attack Clark in Debate
New York Times, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: Gen. Wesley K. Clark, the newest entrant into the Democratic presidential contest, was repeatedly upbraided by his rivals at a debate here on Thursday night for what they said was a muddled position on whether he would have supported the Congressional resolution granting President Bush the authority to invade Iraq.

Republican leads crackdown on whistleblowers who protect us
Whistling in the Dark: Nuclear Safety is At Risk
Danielle Brian
TomPaine.com, 9 October 2003
EXCERPT: Weapons lab whistleblowers have been Senator Domenici¹s worst nightmare this year, uncovering scandal after scandal happening on his watch as Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. These kind of scandals make bringing home the bacon much tougher for the Chairman. In the past year, hundreds of major national news stories have drawn attention to national security breaches, corruption, fraud, missing keys, open doors and much more mischief at Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia nuclear weapons laboratories. At Los Alamos alone, whistleblowers revealed that more than 200 computers were missing, some of which may have had classified information, according to the Department of Energy¹s (DOE) Inspector General.
SEE ALSO: Letter Cites Screening of White House Documents (WP)

 AUDIO/VIDEO LINK
The leaky Bush ship continues to sink...
Congressman Demands Rove's Resignation
An interview with Rep. John Conyers
Democracy NOW!, 9 October 2003
EXCERPT: The Bush administration announced earlier this week that it would not be handing over the documents requested by the Justice Department as part of its investigation into who outted a covert CIA operative. Press Secretary Scott McClellan said the White House may need up to 2 weeks to vet the material before handing it over to Justice Department investigators. This comes as the House Judiciary Committee's top Democrat is calling on President Bush¹s chief political adviser Karl Rove to resign. Representative John Conyers, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee wrote a letter to Rove yesterday calling on him bluntly to step down. He also said the Bush administration is engaged in what he called an "orchestrated campaign to smear and intimidate truth-telling critics."

Schwarzenegger's New Role: The Deregulator
By Jason Leopold
Information Clearing House, 9 October 2003
EXCERPT: One of Schwarzenegger¹s first political moves as the state¹s chief executive will be an effort to push the state¹s electricity market closer toward deregulation, a move halted by Gov. Gray Davis two years ago in the wake of California¹s energy crisis. Schwarzenegger, while on the campaign trail, blamed Davis for his handling of the energy crisis. Schwarzennegger drafted a comprehensive energy policy, which can be found at http://www.joinarnold.com/en/agenda/#C1, that went unnoticed for much of his campaign during the recall election. He said he wants to eliminate public oversight on future power supply contracts.
SEE ALSO: A Sampling of California Editorial Responses (P&E)

Is the Pentagon Giving Our Soldiers Cancer?
By Hillary Johnson
Rolling Stone, 2 October 2003
Courtesy of FeeedTheFish.org and Cursor
EXCERPT: he U.S. military's deadliest ammunition is now packed with depleted uranium -- radioactive waste left over from nuclear bombs and reactors. These so-called "hot rounds" penetrate armored tanks like a needle pierces burlap, vaporizing steel in hell-fires of 5,000 degrees Celsius. Unlike tungsten, the armor-piercing metal used since World War II that "mushrooms" when it hits a target, depleted uranium actually sharpens itself like a pencil as it bores into tanks. Flaming radioactive particles shear off in every direction on impact, igniting fuel tanks and whatever explosives the target might be carrying. With virtually no public oversight, radioactive weapons have replaced conventional weapons as the cornerstone of American military might. Whenever U.S. troops go to war, depleted uranium supplies the shock and awe.
SEE ALSO: Mystery Blood Clots Killing U.S. Troops (UPI)

9 October 2003

Wrong Path to War
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Washington Post, 7 October 2003
EXCERPT: President Bush should be searching his soul over how he took a legitimate war against terrorism and systematically undermined the support he needed to wage it.

Open Source
Why Bush should order his staff to release Novak and other reporters from confidentiality pledges
By Michael Tomasky
The American Prospect,  8 October 2003
EXCERPT: President Bush spoke to the press at some length yesterday on the Joseph Wilson-Valerie Plame matter. He said: "I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration official. Now, this is a large administration, and there's a lot of senior officials. I don't have any idea. I'd like to. I want to know the truth. That's why I've instructed this staff of mine to cooperate fully with the investigators -- full disclosure, everything we know the investigators will find out. I have no idea whether we'll find out who the leaker is -- partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers. But we'll find out." That's a little more committal than O.J. Simpson's vow to find the "real" killer, but only a little. "I have no idea" sounds as if Bush is talking about something over which he has no control. But the subject here isn't whether it will rain tomorrow. He's the president. If he genuinely does want to know, he can bring about this outcome in two simple ways -- the first straightforward, the second dramatic.

The Best Defense: A Guide to the Interests Driving the U.S. Defense Budget
By Sheryl Fred
OpenSecrets.org, 1 October 2003
EXCERPT: Congress finalized the Defense Department¹s budget [two weeks ago], giving President Bush the go-ahead to sign off on more than $368 billion for the Pentagon in the next fiscal year. The appropriations package, which does not include the billions of dollars the president has requested for the Iraq supplemental, represents a $3.8 billion increase in the budget from FY2003. This is welcome news for the country¹s top defense contractors, who diligently re-enacted their annual battle for increased military spending this year. The defense industry¹s arsenal included strategic campaign contributions, a massive lobbying effort and an onslaught of glossy, inside-the-Beltway ads.

Liberty Island
Libertarians are increasingly isolated in the GOP. Will they bolt in 2004?
By Noah Shachtman
The American Prospect, 7 October 2003
EXCERPT: The Bush White House's heavy-handed approach to the war on terrorism, its spendthrift fiscal plan and its adventures overseas have soured Stefanescu on the GOP. And she's not the only one. Libertarians across the country are slowly beginning to question their Republican loyalties. And if they break with the GOP -- or even decide to sit out the 2004 election -- it could be as bad for George W. Bush as the alienation of the religious right was for his dad in 1992.

Quoting Howard Dean On California Recall Result
By Justin Slaughter
TAP's Filibuster, 8 October 2003
EXCERPT: For those on the Left feeling bad tonight, some brief words from Howard Dean that I believe act as a good bookend to this incredible campaign: "Today's recall election in California was not about Gray Davis or Arnold Schwarzenegger. This recall was about the frustration so many people are feeling about the way things are going. All across America, George Bush's massive tax cuts for the wealthy are undermining state budgets, causing cutbacks in services and increases in local property taxes. Were recalls held in every state, it's quite possible that 50 governors would find themselves paying the price for one president's ruinous national economic policies. Tonight the voters in California directed their frustration with the country's direction on their incumbent governor. Come next November, that anger might be directed at a different incumbent...in the White House." We've lost this battle, but the war rages on.

Scott McClellan's Strange Legalistic Phrasing Is Suspicious
By Josh Marshall
Talking Points Memo, 8 October 2003
EXCERPT: I’ve been making quite a point of late of the administration’s extremely disciplined use of the phrase “leaks of classified information” when referring to anything about Plame. They never mention Plame’s name --- which is perhaps understandable. But they don’t even make any mention of exposing a CIA operative. It's always "leaks of classified information" this and "leaks of classified information" that. That makes me wonder just how air-tight McClellan’s statement is. What he said was that “They [i.e., Libby and Abrams] were not involved in leaking classified information, nor did they condone it.” Now presumably Plame’s identity was classified information. But why frame this denial in such a precise, lawyerly and frankly off-point fashion? Why not just say they told no one about Plame’s identity. Or even just, they did not disclose the identity of any agent from the Directorate of Operations?
Something’s up here ...

Bush team cracks under pressure
Rice Leaves Rumsfeld Hot Under the Collar
By Julian Borger
Guardian (UK), 9 October 2003
EXCERPT: The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, revealed the depth of the fissures within the Bush administration yesterday with a remarkably bad-tempered interview in which he claimed not to have been told about an important overhaul of policymaking on Iraq. The restructuring is designed to centralise daily decisions in the White House under the control of the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, after harsh criticism from political foes and allies alike of the Pentagon's lack of planning for postwar Iraq. There is mounting speculation in Washington that Mr Rumsfeld will be dropped from the administration before the November election.

Poll confirms "nation of sheep" syndrome
US TV News Too Liberal, Say Americans
By John Plunkett
Guardian (UK), 8 October 2003
And now, from the people who believed Saddam was behind 9/11...
EXCERPT: Nearly half of Americans think its news media is too liberal despite the rise of controversial hard-right cable channel Fox News. TV news channels in the US came under fire during the war on Iraq - including criticism from some of their own reporters - for their unquestioning support of the White House during the conflict. But this criticism is not shared by viewers at home, some 45% of whom believe their country's news outlets are too liberal. Only 14% of Americans believe the media to be too conservative, according to a poll by Gallup carried out around the second anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

America's psychopathic leadership shines again!
Terry Gross, Grover Norquist and the Holocaust
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Common Dreams, 8 October 2003
This response to last week's "Fresh Air" interview with Norquist on NPR challenges the reasoning of Bush's top tax adviser on several issues, including his comparison of the estate tax with the Holocaust.
SEE ALSO: The Fresh Air Interview with Norquist (NPR)

Not so popular with the ladies...
NOW Targets Bush for Defeat in 2004
National Organization For Women, 8 October 2003
EXCERPT: NOW/PAC's top political priority is sending Bush back to Texas, and NOW's Drive for Equality 'a campaign to identify, inform, register and mobilize women to participate in the political process' will help by increasing the women's vote. NOW looks forward to working with Moseley Braun to advance that goal because she speaks to a large portion of the U.S. population, particularly women, who were not inspired to get out and vote in 2000.

Coke Pays Off Whistleblower
BBC News, 8 October 2003
EXCERPT: Coca-Cola has agreed to pay $540,000 to a former employee who claimed the company inflated its profits and knowingly sold contaminated drinks.

Survey Shows Fox News is #1 at Misleading Public
By Kay McFadden
Seattle Times, 6 October 2003
EXCERPT: Fox News Channel, like the White House, got a ratings boost from the aftermath of 9-11. The tactics were remarkably similar. Network executives gauged the nation's anger and panic and recognized war in Iraq as a rallying point, provided they gave viewers the sort of firm leadership unsullied by second-guessing. It was a smart call. Once war arrived, of course, Fox wasn't alone in the media campaign to win audience hearts. Other cable channels and networks made self-promotional hay from dashing correspondents, surrendering Iraqi soldiers and masterful bombardment set to music. What great TV we got. Too bad a lot of us were knuckleheads about the facts. A just-released report by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy (PIPA) finds a majority of respondents have misperceptions about the war.

October 9 & 10: Contact your representatives
National Advocacy Days to Protest the Occupation of Iraq
United for Peace and Justice campaign
EXCERPT: October 10th marks the one year anniversary of the Congressional vote to endorse the Bush Administration's war against Iraq. Join thousands of people as we call and meet with our Senators and House Representatives and tell them what we think about the occupation of Iraq. Right now Congress is considering the Bush administration's request for another $87 billion for the occupation, in addition to the $79 billion that was already approved. That's more than the federal government's total discretionary spending for education, job training, and employment and social services combined.

8 October 2003

House Republicans Seek Cuts In Bush's Iraqi Aid Package
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post, 7 October 2003
EXCERPT: Senior House Republicans proposed slicing $1.7 billion out of President Bush's $20.3 billion Iraqi reconstruction request yesterday, moving to eliminate such political hot potatoes as $50,000 garbage trucks, new Zip codes and telephone numbers, and the $100 million restoration of the drained marshes of southern Iraq. The proposed cuts are contained in a new version of the president's $87 billion war and reconstruction request for Iraq and Afghanistan that House Appropriations Committee Republicans circulated yesterday. The committee will formally draft its version of the war request Thursday.

Computer Experts Fear Recall Voter Fraud
By RACHEL KONRAD
Associated Press, 7 October, 2003
EXCERPT: Punch-card ballots from Tuesday's historic recall election are sure to get a going-over by political activists, but some computer scientists think touch-screen voting machines deserve just as much scrutiny. But according to a July study by Johns Hopkins and Rice universities, any clever hacker could break into Diebold's system and vote multiple times. Researchers found it was theoretically possible to insert "back doors" into software code that would allow hackers — or insiders — to change future voters' choices and determine the outcome. Activists are demanding that ballot machine vendors include printers that produce paper receipts so citizens can confirm that paper results match their touch-screen choices. Receipts would go into a county lock-box for use in recounts.

Marrying (Uncle) Sam?
By Wendy Pollack
National Association For Women, 7 October 2003
EXCERPT: The Bush administration is engaged in a full court press in its effort to promote marriage among low-income women and men, diverting hundreds of millions of dollars each year from programs and services intended to help low-income people move out of poverty, such as the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, the welfare program for poor children and their families, and the child support enforcement program. The marriage promotion agenda is an inappropriate use of government funds, and an ineffective antipoverty strategy. An individual's decision to marry is very personal, often complex, and indeed private. To force the poor mothers to consider this personal decision in the context of their need for public benefits is yet another example of government trampling individual privacy rights and avoiding the real issue of how to effectively address poverty.
SEE ALSO: Bush's Assaults on Women (The Nation)

Authors Paint Bush as Liar in Flurry of New Books
Reuters, 7 October 2003
EXCERPT: Bookstore display tables give the distinct impression there is a lot of lying going on in America these days, with President Bush and his top advisers portrayed as the main culprits.
SEE ALSO: Interview With Michael Moore (BookReporter.com)

While Democrats sleep on the job...
Republicans and Brits Will Count California's Recall Votes
By Lynn Landes
OpEdNews.com, 7 October 2003
EXCERPT: When will the Democrats wake up and smell the fix? There is a reason why George Bush and his cronies wear a perpetual smirk on their faces. There's a reason for their cocksure confidence. They may not win every election, but if they don't, it will because they chose not to. For nothing is clearer than this, Republicans dominate voting technology companies in America. And they have foreign partners. A handful of Republican corporations and British-owned companies control the vote count in California and across the nation. Britain and it's offshore territories not only shelter corporate America from taxes due to the U.S. Treasury, the Brits are also providing a haven for vote-counting companies like Accenture, the former Andersen Consulting, currently located in Bermuda and slated to count the military online vote in 2004. It's all enough to make one wonder who won the Revolutionary War... American patriots or the British and American Tories?

President Schwarzennegger?
By Matt Bivens
The Nation, 7 October 2003
EXCERPT: Back when he was among the Republican leaders hot on the scent of Bill Clinton's adultery, Orrin Hatch, the Utah Senator and writer of gospel music, said Clinton's only way out was a public confession. The President should apologize and ask forgiveness -- from Congress, and from the American people. Only by coming clean in detail could he be fit to stay in office, Hatch said. Fast-forward a few years, and what do we have? Senator Hatch goes before the National Press Club and, as paraphrased by The Salt Lake Tribune, says "Arnold Schwarzenegger should not be judged on past improper advances towards women but as the devoted husband he is today." (Gee, why didn't Clinton think of this brilliant "devoted husband I am today" defense?) Moreover, Hatch already feels strongly enough that Schwarzenegger is of United States presidential caliber that he cites him as an argument for amending the Constitution, so that foreign-born American citizens can run for the Oval Office.

Cheney kisses our clean air and water goodbye
$18 Billion for Polluters
TomPaine.com, 7 October 2003
EXCERPT: Most of us work hard, pay taxes and teach our kids to believe in America. Deep down, we hope our government will invest our dollars to serve the common good. The massive energy bill that¹s before Congress betrays that hope. Conceived in secret three years ago by Vice President Cheney and his industry friends, the $65 billion legislation is being finalized behind closed doors by Louisiana Representative Billy Tauzin and Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico. This monument to greed includes more than $18 billion in new taxpayer giveaways for the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries, according to the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

 Audio Link
Interview with Ambassador Joseph Wilson
Diane Rehm Show, 7 October 2003
Ambassador Joseph Wilson

Joseph Wilson, former acting Ambassador to Iraq and CIA envoy to Niger, joins Diane to talk about the the apparent leak of his wife's name as a CIA operative.

Investigate the War Profiteering - At Home
By Matthew Miller
Tribune Media Services, 6 October 2003
Courtesy of the Washington Monthly
EXCERPT: Recall that conservatives, and even prudent Democrats, raised questions in the mid-1990s about the Head Start program's ability to absorb the budget increases it was being given. Did the system have the capacity, people asked, to take in such new sums this quickly and spend them wisely? If these questions were legitimate in a program that was being hiked from just a few billion dollars to a few billion more (we're talking single-digit billions here), then how much more urgent are such questions in a defense budget that Bush has raised from the roughly $300 billion he inherited to what next year looks certain to top $450 billion?

7 October 2003

Bush team's fraudulent use of WMD search and reporting renders this expenditure a donation to the Bush election campaign
Key Senator Confirms $600 Million More Slated for Weapons Hunt
CHARLES J. HANLEY
AP, October 6, 2003
EXCERPT: A key U.S. senator confirmed on Monday that the classified section of the proposed U.S. budget for Iraq calls for spending some $600 million to continue the so-far fruitless search for banned weapons. Sen. Mitch McConnell said he would vote for it.

 Audio Link
Brief description of "Bush Doctrine" impact on U.S. international relations, etc
Intelligence Failures Raise Doubts About Iraq Strike
NPR Morning Edition, 7 October 2003
EXCERPT: The intelligence failures that preceded the U.S. war in Iraq raise doubts about the wisdom of a preemptive attack. NPR's Mike Shuster reports.
[segment located about 60% down the page]

Congress Hits Warpath on Iraq Funding Issues
The House takes up Bush's $87 billion request this week, as public concerns rise.
By Gail Russell Chaddock
The Christian Science Monitor, 6 October 2003
EXCERPT: Democrats are calling the battle over funding the war in Iraq and its aftermath "the most consequential national security debate in a generation." They may be right. Already, skirmishes over President Bush's $87 billion supplemental spending request are breaking out on everything from the rationale for use of American power in the world to the responsibility of US taxpayers to pay for water, power, and even zip codes in Iraq.

The Spin is Not Holding
David Corn
The Nation, 4 October 2003
EXCERPT: Bush, Cheney, McClellan, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and others continue to deny they overstated (or misrepresented) the case for war. But the evidence is incontrovertible, and it keeps on piling up. So all they have is spin. Bush changes the terms. McClellan, Rumsfeld, Rice insist that before the war everybody knew that Iraq had WMDs. Everybody, that is, except the folks putting together the intelligence assessments chockfull of uncertainties. When it comes to the Wilson affair, the White House ducks and covers, claiming it had no reason to react to the original anonymous-source leak, even though its officials (at the least) considered the leak solid enough to talk up to other reporters. And instead of confronting the ugly (and perhaps criminal) implications of the leak, the White House's allies in Washington lash out at Wilson, in a vicious blame-the-victim offensive, while Mister Change-the-Tone has nothing to say publicly about this.

An Overstretched Army
International Herald Tribune
NYT , 6 October 2003
EXCERPT: Now that it is clear the United States faces a lengthy military occupation of Iraq, requiring perhaps 100,000 troops for the foreseeable future, it is possible to begin calculating how the war may damage the U.S. armed forces. Since the United States cannot expect much additional help from other countries or from the fledgling Iraqi security forces, the burdens of occupation will start to strain severely the army's capacity to deploy trained and rested combat forces worldwide in a matter of months. In the longer term, the lives of thousands of military families will be disrupted, the army reserve system so carefully built up when America moved to a smaller, volunteer army three decades ago will be put at severe risk and the global reach of U.S. foreign policy will be diminished. This distressing equation is yet another regrettable consequence of the unilateral way America went to war in Iraq. Like the mournful daily roll call of additional dead and wounded soldiers, the reluctance of other countries to help pay for U.S.-run reconstruction efforts and the blows to America's reputation for responsible leadership, it is a cost President George W. Bush never acknowledged when he sold the public last winter on the wisdom of going to war without UN authority.

Bargain Basement
Congressional Report: Terrorists Could Buy Special Equipment From Pentagon
ABC News, 6 October 2003
EXCERPT: The Pentagon could inadvertently be providing terrorists with special equipment that would enable them to make biological weapons, according to a draft report from the General Accounting Office obtained by ABCNEWS.

The Capped Crusader: An Interview with Michael Moore
By Gary Younge
The Guardian (UK), 6 October 2003
EXCERPT: Berlin in 1936 is a fairly good analogy for where Moore thinks America is at the moment. Not that he is comparing Bush to Hitler, but because he believes America's democracy is in peril, as Germany's was in the years following the burning down of the Reichstag. "Since 9/11, the Bush Administration has used that tragic event as a justification to rip up our constitution and our civil liberties. And I honestly believe that one or two 9/11s, and martial law will be declared in our country and we're inching towards a police state." He admits "it's not happening tomorrow", but some well-placed suicide bombs or terrorist attacks, he believes, could change everything. "At that point, you will find millions of Americans clamouring for martial law. I'm not talking about a takeover by Bush and his people. They won't have to fire a shot. The American people will be so freaked out they will demand that the White House take action, round up anyone and everyone. That's what I fear. It won't happen with a bang but with the whimpering sound of a frightened nation."

Gore Goes to Canada in Bid to Bring Liberal Radio Commentary to U.S.
By Barbara Shecter and Isabel Vincent
National Post, 5 October 2003
EXCERPT: In his quest to set up a new liberal-leaning broadcaster in the United States, former U.S. vice-president Al Gore and a group of investors could end up buying Newsworld International, a cable company originally started by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1994. According to a source close to the negotiations, Mr. Gore and his financial partners hope to re-focus the channel -- which was sold to USA Networks in 2000, and then to Vivendi Universal -- as a left-leaning rival to Rupert Murdoch's Fox News. Mr. Gore would become the company's fifth owner if the deal goes through.

Neophyte Gorge
by Karen Kwiatkowski
LewRockwell.com, 6 October 2003
EXCERPT:  "Sometimes the American people like the decisions I make, sometimes they don't. But they need to know I make tough decisions, based upon what I think is right, given the intelligence I know."
~ George W. Bush, 3 October 2003
It seems to me that Bush is standing at the edge of a great canyon. Pebbles under his feet are increasingly unstable, and a scramble instinct breaks out from his reptilian brain. Neophyte Gorge is deep, dangerous, and it hurts when you hit the bottom. It hurts on the way down, too. In a flash recognition of the desperation of his position, Bush experiments with truth-telling.

Bush Disregards Missile Defense Testing Standards In Rush To Deployment
Global Security Newswire, 6 October 2003
EXCERPT: The Bush administration’s plan to field a national missile defense system by September 2004 has “lowered the bar on the acceptable standards for an effective military system,” a former top U.S. Defense Department official wrote last week in Arms Control Today. The Missile Defense Agency failed a missile intercept test only six days before President George W. Bush announced his goal for fielding the Ground-based Midcourse Defense System, according to Philip Coyle, former assistant defense secretary for test and evaluation and currently a senior adviser at the Center for Defense Information.  Agency officials were surprised by Bush’s announcement and immediately shifted their priorities from developing an effective missile defense to establishing the necessary facilities in Alaska and California, Coyle wrote. Coyle harshly criticized the decision to field the program before it completes the usual battery of testing. The system “has not shown that it can hit anything other than missiles whose trajectory and targets have been preprogrammed by missile defense contractors to eliminate the surprise or uncertainty of battle. … The Pentagon’s current missile defense plan marks a radical shift from a half-century of military testing carried out under Republican and Democratic administrations alike,” Coyle wrote.  “For the GMD system to work in 2004, it requires the MDA getting advance notice from the enemy — say, North Korea,” he added.

Justices Return to Face Issues of Religion and Politics
By Charles Lane
Washington Post, 5 October 2003
EXCERPT: ...the most explosive issue pending at the court is the ban imposed on the Pledge of Allegiance in West Coast public school classrooms by a San-Francisco-based federal appeals court. The court ruled that the phrase "one nation, under God" violates the federal constitutional prohibition on official religion. ...the court is due to deliver a major ruling on money in politics before the beginning of 2004 (McCain-Feingold campaign finance law), etc.
SEE ALSO:
 Audio Link
Diane Rheme Show, 6 October 2003
Supreme Court Preview

Diane and her guests talk about campaign finance reform, Nazi-looted art, and other issues the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on during the new session that opens today.

 Audio Link
The Lies of George W. Bush
Interview with David Corn
Diane Rheme Show, 6 October 2003

EXCERPT: During the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush pledged to restore honor and integrity to the Oval Office. But, argues Washington editor of "The Nation" David Corn, President Bush has fallen far short of that promise. He joins Diane to present his provocative case against the president.
David Corn, "The Nation" & author of "The Lies of George W. Bush" (Crown)

6 October 2003

 Audio/Video Link
Schwarzenegger Accused of Involvement in $9B California Swindle with Enron’s Ken Lay
DemocracyNow.org, 6 October 2003
EXCERPT: Investigative reporter Greg Palast reveals how Republican gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger is part of a larger scheme to help Enron and other power companies avoid paying back $9 billion in illicit profits by replacing Gov. Gray Davis.

Open to Attack: Bush Gives In to Chemical Companies, Leaves Nation Vulnerable
By Anne-Marie Cusac
The Progressive, November Issue
EXCERPT: Since September 11, 2001, the nation has been on alert about the vulnerability of chemical facilities. And while the Bush Administration claims that homeland security is a priority, time after time, it has opted to do nothing dramatic to improve the security of U.S. chemical facilities. All along, it has followed the wishes of the U.S. chemical industry-at our peril.

Is the standard of "even an appearance of conflict of interest" obsolete?
Is Iraq's Rebuilding Rigged?
By JAMES ROSEN
News & Observer, 5 October 2003
EXCERPTS: "If we wanted to be cute, we could say that Halliburton and Bush-Cheney in Iraq is just another example of a private-public partnership. When the government is the problem and the market is the solution, it no longer is corruption. It becomes efficiency."

Bush Under Fire: Leaks, Scandal, War and a Floundering Economy
By Paul Harris
Observer (UK), 5 October 2003
EXCERPT: A witch hunt is going on in Washington. A fall guy - or two - needs to be found to explain who blew the cover of CIA operative Valerie Plame as an act of revenge against her anti-war husband. It sounds like an obscure row, but it is not. The scandal goes to the heart of an administration that is now widely seen as in crisis. Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, had gone public with allegations that the Bush administration had exaggerated its case for war against Iraq. In the Bush White House there can be no bigger sin.

Thousands Rally For Immigrants Rights
By Bart Jones
Newsday.com, 4 October 2003
EXCERPTS: In what organizers called the largest pro-immigrant rally in U.S. history, tens of thousands of immigrants and their supporters massed in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park yesterday to call for an overhaul of what speaker after speaker described as the nation's broken immigration system. "The reality is that our current system is immoral," Bishop DiMarzio said. ..."It's an issue of justice, it's an issue of equality, it's an issue of dismantling the racism and bureaucracy of the immigration policies."  ..."While many may condemn the presence of the undocumented in our land, we willingly accept their hard labor, their contributions to our economy, and their cultural and religious spirit which enriches our local communities."

Why Isn't The Truth Out There?
By Paul Donovan
Guardian, 5 October 2003
EXCERPT: The willingness of journalists to accepts the establishment's view of the events of, and after, 9/11 is truly staggering. ...One of the major weaknesses of journalism today is how easily some are seduced by power. The premier role of the journalist should be as a check on power, however, many seem to turn this dictum on its head and get greater job satisfaction as parrots of the official truth.

American burger-flippers react with shrugs...
A Missing Statistic: U.S. Jobs That Went Overseas
By LOUIS UCHITELLE
New York Times, 5 October 2003
EXCERPT: The job market finally showed some life in September, but not enough to sidetrack a growing debate over why employment has failed to rebound nearly two years after the last recession ended. The debate intrudes increasingly on election politics, but in all the heated back and forth, an essential statistic is missing: the number of jobs that would exist in the United States today if so many had not escaped abroad.

Bush's Decision to Invade Iraq Happened Days after September 11th, Despite His Assertions to the Contrary
The Daily Mis-Lead, 6 October 2003
EXCERPT: President Bush's decision to attack Saddam Hussein was made within days after the September 11th suicide hijackings, even though Bush claimed on the eve of his invasion "the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war."Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has acknowledged that in the first weekend after September 11th "the disagreement was whether [invading Iraq] should be in the immediate response or whether you should concentrate simply on Afghanistan first."

Son Down
Why dropping poll numbers are about all the presidencies of Bush Senior and Junior have in common
By Michael Tomasky
The American Prospect, 3 October 2003
EXCERPT: As George W. Bush has tanked in the polls, a question has gained prevalence on the op-ed pages and chat shows: Will the son repeat the mistakes of the father? By which is meant, of course, that Bush Senior went from a 90-something percent approval rating to losing his re-election bid -- will Junior do the same? The analogy is apt, though, only up to that superficial point. Because the deeper story is, no, W. is not repeating the mistakes of his father. He's making an entirely new set of mistakes that are all his own. ... Junior and his henchmen see only friends and enemies. The independence of institutions, and the importance of allowing men like Joseph Wilson to have their say in debate, means nothing to them. It is, in fact, anathema to them, hence the perceived need to discredit him. Should the Wilson-Plame matter explode into something big, it will be precisely the scandal this secretive and ideology-obsessed administration deserves.

Late but notable
In a Switch, House Rejects Bush Overtime Proposal
7 in GOP Reverse Earlier Support of New Rules
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post, 3 October 2003
EXCERPT:  In a sharp rebuff to the Bush administration, the House reversed course yesterday and voted to oppose the White House's efforts to rewrite overtime pay rules. The action marked a significant victory for Democrats and labor leaders, who contended the administration's plans would deny overtime benefits to millions of employees when they work more than 40 hours a week.

 BOOK EXCERPT
Answers Please, Mr. Bush: An Extract from Michael Moore's New Book
By Michael Moore
Guardian (UK), 6 October 2003
EXCERPT: I have seven questions for you, Mr Bush. I ask them on behalf of the 3,000 who died that September day, and I ask them on behalf of the American people. We seek no revenge against you. We want only to know what happened, and what can be done to bring the murderers to justice, so we can prevent any future attacks on our citizens.
SEE ALSO: Michael Moore's "How to Talk to Your Conservative Brother-In-Law"

 BOOK REVIEW
Un-American Activities: America's Contempt for Human Rights
Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism
Book by David Cole
Review by Anthony Lewis
New York Review of Books, 23 October 2003 issue
EXCERPT: The harsh treatment of aliens since September 11 has had little political attention. Relatively few Americans know or care much about it. In this powerful book, Enemy Aliens, David Cole shows why we should care, as a matter not only of humanity but of self-interest. He lays out the Bush administration's policies in the way they can best be understood, in their impact on individual aliens. His tone is measured, his legal hand sure. He lets the facts speak, and the result is gripping. Cole gives the most convincing view that I have read of the legal and bureaucratic threats that now face immigrants and visitors to America. But then he goes on to make an even more important point. The repressive measures that President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft first took against aliens are now being applied to citizens.

4-5 October 2003

Contrary assessment was in hand
Bush Team Lied About Iraqi Oil Capability to Finance Reconstruction
By JEFF GERTH
New York Times, 5 October 2003
EXCERPT: The Bush administration's optimistic statements earlier this year that Iraq's oil wealth, not American taxpayers, would cover most of the cost of rebuilding Iraq were at odds with a bleaker assessment of a government task force secretly established last fall to study Iraq's oil industry, according to public records and government officials.

Not good enough
After Losing Almost 3 Million Jobs, Bush Cheers First Monthly Gain of 57,000
New York Times, 4 October 2003
EXCERPT: For all of the hints of a turnaround, however, the report also showed how the length and depth of the jobs slump continued to weigh on workers. With the economy having shed 2.8 million jobs since the start of 2001, employees have continued to lose bargaining power and unemployed people are struggling to find new work. Average weekly earnings for rank-and-file workers — who make up about four-fifths of the work force — fell last month for the first time since April, by 33 cents, to $520.67. The number of people who have been out of work for at least 27 weeks and continue to look for a job jumped to 2.1 million, from 1.9 million in August. Almost five million people were working part time because they could not find full-time work, up from 4.4 million.

Groping women and admiring Hitler will pale in comparison...
Schwarzenegger Outed for Fling With Men in Hotel Room
By Greg Palast
GregPalast.com, 3 October 2003
EXCERPT: It's not what Arnold Schwarzenegger did to the girls a decade back that should raise an eyebrow. According to a series of memoranda our office obtained today, it's his dalliance with the boys in a hotel room just two years ago that's the real scandal. The wannabe governor has yet to deny that on May 17, 2001, at the Peninsula Hotel in Los Angeles, he had consensual political intercourse with Enron chieftain Kenneth Lay. Also frolicking with Arnold and Ken was convicted stock swindler Mike Milken. Now, thirty-four pages of internal Enron memoranda have just come through this reporter's fax machine tell all about the tryst between Maria's husband and the corporate con men. It turns out that Schwarzenegger knowingly joined the hush-hush encounter as part of a campaign to sabotage a Davis-Bustamante plan to make Enron and other power pirates then ravaging California pay back the $9 billion in illicit profits they carried off.

No, we're not making this up
Bush Pens Worst Love Poem Ever to Enemy of Poets
Associated Press, 4 October 2003
Remember earlier this year when First Lady Laura Bush cancelled a poetry event at the White House out of fear that some poets might exercise their rights to free speech? Well, now there's really no need to invite poets around; she just got a love poem from her husband.
THE POEM:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Oh my, lump in the bed
How I've missed you.
Roses are redder
Bluer am I
Seeing you kissed by that charming French guy.
The dogs and the cat, they missed you too
Barney's still mad you dropped him, he ate your shoe
The distance, my dear, has been such a barrier
Next time you want an adventure, just land on a carrier.

More Older Women Must Work for Money and Benefits
A Slave to Health Insurance
By David Finkel
Washington Post, 4 October 2003
Three years ago, before the recession officially began, 50.3 percent of women ages 55 to 64 were working full- or part-time. As of last month, according to figures released yesterday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, that had risen to 54.1 percent, an increase that becomes even more considerable when compared with every other sector of the workforce. ...Every category declined, in other words, except older women.

We Report, You Get It Wrong
By Jim Lobe
Asia Times, 4 October 2003
EXCERPT: From weapons of mass destruction to al-Qaeda links, a major study released in Washington has found that Americans who watch commercial television news are getting the facts about the Iraq War all wrong. More specifically, Fox News viewers failed miserably when asked some basic questions regarding the situation in Iraq.
SEE ALSO: Misperceptions, The Media and The Iraq War  (PIPA/Knowledge Networks Study) [2 October 2003]
EXCERPT: ...48% incorrectly believed that evidence of links between Iraq and al Qaeda have been found, 22% that weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and 25% that world public opinion favored the US going to war with Iraq. Overall 60% had at least one of these three misperceptions. Such misperceptions are highly related to support for the war. Among those with none of the misperceptions listed above, only 23% support the war. Among those with one of these misperceptions, 53% support the war, rising to 78% for those who have two of the misperceptions, and to 86% for those with all 3 misperceptions. ..."While we cannot assert that these misperceptions created the support for going to war with Iraq, it does appear likely that support for the war would be substantially lower if fewer members of the public had these misperceptions."

WMD (aspirations and intentions) Found!!
$300,000,000 Statement to the Congress by David Kay

If Bush can say this for $.3 Billion, just wait to hear what he says for $.6 Billion
Bush: Iraq War Justified Despite No WMD
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN
AP for Yahoo, 3 October 2003
EXCERPT: President Bush (news - web sites) said Friday that the Iraq war was justified despite the lack of evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Congressional Democrats countered that a report from chief weapons hunter David Kay shows that administration claims Iraq posed an imminent threat were unfounded.

False PRIDE: Senate Conservatives Punish the Poor
By Mark Engler
TomPaine.com, 3 October 2003
EXCERPT: Given the state of our economy, one might expect a welfare reauthorization bill to offer emergency assistance to the poor and aid to those trapped in the low-wage workforce. Instead, the so-called Personal Responsibility and Individual Development for Everyone (PRIDE) bill that has just come out of the Senate Finance Committee, like the more extreme bill passed in the House, shows that lawmakers are willfully oblivious to the challenges facing welfare reform. No jobs to be found in our economy? Let's increase the work requirements for welfare recipients. No money in the budget for social services? Let's launch a new $1 billion program to cajole women down the aisle. Job training needed? Let's cut the amount of time that recipients can devote to literacy or vocational education.

Why do so many support Bush, despite their own self-interest?
Let Them Eat War: Bush's Blue-Collar Support
By Arlie Hochschild
TomDispatch.com, 2 October 2003
EXCERPT: George W. Bush is sinking in the polls, but a few beats on the war drum could reverse that trend and re-elect him in 2004. Ironically, the sector of American society now poised to keep him in the White House is the one which stands to lose the most from virtually all of his policies -- blue-collar men. A full 49% of them and 38% percent of blue-collar women told a January 2003 Roper poll they would vote for Bush in 2004.
SEE ALSO: Study Finds That Misperceptions Contributed to Support for Iraq Invasion

Democratic hotshot adopts Bush's approach to science
If Elected, Clark Would Repeal Laws of Physics
By Brian McWilliams
Wired, 30 September 2003
EXCERPT: "I still believe in e=mc2, but I can't believe that in all of human history, we'll never ever be able to go beyond the speed of light to reach where we want to go," said Clark. "I happen to believe that mankind can do it. "I've argued with physicists about it, I've argued with best friends about it. I just have to believe it. It's my only faith-based initiative." Clark's comment prompted laughter and applause from the gathering. Gary Melnick, a senior astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said Clark's faith in the possibility of faster-than-light, or FTL, travel was "probably based more on his imagination than on physics."
SEE ALSO: Bush's Energy Department Seeks to Redefine 'Nuclear Waste' (NYT)

Millions of Taxpayer Dollars Lost to Logging, Road Building in Alaska
Taxpayers for Common Sense, 1 October 2003
EXCERPT: A startling new report released today by the Southeastern Alaska Conservation Council (SEACC), found that tens of millions of taxpayer dollars are lost annually to commercial timber and road building programs in Alaska's Tongass National Forest. "Subsidies to timber companies defy rinciples of fiscal responsibility, yet the government continues to throw tens of millions of dollars at them." said Shannon Collier, Policy Analyst with Taxpayers for Common Sense.

3 October 2003

Cheney Chief-of-Staff (Almost) Named as Wilsongate Leaker
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com, 2 October 2003
EXCERPT: MSNBC'S Buchanan & Press scored a major scoop on Wednesday, all but unmasking the high government official who "outed" a CIA operative via a July 14 column by Robert Novak. Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst who worked with Valerie Plame, the reported agent, all but identified "Scooter" Libby as the government official who outed her – and at least one other in the Vice President's office. Who is "Scooter" Libby? He's the nexus of the neocon network in Washington, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, and assistant to the President, whose office is the operational nerve center of the War Party. It is Libby and Cheney who made repeated trips to the CIA, pressuring them to accept tall tales of Al Qaeda connections and assorted "weapons of mass destruction" supposedly lurking in Baghdad – including the Niger-uranium yellowcake "evidence" that Iraq had acquired fissionable material for a nuclear weapon.

Poll Shows Majority Lacks Confidence with Bush Skill in Handling Crises
By TODD S. PURDUM and JANET ELDER
New York Times, 3 October 2003
EXCERPT: he public's confidence in President Bush's ability to deal wisely with an international crisis has slid sharply over the past five months, the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll has found. And a clear majority are also uneasy about his ability to make the right decisions on the nation's economy.

No doubt: Bush's lies come back to haunt him
The Revision Thing: A History of the Iraq War Told Entirely in Lies
By Sam Smith
Harpers, October 2003
EXCERPT: The fundamental question was, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer was, absolutely. His regime had large, unaccounted-for stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons--including VX, sarin, cyclosarin, and mustard gas, anthrax, botulism, and possibly smallpox. Our conservative estimate was that Iraq then had a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical-weapons agent. That was enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets. We had sources that told us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons--the very weapons the dictator told the world he did not have. And according to the British government, the Iraqi regime could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as forty-five minutes after the orders were given.

 Audio Link
Bush's Extremist Foreign Policy Matches Extremist Domestic Policy
Interview with Grover Norquist
NPR's Fresh Air, 2 October 2003
Turning the public attention toward the hidden ideological origins of Bush economic policies may be next impossible but the dangers are imminent and even more threatening to America than Saddam Hussein. Terry Gross becomes a domestic "David Kay" by interviewing tax policy fanatic and Bush mentor, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. Listen and be afraid! 

Bush sends more jobs overseas
Administration Refuses to Impede Offshore Outsourcing
By Patrick Thibodeau
ComputerWorld, 29 September 2003
EXCERPT: Although the Bush administration sees pros and cons in the trend toward offshore outsourcing, it has no plans to impede companies' efforts to move IT jobs to India or elsewhere.
SEE ALSO: Under Bush, More Millionaires and More in Poverty (Seattle Times)

Royal Family ignores blatant conflicts of interest
Jeb Bush Leads Presidential Re-election Team in Florida
By Abby Goodnough
New York Times, 2 October 2003
EXCERPTS: Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida will serve as chairman of his brother's re-election campaign in the state, whose votes could prove crucial in the presidential election next fall. The Bush campaign announced the appointment on Wednesday, along with that of Brett Doster, a 32-year-old lobbyist and former aide to Jeb Bush, as the president's Florida campaign manager.... After the 2000 election, in which President Bush defeated Al Gore in Florida by just 537 votes after a protracted recount, Republicans and Democrats alike are viewing the state as pivotal in 2004. It is the fourth most populous state after California, Texas and New York. Karl Rove, the president's chief political strategist, has called Florida "ground zero" in the re-election effort.

Karl Rove: Genius Boy or Turd Blossom?
By Julian Borger
Guardian (UK), 2 September 2003
EXCERPT: When George Bush moved into the White House in January 2001, the man who got him there, Karl Rove, chose Hillary Clinton's office for himself. It was a telling choice. The partnership between the president and the man he calls Boy Genius (or on bad days Turd Blossom) is the political marriage at the heart of the Bush administration. Now, with the Democrats and the Washington press corps scenting blood over the CIA leak scandal, the big question for Mr Bush is whether that marriage will have to be sacrificed in the interests of his re-election.
SEE ALSO: Pressure Grows Over CIA Disclosure
SEE ALSO: What the Papers Say

A pattern of behavior
"Intimigate" Scandal at the White House
DemocracyNow, 2 October 2003
EXCERPT: The outting of Joseph Wilson’s wife a week after he publicly challenged President Bush's claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger is just the latest in a pattern of retaliation by the White House against critics of the Iraq invasion. The Center for American Progress outlines 6 prior examples of critics who were fired, intimidated or defamed by the administration. It includes Larry Lindsey, General Anthony Zini, General Eric Shinseki and George Tenet.  The list is online at www.tompaine.com. [Emphasis by BWUSA]

Has Bush Become a Threat to the Ruling Elite?
Who Got Us Into This Mess and Why?
By SAUL LANDAU
CounterPunch, 2 October 2003
EXCERPT: Have some heavy weight members of the old wealthy families reached a consensus that George W. Bush constitutes a clear and present danger to their fortunes' future? Have the CPAs of the truly well-born advised the families that the current occupant of the White House may have misplaced his mittens? Sporadic editorials from establishment house organs like the New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times should alert the newly enlivened Democrats that they could receive substantial support from some of the upper crust. The message also arrived at the office of WH Adviser Karl Rove--a man as sensitive to potential power shifts as he is insensitive to human suffering.

Go ahead and turn that dial. It doesn't matter anymore.
Big Radio Rules in Small Markets
Center for Public Integrity, 2 October 2003
EXCERPT: The greatest concentration of ownership in the radio industry can be found in smaller and medium-sized markets and not in large cities, with broadcast leviathan Clear Channel Communications Inc. by far the most dominant player in America's heartland, according to a new study of radio ownership by the Center for Public Integrity.

Ties That Blind: The Ashcroft-Rove Connection
By AMY GOODMAN and JEREMY SCAHILL
(and the Staff of Democracy Now!)
CounterPunch, 2 October 2003
EXCERPT: There's an old saying that you should never let a fox guard the henhouse. The same could be said of the investigation into the latest White House scandal. Attorney General John Ashcroft is refusing to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate who in the administration leaked the name of a CIA operative to journalists. This despite the fact that Ashcroft has long-standing ties to one of the main suspects: President Bush's top political advisor Karl Rove.

2 October 2003

Interview with Wesley Clark
By Josh Marshall
Talking Point Memo, 1 October 2003
"Josh Marshall has what is by far the best interview with Wesley Clark yet."
The Filibuster

Fierce Debate Is Expected Over Pickering
By NEIL A. LEWIS
New York Times, 2 October 2003
EXCERPT: When the Senate Judiciary Committee votes Thursday on the nomination of Charles W. Pickering Sr. to be a federal appeals court judge, there will be little doubt that the Republican majority will approve him and send the nomination to the Senate floor.

Senate Panel OKs Bush's $87B Iraq Plan
By ALAN FRAM
AP, 1 October 2003
EXCERPT: Republicans muscled President Bush's $87 billion plan for Iraq and Afghanistan through a Senate committee Tuesday but signaled that they may ultimately defy the White House and structure some of the aid as a loan. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved the bill 29-0, with Democrats reluctant to oppose a bill dominated by funds for U.S. troops. But the unanimous tally belied sharp partisan divisions over $20.3 billion included for Iraqi reconstruction, and the fight on the Senate floor seems likely to last until after lawmakers return from a Columbus Day recess in mid-October.

It worked so well in Florida...
Will 2004 Election be Stolen with Voting Machines?
Interview with Bev Harris
BuzzFlash, 29 September 2003
EXCERPT: Given inside access, which is available to software engineers and support techs, anything is possible. In California, according to internal memos we have obtained written by Diebold support techs and software engineers, in some elections no one looked at the software code AT ALL, except for a couple of programmers out of Canada. This is because the software that was certified and approved, and supposedly frozen and held in escrow, was replaced with different software for elections. All of the companies seem to do this: They allow their techs, and sometimes even elections officials, to replace or "update" programs, and you can¹t count on these ³updates² being tested by anyone.

Bush's Bitter Harvest: Millions Lose Pay and Health Insurance
By Derrick Z. Jackson
Boston Globe, 1 October 2003
EXCERPT: In the last week, the Census Bureau released data indicating that household income in the United States is on the decrease, poverty is on the increase, and the number of Americans without health insurance grew by 2.4 million, to 43.6 million. The adding of 2.4 million Americans to the rolls of the uninsured comes at a time when 2.7 million Americans have lost their jobs since Bush took office. What is more ominous than the initial news is that if the Bush family and the Republicans remain true to form, it will get worse.

SEE ALSO: White House Faces Revolt Within G.O.P.

Military Families Unhappy with Iraq Deployments
By Sue Pleming
Reuters, 1 October 2003
EXCERPT: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Families of some U.S. troops in Iraq, especially those mobilized as military reserves, said on Wednesday they felt betrayed by extended deployments and feared this could weigh heavily on morale in the field. Relatives are e-mailing Congress to voice frustration, have set up web sites and are writing petitions to demand shorter deployments, a more predictable rotation of troops and fixed homecoming dates.

'Big, fat idiot' gets sacked for bigotry
Limbaugh Resigns After Racist Remarks
By Leonard Shapiro
Washington Post, 2 October 2003
EXCERPT: Racially charged comments by radio-talk show host Rush Limbaugh about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb drew widespread media attention today and eventually led to his resignation late tonight from the ESPN National Football League pregame show on which he appeared.

1 October 2003

The Most Insidious of Traitors
By William Rivers Pitt
TomPaine.com, 30 September 2003
EXCERPT: All of Washington and the country has been buzzing for the last few days over a report that the CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate the White House regarding a matter of important national security. The wife of a former ambassador named Joseph Wilson, it has been alleged, was "outed" as an active CIA agent to columnist Robert Novak by this White House in an act of political revenge.

How Bush Gets Away With It (So Far)
By David Corn
TomPaine.com, 30 September 2003
EXCERPT: On November 8, 1993, George W. Bush was skipping across Texas in a King Air plane dubbed Accountability One. It was the kick-off of his first campaign for governor -- a campaign that would exploit themes of responsibility and integrity and that would launch him on a swift and successful-beyond-his-expectations career in the family business. At a speech that day at a Houston hotel, Bush spelled out his personal and political philosophy: "I believe everybody should be held responsible for their own personal behavior. All public policy should resolve around the principle that individuals are responsible for what they say and do." Bush has often not been held responsible for his lies.
SEE ALSO: Media Misses Gap Between Bush and Reality

Media complicity...
The Plame Game
By Jack Shafer
Slate, 29 September 2003
EXCERPT: The hidden bad news is that none of them [the six reporters to whom the leak was made] reported that the Plame information was being leaked by sources who wished to embarrass her and Wilson—which they could have legitimately done without burning their sources by name. In other words, they all protected the White House from its blunder.

Incisive 'Wilsongate' Analysis and Transcripts
Talking Points Memo, 30 September 2003
EXCERPT: What's clear from McClellan's statement is that a lot is already known in the White House -- probably everything -- and they're trying to keep a lid on it.
SEE ALSO: Payback Time: Wilsongate Looks Like Trouble for Dubya (NewsMax.com)

Fifteen ways Bush is screwed...
Payback Time: Wilsongate Means Trouble for Dubya
By John LeBoutillier
NewsMax.com, 30 September 2003
EXCERPT: The burgeoning flap over the leaking to the press of the name of a CIA agent - a clear and serious violation of federal law - is a serious, serious legal and political problem for the Bush White House. Let us explore the numerous implications.

Bush Grows Vulnerable on Credibility, War and Economy
By Mark Weisbrot
ZNet, 30 September 2003
EXCERPT: The Republicans have reason to be scared. A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll last week asked voters whether they would "probably vote for President Bush or probably vote for the Democratic candidate" next year: 42 percent chose Bush versus 40 percent for the Democrat. This difference is statistically insignificant, and was down from a 52 to 24 percent lead for Bush in April. Politicians are schooled in the art of compromise and cautious speech, especially in the United States. They often forget that the unvarnished truth can at times be a powerful weapon. And this is one of those times.
SEE ALSO: States Put Inmates on Diets to Trim Budgets (New York Times)

Poverty Right Here at Home Increases for the Second Year in a Row: Women
and Children Suffer the Most
National Oragnization for Women, 30 September 2003
EXCERPT: The number of people living in poverty in the United States increased for the second year in a row, according to Census Bureau data released Sept. 26. 1.7 million more people were classified as living below the poverty line in 2002 than during the previous year, for a total of 34.6 million people 'including 12.1 million children' living in poverty. Over two years, there were 3 million more poor people in 2002 than in 2000.

House Set to Vote on Protecting Overtime on Oct. 1
National Oragnization for Women, 30 September 2003
EXCERPT: "The Bush administration is prepared to sacrifice working families on the altar of corporate greed. We are witnessing a concerted and interconnected campaign to undermine 65 years of fair labor law and worker protections. Bush and conservative leaders in Congress have set out on a course to save their large, corporate donors millions of dollars by removing workers from overtime coverage; cutting down on expensive lawsuits with stricter 'class action' requirements; adding 'new' workers eligible for overtime to cover their tracks; and then supporting Congressional efforts to pull the rug out from under these new' overtime-eligible workers and everyone else by replacing current overtime guarantees with bogus 'comp time' that will be controlled by the employer."

15 October 2003

Ex-Aide: Powell Misled Americans
CBSnews.com, 15 October 2003
EXCERPT: The person responsible for analyzing the Iraqi weapons threat for Colin Powell says the Secretary of State misinformed Americans during his speech at the U.N. last winter. Greg Thielmann tells Correspondent Scott Pelley that at the time of Powell’s speech, Iraq didn’t pose an imminent threat to anyone – not even its own neighbors. “…I think my conclusion [about Powell’s speech] now is that it’s probably one of the low points in his long distinguished service to the nation,” says Thielmann.
Pelley’s report will be broadcast on 60 Minutes II, Wednesday, Oct. 15, at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

Amnesty International Charges Israel with War Crimes in Gaza
By Jim Lobe
One World, 14 October 2003
EXCERPT: Amnesty International has accused the Israeli army of committing war crimes in its ongoing raids of Gaza which continued at Rafah Refugee Camp there today. "The repeated practice by the Israeli army of deliberate and wanton destruciton of homes and civilian property is a grave violation of international human rights and humanitarian law, notably of Articles 33 and 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and constitutes a war crime," the London-based group charged in an unusually strong condemnation.

U.S. Diplomatic Convoy in Gaza Is Attacked, Killing at Least 3
By JOHN F. BURNS and GREG MYRE
New York Times, 15 October 2003
EXCERPT: A large explosion ripped apart a vehicle in a United States diplomatic convoy in the Gaza Strip this morning, killing three Americans and injuring one in what appeared to be the first direct attack on an American target since the Palestinian uprising started more than three years ago. The explosion, caused by a roadside bomb or mine, hit the convoy after it had passed through the Erez Crossing, which connects Israel with the Palestinian-ruled Strip, and was traveling on the outskirts of the Palestinian town of Beit Lahiya.

The Widening Crusade: Bush's War Plan is Scarier Than He's Saying
By Sydney H. Schanberg
Village Voice, 15 October 2003
EXCERPT: If some wishful Americans are still hoping President Bush will acknowledge that his imperial foreign policy has stumbled in Iraq and needs fixing or reining in, they should put aside those reveries. He's going all the way (and taking us with him). The Israeli bombing raid on Syria October 5 was an expansion of the Bush policy, carried out by the Sharon government but with the implicit approval of Washington. The government in Iran, said to be seeking to develop a nuclear weapon, reportedly expects to be the next target.
SEE ALSO: Israel Dismisses Peace Plan as Irresponsible (SMH)
SEE ALSO: Does This Secred Plan Provide New Road to Peace (Independent, UK)
SEE ALSO: Nuclear Israel (TomDispatch)
SEE ALSO: The March on Damascus (Palestine Chronicle)
SEE ALSO: U.S. Eyes Second-Tier Threats in "Terror War" (CSM)

Neocons are hungry for more war
Pentagon Official: U.S. May Take Action Against Syria
Associated Press, 14 October 2003
Courtesy of Information Clearing House
EXCERPT: Pentagon adviser Richard Perle said Tuesday that the recent Israeli attack on an alleged training camp for Palestinian militants in Syria was long overdue and that he would not rule out U.S. military action against the Arab state. Perle, a close adviser to U.S. President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, spoke at a Jerusalem conference of conservatives from the United States and Israel. "President Bush transformed the American approach to terrorism on Sept. 11, 2001, when he said he will not distinguish between terrorists and the states who harbor them," Perle said. "I was happy to see that Israel has now taken a similar step in responding to acts of terror that originate in Lebanese territory by going to the rulers of Lebanon in Damascus."
SEE ALSO: Pentagon Alarmed by Suicide Rate Among Troops in Iraq (AFP)
SEE ALSO: Pakistan Tests Third Nuke-Capable Missile in 11 Days (Sun)

Three Countries Give U.S. a Key Iraq Concession
Greater U.N. Role Will Not Be Sought
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post, 15 October 2003
EXCERPT: France, Russia and Germany on Tuesday dropped their demands that the United States grant the United Nations a central role in Iraq's reconstruction and yield power to a provisional Iraqi government in the coming months. The move constituted a major retreat by the Security Council's chief antiwar advocates, and signaled their renewed willingness to consider the merits of a U.S. resolution aimed at conferring greater international legitimacy of its military occupation of Iraq. All three countries seem willing to accept a resolution that would retain U.S. authority over Iraq's political future while extending only a symbolic measure of sovereignty to Iraqis. But a major sticking point remains: The three governments made a number of new demands, including setting a timetable for ending the U.S. military occupation in Iraq and strengthening the Security Council's role in monitoring Iraq's political transition. ...Although U.S. officials acknowledge adopting the resolution is unlikely to bring new troops or resources from other countries, they say the U.N. imprimatur would help legitimize the U.S. occupation and the Iraqi Governing Council -- and help defuse opposition in Iraq.

 Audio Link
You Gotta Hear This!
Courtesy of  Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo
EXCERPT: Okay, can I have five minutes of your time? You've gotta hear this.
If you click on this  link  you can hear a short segment from NPR's [sic - it's PRI's] 'Marketplace' about one of the American businessmen, Tompie Hall, trying to get a piece of the Iraqi reconstruction action.
Believe me, you've gotta hear this.

If OPEC follows suit, watch out!
Putin: Why Not Tie Oil Price to Euros?
By Catherine Belton
Moscow Times, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: President Vladimir Putin said Thursday Russia could switch its trade in oil from dollars to euros, a move that could have far-reaching repercussions for the global balance of power -- potentially hurting the U.S. dollar and economy and providing a massive boost to the euro zone.

Iranian woman's award puts U.S. on notice: the world is watching
Eyes Off the Prize: Nobel Sends Message Iran and Bush
By Geov Parrish
Working for Change, 14 October 2003
EXCERPT: The award was seen as pointed encouragement for women, human rights advocates, and pro-democracy activists throughout the Muslim world. Ebadi is firmly on the side of the reformists in the long-running struggle for political power within Iran between its conservative, hard-line clerics and moderates seeking greater openness and freedom. In theory, Washington should love people like Ebadi. Instead, by contrast with Europe, the official reaction seemed to range from polite applause to puzzlement. President Axis of Evil himself offered polite congratulations, wrapped, of course, in the usual condemnations of a government whose country he has all but threatened to invade.

14 October 2003

Blast at Turkish Embassy in Baghdad Wounds at Least 2
By TERENCE NEILAN
Reuters in New York Times, 14 October 2003
EXCERPT: The Turkish Embassy in Baghdad was the target of a suicide bombing today that wounded at least two people. A blast some 1,500 feet from the rear of the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad today left two people wounded, a coalition forces spokeswoman in the Iraqi capital said today. Some news reports said the explosion was the work of a car bomber, who died in the blast.

New Rule Would Permit NATO to Strike Without Members' Consent
By Tom Squitieri
USA Today, 12 October 2003
EXCERPT: NATO officials, trying to turn their alliance into a potent machine to fight terrorism, are considering an unprecedented plan that would allow the military body to respond to specific crises without the approval of every member nation.

Taliban Guerrillas Kill Eight Afghan Police
By Phil Reeves
Independent (UK), 13 October 2003
EXCERPT: Eight Afghan policemen were reportedly killed yesterday when up to 100 Taliban fighters stormed a government district office in Zabol, one of the most violent and unstable provinces. And in Kabul yesterday, guerrillas attacked a training centre for recruits to the Afghan national army where American troops were observing an exercise. One American soldier was slightly hurt but the attack was further evidence that the anti-government forces were willing to take their fight to the capital itself, despite the presence of 5,500 Nato-led peace-keeping troops. The incidents were at the end of one of the worst weekends for Afghan and US officials since the overthrow of the Taliban.
SEE ALSO: 41 Taliban Escape from Afghan Jail (Sabawoon)

Despite Some Progress, Iraqis Losing Faith
By Dan Murphy
Christian Science Monitor, 14 October 2003
EXCERPT: The US coalition is now fighting a two-front public relations war, against critics at home who argue the bombing campaign is evidence that more authority should be shifted to the UN, and here in Iraq, where the view from the streets is that Iraqis are losing faith. Whether you ask a member of Baghdad's largely Sunni commercial class or one of the generally poorer Shiite community, who were oppressed under Hussein and have the most to gain from regime change, gratitude for any improvements is usually drowned out by frustration that more hasn't been done.
SEE ALSO: Suspicious 'No-Bid' Contracts for Iraq Reconstruction (CSM)

Bin Laden Son Plays Key Role in Al Qaeda
By Douglas Farah and Dana Priest
Washington Post, 14 October 2003
EXCERPT: Saad bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden's oldest sons, has emerged in recent months as part of the upper echelon of the al Qaeda network, a small group of leaders that is managing the terrorist organization from Iran, according to U.S., European and Arab officials.

An Anti-American Iraqi Cleric Declares His Own Government
By IAN FISHER
New York Times, 12 October 2003
EXCERPT: An anti-American cleric, whose forces clashed on Thursday with American soldiers and killed two of them, has proclaimed his own government in Iraq. The move failed to produce any signs of popular support on Saturday but did appear to notch up his defiance of the American-led occupation.

Ahh, the old 'linguistic' trick
Seeking Support at U.N., Bush Offers Concession on Iraq
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
New York Times, 13 October 2003
EXCERPT: The Bush administration, yielding slightly in its opposition to diluting American authority over the Iraqi occupation, proposed today that the United Nations recognize the American-picked Iraqi Governing Council as a unit that "will embody the sovereignty" of Iraq until the country returns to self-rule. The shift is a linguistic attempt to enhance the status of the Iraqi council without necessarily giving it more power, American officials said.

A Burst of Gunfire, Then a 'Hail'
Americans, Iraqis Still Dispute Cause of Friendly Fire Incident in Fallujah
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post, 14 October2003
EXCERPT: The deadliest incident of friendly fire in the six-month-old U.S. military occupation of Iraq began with a quiet midnight prowl in the desert and the sudden roar of a car chase down an empty highway.

13 October 2003

Turks Trade Troops for Hard U.S. Cash By ERIC MARGOLIS
Toronto Sun, 12 October 2003
EXCERPT: The Turks, it seems, will send troops into Iraq. When and how many is uncertain, but in a momentous decision, Turkey's parliament voted decisively to aid the U.S. military occupation. Washington is delighted. Having run out of troops itself, the U.S. is arm-twisting and bribing all and sundry to send soldiers to Iraq. Not surprisingly, few nations are eager to risk their men in strife-torn Iraq, but Uncle Sam has a very powerful inducement: money and trade. Turkey shows just how loudly cash talks with near-bankrupt nations.

New Rules for Israel and Syria
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
New York Times, 13 October 2003
EXCERPT: The first Israeli air raid inside Syria in three decades undermined a crucial convention of the Arab-Israeli conflict — that these two enemies would not attack each other directly.

U.S. Slips in Secrecy Stakes
By Shaun Waterman
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
UPI, 12 October 2003
EXCERPT: ...career prosecutors there who are overseeing that investigation will doubtless do a diligent job. But it seems Congress is much less likely to fulfill its obligations. Oversight doesn't mean very much if it doesn't include probing the machinations of government when they may have involved lawbreaking and the deliberate release of classified information. But it seems that Plame-gate, as it is inevitably being dubbed, is a political hot potato that no Republican to want to touch. More significantly, the same appears to be true of the broader questions about the evidence on which the U.S. government based its case for war. ...Britain -- having investigated its own "outing" scandal so rigorously -- is already one step ahead of my adopted home in the transparency stakes. I hope, for my sake and the sake of everyone else here, that the United States doesn't fall any further behind.

What Did We Do to Deserve This?
Iraqis Cooperating With U.S. Become Target of Choice
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post, 13 October 2003
EXCERPT: Iraqis cooperating with the U.S.-led occupation have become the new target of choice. From police officers to Governing Council members, they are regarded by opponents of the occupation as collaborators -- and as much easier prey than U.S. soldiers and civilian reconstruction workers, whose compounds are now encircled with tall concrete barricades, dirt-filled barriers and miles of razor wire.

Meetings on Arab Boycott of Israel Begin
By BASSEM MROUE
The Associated Press, 12 October 2003
EXCERPT: Arab countries opened a five-day meeting on their weakened regional boycott of Israel on Sunday with plans to blacklist companies that do business with the Jewish state.

It works so well in Israel...
U.S. Soldiers Bulldoze Iraqi Farmers' Crops
By Patrick Cockburn
Independent (UK), 12 October 2003
EXCERPT: US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops.
SEE ALSO: Popular Anger Fuels Iraqi Resistance (Guardian)

When Women Turn to Suicide Bombing
By Kevin Toolis
Observer (UK), 12 October 2003
EXCERPT: Hanadi Taysser Darajat was the sixth female Palestinian suicide bomber, but by far the deadliest. She died not for the promise of 72 virgins in paradise but for the sure and certain reward that she would kill as many Jews as possible in the crowded restaurant. And her grim 'martyrdom' marks a further descent in the suicide bomber war now plaguing the Middle East.

A Must-Read Essay!
Dominance and its Dilemmas: The Price of U.S. Imperialism
By Noam Chomsky
ZNet, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: For the political leadership, mostly recycled from more reactionary sectors of the Reagan-Bush I administrations, "the global wave of hatred" is not a particular problem. They want to be feared, not loved. They understand as well as their establishment critics that their actions increase the risk of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and terror. But that too is not a major problem. Higher in the scale of priorities are the goals of establishing global hegemony and implementing their domestic agenda: dismantling the progressive achievements that have been won by popular struggle over the past century, and institutionalizing these radical changes so that recovering them will be no easy task.

Collapse in Cancun: Dealing with a Weakened WTO
By Doug Henwood
The Nation, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: As the results of the ministerial show, the WTO was never really the institution its critics said it was. From the outset, it wasn't really dominated by big capital in the rich countries. It's a one-country, one-vote system, like the UN's General Assembly. The rich countries, especially the United States, don't like this arrangement. They prefer the Security Council, with its big power vetoes. The United States is especially fond of the structure of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, where votes are weighted roughly by GDP, giving the United States a 17 percent share of the vote and an effective veto. The rich countries finance the various institutions in revealing ways. At the Bank and Fund, both salaries and headcounts are high. The WTO has a small staff that's engaged in industrial action over pay and working conditions. As Columbia University economist Jagdish Bhagwati points out, the WTO's entire budget is smaller than the IMF's travel budget.

Lebanese Ayatollah: US Helped Israel Attack Syria
AP in Jerusalem Post, 8 October 2003
EXCERPT: A top cleric in the Shiite Muslim world accused the United States on Wednesday of conspiring with Israel to strike Syria and urged Arabs to revive an economic boycott of the Jewish state. "America, which is playing the role of a policeman in the world, wants Israel to be the region's policeman," said Grand Ayatollah Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. "The matter is no longer a threat to one state, or a threat to the region only, because America and Israel constitute a danger that threatens the security of the entire world,"

Red Cross Blasts Guantanamo for Human Rights Violations
BBC News, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: A top Red Cross official has broken with tradition by publicly attacking conditions at the US military base on Cuba where al-Qaeda suspects are being held. Christophe Girod - the senior Red Cross official in Washington - said it was unacceptable that the 600 detainees should be held indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay without legal safeguards. The Red Cross is the only organisation with access to the detainees. His criticism came as a group of American former judges, diplomats and military officers called on the US Supreme Court to examine the legality of holding the foreign nationals for almost two years, without trial, charge or access to lawyers.

Six Palestinians Killed in Israeli Raid in Gaza
ChannelNewsAsia.com, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: Six Palestinians were killed in a massive Israeli raid in southern Gaza, as question marks still hung over the future of Palestinian premier Ahmed Qorei amid reports he wants to quit. Up to 100 armoured vehicles backed by helicopters thrust deep into densely-populated refugee camps in the Gaza Strip town of Rafah on the border with Egypt, Palestinian security sources said Friday.
SEE ALSO: Playwright Sees Signs of Fascism in Israel (Haaretz)
SEE ALSO: U.S. Will Veto Any U.N. Resolution on Israel's Wall (Haaretz)

Europeans Wonder Why Americans are Spoonfed Lies
By William Rivers Pitt
TomPaine.com, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: The Europeans are not confused because they are ill-informed; they are, in fact, far more aware of what is happening in America than most Americans are back home. These Europeans know all about the Project for The New American Century, they know all about the Office of Special Plans, they know all about the lies that have been spoon-fed to America and the world. They know all of this, simply, because the news media in Europe is not owned and operated as an advertising wing for General Electric, AOL/TimeWarner, Viacom, Disney or Rupert Murdoch. What these Europeans don't understand, and what they keep asking me, is why. "America had everything going for it," said noted Dutch author Karel von Wolfen to me the other day. "America had the respect of just about the whole world. No one here can possibly fathom why they would so quickly and so brazenly throw that all away."

US Mulling Defensive Missiles Against Iran in Europe
AFP in Spacewar.com, Oct 09, 2003
EXCERPT: The US government is considering stationing defensive missiles in a number of European countries against a potential attack from Iran, Germany's Sueddeutsche newspaper reported in an article to appear in its Friday issue, citing State Department sources.

Korea: The Real Danger is the Fantasy in Washington
By William Pfaff
International Herald Tribune, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: George W. Bush came to office and kicked over the negotiating table. He said the United States wasn't going to be blackmailed, and moreover that he didn't like the looks of Kim Jong Il. He named North Korea to the axis of evil.The United States began planning the withdrawal of U.S. forces away from the North Korean border, where they served as a tripwire and thus protected Seoul. Then Washington asked South Korea please to send a division to Iraq to help out the United States. The South Koreans wish that somehow they could wake up from this nightmare.

Bush Unveils Measures to Pressure Cuba's Castro
By Caren Bohan
Reuters, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: President Bush vowed on Friday to ratchet up pressure on Cuban leader Fidel Castro, saying Washington would toughen enforcement of a ban on travel to the island and pave the way for more dissidents to flee.

The Dangers of Success (in Pakistan)
by Christopher Deliso
Antiwar.com, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: The CIA and FBI are now entrenched in Pakistan, gathering intelligence on terrorist whereabouts and directing the Pakistani military to perform highly dangerous operations against Taliban fighters on the Afghan border. The last such raid occurred Wednesday, when the authorities "cracked down" on 2 tribes with alleged al Qaeda links. Last week saw a major operation, resulting in 8 Taliban killed and 18 captured (though other sources claimed a higher body count). The Pakistani security forces have become America's proxy army – and they aren't very happy about it.

11-12 October 2003

GW- Where's that damn roadmap?
CP- I think Condi had it last, sir.
Israel Planning to Attack Nuclear Sites in Iraq
By Nathan Guttman
Haaretz (Israel), 12 October 2003
EXCERPT: Israel is prepared to launch an attack on Iran's nuclear sites in order to prevent them from being operational, the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday.

Israeli Subs Prepared to Launch Nuclear Missiles
By Douglas Frantz
Los Angeles Times, 12 October 2003
EXCERPT: Israel has modified American-supplied cruise missiles to carry nuclear warheads on submarines, giving the Middle East's only nuclear power the ability to launch atomic weapons from land, air and beneath the sea, according to senior Bush administration and Israeli officials. The previously undisclosed submarine capability bolsters Israel's deterrence in the event that Iran ‹ an avowed enemy ‹ develops nuclear weapons. It also complicates efforts by the United States and the United Nations to persuade Iran to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program.

Deadly Car Bomb Rocks Central Baghdad, 6 Killed
AP, 12 October 2003
 EXCERPT: A huge explosion rocked central Baghdad Sunday; and smoke was billowing from the direction of the Baghdad Hotel, which is believed to be a headquarters of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the Iraqi capital. ...A speeding suicide driver, stopping short of a hotel full of Americans, detonated his car bomb on a busy commercial avenue on Sunday, leaving six people dead, dozens wounded and the heart of this tense city terrorized, the U.S. military and Iraqi officials reported.

Huge Crowds of Shiite Muslims Converge on Iraqi Holy City
By Greg Baker
AP, 12 October 2003
EXCERPT: Hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims converged on an Iraqi holy city to mark a religious festival Sunday as Shiite radicals seek to challenge the authority of the U.S.-led occupation administration and its Iraqi partners. Up to one million pilgrims were expected to gather in Karbala to mark the birthday of Mohammed al-Mahdi, the last of 12 Shiite leaders who disappeared in the 9th century but who devout Shiites believe will return to rule the world.

Violence in Iraq Spreads to North
Attacks in Kirkuk Blamed on Newcomers
By Karl Vick
Washington Post, 12 October 2003
EXCERPT: A sharp rise in attacks on U.S. forces around this normally tranquil city is part of a concerted effort to expand violent resistance deep into northern Iraq, U.S. commanders and Iraqi officials say. A handful of guerrillas and financiers arrived in this ethnically mixed oil center and activated a local opposition that had lain dormant for months, according to the commanders, officials and residents.

Condi Rice Under Fire, Management Skills Questioned
Cabinet Rivalries Complicate Her Role
By Glenn Kessler and Peter Slevin
Washington Post, 12 October 2003
EXCERPT: Last week, the White House announced that national security adviser Condoleezza Rice had been given the new responsibility of managing the struggling effort to rebuild Iraq. In the words of one official, Rice would "crack the whip, frankly." The announcement was met by puzzlement throughout the foreign policy community: Isn't that what the national security adviser is supposed to do in the first place? Rice has proved to be a poised and articulate defender of President Bush's policies. But her management of the National Security Council -- the principal coordinator and enforcer of presidential decision making -- has come under fire from former and current administration officials and a range of foreign policy experts.

The U.N.'s Better Idea on Iraq
New York Times Editorial, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: The Bush administration is having a frustrating time at the United Nations again. After all these months, the world's senior diplomats are still not willing to perform from Washington's script. When Secretary of State Colin Powell circulates a Security Council resolution, he wants other countries to endorse its main provisions, and to understand that the White House allows him to negotiate only over secondary details, not matters of substance. In the administration's oddly inverted logic, when this does not happen, as is now the case, it is the U.N. that is failing the test of multilateralism by not rallying around America's nonnegotiable positions. As a senior administration official put it to The Times this week, "They can be multilateral and be part of it, or they can tell us to do it ourselves."

Except in the U.S.
The Right to Know Is Gaining Around the World - Freedom of Information
By Thomas S. Blanton
International Herald Tribune, 11 October 2003
EXCERPT: Last month, Armenia became the 51st country to guarantee its citizens the right to know what their government is up to. Armenia's new freedom of information law is the latest outpost of the worldwide movement towards opening government files - a movement that took off in the 1990's and just this year also brought in the world's second most populous country, India, and one of China's largest cities, Guangzhou.The new openness laws vary tremendously, face huge implementation problems, and often receive only lip service from bureaucrats. But the trend is producing much more government accountability, and often dramatic headlines. For example: [article cites instances in Mexico, Japan, Briton, South Africa, Israel and Bulgaria.] Ironically, civil society and government reformers around the globe are making this extraordinary progress at the very time that the United States is backing away from its previous leadership in open government. ...The world is embracing, while Washington willfully forgets, the familiar finding by Justice Louis D. Brandeis: "sunlight is the best disinfectant."
[BWUSA italics]

The real "war on terrorism"
In a First, Award Goes to a Muslim Woman
By Lizette Alvarez
International Herald Tribune,11 October 2003
EXCERPT: Shirin Ebadi on Friday became the first Muslim woman to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, in recognition of her work promoting the rights of women and children in Iran over the past three decades. In awarding the prize to Ebadi, 56, the Nobel committee said it wished to prod the Muslim world into recognizing that Islam and human rights, particularly those of women and children, can go hand in hand. The committee also said it hoped to advance a moderate, nonviolent path toward reform in Islamic countries, one in which religious and cultural differences are rewarded rather than punished during this time of international turbulence and upheaval. ..."There is Western agreement on putting pressure on Iran. But there are differences between Europe and America about the effects of regime change. Europe favors working to strengthen democratic groups from inside the country."

U.S. Army says clash in Baghdad was an ambush by civilians
Tensions Rise After GI's Fight Shiites
AP in IHT, 11 October 2003
EXCERPT:  A nighttime clash in a teeming Shiite Muslim slum killed two U.S. soldiers and at least one Iraqi, raising tensions between the American occupation force and the country’s majority community.The Americans said Friday their troops were lured into an ambush, while the Shiites said a firefight broke out when U.S. forces closed in on a radical cleric’s headquarters.

A Shi'ite Warning to America
By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times, 11 October 2003
EXCERPT: Ammar Abdul Aziz is a crucial player. He is the son of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, arguably the most powerful Shi'ite member of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. He is a nephew of the murdered grand ayatollah. And until recently, he was commander of the Badr Brigades, the military wing of the SCIRI. Ammar makes it clear that the SCIRI is "a council of many parties, including religious people, officers, women, volunteers, like a parliament. We think that if the occupation forces want to leave Iraq as occupiers, so the UN may take charge, then we can support them. But they have to give us a calendar for the end of the occupation." This is "very close" to the French proposal at the United Nations Security Council: "It is in Iraqi people's rights to be totally free in our own land."...All Iraqis know that if Turkey sends troops to Iraq, this will mean the dreaded opening of a Pandora's box. Shi'ites may have been very patient so far, but not a single one of them has forgotten that the Turks are descendants of the hated Ottoman colonial power.

10 October 2003

Love us, love our WMDs
US Back on Warpath Over New Zealand's Nuclear-Free Policy
By Audrey Young
New Zealand Herald, 9 October 2003
EXCERPT: The United States yesterday leaned on New Zealand to change its anti-nuclear laws, saying it would not just "get over it" and that it limited the relationship. In the hardest -hitting public speech by Ambassador Charles Swindells - which would have been approved, if not written, by the US State Department - he said the nuclear issue coloured important policy decisions, was unhelpful and should be re-examined. He also drew attention again to the fact that New Zealand had not signed up to the war in Iraq along with Australia and Britain.

Steady, consistent, ongoing violence
Stability Achieved In Iraq
By IAN FISHER
New York Times, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: Many military experts fear that one calamitous terror strike — killing many American soldiers as did those in Beirut in 1983 or in Saudi Arabia in 1996 — could still bring the whole Iraq operation into question. Even if he played down the violence, Mr. Bremer acknowledged that the task of rebuilding Iraq had turned out to be far greater than expected, because of decades of neglect under Mr. Hussein. So, he said, it is important that Congress approve the full $20 billion Mr. Bush has requested for reconstruction — for electricity, water, a new Iraqi army. Occupation authorities believe that may be the key to ending the violence: raising the standard of living and convincing Iraqis, maybe even some of those fighting now, that the American operation has been worth the pain. But, as Mr. Bremer noted, the huge task of reconstruction will not come "overnight."

Washington's New Approach
By Peter Biles
BBC News, 9 October 2003
EXCERPT: Resistance to the US-led occupation has increased. Nearly 100 American service personnel have been killed in combat since 1 May. There have been four major car bomb attacks, two of them against the United Nations. The US-led coalition is still struggling to restore security and essential services

Bush's coalition of the coerced threatens to break up
Turks Face Wrath of Old Enemy as Kurds Vow to Fight
News.Scotsman.com, 9 October 2003
EXCERPT: Iraqi Kurds who helped US forces topple Saddam Hussein are threatening to turn their guns against their old enemy, Turkey, if Ankara sends troops to Iraq at Washington¹s request. The warning came yesterday as Iraq¹s interim leaders told the Americans they do not want peacekeepers from Turkey or other neighbouring countries but were willing to soften their opposition to avoid a confrontation with Washington.

Rift Grows Between Iraq's Interim Council and US Led Coalition
ABC Radio Australia, 10 October 2003
EXCERPT: A rift is growing between Iraq's interim government and the United States-led coalition over the deployment of Turkish troops to Iraq. Meetings with US overseer, Paul Bremer, and the Turkish ambassador to Iraq have not resulted in any compromise, with the Americans even preventing the release of a council statement denouncing the Turkish deployment. Council member Ahmad Chalabi says strategically any foreign troop should be invited by a sovereign Iraqi government, in this case the Iraqi Governing Council. But the council, which was assembled by the Americans and is subject to a veto by Mr Bremer, has no real power to block the arrival of Turkish troops.

Slaves of the Foreigners: The Corporate Invasion of Iraq
By Bernhard Zand
Der Spiegel (Germany), 9 October 2003
Courtesy of Information Clearing House
EXCERPT: By radically opening up the Iraqi economy, America wants to attract international corporations to the banks of the Tigris. Iraqis are concerned that their country is being sold out.
SEE ALSO: Who Will Count the Dead Iraqi Civilians? (Newsweek)

Virtual Democracies: Why Corporate Media Promoted the Iraq Invasion
By Kenneth Davidson
Sydney Morning Herald
Courtesy of ZNet, 9 October 2003
EXCERPTS: The commercial broadcasting media's prime function is not even to entertain. It is to deliver consumers to advertisers in the right frame of mind to spend on the products and services advertised. This function always sits uncomfortably with broadcasting's social responsibility to inform and educate.... The commercial and social responsibilities of the broadcast media are never so far apart as during the build up to war, especially when the government case for war is built on lies and half truths which should be exposed by responsible reporting.

9 October 2003

Everywhere and Nowhere, Saddam Retains His Grip on Baghdad's Imagination
Suzanne Goldenberg finds six months after the dictator's statue fell, the US authority has not extinguished his legacy
The Guardian, 9 October 2003
Courtesy of Talking Points Memo
EXCERPT: As time passes, being a former Ba'athist doesn't matter at all. The second-in-command at the information ministry, who spent his days reading the reports the minders wrote about visiting foreign journalists, has been employed by Fox News. ...Other former servants of the security service have found jobs in the police where, it is widely believed, they are indulging in the same brutal practices they employed before the war; the only change being that they feel freer to extort bribes. The revival of the security structures has been watched with interest, particularly by those who once exercised control over the Ba'athist state. [BWUSA Emphasis]

Iraq: What Went Wrong
By General Wesley K. Clark
New York Review of Books, 23 October Issue
EXCERPT: First, the military plan took unnecessary risks, because it skimped on the forces made available to the commanders.
...The second major criticism of the war plan—a profound flaw—concerned the endgame: it shortchanged postwar planning. ...the third major criticism of the government's plan: in attempting to retain full control, the administration raised the costs and risks of the mission by preventing our use of the very allies and resources that should have been available to the US. [Emphasis by BWUSA]

What Motivates Turkey to Send Troops to Iraq?
Power and Interest News Report
EXCERPT: Turkey getting involved in Iraq? Find out why. Read a past analysis from February discussing Turkey's motivations for supporting a U.S. intervention in Iraq. A PINR new analysis on this should also be released on Friday.
SEE : "Turkey's Motivations for Supporting a U.S.-led War in Iraq"

Arafat 'Heart Attack' Denied
BBC News, 8 October 2003
EXCERPT: A senior member of the Palestinian cabinet has rejected media reports that Yasser Arafat recently suffered a mild heart attack.

Aussie PM Howard Censured Over Push for War With Iraq
The Age (Australia), October 8, 2003
EXCERPT: Prime Minister John Howard was yesterday censured by the Senate for misleading the public in his justification for sending Australia to war with Iraq. It was only the fourth time in more than three decades a sitting prime minister has been censured and the second in Mr Howard's seven-and-a-half years in office. The motion attacked Mr Howard for failing to adequately inform Australians that intelligence agency warnings about a war with Iraq would increase the likelihood of a terrorist attack. It also noted that no evidence had yet been produced by Mr Howard to justify his claims that in March this year, Iraq possessed stockpiles of completed biological chemical weapons that justified going to war.

Next?
Panel Approves Sanctions on Syria With White House Support
By CARL HULSE
New York Times, 8 October 2003
EXCERPT: Congress stepped up pressure on Syria on Wednesday when a House panel endorsed diplomatic and economic sanctions against the country, accusing it of sponsoring terrorism and fostering turmoil in Iraq. The White House dropped its previous opposition to the sanctions plan.

 TV Recommendation
View tonight (Thursday) on PBS Frontline
Truth, War and Consequences
Frontline, 9 October 2003

Democrats Debate Tonight in Phoenix (CNN)
CNN anchor Judy Woodruff will moderate, and the network's Candy Crowley and Jeff Greenfield will serve as the only panelists.
The nationally televised event will run from 5 to 6:30 p.m. PST.
CNN's "Inside Politics" will air it live.

 Special Section
Israel's Date With a Runaway Freight Train
By Hasan Abu Nimah and Ali Abunimah
Electronic Intifada, 8 October 2003
EXCERPTS: Once more, the deceptive "calm" was shattered on Oct. 4 by the horrifying suicide attack in Haifa, that took the lives of 19 restaurant diners, among them men, women and children, both Jews and Palestinian Israelis. "Calm", as used by the news media in this context, does not mean that Israelis and Palestinians stopped attacking each other, but applies to Palestinian actions alone. Ongoing Israeli violence, no matter who its target, is never considered to disturb such a "calm".... By its shameful and cynical inaction, the international community is sending a double message. To Israel, it says that there is no level of escalating repression that will not be accepted, albeit with occasional token but utterly inconsequential condemnation. To extremist Palestinian factions, the message is that only by ever greater escalation and making things worse is there any hope of creating a situation so bad that the world will eventually be forced to intervene.
SEE ALSO: Arab Fury at Israel's 'Terror' Attack of Syria (Guardian)
SEE ALSO: Bush Considers Israeli Air Strike 'Essential' (W.P.)
SEE ALSO: Sharon Says Israel is Ready to Strike Anywhere (S.M.H.)
SEE ALSO: Israelie Minister Calls for Incinerating Damascus, Beirut (IAP News)
SEE ALSO: Shalom Rejects Truce Offer from New Palestinian Leader (Haaretz)
SEE ALSO: Israelis Question Logic of Attack on Syria (SpaceWar.com)
SEE ALSO: Explaining the Occupation to the Occupier (Haaretz)
SEE ALSO: White House Gives Go-Ahead to Penalize Syria (USA Today)
SEE ALSO: Syrian Ambassador Promises Military Response to Attacks (Guardian)
SEE ALSO: Aides Admit Arrafat Suffered Heart Attack (Guardian)
SEE ALSO: Zionist Settle Joins Iraqi to Promote Trade (Guardian)

Israel's Strategy: When At A Loss, Escalate
By Gabriel Ash
Yellow Times, 6 October 2003
EXCERPT: There is an old joke about a man who goes to the doctor with a running nose (this was before the era of nasal decongestants). The doctor tells him to dress lightly and walk a few hours in the rain. The bewildered patient presses for an explanation, and the doctor adds, "I cannot treat a running nose, but if you get pneumonia -- then I can give you antibiotics." The meaning of Israel's attack on Syria is that the government of Israel is taking the same route as that doctor. Unable to repress the Palestinian struggle for liberation, Israel is now trying to transform it into a regional war, for which its army is better equipped. That spells more disaster for the whole Middle East, including Israel.

Listen to the Israeli Pilots
By David Grossman
Haaretz.com, 8 October 2003
EXCERPT: Now that the furor over the pilots' declaration has abated a bit, perhaps the time has come to listen attentively to the essence of what they wanted to say in their protest. The bottom line of the pilots' message is that if the Palestinians are currently capable of carrying out painful attacks on Israel and Israeli citizens, the war that is raging is still, ultimately, a war between a military power and a civilian population. And in a war of this sort, Israel must impose limitations on itself of both a practical and a moral nature. The pilots are reminding the Israelis that even if the aim of the military action is to hit a murderer who is to die, when a state orders its pilots to drop a 1-ton bomb into a residential neighborhood in the most densely populated place in the world, and with the clear knowledge that hundreds of innocent civilians are likely to get hurt, its action, to a significant extent, employs the methods of a terror organization. And when a state orders its pilots to use powerful missiles to hit a car that is driving in the midst of passersby, even if it does not want to harm them intentionally, the nature of the deed, as well as its results, are like those of a terror organization.

U.S., NATO Should Rethink New Nuke Policy
One World, 8 October 2003
EXCERPT: "NATO and Nuclear Disarmament," by the Washington-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, analyzes conflicts arising from NATO's treaty obligations and calls for NATO countries to encourage the United States to stop all efforts to promote new nuclear programs and to "denuclearize" NATO.

Stopping Halliburton and the rest of America's war profiteers
Iraq and Corporate Patriotism
By Charlie Cray
Common Dreams, 8 October 2003
EXCERPT: Cost overruns and Cheney's ongoing financial ties to Halliburton are not the only reasons that Congress should hold hearings on war profiteering. The contracts have been regularly awarded to companies with a track record of corporate crime and excessive executive compensation. Enron and Arthur Anderson were immediately suspended from all federal contracts after their accounting fraud was revealed (and before they were convicted of any crimes), but everyone seems to have forgotten that the SEC is still investigating what went on at Halliburton while Cheney was CEO. And Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has yet to reply to Waxman's April letter asking for an explanation why the Pentagon is contracting with a company (Halliburton) that is apparently using a Cayman Islands subsidiary to conduct business in Iran, a member of the President's "axis of evil."

Saddam Retains His Grip on Baghdad's Imagination
By Suzanne Goldenberg
Guardian (UK), 9 October 2003
EXCERPT: Not many days go by in Baghdad without a claimed sighting of Saddam Hussein, recklessly turning up in close proximity to the American forces, or rallying the faithful in his old haunts, depending on who is spinning the story. The multiplicity of sightings is all the more strange given that there was very little chance of ever seeing Saddam in the flesh while he was in power.

Congresswoman Lee Declares 'We Have Forgotten Afghanistan'
Feminist Daily News, 8 October 2003
EXCERPT: Last night on the House floor, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) stated that the President's Emergency Supplemental shows that the United States has forgotten about the war on terrorism in Afghanistan. According to Lee, Bush's funding plan is supposed to be for both Iraq and Afghanistan yet it calls for a "pitiful" amount of money for Afghanistan, a place where the "Taliban is on the rise." President Bush's emergency plan calls for $87 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan, out of which less than 1 percent goes to Afghanistan's reconstruction.

8 October 2003

'Might Makes Right' Policies of Bush, Sharon Have Failed
By Rami G. Khouri
Pacific News Service, 7 October 2003
EXCERPT: Editor's Note: Israeli retaliatory strikes against Syria and the recent reorganization of U.S. management of Iraq and Afghanistan reveal frustration in Tel Aviv and Washington. The over-use of military force, the writer says, cannot solve political problems, and in fact makes them worse. The Israeli air strike against an alleged terrorist training camp in Syria, and Washington's sudden reorganization of its management of Iraq and Afghanistan reflect parallel dynamics: the limited political changes that can be achieved through military might.

Japan, U.S. Reject NK Talks Stance
CNN, 7 October 2003
EXCERPT: Japan and the United States have been quick to reject North Korean demands that Japan take no part in further talks to resolve the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. A statement from the North Korean Foreign Ministry, carried on the official KCNA news agency Tuesday, said Japan had been dumped from future negotiations because it persisted in linking other issues with the nuclear talks. No second round of multi-party talks has been scheduled and North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon appeared to reject the idea in an address to the United Nations General Assembly last week. "The result of the six-party talks has convinced us once again that the United States is seeking to disarm the DPRK by means of pressure, still pursuing the hostile policy of stifling the DPRK," Choe said. "Since it has proven that the United States is only interested in turning the six-party talks into a ground for completely disarming and killing the DPRK by all means instead of co-existing peacefully with the DPRK, we have been driven not to maintain any interest in or expectation on such talks." North Korea has repeatedly blamed its need for a nuclear weapons program on what it calls the United States' "hostile policy" towards Pyongyang.

Patience, Ariel
Arafat Has Suffered Heart Attack, Admits Aide
Chris McGreal
The Guardian , 8 October 2003
Yasser Arafat has suffered a mild heart attack but the Palestinian leadership has sought to keep his health problems secret for fear it will "create panic".  The 74-year-old Palestinian president, who is suffering from Parkinson's disease, disappeared from public view last week and re-emerged at the weekend looking extremely ill. His face was pale and pinched, he had lost weight and he was almost inaudible. He had trouble standing for more than a few minutes at a time.

Bush Backs Israel, Supports Sanctions Against Syria
By Julian Borger
Guardian (UK), 8 October 2003
EXCERPT: A bill to impose new economic sanctions on Syria will begin its passage through the US Congress today after the Bush administration gave the measures a green light to signal its frustration with Damascus. Congressional staffers said the sanctions would sail through the House of Representatives this week, and would probably be passed by the Senate too, unless the administration changed its mind.

It depends on your definition of 'terrorist'...
Did the Pentagon Sell Weapons of Mass Destruction to Terrorists?
CBS/AP, 7 October 2003
EXCERPT: The Defense Department did not properly monitor Internet sales of equipment that could be used to make chemical and biological weapons, congressional investigators say. As a result, says the General Accounting Office report being released Tuesday, there is little assurance that excess chemical and biological equipment has not already been obtained by dangerous people.
SEE ALSO: Pentagon Offers 'Bioterror Kit' Online (Guardian)

America pays the bill for mismanagement, cost over-runs, and environmental destruction
Bechtel Corporation's Sweetheart Deal in Iraq
By Mick Youther
Intervention, October 2003
EXCERPT: A few weeks ago, I watched an ABC Nightline interview with Andrew Natsios, head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The thing I remember most about that interview was how he kept repeating that the cost to the American people for rebuilding Iraq would be no more than $1.7 billion. Now that President Bush is asking for another $87 billion to rebuild Iraq; I did a little investigating. It seems that during 2000-2001, Mr. Natsios was the director of Boston¹s ³Big Dig² project, the biggest boondoggle in American history; and guess who the prime contractor was -- Bechtel Corporation, who was just awarded the largest reconstruction contract in Iraq by none other than Mr. Natsios¹ USAID.
SEE ALSO: Iraq Invasion Was Never About 9/11 (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

If America believed in peace, we would have been there long ago...
U.N. Says at Least 23 Massacred in Congo
Agence-France Press, 6 October 2003
EXCERPT: At least 23 people, the majority of them women and children, were hacked or shot to death in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN said, in the first reported massacre since UN peacekeepers began patrolling the troubled northeast last month.

Syria Accuses Israel of Warmongering
BBC News, 7 October 2003
EXCERPT: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has accused Israel of trying to drag Syria and the rest of the Middle East into a wider conflict, following its air strike inside Syrian territory at the weekend. The Syrian leader - in his first comments on the raid on an alleged Palestinian training camp - described it as an attempt to distract attention from the crisis in the Palestinian territories.

Taliban May Be Planning Larger Attacks, U.S. Envoy Says
By CARLOTTA GALL
New York Times, 7 October 2003
EXCERPT: The Bush administration's special envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, warned today that the Taliban movement and its Al Qaeda partners in the region may be planning larger or "more spectacular attacks" in Afghanistan as part of a campaign against the reconstruction process.

When All Else Fails, Reorganize
By Ehsan Ahrari
Asia Times, 8 October 2003
EXCERPT:  Four of Rice's deputies will head coordinating committees on counter terrorism, economic development, political affairs in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the "creation of clearer messages to the media" in Iraq. ...The solution to endless death and misery in Iraq is the painful decision to hand over the rule of that country to the UN. The US must consider lowering its presence, authority, and, most important of all, its aspirations in Iraq. These observations might sound like a broken record to the Bush administration, but they bear repeating as long as young GIs are dying, and Iraqis of all walks of life are making it their national pastime to cause injury to the occupiers of their country. Even the current attempt to reorganize the US mission in Iraq is akin to saving a sinking ship by appointing a new leader of the crew whose mission is to bail the rising level of water. Instead, the objective of the US ought to be to bail out while it still can.

And Justice For All?
By Jim Lobe
Asia Times, 8 October 2003
EXCERPT:  Countries that refuse to exempt US citizens and soldiers from the jurisdiction of the new International Criminal Court (ICC) could lose almost US$90 million in military aid from the United States in fiscal year 2004, which began on October 1. On July 1, the administration of US President George W Bush cut some $30 million in military aid to 32 friendly countries - most of them democracies - because they refused to sign deals with Washington.

U.S. May Drop Security Council Resolution on Iraq
Reuters, 7  October 2003
EXCERPT: Despite divisions in the 15-member U.N. Security Council, U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte on Tuesday ruled out making any substantial changes to the Bush administration's draft resolution on Iraq. Consequently, council diplomats said the United States had to decide soon whether to drop the effort entirely or push for a split vote in the council that might limit its impact. Easy passage of the resolution, aimed a broadening military and financial support, was assured until Secretary-General Kofi Annan last week turned down U.N. political participation unless Iraqi sovereignty was accelerated.

7 October 2003

 Audio/Video Link
Two Year Anniversary of Afghan War Finds U.S. Objectives Still Not Achieved
DemocracyNow.org, 7 October 2003
EXCERPT: Among the administration’s goals were the capture of Osama Bin Laden and the dismantling of the Taliban. On both fronts the U.S. has failed although over 11,000 U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden is still believed to be alive and the Taliban has reformed and has increased its attack on opposition groups in recent months. The Guardian reports the past three months have been the most violent since 2001. Humanitarian groups have also faulted the Bush’s administration handling of the enormous humanitarian crisis that faced Afghanistan. The Guardian of London reports aid workers can not travel to half of the country’s 32 provinces due to security concerns. For the first time, NATO yesterday agreed to expand its peacekeeping mission beyond the Kabul area to Afghanistan's troubled provinces.

Kay and "search team" discredited
Revelation Casts Doubt On Alleged Iraq WMD Find
By Julian Borger
Guardian (UK), 7 October 2003
EXCERPT: The test tube of botulinum presented by Washington and London as evidence that Saddam Hussein had been developing and concealing weapons of mass destruction, was found in an Iraqi scientist's home refrigerator, where it had been sitting for 10 years, it emerged yesterday. David Kay, the expert appointed by the CIA to lead the hunt for weapons, told a congressional committee last week that the vial of botulinum had been "hidden" at the scientist's home, and could be used to "covertly surge production of deadly weapons". Since then, the discovery of the vial has been at the heart of the debate over prewar claims that Iraq had an arsenal of banned weapons.
SEE ALSO: UN Weapons Inspectors Were Right About Iraq (Guardian)

 Audio Link
U.S. Weighs Sudan's Removal from Terrorism List
NPR Morning Edition, 7 October 2003
EXCERPT: The Bush administration is offering Sudan the possibility of being taken off the U.S. terrorism blacklist in an effort to push ahead peace talks. A senior Bush administration official says the Islamic government and the rebels in the south are close to a peace deal that would end decades of civil war. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.

Bring 'Em On – Home, That Is
by Douglas Herman
Antiwar.com, 7 October 2003
EXCERPT: Now that Iraq has become the Gaza Strip supersized, with American troops being killed or wounded by car bombs and grenades on a daily basis, perhaps we should consider bringing our boys home. ...In a country absolutely bristling with leftover weapons, where a hand grenade sells for $1.50, how do we avoid transforming the individual gunslinger with a grudge, who may have lost a family member, into a unified guerilla army of resistance?

Condi's success with the 'Roadmap" foreshadows future in Iraq
White House Rebuffs Pentagon's Role in Iraq
By Alec Russell in Washington
The Telegraph, 6 October 2003
EXCERPT: President George W Bush has ordered the White House to take tighter control over American operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, an apparent sign of dissatisfaction with the Pentagon-led efforts on the ground. His national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is to head an "Iraq stabilisation group", giving the White House a more active role.

Israel Uses Bush's Rhetoric to Justify Attack on Syria
By Tim Cornwell
The Scotsman, 6 October 2003
EXCERPT: may have taken the war of words between the US and Damascus as a green light for its attack on Syrian soil, analysts said yesterday. Israeli officials described yesterday¹s air raid, barely ten miles outside the Syrian capital, as a warning shot meant to end Syrian support for terrorists, fired with "no intention of escalation". Washington, meanwhile, has repeatedly blamed Syria for allowing "Arabs" and "foreigners" to cross its border to attack American troops, hinting at the possible threat of sanctions. At the same time, it has joined Israel in demanding that Syria end its backing for Palestinian militants.

No questions here
Iraqi Business Ties Raise Questions
By Craig Gordon and Knut Royce
NewsDay.com, 5 October 2003
EXCERPT: The former law partner of the Defense Department's architect of Iraq's post-war planning has teamed up with the nephew of Ahmed Chalabi, a Pentagon-anointed leader in the country, to profit from the multibillion-dollar rebuilding of the war-ravaged nation. L. Marc Zell, a Jerusalem-based attorney, is the former partner of Douglas Feith, the Pentagon undersecretary who was a major force behind the push for war.

Poland steps up to bat for Bush and strikes out
Polish Officials: French Missile Report Was Wrong
By Beata Pasek
Associated Press, 4 October 2003
EXCERPT: After a protest from French President Jacques Chirac, Poland said Saturday it had been mistaken in reporting that its troops found new French-made anti-aircraft misiles in central Iraq. Chirac swiftly denied selling Iraq weapons in violation of the U.N. weapons embargo imposed against Saddam Hussein's regime in 1990. The claims, he said, "are as false today as they were yesterday." An aide to the Polish prime minister said an initial report that the Roland missiles found by Polish troops days ago were produced in 2003 was incorrect. France said it stopped producing any type of Roland missile in 1993.

Venezuela in U.S. News: Lies and Distortions
By Gregory Wilpert
ZNet, 4 October 2003
EXCERPT: An article recently appeared in one of the largest U.S. news magazines, an article which will remind well-informed readers of a typical disinformation campaign. The article in question, "Terror Close to Home," by Linda Robinson, appeared in U.S. News and World Report (10/6/03) [i] and claims to have evidence that Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, is "flirting with terrorism." The appearance of a baseless article like this, combined with recent statements by Gen. James Hill, head of the Southern Command, that Venezuela's Margarita Island is a haven for Islamic terrorist groups, suggests that the Bush administration is setting the stage for declaring Venezuela a "rogue" state.

Officials Dispute Whether Iraq Had an Active Biological Weapons Program
By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire, 6 October 2003
EXCERPT: The interim report released last week by investigator David Kay says investigators have so far found no evidence of active Iraqi nuclear or chemical weapons programs, but a debate has ensued on whether the report indicates that Iraq was conducting a biological research and development program just before the U.S.-led invasion in March. Statements by administration officials appeared to indicate a view that Kay’s evidence showed that ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had recently pursued a biological weapons program. An independent expert and a senior senator, however, have argued that Kay’s evidence does not show that Iraq had an active biological weapons program in the run-up to this year’s war. “There’s no evidence that the weapons program was restarted in the nuclear area, that it was restarted in the biological area, [or] that the units were ready for chemical warfare,” said Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich), in a comment broadcast on Fox News Sunday. Former U.N. weapons inspector Raymond Zilinskas, currently with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at Monterey Institute of International Studies, supported that view. “My feeling was that they certainly had the potential in terms of human resources and dual-use equipment, and they also had the cultures in vials that could be opened any time and be propagated, but that they had no actual biological weapons at all,” he said.

Acquiescence to Israel by Bush destabilizes the region and may work against US aims
Israel's Foray into Syria Demonstrates Tel Aviv's Foreign Policy Leverage
By Erich Marquardt on October 07, 2003
Power and Interest News Report
EXCERPT: By attacking Syria, the Sharon government is taking advantage of the cloudy precedent set by the Bush administration's "war on terrorism." Tel Aviv has long desired to take military action against surrounding states that have been supportive of the Palestinian cause. Lebanon, Syria and Iran all fit this mold. Yet the international pressure that develops from such attacks has restrained Israel in the past. Furthermore, when Israel has executed a full-scale military invasion, as it did in Lebanon in 1982, it quickly found itself the subject of guerrilla style warfare that eventually forced its military to withdrawal. But now Israel has shown a willingness to increase its power in the Middle East by utilizing the Bush administration's precedent of "fighting terror." By arguing that Syria is supporting Palestinian militants, Israel is able to threaten, weaken and possibly manipulate Syria while carefully doing so in the bounds of the Bush administration's "war on terrorism."

The Violence That Comes From an Excess of Devotion
By William Pfaff
International Herald Tribune, 4 October 2003
EXCERPT: Al Qaeda is a mixed affair. It shares the "visionary terrorism" of the anarchists, arguing that final defeat of "the Crusaders and Zionists" will cause the truth of the Prophet to prevail and a heaven on earth created. In another respect it is highly practical. It destroyed the World Trade Center towers. U.S. troops have already been pulled out of Saudi Arabia, where their proximity to the Muslim holy places launched Osama bin Laden on his career of terrorism.It is imaginable that more terrorism could cause U.S. forces to be pulled out of Iraq - as they were pulled out of Lebanon and Somalia in the past. Washington thinks that it is dealing with evil men "set against all humanity," as President George W. Bush said at the United Nations last week. What the leaders of the Bush administration are intellectually unprepared to acknowledge is that they are at war with the dominant phenomenon of man's history, as identified by Koestler: the pitiless violence that comes from an excess of devotion.

6 October 2003

 Audio/Video Link
Israel Bombs Syria for the First Time in 30 Years in Major Escalation of Conflict
DemocracyNow.org, 6 October 2003
EXCERPT: Syrian expert Patrick Seale discusses the impact on the bombing raid which came hours after a Palestinian attorney blew herself up in Haifa killing 19 people... Fears of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict growing into a regional war expanded yesterday as Israeli warplanes bombed targets deep inside Syria yesterday in a surprise airstrike. It was the first attack inside Syria in 30 years. Israeli warplanes strike outside of Damascus came hours after a Palestinian woman blew herself up in a suicide attack in the Israeli town of Haifa. 19 people died in the attack including four children. 60 more were injured. The suicide bombing came on the eve of the Jewish Holy Day Yom Kippour

In post-911 era, no hard evidence is necessary to justify military action
Bush Silent On Israeli Raid
By DOUGLAS JEHL
New York Times,  5 October 2003
EXCERPT: The Bush administration sought Sunday to distance itself from Israel's airstrike inside Syria, with senior officials saying the United States had no advance warning of the attack and no solid evidence that the target was in fact a terrorist training camp.
SEE ALSO: Syria Irate Over Israel's Air Raid (News.com)

Ex-Minister Says Blair Knew Iraq Had No Banned Arms
By WARREN HOGE
New York Times, 5 October 2003
EXCERPT: Prime Minister Tony Blair conceded privately that Iraq did not have the quickly deployable weapons of mass destruction that the British government cited as justification for war, former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook asserted today. Mr. Cook, who resigned his post as leader of the House of Commons because of Britain's decision to join in the American-led war, said Mr. Blair also made it clear to him in a conversation two weeks before combat began that he did not believe Saddam Hussein's weapons posed a "real and present danger" to Britain.

But general says coalition winning...
Force Reduction in Iraq `Years' Off
By James O'Shea
Chicago Tribune, 5 October 2003
EXCERPT: The U.S. Army general who heads coalition forces in Iraq says it will be years before the United States is able to "draw down" its forces here, and he warned Americans to brace for more casualties, including a "significant engagement where tens of American soldiers or coalition soldiers" are killed

Saddam's Nuclear Arsenal? Villagers Sell Barrels of Deadly Uranium to U.S. Army
By Patrick Graham
Observer (UK), 5 September 2003
EXCERPT: The report, at least the available declassified version, acknowledges as much. 'These initiatives did not in and of themselves constitute a resumption of the nuclear weapons programme, but could have been useful in developing a weapons-relevant science base for the long term,' it states. The Iraqi scientist acknowledged that, while Iraq may have already had the theoretical basis for a nuclear bomb, 'they never reached the stage of trying'. Given enough plutonium or enric