Bush setting America up for war on Iran

Here we go again. From Common Dreams

Bush Setting America Up for War on Iran
by Philip Sherwell in New York and Tim Shipman in Washington
Sunday Telegraph/UK
September 16, 2007

Senior American intelligence and defense officials believe that President George W Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

Pentagon planners have developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran, amid growing fears among serving officers that diplomatic efforts to slow Iran's nuclear weapons program are doomed to fail.

Pentagon and CIA officers say they believe that the White House has begun a carefully calibrated program of escalation that could lead to a military showdown with Iran.

Now it has emerged that Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, who has been pushing for a diplomatic solution, is prepared to settle her differences with Vice-President Dick Cheney and sanction military action.

In a chilling scenario of how war might come, a senior intelligence officer warned that public denunciation of Iranian meddling in Iraq - arming and training militants - would lead to cross border raids on Iranian training camps and bomb factories.

A prime target would be the Fajr base run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force in southern Iran, where Western intelligence agencies say armor-piercing projectiles used against British and US troops are manufactured.

Under the theory - which is gaining credence in Washington security circles - US action would provoke a major Iranian response, perhaps in the form of moves to cut off Gulf oil supplies, providing a trigger for air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities and even its armed forces.

Senior officials believe Mr Bush's inner circle has decided he does not want to leave office without first ensuring that Iran is not capable of developing a nuclear weapon.

The intelligence source said: "No one outside that tight circle knows what is going to happen." But he said that within the CIA "many if not most officials believe that diplomacy is failing" and that "top Pentagon brass believes the same".

He said: "A strike will probably follow a gradual escalation. Over the next few weeks and months the US will build tensions and evidence around Iranian activities in Iraq."

Previously, accusations that Mr Bush was set on war with Iran have come almost entirely from his critics.

Many senior operatives within the CIA are highly critical of Mr Bush's handling of the Iraq war, though they themselves are considered ineffective and unreliable by hardliners close to Mr Cheney.

The vice president is said to advocate the use of bunker-busting tactical nuclear weapons against Iran's nuclear sites. His allies dispute this, but Mr Cheney is understood to be lobbying for air strikes if sites can be identified where Revolutionary Guard units are training Shia militias.

Recent developments over Iraq appear to fit with the pattern of escalation predicted by Pentagon officials.

Gen David Petraeus, Mr Bush's senior Iraq commander, denounced the Iranian "proxy war" in Iraq last week as he built support in Washington for the US military surge in Baghdad.

The US also announced the creation of a new base near the Iraqi border town of Badra, the first of what could be several locations to tackle the smuggling of weapons from Iran.

A State Department source familiar with White House discussions said that Miss Rice, under pressure from senior counter-proliferation officials to acknowledge that military action may be necessary, is now working with Mr Cheney to find a way to reconcile their positions and present a united front to the President.

The source said: "When you go down there and see the body language, you can see that Cheney is still The Man. Condi pushed for diplomacy but she is no dove. If it becomes necessary she will be on board.

"Both of them are very close to the president, and where they differ they are working together to find a way to present a position they can both live with."

The official contrasted the efforts of the secretary of state to work with the vice-president with the "open warfare between Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld before the Iraq war".

Miss Rice's bottom line is that if the administration is to go to war again it must build the case over a period of months and win sufficient support on Capitol Hill.

The Sunday Telegraph has been told that Mr Bush has privately promised her that he would consult "meaningfully" with Congressional leaders of both parties before any military action against Iran on the understanding that Miss Rice would resign if this did not happen.

The intelligence officer said that the US military has "two major contingency plans" for air strikes on Iran.

"One is to bomb only the nuclear facilities. The second option is for a much bigger strike that would - over two or three days - hit all of the significant military sites as well. This plan involves more than 2,000 targets."

The New York Times and the crisis of American imperialism in Iraq

The World Socialist Web Site has a thought provoking analysis of the New York Times's anti-war editorial. Excerpt: "The New York Times, considered the most authoritative organ of the US ruling elite, outlines a crisis of historic proportions and describes a level of irresponsibility, incompetence and criminality in the White House that has no precedent. A serious response, from the standpoint of the interests of American imperialism, would begin with the demand that the current government resign, or that Congress initiate immediate impeachment proceedings against both Cheney and Bush. That would be the prerequisite for the 'candid and focused' conversation on the war which the newspaper claims to desire. But the Times proposes nothing of the kind. In fact, it proposes no measures to hold any of those responsible for dragging the country into an 'unnecessary' war accountable. This, above all, is what gives its entire pronouncement an aura of unreality."

The New York Times and the crisis of American imperialism in Iraq
By Barry Grey
World Socialist Web Site
9 July 2007

The New York Times on Sunday published a major statement on the war in Iraq. Running the entire length of the newspaper’s editorial page, the statement was clearly conceived of as a definitive pronouncement on the failure of the Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq and the assertion of an alternative policy.

The editorial is an expression of the enormity of the crisis facing the US ruling elite. In its own way, the statement acknowledges that what was intended to be a demonstration of American might—the conquest of Iraq—has dealt a shattering blow to the US drive for global hegemony.

Exuding a sense of hopelessness and despair, riddled with internal contradictions, raising more questions than it answers, the editorial reflects more than anything else the perplexity of the US political establishment in the face of a catastrophe of its own making.

Beginning with its title, “The Road Home,” the statement reveals as well the duplicity of the Democratic Party and the liberal wing of the political establishment for which the Times speaks. As one reads the statement, it becomes clear that the newspaper is not really calling for a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, but rather a redeployment leading to a permanent US military presence in Iraq and an expansion of American forces in the region. Such is the real content of the alternative to the Bush administration’s policy being promoted by the Democratic Party in the name of “ending the war.”

The editorial begins with the somber assertion: “It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.”

It continues: “Like many Americans, we have put off that conclusion, waiting for a sign that President Bush was seriously trying to dig the United States out of the disaster created by invading Iraq without sufficient cause, in the face of global opposition, and without a plan to stabilize the country afterward.”

In fact, as the editorial later admits, the majority of the American people reached the conclusion that the war must be ended months ago. That was the unambiguous meaning of the Republican rout in the November, 2006 congressional elections, and since then opinion polls have shown an ever-rising tide of antiwar sentiment.

In the course of its ensuing attempt at a balance sheet of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Times editorial paints a picture of devastation and chaos in Iraq and recklessness, irresponsibility and criminality in the highest echelons of the US government that amounts to a colossal indictment of not only the Bush administration, but the entire political and media establishment of which the Times is a part.

What the Times admits

Among the facts listed in the course of the statement are the following: the United States has destroyed “Iraq’s government, army, police and economic structures;” the “security forces Washington has trained behave more like partisan militias;” civil war in Iraq “is raging, right now, and it may take years to burn out;” a “slow-motion ethnic and religious cleansing... has contributed to driving one in seven Iraqis from their homes;” there are “already nearly two million Iraqi refugees, mostly in Syria and Jordan, and nearly two million more who have been displaced within their country.”

The penultimate paragraph of the editorial states: “President Bush and Vice President Cheney have used demagoguery and fear to quell Americans’ demands for an end to this war. They say withdrawing will create bloodshed and chaos and encourage terrorists. Actually, all of that has already happened—the result of this unnecessary invasion and the incompetent management of this war.”

Far more important to the Times than the devastation of Iraqi society are the disastrous consequences of the war for American imperialism. Even as it excoriates the Bush administration for its failed policy in Iraq, the newspaper uncritically upholds the overarching political framework and pretext for the war and the broader eruption of American militarism—the so-called “war on terrorism.”

On this score, the editorial asserts that Bush’s stated goal of “building a stable, unified Iraq” is “lost;” acknowledges that “additional military forces poured into the Baghdad region have failed to change anything;” complains that the war “is sapping the strength of the nation’s alliances and its military forces;” warns that it has given Al Qaeda “new base camps, new recruits and new prestige;” and declares that it has “alienated essential allies in the war against terrorism.”

What the Times proposes

When the Times turns to proposing a way out of the Iraq quagmire the perplexity and disorientation gripping the American ruling establishment emerge even more palpably. It soon becomes clear that the newspaper has no coherent policy to reconfigure US forces in Iraq while averting a disastrous defeat for US imperialism.

It begins by acknowledging that its proposals could very well exacerbate the bloodbath in Iraq and lead to a fracturing of the country along sectarian lines.

“When Congress returns this week,” the Times writes, “extricating American troops from the war should be at the top of its agenda.

“That conversation must be candid and focused. Americans must be clear that Iraq, and the region around it, could be even bloodier and more chaotic after Americans leave. There could be reprisals against those who worked with American forces, further ethnic cleansing, even genocide. Potentially destabilizing refugee flows could hit Jordan and Syria. Iran and Turkey could be tempted to make power grabs. Perhaps most important, the invasion has created a new stronghold from which terrorist activity could proliferate.

“The administration, the Democratic-controlled Congress, the United Nations and America’s allies must try to mitigate these outcomes—and they may fail. But Americans must be equally honest about the fact that keeping troops in Iraq will only make things worse.”

Reprisals, further ethnic cleansing, even genocide—such are the potential consequences of a drawdown of US troops, the Times declares. Even the mechanics of a withdrawal of the present occupation force presents massive and possibly disastrous problems.

The editorial states: “The United States has about 160,000 troops and millions of tons of military gear inside Iraq. Getting that force out safely will be a formidable challenge. The main road south to Kuwait is notoriously vulnerable to roadside bomb attacks. Soldiers, weapons and vehicles will need to be deployed to secure bases while airlift and sealift operations are organized. Withdrawal routes will have to be guarded. The exit must be everything the invasion was not: based on reality and backed by adequate resources.”

What is the newspaper saying here? What are the implications of establishing “secure bases,” carrying out “airlift and sealift operations,” guarding withdrawal routes and providing “adequate resources?” How much more Iraqi and American blood will be shed? Does the Times contemplate an even larger deployment of US troops to effect a “withdrawal?”

The editorial continues: “The United States should explore using Kurdish territory in the north of Iraq as a secure staging area. Being able to use bases and ports in Turkey would also make withdrawal faster and safer. Turkey has been an inconsistent ally in this war, but like other nations, it should realize that shouldering part of the burden of the aftermath is in its own interest.”

Why would the Turkish ruling elite, which considers the consolidation of a Kurdish stronghold in Iraq’s north a mortal threat to itself, consent to US “staging areas” in the region and even agree to facilitate such a development by making its own ports and bases available to the US military? The Times does not say.

Permanent bases

As for the prospects for Iraqis of a US “withdrawal” as envisioned by the Times, the newspaper writes that the war has “created a new front where the United States will have to continue to battle terrorist forces and enlist local allies who reject the idea of an Iraq hijacked by international terrorists. The military will need resources and bases to stanch this self-inflicted wound for the foreseeable future.”

This can only mean a permanent US military presence and continual bomb and missile attacks against alleged “terrorists,” punctuated by US Special Forces raids on Iraqi towns and communities. This scenario is spelled out somewhat more concretely in a section entitled “The Question of Bases.” The editorial declares:

“The United States could strike an agreement with the Kurds to create those bases in northeastern Iraq. Or, the Pentagon could use its bases in countries like Kuwait and Qatar, and its large naval presence in the Persian Gulf, as staging points.

“There are arguments for, and against, both options. Leaving troops in Iraq might make it too easy—and too tempting—to get drawn back into the civil war and confirm suspicions that Washington’s real goal was to secure permanent bases in Iraq. Mounting attacks from other countries could endanger those nations’ governments.

“The White House should make this choice after consultation with Congress and the other countries in the region, whose opinions the Bush administration has essentially ignored. The bottom line: the Pentagon needs enough force to stage effective raids and airstrikes against terrorist forces in Iraq, but not enough to resume large-scale combat.”

Again, what does this really mean? How much force is “enough?” 50,000 troops? 100,000? 500,000? Will it require the restoration of the military draft?

How exponentially must the already massive US military presence in the region be increased to “stage effective raids and airstrikes against terrorist forces in Iraq?” How many, and which, governments in the region will be destabilized by a permanently expanded US military presence in the region? Jordan? Saudi Arabia? Kuwait? Egypt?

Partition: the Bosnian solution

There follows a section entitled “The Civil War,” which states: “Iraq may fragment into separate Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite republics, and American troops are not going to stop that from happening.”

It continues: “Iraq’s leaders—knowing that they can no longer rely on the Americans to guarantee their survival—might be more open to compromise, perhaps to a Bosnian-style partition, with economic resources fairly shared but with millions of Iraqis forced to relocate.”

It was not so long ago that “Bosnia” was a watchword of the US political and media establishment for war crimes and genocide. Indeed, the charge of genocide leveled against the Serbs—a deliberate exaggeration of the crimes of Serb militia against Bosnian Muslims—played a central role in the preparing public opinion for the eventual air war against Serbia in 1999. Now the Times calmly proposes such a solution for Iraq—euphemistically using the term “relocation” to denote the brutal ethnic cleansing and sectarian warfare that would inevitably result in a country where Sunnis and Shia still live side by side in many regions.

Next, the Times raises the specter of massive refugee flows further destabilizing the entire Middle East, spreading “Iraq’s conflict far beyond its borders.” It declares that all six countries bordering Iraq—Turkey, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria—along with other nations must cooperate in containing the refugee crisis. They, along with the nations of Europe and Asia, must, the newspaper asserts, join with the US in contributing cash to defray the costs of such a project.

The new governments in Britain, France and Germany, the Times writes, must do their part to deal with the crisis because “to put it baldly, terrorism and oil make it impossible to ignore.”

“One of the trickiest tasks,” the editorial continues, “will be avoiding excessive meddling in Iraq by its neighbors—America’s friends as well as its adversaries.

“Just as Iran should come under international pressure to allow Shiites in southern Iraq to develop their own independent future, Washington must help persuade Sunni powers like Syria not to intervene on behalf of Sunni Iraqis. Turkey must be kept from sending troops into Kurdish territories.”

Exactly how the US will impose its will on these countries, under conditions in which a fractured Iraq has brought long-standing tensions and rivalries in the region to the boiling point, the Times does not say. By diplomatic blackmail? By military force?

At one point, the editorial declares, “The administration should use whatever leverage it gains from withdrawing to press its allies and Iraq’s neighbors to help achieve a negotiated solution.” This underscores one of the most glaring of the contradictions that abound in the editorial.

What international leverage will the United States gain from tacitly admitting defeat and pulling out the bulk of its combat forces from Iraq? Why should other countries, allies and adversaries alike, be more inclined to tow Washington’s line after it has suffered a military and political humiliation?

No accountability for an “unnecessary” war

There is, however, an even more fundamental contradiction. In its opening passages, the editorial announces that the Times has dropped its previous opposition to setting a withdrawal date because, “It is frighteningly clear that Mr. Bush’s plan is to stay the course as long as he is president and dump the mess on his successor.”

Thus the premise for the policy shift outlined by the Times is the unwillingness and inability of Bush and Cheney to change course and avert a full-scale catastrophe. Yet the statement repeatedly appeals to the White House to do precisely that.

It states, for example, “Congress and the White House must lead an international attempt at a negotiated outcome. To start, Washington must turn to the United Nations, which Mr. Bush spurned and ridiculed as a preface to war.”

The New York Times, considered the most authoritative organ of the US ruling elite, outlines a crisis of historic proportions and describes a level of irresponsibility, incompetence and criminality in the White House that has no precedent. A serious response, from the standpoint of the interests of American imperialism, would begin with the demand that the current government resign, or that Congress initiate immediate impeachment proceedings against both Cheney and Bush. That would be the prerequisite for the “candid and focused” conversation on the war which the newspaper claims to desire.

But the Times proposes nothing of the kind. In fact, it proposes no measures to hold any of those responsible for dragging the country into an “unnecessary” war accountable. This, above all, is what gives its entire pronouncement an aura of unreality.

There are many reasons for this glaring silence. In the first place, the entire political establishment, including its liberal wing, is implicated in the Iraq disaster. The Times itself supported the invasion, with whatever tactical quibbles, and played a critical role in promulgating the lies about weapons of mass destruction that were used to justify the invasion. To this day, it has concealed from the American people the scale of the death and destruction the US was wreaked on the Iraqi people.

Beyond that, there is the organic cowardice of the liberal, Democratic Party establishment, and its fear of the political consequences within the US of an attempt to dislodge the current administration. These sections of the ruling elite sense that an open attack on Bush and Cheney could unleash pent-up social anger and popular forces that could spiral out of the control of the entire political establishment.

An international disaster for US imperialism of such magnitude as that which the Times describes cannot but have the most far-reaching economic and political consequences within the US itself. This side of the matter is not even broached by the newspaper.

But the US debacle in Iraq will have profound ramifications for which American working people must prepare. The crisis of American imperialism in Iraq cannot be left as a matter for debate within the ruling elite. Those responsible for an illegal and unprovoked war that has already cost hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and killed or maimed tens of thousands of Americans cannot be allowed to prepare further atrocities in Iraq and new wars of aggression. The decisive question is the independent political intervention of the working class in opposition to imperialist war and the capitalist ruling elite in whose interests it is waged.

Republican candidates push unproven Iraq-911 tie

This Boston Globe article analyzes the claims by Republican presidential candidates, all apparently relying on whipping up fear as their ticket to the White House, that all Muslims are essentially identical anti-American terrorists. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said, “They want to bring down the West, particularly us. And they’ve come together as Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda, with that intent.” Senator John McCain called any attempt to cut Iraq war funding “the equivalent of waving a white flag to Al Qaeda.”

GOP Rivals Embrace Unproven Iraq-9/11 Tie
by Peter S. Canellos
Boston Globe
May 27, 2007

WASHINGTON - In defending the Iraq war, leading Republican presidential contenders are increasingly echoing words and phrases used by President Bush in the run-up to the war that reinforce the misleading impression that Iraq was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

In the May 15 Republican debate in South Carolina, Senator John McCain of Arizona suggested that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden would “follow us home” from Iraq — a comment some viewers may have taken to mean that bin Laden was in Iraq, which he is not.

Former New York mayor Rudolph Guiliani asserted, in response to a question about Iraq, that “these people want to follow us here and they have followed us here. Fort Dix happened a week ago. ”

However, none of the six people arrested for allegedly plotting to attack soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey were from Iraq.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney identified numerous groups that he said have “come together” to try to bring down the United States, though specialists say few of the groups Romney cited have worked together and only some have threatened the United States.

“They want to bring down the West, particularly us,” Romney declared. “And they’ve come together as Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda, with that intent.”

Assertions of connections between bin Laden and terrorists in Iraq have heated up over the last month, as Congress has debated the war funding resolution. Romney, McCain, and Giuliani have endorsed — and expanded on — Bush’s much-debated contention that Al Qaeda is the main cause of instability in Iraq.

Spokespeople for McCain and Romney say the candidates were expressing their deep-seated convictions that terrorists would benefit if the United States were to withdraw from Iraq. The spokesmen say that even if Iraq had no connection to the Sept. 11 attacks, Al Qaeda-inspired terrorists have infiltrated Iraq as security has deteriorated since the invasion, and now pose a direct threat to the United States.

But critics, including some former CIA officials, said those statements could mislead voters into believing that the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks are now fighting the United States in Iraq .

Michael Scheuer , the CIA’s former chief of operations against bin Laden in the late 1990s, said the comments of some GOP candidates seem to suggest that bin Laden is controlling the insurgency in Iraq, which he is not.

“There are at least 41 groups [worldwide] that have announced their allegiance to Osama bin Laden — and I will bet that none of them are directed by Osama bin Laden,” Scheuer said, pointing out that Al Qaeda in Iraq is not overseen by bin Laden.

Nonetheless, many GOP candidates have recently echoed Bush’s longstanding assertion that Iraq is the “central battlefront” in the worldwide war against Al Qaeda and have declared that Al Qaeda would make Iraq its base of operations if the United States withdraws — notions that Scheuer said do not withstand scrutiny.

“The idea that Al Qaeda will move its headquarters of operation from South Asia to Iraq is nonsense,” said Scheuer.

The belief that there is a clear connection between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks has been a key determinant of support for the war. A Harris poll taken two weeks before the 2004 presidential election found that a majority of Bush’s supporters believed that Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks — a claim that Bush has never made. Eighty-four percent believed that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had “strong links” with Al Qaeda, a claim that intelligence officials have long disputed.

But critics have maintained that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney encouraged these ideas by using misleading terms to describe the threat posed by Iraq before the war.

Bush, for instance, repeatedly spoke of Hussein’s support for terrorism — which many Americans apparently took to mean that Hussein supported Al Qaeda in its jihad against the United States. The administration, however, sourced that claim to Hussein’s backing of Palestinian terrorist groups targeting Israel.

Now, some GOP presidential candidates refer to “the terrorists” as one group, blurring distinctions between Al Qaeda, which has attacked the United States repeatedly, and groups that former intelligence officials say have not targeted the United States.

Romney said Friday: “You see, the terrorists are fighting a war on us. We’ve got to make sure that we’re fighting a war on them.”

Romney’s comment in the earlier debate that “they’ve come together as Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda” struck some former intelligence officials as particularly misleading. Shia and Sunni, they said, are branches of Islam and not terrorist groups. There are an estimated 300 million Sunni Muslims in the Middle East, many of them fighting Al Qaeda.

“Are Shia and Sunni together? Is the Muslim Brotherhood cooperating with all these other groups? No,” said Judith Yaphe, a former CIA Iraq analyst.

“There’s a tendency to exaggerate in a debate,” she added. “You push the envelope as far as you can.”

No point has been emphasized more strongly at GOP debates than the link between the Iraq war and Al Qaeda. During the debates about war funding, GOP leaders have downplayed the role of sectarian violence in Iraq and emphasized the role of Al Qaeda.

On Friday, McCain called any attempt to cut Iraq war funding, “the equivalent of waving a white flag to Al Qaeda.”

But specialists say that the enemy the military calls “Al Qaeda Iraq” is a combination of Iraqi jihadists and an unknown number of fighters from countries throughout the Middle East. “AQI” came together after the US invasion. And while there is evidence that AQI members coordinate attacks among themselves, there is little evidence that they coordinate closely with bin Laden.

In pressing his case for continued war funding, Bush last week said a previously classified intelligence report indicated that bin Laden had sent a messenger in early 2005 to urge the late Iraqi terrorist chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to aim more attacks at the United States.

But there is no further evidence that bin Laden, who is believed to be hiding along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, exerts control over Al Qaeda Iraq, according to a senior military official in Baghdad in an interview last week.

“We don’t have any direct information that would link Al Qaeda Iraq to getting e-mails, memos, whatever, from bin Laden,” the military official said, speaking under condition of anonymity.

A McCain spokesman said the senator did not mean to suggest in his debate comments that bin Laden was in Iraq. But aides to Romney and McCain, in interviews, insisted that the candidates are not exaggerating when they speak of bin Laden and the link between Al Qaeda and Iraq.

“The larger point shouldn’t be in dispute,” said Randy Scheunemann , McCain’s foreign policy adviser. “If there’s a territory where Al Qaeda is left unmolested, free to plan, conduct, and train for operations, they will do so.”

Romney’s national press secretary, Kevin Madden, said the former governor’s linking of Shia, Sunni, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood was based on their common hostility to the West. “I think [Romney’s statement] was much more directed at intent — they all share a common ideology or intent to bring down Western governments,” Madden said. “There’s a shared attempt to fight any beachhead of democracy in that region.”

Analysts say that Hamas and Hezbollah are participating in democratic governments and that the leaders of Shi’ite militias are part of the Iraqi government.

“All of the bad actors in the Middle East get mixed up in people’s minds,” said Andrew Kohut , director of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, which has polled extensively on views on Iraq. “That’s why it was easy to play on the perception that Saddam Hussein got together with Osama bin Laden and said ‘Let’s fly some planes into buildings.’ Saddam Hussein was seen as a bad guy in the Middle East, and so it all gets jumbled up in people’s thinking.”

George Tenet: liar, international criminal

Information Clearing House carries this no-nonsense indictment of George Tenet for cooperating with the “supreme international crime” of the war of aggression on Iraq.

Four-letter Word for Tenet: Liar
By Ray McGovern
Information Clearing House
May 16, 2007

If they question why we died,
Tell them because our fathers lied.
Rudyard Kipling

Mercifully, the flurry of media coverage of former CIA director George Tenet hawking his memoir, “At the Center of the Storm,” has abated. Buffeted by those on both right and left who see through his lame attempt at self-justification, Tenet probably now wishes he had opted to just fade away, as old soldiers used to do.

He listened instead to his old PR buddy and “co-author” Bill Harlow who failed miserably in trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. By this point, they may be having second thoughts. But, hey, the $4 million advance is a tidy sum, even when split two ways. Aside from the money, what else could they have been thinking?

Tenet’s book is a self-indictment for the crimes with which Socrates was charged: making the worse cause appear the better, and corrupting the youth.

But George is not the kind to take the hemlock. Rather, with no apparent shame, he accepted what one wag has labeled the “Presidential Medal of Silence” in return for agreeing to postpone his Nixon-style “modified limited hangout” until after the mid-term elections last November. The $4 million advance that Tenet and Harlow took for the book marked a shabby, inauspicious beginning to the effort to stitch together what remains of Tenet’s tattered reputation.

Here in Washington we are pretty much inured to effrontery, but Tenet’s book and tiresome interviews have earned him the degree for chutzpah summa cum laude. We are supposed to feel sorry for this pathetic soul, who could not muster the integrity simply to tell the truth and stave off unspeakable carnage in Iraq. Rather, when his masters lied to justify war, Tenet simply lacked the courage to tell his fellow citizens that America was about to launch what the post WWII Nuremberg Tribunal called the “supreme international crime”—a war of aggression.

Tenet’s pitiable apologia demonstrates once again not only that absolute power corrupts absolutely, but also that the corruption befouls all those nearby.

Cheney’s Chess

For those of prurient bent, the book offers a keyhole-peep into a White House of ill repute, with Vice President Dick Cheney playing at his chess board, moving sniveling pawns like Tenet from one square to another.

Someone should have told the former CIA director that unprovoked war is not some sort of game. Out of respect for the tens of thousands killed and maimed in Iraq, it is time to start calling spades spades. It was a high crime, a premeditated felony to have taken part in this conspiracy.

Not surprisingly, few of Tenet’s talk-show hosts were armed with enough facts to pierce the smoke and the arrogant now-you-listen-to-me approach from Bill Harlow’s PR toolbox. Whether out of ignorance or just habit, celebrity interviewers kept cutting Tenet more and more slack. Understandable, I suppose, for they, like Tenet, were enthusiastic cheerleaders for the attack on Iraq. And so, affable, hot-blooded George was allowed to filibuster, bob, weave, and blow still more smoke. Tenet should not be behind a microphone; he should be behind bars.

With nauseating earnestness, Tenet keeps saying:

“I believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

This is a lie. And no matter how many times he says it (after the axiom of his master, George W. Bush, who has stressed publicly that repetition is necessary to “catapult the propaganda”), Tenet can no longer conceal the deceit. Indeed, the only other possibility—that he is (as he complains) being made the useful “idiot” on whom Vice President Dick Cheney and others mean to blame the war—can be ruled out.

Tenet was indeed useful to Cheney and Bush, but he is no idiot. Those who do not rely exclusively on the corporate media for their information know Tenet for what he is—a charlatan. A willing co-conspirator, he did for Bush and Cheney what propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels did for Hitler. The key difference is that Goebbels and his Nazi collaborators, rather than writing books and taking sinecures to enrich themselves, were held accountable at Nuremberg.

Phantom Weapons of Mass Destruction

Tenet knew there were no WMD. Secret British documents reveal not only that Tenet told his British counterpart the intelligence was being “fixed” around the policy. They also show that Washington and London developed a scheme to “wrongfoot” Saddam Hussein by insisting on the kind of UN inspections they were sure he would reject, thus providing a convenient casus belli.

Saddam outfoxed them by allowing the most intrusive inspection regime in recent history. At the turn of 2002-03 UN inspectors were crawling all over Saddam’s palaces, interviewing his scientists, and pursuing every tip they could get from Tenet—and finding nothing.

What did satellite imagery show? Nothing, save for the embarrassingly inconclusive photos that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell displayed on Feb. 5, 2003 at the UN. Were there any photos of those biological weapons trailers reported by the shadowy Curveball? None. And so “artist renderings” were conjured up to show what these sinister trailers might look like.

At least the renderings produced by the CIA graphics shop were more professional than the crude forgeries upon which the fable about Iraq seeking uranium in Africa was based. And the Cheney-Rice-Judith Miller story about aluminum tubes for uranium enrichment got bent hopelessly out of shape as soon as genuine scientists (as opposed to Tenet’s stable of malleable engineers) got hold of them.

Exactly four years ago, amid the euphoria of Mission Accomplished and the incipient concern over the trouble encountered in finding WMD, then-deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz told writer Sam Tanenhaus of Vanity Fair that Iraq’s supposed cache of WMD had never been the most important casus belli. It was simply one of several reasons:

“For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on...Almost unnoticed but huge is another reason: removing Saddam will allow the U.S. to take its troops out of Saudi Arabia...”

Absence of Evidence

Who needs real evidence as opposed to allegations of WMD, when the name of the game is removing Saddam? But how to explain the blather about WMD in the lead-up to the war, when not one piece of imagery or other intelligence could confirm the presence of such weapons? Easy. Apply the Rumsfeld maxim: “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” And then explain further that the lack of evidence proves nothing but how clever the Iraqis have become at hiding their weapons. Don’t laugh; that’s what Rumsfeld and the neocons said.

That foolishness had run its course by March 2003 when, despite the best “leads” Tenet could provide and the intrusive inspection regime, the UN inspectors could find nothing. It was getting downright embarrassing for those bent on a belli without an ostensible casus, but by then enough troops were in place to conquer Iraq (or so thought Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz). At that point Bush told the UN to withdraw its inspectors promptly and let them watch the fireworks of shock and awe from a safer distance on TV. (The real shocker is President Bush repeated insistence that Saddam threw out the inspectors. But, again, he has so successfully “catapulted” this piece of propaganda that most Americans do not realize it is a lie.)

How did the White House conspirators think they could get away with all this? Well, don’t you remember Cheney saying we would be greeted as liberators...and Ken Neocon Adelman assuring us that it would be a “cakewalk?” We would defeat a fourth-rate army, remove a “ruthless dictator,” eliminate an adversary of Israel, and end up sitting atop all that oil with permanent military bases and no further need to station troops in Saudi Arabia. At that point, smiled the neocons, what spoilsport will be able to make political hay by insisting: Yes, but you did this on the basis of forgery, fakery; and where, by the way, are the weapons of mass destruction?

Granted that over recent weeks George Tenet has shown himself a bit dense beneath the bluster. Nevertheless, there is simply no defense on grounds of density—or gross ineptitude or momentary insanity. He clearly played a sustained role in the chicanery.

Okay; if you insist: let’s assume for a moment that Rumsfeld did actually succeed in convincing Tenet that the reason there was no evidence of WMD was because the Iraqis were so good at hiding them. What then?

Tenet does not get off the hook. There was, in fact, no absence of well sourced evidence that Saddam’s WMD had all been destroyed shortly after the Gulf War in 1991—yes, all of them.

You Go With the Evidence There Is

In 1995, when Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, defected with a treasure trove of documents, he spilled the beans on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. There were none. He knew. He was in charge of the chemical, biological, nuclear, and missile programs and ordered all such weapons destroyed before the UN inspectors could discover them after the war in 1991. He told us much more, and the information that could be checked out was confirmed.

The George-and-Condoleezza-must-have-just-missed-this-report excuse won’t wash, because Newsweek acquired a transcript of Kamel’s debriefing and broke the story on Feb. 24, 2003, several weeks before the war, noting gingerly that Kamel’s information “raises questions about whether the WMD stockpiles attributed to Iraq still exist.”

It was the kind of well-sourced documentary evidence after which intelligence analysts and lawyers positively lust. But the mainstream press dropped it like a hot potato after Bill Harlow (yes, Tenet’s co-author), in his role as CIA spokesperson, angrily protested (a bit too much) that the Newsweek story was “incorrect, bogus, wrong, untrue.” It was, rather, entirely correct; it was documentary—and not forged this time. Curiously, the name of Hussein Kamel shows up on a listing of Iraqis in the front of Tenet’s book, but nowhere in the text. Tenet and Harlow apparently decided to avoid calling attention to the fact that they suppressed information from a super source, preferring instead to help the White House grease the skids for war.

In late summer 2002 CIA operatives had a signal success. They had recruited Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri and had him working in place--for the U.S. Proud of their successful recruitment of a senior Iraqi official, officers of CIA’s clandestine service immediately sought and were given an early meeting with President Bush and his senior advisers.

The information Sabri had already passed to us had checked out well. Naively, the agency officers were expecting sighs of relief as they quoted him saying there were no WMD in Iraq. The information went over like a lead balloon, dispelling all excitement over this high-level penetration of the Iraqi government.

When the CIA officers got back to Headquarters and told colleagues what had just happened at the White House, those who had been tasking Naji Sabri asked whether they should seek additional intelligence from him on the subject. According to Tyler Drumheller, the division chief in charge of such collection, the answer was loud and clear: “Well, this isn’t about intel any more. This is about regime change.”

And then there was Curveball. Tenet and his deputy, John McLaughlin, played a direct role regarding the notorious “Curveball,” a former Iraqi taxi driver and convicted embezzler whom German intelligence deemed a mentally unstable alcoholic, who was "out of control." Unlike the unwelcome reporting from the Iraqi foreign minister, Curveball provided very welcome, if bogus, information on alleged mobile laboratories producing biological weapons in Iraq—grist for the “artist renderings” for Powell’s UN speech.

It was all a crock. And Tenet and McLaughlin both knew it, because Drumheller gave them chapter and verse before Powell's speech, and has now written a book about this sad story.

Moreover, the normally taciturn, but recently outspoken former director of State Department intelligence, Carl Ford, has noted that both Tenet and McLaughlin took a personal hand in writing a follow-up report aimed at salvaging what Curveball had said. Ford spared no words: The report “wasn’t just wrong, they lied...they should have been shot."

Nor can Tenet expunge from the record his witting cooperation in the cynical campaign to exploit the trauma we all felt after 9/11, by intimating a connection with that heinous event and Saddam Hussein. If, as Tenet now concedes, no significant connection could be established between Saddam and al-Qaeda, why did he sit quietly behind Powell at the UN as Powell spun a yarn about a "sinister nexus" between the two? That sorry exhibition destroyed what was left of the morale of honest CIA analysts who, until then, had courageously resisted intense pressure to endorse that evidence-less but explosive canard.

A Cropping Worth a Thousand Words

George Tenet's book includes a photo that is a metaphor for both the primary purpose of his memoir and its unintended result. Most will remember the famous photo of Colin Powell briefing the UN Security Council, with Tenet and then-US ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte sitting staunchly behind him. Well, on a centerfold page large enough to accommodate the familiar shot, the photo has been cropped to exclude Tenet altogether and include only Negroponte’s shoulder and nose (which, mercifully, he was not holding at the time.) This is an incredibly adolescent attempt to distance Tenet from that scandalous performance, even though he was the one most responsible for it. The cropping also suggests that Tenet and Harlow are only too aware that by including spurious “intelligence” in Powell’s speech and then sitting stoically behind him as if to validate it, Tenet visibly squandered CIA's most precious asset--credibility.

“It was a great presentation, but unfortunately the substance didn’t hold up,” blithely write Tenet and Harlow, without any trace of acknowledgment of the enormous consequences of the deception. In a Feb. 5, 2003 Memorandum for the President regarding Powell’s speech that day, we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) gave him an “A” for presentation, and a “C-” for content. (If we knew then what we know now we would of course have flunked him outright.) In the VIPS memo we warned the president that intelligence analysts were “increasingly distressed at the politicization of intelligence...and finding it hard to be heard above the drumbeat for war.”

That a war of choice was on the horizon was crystal clear—as were the consequences. We urged the president to “widen the discussion beyond violations of Resolution 1441,and beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.” We take no comfort in having got that one right. Former UN Chief Inspector and U.S. Marine Major, Scott Ritter, was screaming it from the rooftops (and was blacklisted by the domesticated media). It was a no-brainer.

Tenet Breaks Tenet

Tenet’s tell-some-but-not-all book is unwittingly self-incriminating in another key respect, an illustration of what happens when you have a politician, with PR help, running U.S. intelligence. Much of the Tenet/Harlow self-justifying prose is transparent to any observer who has been paying the slightest attention to issues of intelligence on Iraq over the past few years. What may not be fully clear is that, in his zeal to indict others and exculpate himself, Tenet plays fast and loose with a cardinal tenet of intelligence work. You don’t reveal confidential discussions with policymakers—and you especially don’t quote the president. You simply do not do that. For once you violate confidentiality, not only your effectiveness but also that of those who succeed you will be greatly impaired, if not ended.

In normal circumstances presidents have a right to expect that their conversations with advisers will be kept in strictest confidence, and not revealed later by some buffoon pushing a book. And it is the height of irresponsibility for an intelligence director to quote a president still in office. If the president and senior advisers are unable to count on confidences being kept, it becomes impossible to conduct sensible discussions on policy making.

Why do I say “in normal circumstances?” Because no president has the right to plan a war of aggression with high confidence that accomplices, or others that might become privy to such plans, will stay quiet and not blow the whistle. The oath we take to defend the Constitution of the United States supersedes any promise, explicit or implicit, to enable the president to commit crimes in our name. (And someone ought to tell that to Sen. Dick Durbin, who recently confessed that he knew the intelligence justification for war was a crock, but could not tell the American people because it was secret!)

Am I saying there are circumstances in which conscience may require divulging the confidential remarks of the president of the United States? Of course there are, and these circumstances are a case in point. But that, sadly, was/is far from George Tenet’s intent. That he sees fit now to violate the principle of confidentiality in a quixotic attempt at self-justification (and, yes, his share of the $4 million) betokens not only an adolescent narcissism oblivious to the importance of trust, but also a lack of genuine respect for policymakers, including the president. Those of us who have been privileged to brief the president’s father and other senior national security officials—and there must be a hundred of us by now—never violated that trust the way Tenet has done.

Most people do not know that personal access to the president and his top advisers was a rarity during most of the CIA’s first three decades. Regularized personal access by CIA officers did not begin until former director and then-vice president George H. W. Bush persuaded President Ronald Reagan to authorize the sharing of the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) in one-on-one morning briefings for the vice president, the secretaries of state and defense, and the president’s national security adviser. (With White House approval, we later added the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs as a daily consumer.)

These early morning briefings were conducted by us senior analysts who prepared the PDB (and badgered the drafter/analysts with all manner of questions) the day and night before. We were experienced intelligence professionals steeped in substance and just a secure telephone call away from the analysts we knew could provide additional, trustworthy detail if needed. It was a position of great trust.

Our ethos, our job, was to speak unvarnished truth to power, irrespective of the policy agendas of the officials we briefed. We were trusted to do that as honestly and professionally as possible. The last thing we needed was a CIA director looking over our shoulder—particularly one, like Tenet, not well schooled in the need to protect the credibility of intelligence by avoiding policy advocacy like the plague. During the Reagan presidency, the CIA director rarely joined us for the PDB briefings and did no pre-publication review. The director had quite enough on his plate. His was a dual job involving herding the cats of a scarcely manageable, multi-agency intelligence community, while trying to manage one agency (CIA) itself conceived with a serious birth defect.

A Structural Flaw

A most unfortunate flaw in the National Security Act of 1947 gave the CIA director not only responsibility for preparing unvarnished intelligence, but the additional duty “to perform other such functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the National Security Council may from time to time direct”—like running secret wars, as in Nicaragua; overthrowing governments, as in Iran, Guatemala, Chile; and applying President Bush-favored “alternative” methods of interrogation in secret prisons in violation of international and U.S. Army law, as in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This was hardly President Harry Truman’s original intent. Long after he left the White House, Truman addressed this directly in an article for the then independent Washington Post on Dec. 22, 1963:

“I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times policy-making arm of the government...I never had any thought of that when I set up the CIA.... I would like to see the CIA restored to its original assignment as the intelligence arm of the president...and its operational duties terminated or properly used elsewhere.


A pity no one listened to Truman. As a result, for the CIA director each of the two scarcely compatible jobs became full-time challenges. During my 27-year career I had a front-row seat watching nine directors, most of whom did their best to act with integrity and honesty, despite that noxious structural fault. And, if that were not enough, this difficult dual task was accompanied by the additional responsibility to manage the entire intelligence community (16 agencies now). This posed a tri-fold management challenge.

Tenet all but admits he was not up to it. I’m “no Jack Welch,” is the way he puts it. Equally unfortunate, he picked inexperienced managers distinguished only by their malleability, their subservience to the perceived wishes of the next level up. Perhaps the best case in point is John McLaughlin, the quintessential affable go-along-to-get-along functionary. McLaughlin very rarely made use of his prerogative as statutory deputy in charge of the intelligence community and did not become much involved in operations. At the top of his sins of commission was staffing substantive analysis with weak-reed supervisors, the easier to bend analytic conclusions to the prevailing winds from the White House and Pentagon.

As for poor misunderstood George, instead of tending to his knitting at CIA headquarters, he decided to hitch a ride downtown with the PDB briefer in the morning, and thus secure regular face time with his pal, the president. From all reports there were many “slam dunks” voiced in those very private discussions. Worse still, Tenet felt free to ignore substantive dissent from other intelligence agencies—a practice that, though occasionally tempting, NEVER makes real sense and was an abnegation of his major responsibility. He knew what the president wanted to hear. And the McLaughlin-protégé analysts knew it too. Not only did they serve it up to recipe, but they actually took steps to conceal from colleagues elsewhere in the intelligence community what their boss was telling the president. On those few occasions when colleagues from other agencies learned via the grapevine what Tenet was telling the president, they were aghast and, understandably, angry. But none of their own bosses, including Colin Powell, dared get crosswise with the Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal.

What Tenet should have told Bush? For starters, that:

--State Department analysts had heaped scorn on the Cheney fiction that Iraq had “reconstituted” its nuclear weapons program. They were, of course, right, but why make it harder for the president to keep a straight face when warning of mushroom clouds? Remember, it is not about Intel; it’s about regime change.

--State had described the cockamamie report about Iraq seeking uranium from Africa as “highly suspect” well before it was learned that this choice morsel was based on a forgery.

--Department of Energy analysts were having a riotous laugh at the thought those famous aluminum tubes could be somehow warped into use for uranium enrichment. The laugh, though, was mostly a mechanism to help suppress their rage over Tenet’s recruitment of pseudo-engineers to spin those aluminum artillery tubes into something more menacing.

--US Air Force intelligence experts thought hilarious the specter of Iraqi planes scarcely larger than the models seen on the Washington Monument grounds somehow flying to our shores to spray chemical or biological agents. But the Air Force, too, caved, acquiescing in their dissent being relegated to a footnote in the infamous National Intelligence Estimate of Oct. 1, 2002 on Iraqi WMD.

But Tenet knew what Bush wanted. And “action officer” Condoleezza could boil down the intelligence estimate into one page and read it to the president, if the opportunity affords itself.

Tenet’s Ave atque Vale in the preface to his book speaks volumes. One need read no further. He looks back unapologetically and with satisfaction on his long career as chief of intelligence, “not always successful, but...“striving to do what is right.”

“Son of immigrants John and Evangelia Tenet, who left their villages in Greece to give me that chance”...and give us George Tenet.

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.
Beware the Greeks bearing gifts.
Virgil

An earlier version of this article appeared on Consortiumnews.com

War profiteering in Iraq

Below is the testimony of documentary filmmaker Robert Greenwald to the U.S. House of Representatives about war profiteering in Iraq, as reported by Alternet. Some parts are truly astonishing, like this:

He saw Halliburton advertising a job for truck drivers in Iraq and he signed up. When Shane started telling me that empty trucks were being driven across dangerous stretches of desert, I assumed he was mistaken. Why would they do that? Then he explained that Halliburton got paid for the number of trips they took, regardless of whether they were carrying anything. These unnecessary trips where putting the lives of truckers at risk, exposing drivers and co-workers to attack. This was the result of cost-plus, no-bid contracts.

And this:

Another young Halliburton worker named James Logsdon told me about the burn pits. Burn pits are large dumps near military stations where they would burn equipment, trucks, trash, etc. If they ordered the wrong item, they'd throw it in the burn pit. If a tire blew on a piece of equipment, they'd throw the whole thing into the burn pit. The burn pits had so much equipment, they even gave them a nickname -- "Home Depot."

The trucker said he would get us some photos. And I naively asked, how big are they, the size of a backyard swimming pool? He laughed, and referred to one that he had seen that was 15 football fields large, and burned around the clock! It infuriated him to have to burn stuff rather then give it to the Iraqis or to the military. Yet Halliburton was being rewarded each time they billed the government for a new truck or new piece of equipment. With a cost- plus contract, the contractors receive a percentage of the money they spend. As Shane told me, "It's a legal way of stealing from the government or the taxpayers' money."

It's farcical to hear Republicans complain about the cost of school lunch programs and such things when their party (and their Vice President's company) is looting the Treasury with such abandon.

The Madness of the War Profiteering in Iraq
By Robert Greenwald
AlterNet
May 10, 2007

The following is Robert Greenwald's testimony to the House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Defense about war profiteering.

Thank you for inviting me to testify today. I appreciate the opportunity to share with you what I have learned in the course of making the documentary film, "Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers." Along with my colleagues at Brave New Films, I spent a year researching the experiences of soldiers, truck drivers and families affected by the presence of private military contractors in Iraq. They shared with us their harrowing experiences of how military privatization and war profiteering have affected their lives, and in some cases taken the life of a loved one.

It is their personal stories that compel me to testify today. I am not a lawyer or a financial specialist or a government expert, but I can tell you from my extensive first-hand experience with these folks that something is seriously wrong. We are hurting our country and the many patriots who serve in the military. Our taxpayer dollars are being spent, abused, mis-used, and wasted on profiteers. It is a true tragedy, and it is costing the lives of Americans and Iraqis.

Please let me introduce you to a few of these people and their stories.

Imagine someone with the exact same job as you, working next to you, but getting paid three times as much as you! We heard this story over and over again from the soldiers we interviewed. And in the case of US Army SPC David Mann, a radio repair technician who served in Iraq, he was even required to train KBR contractors to replace him. In "Iraq For Sale," David shared his frustration:

"When I could be actively becoming a better soldier and becoming more proficient in my job, instead I'm going to sit up on guard duty and wait around while KBR contractors are doing the job that I had to train them to do."

US Army specialist Anthony Lagouranis also spoke of the effects of the private contractors on the military:

"It certainly affected retention because I don't know why any military person would re-enlist to do the same job when they could get out of the military and make six times the money -- I really don't understand why they were outsourced. I mean, it seems like this is a military job and the military should be doing it. Especially because the more civilians you have out there, the more military people you need to guard them. So we're spreading us thin."

"Iraq For Sale" was seen by hundreds of thousands of people around the country, and I cannot tell you the number of soldiers who saw it and thanked us for exposing the toll that contracting and profiteering are taking on our armed forces and on the war in Iraq.

I was also appalled to learn of the amount of waste by contractors in Iraq.

I remember clearly my interview with Stewart Scott, a former Halliburton employee. With pain and rage in his voice, he said how dare Halliburton put its people up at five-star hotels, while the soldiers, who he was there to help, were sleeping on the ground. I did not believe in him at first, but then he began naming the hotels and the locations. It was all true.

I also spoke with Shane Ratliff, a truck driver from Ruby, South Carolina.

He saw Halliburton advertising a job for truck drivers in Iraq and he signed up. When Shane started telling me that empty trucks were being driven across dangerous stretches of desert, I assumed he was mistaken. Why would they do that? Then he explained that Halliburton got paid for the number of trips they took, regardless of whether they were carrying anything. These unnecessary trips where putting the lives of truckers at risk, exposing drivers and co-workers to attack. This was the result of cost-plus, no-bid contracts.

Another young Halliburton worker named James Logsdon told me about the burn pits. Burn pits are large dumps near military stations where they would burn equipment, trucks, trash, etc. If they ordered the wrong item, they'd throw it in the burn pit. If a tire blew on a piece of equipment, they'd throw the whole thing into the burn pit. The burn pits had so much equipment, they even gave them a nickname -- "Home Depot."

The trucker said he would get us some photos. And I naively asked, how big are they, the size of a backyard swimming pool? He laughed, and referred to one that he had seen that was 15 football fields large, and burned around the clock! It infuriated him to have to burn stuff rather then give it to the Iraqis or to the military. Yet Halliburton was being rewarded each time they billed the government for a new truck or new piece of equipment. With a cost- plus contract, the contractors receive a percentage of the money they spend. As Shane told me, "It's a legal way of stealing from the government or the taxpayers' money."

These costs eat up the money that could be used for other supplies.

Sgt. Phillip Slocum wrote to us and said, "In previous experiences I went off to war with extra everything, and then some. This time however, Uncle Sam sent me off with one pair of desert boots, two uniforms, and body armor that didn't fit."

Cost-plus and no-bid contracts are hopelessly undermining our efforts and costing the taxpayers billions. They do not operate within a free-market system and have no competition, but instead create a Stalinist system of rewarding cronies. In a letter from Sgt. Jon Lacore talking about the enormous amount of waste, he said, "I just can't believe that no one at all is going to jail for this or even being fired or forced to resign."

In my research, I was also shocked to discover the role of contractors in the tragedy of Abu Ghraib. Its images are seared into the minds of people throughout the world, yet few realize the role of CACI and its interrogators. As our team dug deeper and deeper into the numerous contracts, CACI and JP London kept appearing over and over. The Taguba report, the Fay report, and the Human Rights Watch report "By The Numbers" all made clear that CACI had played a significant role in the torture. As Pratap Chatterjee, head of CorpWatch has stated, CACI was using "information technology contracts through the department of Interior. So either somebody was in a big hurry or they did this deliberately so nobody would ever be able to track this ... CACI does a lot of work directly with OSD, Office of the Secretary of Defense."

And even after the investigations, there were no consequences; in fact, CACI continued to receive more and more contracts with no oversight. Later, CACI and JP London were even hired to process cases of fraud and incompetence by contractors! I kid you not -- CACI, a corporation that had profited enormously from the war and whose CEO JP London personally made $22,249,453 from his stock and salary in 2004 -- was being hired to oversee other contractors! This is a madhouse run amuck. And we need your help to fix this.

We know corporations are designed to create significant returns for its shareholders. Do we really believe they can and should be fighting for hearts and minds? Do we really think that the corporations with their legal commitment to profitability are to be given the responsibility for some of our country's most critical decisions and actions? Do we want corporations representing us in the battles for our country?

Robert Greenwald is the director/producer of "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism," as well as many other films. He is a board member of the Independent Media Institute, AlterNet's parent organization.

George McGovern attacks Dick Cheney

George McGovern defends himself from recent attacks by Dick Cheney and then goes on the offensive.

Cheney Is Wrong About Me, Wrong About War
by George S. McGovern
The Los Angeles Times
April 24, 2007

Vice President Dick Cheney recently attacked my 1972 presidential platform and contended that today’s Democratic Party has reverted to the views I advocated in 1972. In a sense, this is a compliment, both to me and the Democratic Party. Cheney intended no such compliment. Instead, he twisted my views and those of my party beyond recognition. The city where the vice president spoke, Chicago, is sometimes dubbed “the Windy City.” Cheney converted the chilly wind of Chicago into hot air.Cheney said that today’s Democrats have adopted my platform from the 1972 presidential race and that, in doing so, they will raise taxes. But my platform offered a balanced budget. I proposed nothing new without a carefully defined way of paying for it. By contrast, Cheney and his team have run the national debt to an all-time high.

He also said that the McGovern way is to surrender in Iraq and leave the U.S. exposed to new dangers. The truth is that I oppose the Iraq war, just as I opposed the Vietnam War, because these two conflicts have weakened the U.S. and diminished our standing in the world and our national security.

In the war of my youth, World War II, I volunteered for military service at the age of 19 and flew 35 combat missions, winning the Distinguished Flying Cross as the pilot of a B-24 bomber. By contrast, in the war of his youth, the Vietnam War, Cheney got five deferments and has never seen a day of combat - a record matched by President Bush.

Cheney charged that today’s Democrats don’t appreciate the terrorist danger when they move to end U.S. involvement in the Iraq war. The fact is that Bush and Cheney misled the public when they implied that Iraq was involved in the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks. That was the work of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda team. Cheney and Bush blew the effort to trap Bin Laden in Afghanistan by their sluggish and inept response after the 9/11 attacks.

They then foolishly sent U.S. forces into Iraq against the advice and experience of such knowledgeable men as former President George H.W. Bush, his secretary of State, James A. Baker III, and his national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft.

Just as the Bush administration mistakenly asserted Iraq’s involvement in the 9/11 attacks, it also falsely contended that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. When former Ambassador Joseph Wilson exploded the myth that Iraq attempted to obtain nuclear materials from Niger, Cheney’s top aide and other Bush officials leaked to the media that Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent (knowingly revealing the identity of a covert agent is illegal).

In attacking my positions in 1972 as representative of “that old party of the early 1970s,” Cheney seems oblivious to the realities of that time. Does he remember that the Democratic Party, with me in the lead, reformed the presidential nomination process to ensure that women, young people and minorities would be represented fairly? The so-called McGovern reform rules are still in effect and, indeed, have been largely copied by the Republicans.

The Democrats’ 1972 platform was also in the forefront in pushing for affordable healthcare, full employment with better wages, a stronger environmental and energy effort, support for education at every level and a foreign policy with less confrontation and belligerence and more cooperation and conciliation.

Cheney also still has his eyes closed to the folly of the Vietnam War, in which 58,000 young Americans and more than 2 million Vietnamese died. Vietnam was no threat to the United States.

On one point I do agree with Cheney: Today’s Democrats are taking positions on the Iraq war similar to the views I held toward the Vietnam War. But that is all to the good.

The war in Iraq has greatly increased the terrorist danger. There was little or no terrorism, insurgency or civil war in Iraq before Bush and Cheney took us into war there five years ago. Now Iraq has become a breeding ground of terrorism, a bloody insurgency against our troops and a civil war.

Beyond the deaths of more than 3,100 young Americans and an estimated 600,000 Iraqis, we have spent nearly $500 billion on the war, which has dragged on longer than World War II.

The Democrats are right. Let’s bring our troops home from this hopeless war.

There is one more point about 1972 for Cheney’s consideration. After winning 11 state primaries in a field of 16 contenders, I won the Democratic presidential nomination. I then lost the general election to President Nixon. Indeed, the entrenched incumbent president, with a campaign budget 10 times the size of mine, the power of the White House behind him and a highly negative and unethical campaign, defeated me overwhelmingly. But lest Cheney has forgotten, a few months after the election, investigations by the Senate and an impeachment proceeding in the House forced Nixon to become the only president in American history to resign the presidency in disgrace.

Who was the real loser of ‘72?

THE VICE PRESIDENT spoke with contempt of my ‘72 campaign, but he might do well to recall that I began that effort with these words: “I make one pledge above all others - to seek and speak the truth.” We made some costly tactical errors after winning the nomination, but I never broke my pledge to speak the truth. That is why I have never felt like a loser since 1972. In contrast, Cheney and Bush have repeatedly lied to the American people.

It is my firm belief that the Cheney-Bush team has committed offenses that are worse than those that drove Nixon, Vice President Spiro Agnew and Atty. Gen. John Mitchell from office after 1972. Indeed, as their repeated violations of the Constitution and federal statutes, as well as their repudiation of international law, come under increased consideration, I expect to see Cheney and Bush forced to resign their offices before 2008 is over.

Aside from a growing list of impeachable offenses, the vice president has demonstrated his ignorance of foreign policy by attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for visiting Syria. Apparently he thinks it is wrong to visit important Middle East states that sometimes disagree with us. Isn’t it generally agreed that Nixon’s greatest achievement was talking to the Chinese Communist leaders, which opened the door to that nation? And wasn’t President Reagan’s greatest achievement talking with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev until the two men worked out an end to the Cold War? Does Cheney believe that it’s better to go to war rather than talk with countries with which we have differences?

We, of course, already know that when Cheney endorses a war, he exempts himself from participation. On second thought, maybe it’s wise to keep Cheney off the battlefield - he might end up shooting his comrades rather than the enemy.

On a more serious note, instead of listening to the foolishness of the neoconservative ideologues, the Cheney-Bush team might better heed the words of a real conservative, Edmund Burke: “A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood.”

George S. McGovern is a former U.S. senator from South Dakota, was the Democratic nominee for president in 1972.