[OT] What Is "Terrorism?"

On 7 Jul 2003 20:11:53 -0700, (Kane)
wrote:


They got caught with their hand in the cookie jar somehow, and the US
called them on it. And I want us to continue our current course in
Iraq until it is truly a free country or proves itself to be
unrecoverable. Which ever.

It's my understanding that the people in charge of the U.S.
government do not intend either to promote or to allow
free, democratic elections in Iraq.
--
Cathy

On 11 Jul 2003 11:45:14 GMT, (Catherine
Woodgold) wrote:

They got caught with their hand in the cookie jar somehow, and the US
called them on it. And I want us to continue our current course in
Iraq until it is truly a free country or proves itself to be
unrecoverable. Which ever.

It's my understanding that the people in charge of the U.S.
government do not intend either to promote or to allow
free, democratic elections in Iraq.
--
Cathy

I think that we have to wait and see about that. I do find it
interesting that Noah Feldman (who grew up in an Orthodox
Jewish household) has been appointed to lead the writing of
the new Constitution. His qualifications are actually good and
he seems not to be opposed to the possibility that an Islamic
government may be able to implement such a democracy
which is highly unusual among those who advise Bush.
Whether or not he is allowed any power and whether or not
the Shi'ites and Sunnis will cooperate with him remains to be
seen. If he can bring this off, it would certainly change the
middle east and much of the world, for that matter.

Some information about Feldman he

http://tribunetimes.com/news/opinion...0306108143.htm

The interesting part of the article to me is this quote:

In Feldman's book, "After Jihad: America and the Struggle for
Islamic Democracy," he argues that one of the biggest
problems with U.S. policy in the region over the years has
been a Machiavellian willingness to support thugs so long as
they were pro-American.

"Western governments that pride themselves on their own
democratic character ... embrace dictators for reasons of
short-term self-interest, forgetting that in the long run the
support of autocracy undermines their own democratic values
and makes enemies of the people who are being oppressed
with Western complicity."

It is hardly a new critique, but it is significant for its timeliness
and considering that it is coming from someone who may
have strong influence in his work in the Office of
Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, where he
works on political modeling of a reconstructed Iraq.


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..
Outer Limits

toto wrote in message . ..
On 11 Jul 2003 11:45:14 GMT, (Catherine
Woodgold) wrote:

They got caught with their hand in the cookie jar somehow, and the US
called them on it. And I want us to continue our current course in
Iraq until it is truly a free country or proves itself to be
unrecoverable. Which ever.

It's my understanding that the people in charge of the U.S.
government do not intend either to promote or to allow
free, democratic elections in Iraq.
--
Cathy

I think that we have to wait and see about that.

The US occupying forces just called off elections a week or so
ago. The "problem" is that if an actual democratic election were
held, the sort of government likely to be voted in would likely not be
the sort of government the US elite wants to see in a country with the
world's second largest oil reserves.

I do find it
interesting that Noah Feldman (who grew up in an Orthodox
Jewish household) has been appointed to lead the writing of
the new Constitution.

But, in a truly "democratic" Iraq, shouldn't Iraqis themselves be
electing representatives who will draft a constitution rather than
someone handpicked by the occupying forces, however good his
qualifications may be?

His qualifications are actually good and
he seems not to be opposed to the possibility that an Islamic
government may be able to implement such a democracy
which is highly unusual among those who advise Bush.
Whether or not he is allowed any power and whether or not
the Shi'ites and Sunnis will cooperate with him remains to be
seen. If he can bring this off, it would certainly change the
middle east and much of the world, for that matter.

I hope you are right, Dorothy, but given the USA's past history
in the region I am extremely pessimistic. The USA has a long history
of hostility towards "democracy" in Arab countries, at least in my
dictionary's sense of the word.

Some information about Feldman he

http://tribunetimes.com/news/opinion...0306108143.htm

The interesting part of the article to me is this quote:

In Feldman's book, "After Jihad: America and the Struggle for
Islamic Democracy," he argues that one of the biggest
problems with U.S. policy in the region over the years has
been a Machiavellian willingness to support thugs so long as
they were pro-American.

Saddam Hussein himself is a classic example of this tradition.
We hear about how he killed his own people with chemical weapons, but
it is seldom mentioned in the mainstream US press that the USA sent
him the chemical precursors necessary to make those weapons. And
after he massacred thousands of Kurds in Hallabja, back in 1988,
Donald Rumsfeld personally flew to Baghdad to shake that mass
murderer's hand for a photo op.

We also sent Saddam live strains of anthrax and botulism for use
in making biological weapons. After the Gulf War, these exact same
strains were found being used in his biological weapons program.

"Western governments that pride themselves on their own
democratic character ... embrace dictators for reasons of
short-term self-interest, forgetting that in the long run the
support of autocracy undermines their own democratic values
and makes enemies of the people who are being oppressed
with Western complicity."

In the USA, civil liberties and privacy are under attack by the
administration of a President who was not elected, but got into power
by means of a judicial coup. In at least two cases that I am aware
of, US citizens are being held without charges and without access to
lawyers in flagrant violation of their civil rights, not to mention
hundreds of non-citizens in Guantanamo Bay. Once the proposed PATRIOT
II draft legislation becomes law, the government will have the power
to strip any US citizen of their citizenship and treat them just like
the other Guantanomo detainees.

This is the "democratic character" with which America "prides"
itself.


Chris (USA)

This is it. This is what war is really all about.

Chris (USA)


http://www.app.com/app2001/story/0,21133,765265,00.html

'I'm Hurting Right Now, Mom'
As war deaths mount, Toms River family waits for son's return
By Michael Amsel
The Asbury Park Press (New Jersey)

Sunday 13 July 2003

Spc. Shaun Cunningham always prided himself on his mental toughness.
As a chemical operations specialist with an Army field hospital near
Baghdad, Cunningham saw the horrific realities of the war, helping retrieve
bodies of fallen comrades from the field, shooting several enemy fighters in
gunbattles, trying his best not to be shocked at the level of violence he
witnessed.

But this was too much to bear.

At his feet were three U.S. soldiers who had been killed when their UH-60
Black Hawk helicopter crashed into the Tigris River. One body was nearly
decapitated. It was Cunningham's job to clean them up and put them in body
bags so they could be shipped back to the United States for proper funerals.

As Cunningham searched their pockets, looking for IDs, he realized he'd
met the men; they were flight medics he had helped outfit with protective
gear. A knot formed in his throat. Then, he came upon pictures of their
children and tears welled in his eyes.

"That's when the war really hit home with him," said his father, Richard
Cunningham.

As the war fades from our collective consciousness, families like the
Cunninghams of Toms River wait and worry, hoping their sons and
daughters will return home safely, and the nightmare will end. Each day, the
pain and longing gets more excruciating.

And the death toll mounts. Since the war with Iraq started March 19, at least
210 U.S. fighters have died. At least 80 have died since President Bush
declared an end to major combat on May 1.

Gen. Tommy Franks gave a stark assessment of the situation late last
week, warning that U.S. troops may have to remain in Iraq for another four
years. Each day, it seems, another U.S. soldier gets killed in a firefight or a
sneak attack.

Letters and e-mails from overseas bring comfort to concerned parents, but
they often carry with them images of abject horror. Images hard to stomach.

Poignant letter

Two weeks ago, Richard and Kathleen Cunningham received a letter dated
May 9 from Shaun, a 1997 graduate of Toms River High School East. He
wrote about a helicopter striking a power line before going down in the Tigris
River and told of the trauma he felt putting men into body bags.

"I had blood all over me, and all I could think about was this guy's wife and
kids who were in his wallet staring at me," Cunningham wrote. "I'm hurting
right now, mom, and I just needed to write and vent my feelings. The war is
over? Yeh, tell that to these guys' families."

Kathleen Cunningham said she can stomach the graphic detail of her
son's letters; it's the uncertainty of his future that gnaws at her insides.

"My heart breaks that my son has to see and endure things like that,"
Cunningham said. "I keep thinking: Will he be able to put all he has seen
aside when he comes home and live a normal life? These soldiers are
seeing so much, experiencing so much, I just don't know if they will be able
to go forward. I sincerely hope the Army helps them with therapy because
they certainly will need it."

Shannon Cunningham said she feels "beyond proud" when she reads her
brother's letters.

"It's overwhelming. There is no other way to say it," said Cunningham, 20. "I
never thought I would read stuff like that, written by my brother. I can't tell you
how proud I am of the things he has done."

The past week has been especially grueling for the Cunningham family.
Shaun is with the 21st Combat Support Hospital, A Company, in Balad, just
north of Baghdad, and his camp, Anaconda, has been under constant attack.

Friday, a female soldier in his camp committed suicide by shooting herself
in the stomach. Shaun e-mailed his parents about the suicide and said his
comrades are "getting real scared."

In another e-mail, dated July 8, Shaun wrote: "We have been getting hit with
mortars every night, and they are rocking the camp!!!! There was a major
gunbattle last night, and I got to take part in it. No one was hurt on our side,
but we killed many Iraqi. For the first time since I have been over here, I was
a little scared, with all the rounds coming in. Some people are having trouble
sleeping and are developing the shakes. Not me, though."

Later in the e-mail, almost as an afterthought, Shaun informed his parents
that he was getting promoted to sergeant and had received a Public Safety
Officer Medal of Valor. The award honors outstanding heroic deeds
performed above and beyond the call of duty.

"He said he would trade in all his medals just to come home," Rich
Cunningham said.

When life was different

Life was so simple, so carefree for the Cunninghams in 2001. Richard and
Kathleen were still basking in the glory of their youngest son, Chris, a
member of '99 Toms River East Little League team that made it to the United
States championship final in Williamsport, Pa.

Shannon, then 18, had secured a job as the hostess at the Olive Garden
restaurant in Toms River, and she was working with her brother Shaun, a
waiter. The two were inseparable. Shannon had struck up a friendship with
one of the cooks, Rob Rusiecki of Manchester, and Shaun had become
friends with another waiter, Tom Denning of Lacey's Lanoka Harbor section.

Two years later, the foursome remains linked. But now it is the Iraq war that
binds them together.

Sgt. Rob Rusiecki, Shannon's fiancee, is serving in Kuwait. Spc. Shaun
Cunningham is in Balad, a hotbed of activity, and Sgt. Tom Denning is at an
undisclosed area in the Persian Gulf.

"It's just so scary for me," Shannon said. "I know both Shaun and Rob are
targets. I read their letters and see the things they are going through, and I
get so frightened. The only thing that gets me through this is thinking about
when they all come home. How strong their friendship is going to be. How
special a bond they will have because of the war."

To relieve stress, Shannon has signed up for six summer-school courses,
three at Ocean County College, three at William Paterson University in
Wayne.

"I focus on school, my tests and my papers," Shannon said. "Anything to
divert my attention away from the war."

Letters home

While Shannon studies, her mother rereads letters from Shaun to ease the
pain, the longing. In a letter dated, April 18, Shaun wrote: "Welcome to
Baghdad, Iraq! I made it!!! The real exciting part was driving through all the
towns. The people were cheering and waving homemade American flags. I
gave this little Iraqi boy some water and candy and he gave me a hug and
said, 'No more Saddam.' He smiled and walked back to his mom."

"That letter really tugs at my heart," Kathleen Cunningham said. "It reminds
me that the Iraqi people are happy we did this for them. It tells me that Shaun
has a true sense of why we went over there."

Kathleen Cunningham said the letters always bring tears to her eyes --
especially the most recent one, dated May 9.

In it, Shaun wrote: "Mom, I'm telling you right now that if something should
happen to me, know that you and daddy are the best and I love my family a
lot. People are getting killed every day, and the look on their faces will stay
with me forever. I'm sure that you will hear about this (helicopter) crash
before this letter gets to you. Know that we acted honorably and the doctors
did everything they could to bring the men back to life. Say a prayer for them
and tell the church to also pray. Good soldiers, good men, now with God."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...7945990.column

A Firm Basis for Impeachment

By Robert Scheer
Los Angeles Times

Tuesday 15 July 2003

Does the president not read? Does his national security staff, led by
Condoleezza Rice, keep him in the dark about the most pressing issues of
the day? Or is this administration blatantly lying to the American people to
secure its ideological ends?

Those questions arise because of the White House admission that the
charge that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger was excised from a Bush
speech in October 2002 after the CIA and State Department insisted it was
unfounded. Bizarrely, however, three months later - without any additional
evidence emerging - that outrageous lie was inserted into the State of the
Union speech to justify the president's case for bypassing the United
Nations Security Council, for chasing U.N. inspectors out of Iraq and for
invading and occupying an oil-rich country.

This weekend, administration sources disclosed that CIA Director
George Tenet intervened in October to warn White House officials,
including deputy national security advisor Stephen Hadley, not to use the
Niger information because it was based on a single source. That source
proved to be a forged document with glaring inconsistencies.

Bush's top security aides, led by Hadley's boss, Rice, went along with
the CIA, and Bush's October speech was edited to eliminate the false
charge that Iraq was seeking to acquire uranium from Niger to create a
nuclear weapon.

We now know that before Bush's January speech, Robert G. Joseph,
the National Security Council individual who reports to Rice on nuclear
proliferation, was fully briefed by CIA analyst Alan Foley that the Niger
connection was no stronger than it had been in October. It is inconceivable
that in reviewing draft after draft of the State of the Union speech, NSC
staffers Hadley and Joseph failed to tell Rice that the president was about
to spread a big lie to justify going to war. On national security, the buck
doesn't stop with Tenet, the current fall guy. The buck stops with Bush and
his national security advisor, who is charged with funneling intelligence
data to the president. That included cluing in the president that the CIA's
concerns were backed by the State Department's conclusion that "the
claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are highly dubious."

For her part, Rice has tried to fend off controversy by claiming
ignorance. On "Meet the Press" in June, Rice claimed, "We did not know at
the time - no one knew at the time, in our circles - maybe someone knew
down in the bowels of the agency, but no one in our circles knew that there
were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery." On Friday, Rice
admitted that she had known the State Department intelligence unit "was
the one that within the overall intelligence estimate had objected to that
sentence" and that Secretary of State Colin Powell had refused to use the
Niger document in his presentation to the U.N. because of what she
described as long-standing concerns about its credibility. But Rice also
knew the case for bypassing U.N. inspections and invading Iraq required
demonstrating an imminent threat. The terrifying charge that Iraq was
hellbent on developing nuclear weapons would do the trick nicely.

However, with the discrediting of the Niger buy and the equally dubious
citation of a purchase of aluminum tubes (which turned out to be
inappropriate for the production of enriched uranium), one can imagine the
disappointment at the White House. There was no evidence for painting
Saddam Hussein as a nuclear threat.

The proper reaction should have been to support the U.N. inspectors in
doing their work in an efficient and timely fashion. We now know, and
perhaps the White House knew then, that the inspectors eventually would
come up empty-handed because no weapons of mass destruction
program existed - not even a stray vial of chemical and biological weapons
has been discovered. However, that would have obviated the
administration's key rationale for an invasion, so lies substituted for facts
that didn't exist.

And there, dear readers, exists the firm basis for bringing a charge of
impeachment against the president who employed lies to lead us into war.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/15/opinion/15KRUG.html

Pattern of Corruption

By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

Tuesday 15 July 2003

More than half of the U.S. Army's combat strength is now bogged
down in Iraq, which didn't have significant weapons of mass
destruction and wasn't supporting Al Qaeda. We have lost all
credibility with allies who might have provided meaningful support;
Tony Blair is still with us, but has lost the trust of his public. All this
puts us in a very weak position for dealing with real threats. Did I
mention that North Korea has been extracting fissionable material
from its fuel rods?

How did we get into this mess? The case of the bogus uranium
purchases wasn't an isolated instance. It was part of a broad pattern
of politicized, corrupted intelligence.

Literally before the dust had settled, Bush administration officials
began trying to use 9/11 to justify an attack on Iraq. Gen. Wesley Clark
says that he received calls on Sept. 11 from "people around the White
House" urging him to link that assault to Saddam Hussein. His
account seems to back up a CBS.com report last September,
headlined "Plans for Iraq Attack Began on 9/11," which quoted notes
taken by aides to Donald Rumsfeld on the day of the attack: "Go
massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

But an honest intelligence assessment would have raised
questions about why we were going after a country that hadn't
attacked us. It would also have suggested the strong possibility that
an invasion of Iraq would hurt, not help, U.S. security.

So the Iraq hawks set out to corrupt the process of intelligence
assessment. On one side, nobody was held accountable for the
failure to predict or prevent 9/11; on the other side, top intelligence
officials were expected to support the case for an Iraq war.

The story of how the threat from Iraq's alleged W.M.D.'s was hyped
is now, finally, coming out. But let's not forget the persistent claim that
Saddam was allied with Al Qaeda, which allowed the hawks to
pretend that the Iraq war had something to do with fighting terrorism.

As Greg Thielmann, a former State Department intelligence
official, said last week, U.S. intelligence analysts have consistently
agreed that Saddam did not have a "meaningful connection" to Al
Qaeda. Yet administration officials continually asserted such a
connection, even as they suppressed evidence showing real links
between Al Qaeda and Saudi Arabia.

And during the run-up to war, George Tenet, the C.I.A. director, was
willing to provide cover for his bosses - just as he did last weekend.
In an October 2002 letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee, he
made what looked like an assertion that there really were meaningful
connections between Saddam and Osama. Read closely, the letter is
evasive, but it served the administration's purpose.

What about the risk that an invasion of Iraq would weaken
America's security? Warnings from military experts that an extended
postwar occupation might severely strain U.S. forces have proved
precisely on the mark. But the hawks prevented any consideration of
this possibility. Before the war, one official told Newsweek that the
occupation might last no more than 30 to 60 days.

It gets worse. Knight Ridder newspapers report that a "small circle
of senior civilians in the Defense Department" were sure that their
favorite, Ahmad Chalabi, could easily be installed in power. They were
able to prevent skeptics from getting a hearing - and they had no
backup plan when efforts to anoint Mr. Chalabi, a millionaire
businessman, degenerated into farce.

So who will be held accountable? Mr. Tenet betrayed his office by
tailoring statements to reflect the interests of his political masters,
rather than the assessments of his staff - but that's not why he may
soon be fired. Yesterday USA Today reported that "some in the Bush
administration are arguing privately for a C.I.A. director who will be
unquestioningly loyal to the White House as committees demand
documents and call witnesses."

Not that the committees are likely to press very hard: Senator Pat
Roberts, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, seems
more concerned about protecting his party's leader than protecting
the country. "What concerns me most," he says, is "what appears to
be a campaign of press leaks by the C.I.A. in an effort to discredit the
president." In short, those who politicized intelligence in order to lead
us into war, at the expense of national security, hope to cover their
tracks by corrupting the system even further.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3063361.stm

Core of Weapons Case Crumbling
By Paul Reynolds
BBC News Online

Sunday 13 July 2003

Of the nine main conclusions in the British government document "Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction", not one has been shown to be conclusively
true.

The confusion evident about one of the claims, that Iraq sought uranium
from Niger despite having no civilian nuclear programme, is the latest
example of the process under which the allegations made so confidently last
September have been undermined.

The CIA has admitted that the claim should not have been in President
Bush's State of the Union speech.

The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently
sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa

President George W Bush in State of the Union address

It turns out that the CIA and the British intelligence agency MI6 passed
each other like ships in the night and did not share information.

Correspondents attending a Foreign Office briefing last week were
astounded when an official remarked that there had been no duty on Britain
to pass its information on Niger, which it obtained from "a foreign intelligence
service", to Washington as it was "up to the other intelligence service to do
so."

Apparently there is a protocol among intelligence services which could not
be broken despite the grave nature of the information and the use to which it
was put - in this case, to help justify going to war.

Even a CIA statement of explanation issued late last week was not quite
correct.

It said that the President's famous 16 words were accurate in that the
"British Government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa."

Mr Bush did not in fact simply mention a British "report" on the uranium.

He actually said that the British had "learned" that Iraq had sought these
supplies. He therefore hardened up the position.

Democratic Senator Carl Levin said on Sunday that this suggested intent
by the White House to exaggerate the threat from Iraq.

The nine main conclusions and the broad evidence which has emerged
about them are these:

1. "Iraq has a useable chemical and biological weapons capability which
has included recent production of chemical and biological agents."

No evidence of Iraq's useable capability has been found in terms of
manufacturing plants, bombs, rockets or actual chemical or biological
agents, nor any sign of recent production.

A mysterious truck has been found which the CIA says is a mobile
biological facility but this has not been accepted by all experts.

2. "Saddam continues to attach great importance to the possession of
weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles... He is determined to
retain these capabilities."

He may well have attached great importance to the possession of such
weapons but none has been found. The meaning of the word "capability" is
now key to this.

If the US and UK governments can show that Iraq maintained an active
expertise, amounting to a "programme", they will claim their case has been
made that Iraq violated UN resolutions.

3. "Iraq can deliver chemical and biological agents using an extensive
range of shells, bombs, sprayers and missiles."

Nothing major has been found so far. There was one aircraft adapted with
a sprayer but its capability was small.

4. "Iraq continues to work on developing nuclear weapons... Uranium has
been sought from Africa."

The UN watchdog the IAEA said there was no evidence for this up to the
start of the war and none has been found since. It is possible, though, that a
case could be made from a shopping list of items needed for such a
programme.

These include vacuum pumps, magnets, winding and balancing
machines - all listed in the British dossier. No details about these
purchasing attempts have been provided.

A claim that aluminium tubes were sought for this process was not wholly
accepted by the British assessment though it was by the American and has
subsequently not been proved.

The uranium claim is currently under question, though the British
Government stands by its allegation.

5. "Iraq possesses extended-range versions of the Scud ballistic missile."

No Scuds have been found. The British said Iraq might have up to 20, the
CIA said up to 12.

6. "Iraq's current military planning specifically envisages the use of
chemical and biological weapons."

That may have been the case but direct evidence from serving Iraqi
officers will be needed to prove it.

7. "The Iraqi military are able to deploy these weapons (chemical and
biological) within 45 minutes of a decision to do so."

The 45 minute claim is currently under question. It is said to come from "a
single source" probably a defector or Iraqi officer. It has not been proven.

8. "Iraq... is already taking steps to conceal and disperse sensitive
equipment."

This is a focus of the current American and British investigation being
carried out in Iraq by the Iraq Survey Group. One Iraqi scientist has come
forward to say that he hid blueprints of centrifuges under his roses but that
was in 1991.

If a pattern of concealment can be established, it would add to the
credibility of the allegations that Iraq wanted to defy the UN.

9. "Iraq's chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missile programme
are well funded."

Evidence will be needed from serving Iraqi officials backed up by
documents. Again, if a pattern of funding can be established, a case against
Iraq could be made but if the actual programmes did not exist, was the
funding of much use and in any case, how much was it?

President Bush and Prime Minister Blair will be meeting in Washington
later this week when they will discuss their strategy to justify the claims.

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/sto...6p-90699c.html

Bush Could be a One-Termer

By Michael Kramer
The New York Daily News

Sunday 13 July 2003

President Bush could lose the 2004 election. Before now, I didn't think
that was possible. Considering Bush's general popularity, political skills
that dwarf his father's and the prospective Democratic alternatives, I
thought Bush would win reelection - and probably easily.

What's changed? The prospect for a major scandal involving the
administration's arguments for going to war against Iraq and,
specifically, the President's cavalier, even arrogant, responses to the
charge that he and his aides distorted or exaggerated the intelligence on
which the case for battle rested.

This story, only now unfolding, is getting uglier every day.

Right now, the focus is on Bush's assertion, made in his Jan. 28 State
of the Union address, that deposed dictator Saddam Hussein had tried
to develop a nuclear weapons program by buying uranium in Africa.

The intel on which that claim was based, relying as it did on forged
documents, has now been shot down.

The key question is this: Did the administration know the intelligence
was bogus when the President used it to help justify toppling Saddam?

Over the past week, the White House position has shifted. At first, the
Bushies pointed to the careful way in which the President had said it was
the British who had uncovered the uranium evidence.

Then, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said, "The CIA
cleared the [State of the Union] speech in its entirety."

In that broadside, Rice went further, saying that if CIA head George
Tenet had said, "'Take this out of the speech,' it would have been gone."

Next, on Friday, the President echoed Rice: In Uganda, Bush said, "I
gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence
services."

Hours later, Tenet fell on his sword. In a written statement, the CIA chief
confirmed the President's account and said the 16-word sentence in
Bush's speech should "never" have been included, a mistake for which
he took responsibility as the agency's director.

One other piece of the drama deserves noting. A few days after Bush's
State of the Union address, Secretary of State Powell made the case for
war at the UN and pointedly refused to repeat the uranium charge - a
reluctance apparently based on the fact that State's own spooks had told
him the assertion couldn't be supported.

As the flap unfolded a few days ago, Powell told CNN's Larry King that
while he wasn't sure how the uranium allegation made it into Bush's
address, it was "not a deliberate attempt by the President to mislead or
exaggerate." That claim, Powell added, "is just ridiculous."

The White House believes Tenet's mea culpa will put the controversy to
rest, but there's something else about Bush's handling of this mess that
leads me to conclude the President's reelection could be in jeopardy.

A day before saying the "intelligence services" had "cleared" his State of
the Union speech, Bush told reporters, "One thing is certain: [Saddam
Hussein] is not trying to buy anything right now."

Leaving aside the administration's new admission that Saddam's still
alive - and therefore the chance that he might be trying to buy something
right now - the President's comment was an arrogant dismissal of those
who think this is a big deal, which it is.

Arrogance is something voters don't like. We want our leaders to be
confident - and to project confidence. We'll even accept the macho
jingoism in which this particular President often couches his confidence.

But the line between confidence and arrogance is thin, and when it's
crossed, all bets are off.

Recall that the first President Bush lost in 1992 because he seemed to
arrogantly dismiss the concerns many voters felt about the economy.
"Message: I care," Bush 41's infamous attempt to connect with voter
anxiety, was taken by many as proof that their patrician President didn't
even understand their pain, let alone feel it.

Bush 43 is a looser guy and a smarter pol than his dad, and in dealing
with today's economic troubles, he has not - or at least not yet- made the
same mistake.

But Bush's off-the-cuff comment about Saddam is a mistake in the
same zone of arrogance. If he keeps it up, it could cost him dearly. No
matter how Tenet and other administration figures move to protect the
President, the Democrats are sure to highlight the flap during the 2004
campaign.

Clinton factor

Now the difference between '92 and 2004 can be summed up in a
name: Bill Clinton. In other words, this Bush won't lose unless the
Democrats run a similarly charismatic candidate capable of appealing to
the vast center that determines presidential elections.

So far, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is exuding the most energy
on the Democratic side, yet he is the most left-leaning of the major
wanna-bes. In the end, it's hard to see Dean beating Bush, although it
isn't hard to see him capturing the Democratic nomination.

But it's still early in the '04 cycle, other Democrats could emerge and
Bush suddenly seems tone deaf to the trouble he's causing himself. We
could have a race after all.

http://www.sundayherald.com/35264

Niger and Iraq: the War's Biggest Lie?

By Neal Mackay
The Sunday Herald (UK)

Sunday 13 July 2003

Investigation: Neil Mackay reveals why everyone now
accepts that claims Saddam Hussein got uranium from
Africa are fraudulent ... except, that is, Britain's
beleaguered prime minister and his Cabinet supporters

In February 1999, Wissam Al Zahawie, the Iraqi ambassador to the Holy
See in Rome, set off on a series of diplomatic visits to several African
countries, including Niger. This trip triggered the allegations that Iraq was
trying to buy tons of uranium from Niger -- a claim which could yet prove
the most damning evidence that the British government exaggerated
intelligence to bolster its case for war on Iraq .

Some time after the Iraqi ambassador's trip to Niger, the Italian
intelligence service came into possession of forged documents claiming
Saddam was after Niger uranium. We now know these documents were
passed to MI6 and then handed by the British to the office of US
Vice-President Dick Cheney . The forgeries were then used by Bush and
Blair to scare the British and Americans and to box both Congress and
Parliament into supporting war. There are an increasing number of claims
suggesting Bush and Blair knew these documents were forged when they
used them as evidence that Saddam Hussein was putting together a
nuclear arsenal.

The truth behind claims that Blair's government 'sexed up' intelligence
reports that Saddam could mobilise weapons of mass destruction in 45
minutes may never be known, but the Niger forgeries lie like a smoking
gun covered in Britain's fingerprints. At some point Tony Blair is going to
have to answer questions about what the British government and MI6 were
up to.

The fact that the documents were forged matters less than the purpose to
which they were put. On September 24, 2002, Blair's dossier Iraq's
Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government
said: 'There is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant
quantities of uranium from Africa. Iraq has no active civil nuclear power
programme of nuclear power plants and, therefore, has no legitimate
reason to acquire uranium.'

On January 28, 2003, Bush, in his State of the Union address, said: 'The
British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought
significant quantities of uranium from Africa.' Bush didn't stop there -- later,
there was talk of 'mushroom clouds' unless Saddam was taken out.

It was the International Atomic Energy Agency which rumbled the
documents as forgeries -- a task that their experts were able to complete
in just a matter of hours. Here are just four examples of how easy it was to
work out the documents were, as one intelligence source said, 'total
bull****':

In a letter from the President of Niger a reference is made to the
constitution of May 12, 1965 -- but the constitution is dated August 9, 1999;

Another letter purports to be signed by Niger's foreign minister, but bears
the signature of Allele Elhadj Habibou, the minister between 1988-89;

An obsolete letterhead is used, including the wrong symbol for the
presidency, and references to state bodies such as the Supreme Military
Council and the Council for National Reconciliation are incompatible with
the letter's date;

It wasn't until just before the war began that Mohamed El Baradei, IAEA
director-general, told the UN Security Council on March 7 that his team and
'outside experts', had worked out that ' these documents ... are in fact not
authentic'.

Exactly who was behind the forgeries is unclear but the finger of
suspicion points towards some disaffected or bribed official in Niger .
What looks more certain is that Bush and Blair were warned the
documents were rubbish before El Baradei told the UN. The IAEA says it
sought evidence about the Niger connection from Britain and America
immediately after the US issued a state department factsheet on
December 19, 2002, headed 'Illustrative Examples of Omissions from the
Iraqi Declaration to the United Nations Security Council'. In it, under the
heading 'Nuclear Weapons', it reads: 'The declaration ignores efforts to
procure uranium from Niger. Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium
procurement?' But the IAEA, despite repeatedly begging the UK and US for
access to papers, wasn't given any documents until February 2003 -- six
weeks later.

Well before the IAEA rained on the pro-war parade, the CIA was telling its
masters in the Bush administration that the British intelligence on the
Niger connection was nonsense. Vice-President Dick Cheney's office
received the forged evidence in 2002 -- before Bush's State of the Union
address on January 28 this year -- and passed it to the CIA. The CIA then
dispatched former US ambassador Joseph C Wilson to Africa to check out
the claim. Wilson came back saying the intelligence was unreliable and
the CIA passed Cheney the assessment. Nevertheless, Bush kept the
claim in his speech, and Cheney said, just days before the war began in
March, that: 'We know (Saddam's) been absolutely trying to acquire
nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear
weapons.' He also poured scorn on the IAEA for saying the documents
were forged. 'I think Mr El Baradei frankly is wrong ... (The IAEA) has
consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was
doing. I don't have any reason to be lieve they're any more valid this time
than they've been in the past.'

Wilson said it was Cheney who forced the CIA to try to come up with a
credible threat from Iraqi nukes. 'I have little choice but to conclude that
some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons programme
was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. A legitimate argument can be
made that we went to war under false pretences,' he wrote. Wilson also
said: 'It really comes down to the administration misrepresenting the facts
on an issue that was a fundamental justification for going to war. It begs
the question: 'What else are they lying about?''

Wilson is no rogue official. He was lauded by George Bush Snr for
'fighting the good fight' after he became the last US diplomat to confront
Saddam in the run-up to the first Gulf war. The irony isn't lost on Wilson,
who says: 'I guess he didn't realise that one of these days I would carry
that fight against his son's administration.'

Greg Thielmann, director of the State Department's Office of Strategic,
Proliferation and Military Issues, says the State Department's Bureau of
Intelligence and Research ruled the Niger connection implausible and told
US Secretary of State Colin Powell. Thielmann also said Iraq posed no
nuclear threat, and Team Bush distorted intelligence to fit its drive for war.
Richard Kerr, a former CIA deputy director now leading a review of the
agency's pre-war intelligence on Iraqi WMDs, says intelligence was
ambiguous and the CIA was under pressure from the Bush
administration.

The CIA, in what one British intelligence source described as a 'wise
attempt at an ass-saving manoeuvre', also tried to have reference to Iraq's
uranium links to Niger deleted from Bush's State of the Union address.
CIA officials say they 'communicated significant doubts to the
administration about the evidence'. Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national
security adviser, disputes the claim, saying the CIA cleared the reference
made by Bush.

The CIA also tried to save Blair's ass too. In September, before
publication of the UK dossier citing the Niger connection, the CIA tried to
persuade Britain not to use the claim. CIA figures say the agency was
consulted by the UK and 'recommended against using that material'. Blair,
however, continues to defend the allegation, claiming the UK has separate
intelligence -- or 'non-documentary evidence' -- to back up the Niger claim,
proving Britain wasn't solely reliant on the forgeries. That's quite a different
tack to the White House, which shamefacedly admitted on Monday that
Bush's uranium claim was based on faulty British intelligence and
shouldn't have been included in the State of the Union address. But Bush
is determined not to find himself in the same situation as Blair -- facing
calls for his resignation over claims that he lied. On Friday, CIA director
George Tenet said he was to blame for Bush's use of the bogus uranium
claim . He said the insertion was a 'mistake', the CIA cleared the speech
and ' the President had every reason to believe the text presented to him
was sound'. But that doesn't tally with high-level intelligence that the Niger
claim was written into the President's Daily Brief -- one of the most
top-level intelligence assessments in the US, prepared by the CIA and
given to Bush and other very senior officials.

Also significant was the refusal by Colin Powell to use the uranium claim
when he addressed the UN on February 5 calling for war. On Thursday,
Powell said it was not 'sufficiently reliable'. With Bush trying to get off the
hook, Blair looks as if he could be twisting in the wind -- unless he has
this 'other evidence' to back up the Niger connection. It should be pointed
out that it would be extremely difficult for Niger to sell uranium in quantities
large enough to be weaponised as its mines are controlled by France and
its entire output goes to France, Japan and Spain. E xperts say it couldn't
be smuggled out unnoticed. One western diplomat said: 'As far as I know,
the only other evidence Britain has about the Niger connection is based on
intelligence coming from other western countries which saw the same
forgeries. Blair's claim that he has other evidence is nonsense. These
foreign intelligence agencies are basing their claims on the same
forgeries as the Brits.'

The diplomat's accusations tally with a letter sent in April, before the
White House climbdown, by the State Department to Democrat House of
Representative's member Henry Waxman, who has been demanding
answers on the deception carried out against the American and British
people. In it, the State Department admits that it received intelligence from
the UK and another 'western European ally' -- which many believe to be
Italy -- that Iraq was trying to buy Niger uranium. But it adds: 'not until March
4 did we learn that, in fact, the second western European government had
based its assessment on the evidence already available to the US that
was subsequently discredited'. In other words, as one intelligence source
said: 'It was based on the same crap the British used'. Given the letter is
dated April 29, this information invites the question: why did it take until last
week for the White House to admit the Niger connection was rubbish?

Another State Department letter to Waxman makes the astonishing
admission that when America handed the Niger documents to the IAEA
they included the qualification 'we cannot confirm these reports and have
questions regarding some specific claims' -- hardly the same tune that
Bush and Blair were singing with their claims that Saddam was chasing
down Niger uranium.

We know that Blair's 'other' evidence backing the Niger connection
includes second-hand or even third-hand intelligence -- and that it doesn't
come from the UK. Nor has this intelligence been passed to the IAEA (in
accordance with UN resolution 1414). The Foreign Office says: 'In the case
of uranium from Niger, we did not have any UK-originated intelligence to
pass on.'

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says the Niger uranium claim was based
on 'reliable evidence', which was not shared with the US. Although the
Foreign Affairs Select Committee hasn't seen the evidence either, Straw
told its chairman, Donald Anderson, the 'good reasons' for withholding the
intelligence from the US in a private session. Blair won't say why the
information is being kept under wraps , but he tells the nation there is no
reason to doubt its credibility.

Foreign Office minister Mike O'Brien said on June 10 that all relevant
information on Iraqi WMDs had been sent to weapons inspectors -- but
less than a month later he was contradicted by another Foreign Office
minister, Denis MacShane, saying the UK didn't give the IAEA any
information on Iraq seeking uranium. One senior western diplomat told
the Sunday Herald: 'There were more than 20 anomalies in the Niger
documents -- it is staggering any intelligence service could have believed
they were genuine for a moment.

'I know that the IAEA told Britain and America, two weeks before El
Baradei made his statement to the UN in March, that the documents were
forgeries, that the IAEA was going to publicly state the documents were
faked. At that point, the IAEA gave them a chance -- they asked the US and
UK if they had any other evidence to back up the claim apart from the Niger
forgeries. Britain and America should have reacted with shock and horror
when they found that the documents were fake -- but they did nothing, and
there was no attempt to dissuade the IAEA from its course of action.

'The IAEA had said it would follow up any other evidence pointing towards
a Niger connection . If the UK and US had had such evidence they could
have forwarded it and shut the IAEA up -- El Baradei would never have
gone public if that had happened. My analysis is that Britain has no other
credible evidence.' The source added: 'The weapons inspectors have
friends in the CIA and the State Department . They made sure the
documents made their way to the IAEA as they knew fine well they'd be
exposed as forgeries.

'If I was prosecuting someone in a court of law and I brought in what I
knew to be forgeries in an attempt to convict you, the case would be thrown
out immediately and it'd be me in the dock. The case wasn't thrown out
against Iraq, however, and what we are left with is an ominous sense of
the way intelligence was treated to promote war. There are only two
conclusions: one is that Britain has intelligence but kept it from the
weapons inspectors, which they should not have done under international
law, or that they don't have a thing. If they did have intelligence, then why
not show it to the world now the war is over'.

An IAEA source said the issue was 'now a matter for the UK and the USA
to deal with'. The IAEA, as well as UNMOVIC inspectors, feel discredited
and humiliated after their bruising encounters with the UK and US. One
UN diplomat said: 'They're bitter, but perhaps now they may have some
solace as the truth seems to be coming out. It's obvious that we could
have done this without a war -- but the evidence shows war would have
happened regardless of what the inspectors could have done as that was
the wish of Bush and Blair. Everyone, it seems, was working for peace --
except them.'

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0714-01.htm

Intelligence Unglued

by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Monday 14 July 2003

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President of the United States
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
SUBJECT: Intelligence Unglued

The glue that holds the Intelligence Community together is melting
under the hot lights of an awakened press. If you do not act quickly, your
intelligence capability will fall apart-with grave consequences for the
nation.

The Forgery Flap
By now you are all too familiar with the play-by-play. The
Iraq-seeking-uranium-in-Niger forgery is a microcosm of a mischievous
nexus of overarching problems. Instead of addressing these problems,
your senior staff are alternately covering up for one another and gently
stabbing one another in the back. CIA Director George Tenet's extracted,
unapologetic apology on July 11 was classic-I confess; she did it.

It is now dawning on our until-now somnolent press that your
national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, shepherds the foreign
affairs sections of your state-of-the-union address and that she, not
Tenet, is responsible for the forged information getting into the speech.
But the disingenuousness persists. Surely Dr. Rice cannot persist in her
insistence that she learned only on June 8, 2003 about former
ambassador Joseph Wilson's mission to Niger in February 2002, when
he determined that the Iraq-Niger report was a con-job. Wilson's findings
were duly reported to all concerned in early March 2002. And, if she
somehow missed that report, the New York Times' Nicholas Kristoff on
May 6 recounted chapter and verse on Wilson's mission, and the story
remained the talk of the town in the weeks that followed.

Rice's denials are reminiscent of her claim in spring 2002 that there
was no reporting suggesting that terrorists were planning to hijack
planes and slam them into buildings. In September, the joint
congressional committee on 9/11 came up with a dozen such reports.

Secretary of State Colin Powell's credibility, too, has taken serious
hits as continued non-discoveries of weapons in Iraq heap doubt on his
confident assertions to the UN. Although he was undoubtedly trying to be
helpful in trying to contain the Iraq-Niger forgery affair, his recent
description of your state-of-the-union words as "not totally outrageous"
was faint praise indeed. And his explanations as to why he made a point
to avoid using the forgery in the way you did was equally unhelpful.

Whatever Rice's or Powell's credibility, it is yours that matters. And, in
our view, the credibility of the intelligence community is an inseparably
close second. Attempts to dismiss or cover up the cynical use to which
the known forgery was put have been-well, incredible. The British have a
word for it: "dodgy." You need to put a quick end to the dodginess, if the
country is to have a functioning intelligence community.

The Vice President's Role
Attempts at cover up could easily be seen as comical, were the issue
not so serious. Highly revealing were Ari Fleisher's remarks early last
week, which set the tone for what followed. When asked about the
forgery, he noted tellingly-as if drawing on well memorized talking
points-that the Vice President was not guilty of anything. The
disingenuousness was capped on Friday, when George Tenet did his
awkward best to absolve the Vice President from responsibility.

To those of us who experienced Watergate these comments had an
eerie ring. That affair and others since have proven that cover-up can
assume proportions overshadowing the crime itself. All the more reason
to take early action to get the truth up and out.

There is just too much evidence that Ambassador Wilson was sent to
Niger at the behest of Vice President Cheney's office, and that Wilson's
findings were duly reported not only to that office but to others as well.
Equally important, it was Cheney who launched (in a major speech on
August 26, 2002) the concerted campaign to persuade Congress and
the American people that Saddam Hussein was about to get his hands
on nuclear weapons-a campaign that mushroomed, literally, in early
October with you and your senior advisers raising the specter of a
"mushroom cloud" being the first "smoking gun" we might observe.

That this campaign was based largely on information known to be
forged and that the campaign was used successfully to frighten our
elected representatives in Congress into voting for war is clear from the
bitter protestations of Rep. Henry Waxman and others. The politically
aware recognize that the same information was used, also successfully,
in the campaign leading up to the mid-term elections-a reality that
breeds a cynicism highly corrosive to our political process.

The fact that the forgery also crept into your state-of-the-union
address pales in significance in comparison with how it was used to
deceive Congress into voting on October 11 to authorize you to make war
on Iraq.

It was a deep insult to the integrity of the intelligence process that,
after the Vice President declared on August 26, 2002 that "we know that
Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons," the
National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) produced during the critical month
of September featured a fraudulent conclusion that "most analysts"
agreed with Cheney's assertion. This may help explain the anomaly of
Cheney's unprecedented "multiple visits" to CIA headquarters at the
time, as well as the many reports that CIA and other intelligence analysts
were feeling extraordinarily great pressure, accompanied by all manner
of intimidation tactics, to concur in that conclusion. As a coda to his
nuclear argument, Cheney told NBC's Meet the Press three days before
US/UK forces invaded Iraq: "we believe he (Saddam Hussein) has
reconstituted nuclear weapons."

Mr. Russert: ...the International Atomic Energy Agency said
he does not have a nuclear program; we disagree?

Vice President Cheney: I disagree, yes. And you'll find the
CIA, for example, and other key parts of the intelligence
community disagree...we know he has been absolutely
devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we
believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I
think Mr. ElBaradei (Director of the IAEA) frankly is wrong.

Contrary to what Cheney and the NIE said, the most knowledgeable
analysts-those who know Iraq and nuclear weapons-judged that the
evidence did not support that conclusion. They now have been proven
right.

Adding insult to injury, those chairing the NIE succumbed to the
pressure to adduce the known forgery as evidence to support the
Cheney line, and relegated the strong dissent of the State Department's
Bureau of Intelligence and Research (and the nuclear engineers in the
Department of Energy) to an inconspicuous footnote.

It is a curious turn of events. The drafters of the offending sentence
on the forgery in president's state-of-the-union speech say they were
working from the NIE. In ordinary circumstances an NIE would be the
preeminently authoritative source to rely upon; but in this case the NIE
itself had already been cooked to the recipe of high policy.

Joseph Wilson, the former US ambassador who visited Niger at
Cheney's request, enjoys wide respect (including, like several VIPS
members, warm encomia from your father). He is the consummate
diplomat. So highly disturbed is he, however, at the chicanery he has
witnessed that he allowed himself a very undiplomatic comment to a
reporter last week, wondering aloud "what else they are lying about."
Clearly, Wilson has concluded that the time for diplomatic language has
passed. It is clear that lies were told. Sad to say, it is equally clear that
your vice president led this campaign of deceit.

This was no case of petty corruption of the kind that forced Vice
President Spiro Agnew's resignation. This was a matter of war and
peace. Thousands have died. There is no end in sight.

Recommendation #1
We recommend that you call an abrupt halt to attempts to prove Vice
President Cheney "not guilty." His role has been so transparent that
such attempts will only erode further your own credibility. Equally
pernicious, from our perspective, is the likelihood that intelligence
analysts will conclude that the way to success is to acquiesce in the
cooking of their judgments, since those above them will not be held
accountable. We strongly recommend that you ask for Cheney's
immediate resignation. The Games Congress Plays

The unedifying dance by the various oversight committees of the
Congress over recent weeks offers proof, if further proof were needed,
that reliance on Congress to investigate in a non-partisan way is pie in
the sky. One need only to recall that Sen. Pat Roberts, Chair of the
Senate Intelligence Committee, has refused to agree to ask the FBI to
investigate the known forgery. Despite repeated attempts by others on
his committee to get him to bring in the FBI, Roberts has branded such a
move "inappropriate," without spelling out why.

Rep. Porter Goss, head of the House Intelligence Committee, is a
CIA alumnus and a passionate Republican and agency partisan. Goss
was largely responsible for the failure of the joint congressional
committee on 9/11, which he co-chaired last year. An unusually clear
indication of where Goss' loyalties lie can be seen in his admission that
after a leak to the press last spring he bowed to Cheney's insistence that
the FBI be sent to the Hill to investigate members and staff of the joint
committee-an unprecedented move reflecting blithe disregard for the
separation of powers and a blatant attempt at intimidation. (Congress
has its own capability to investigate such leaks.)

Henry Waxman's recent proposal to create yet another congressional
investigatory committee, patterned on the latest commission looking into
9/11, likewise holds little promise. To state the obvious about Congress,
politics is the nature of the beast. We have seen enough congressional
inquiries into the performance of intelligence to conclude that they are
usually as feckless as they are prolonged. And time cannot wait. As you
are aware, Gen. Brent Scowcroft performed yeoman's service as
National Security Adviser to your father and enjoys very wide respect.
There are few, if any, with his breadth of experience with the issues and
the institutions involved. In addition, he has avoided blind parroting of the
positions of your administration and thus would be seen as relatively
nonpartisan, even though serving at your pleasure. It seems a stroke of
good luck that he now chairs your President's Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board

Recommendation #2
We repeat, with an additional sense of urgency, the recommendation
in our last memorandum to you (May 1) that you appoint Gen. Brent
Scowcroft, Chair of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board to
head up an independent investigation into the use/abuse of intelligence
on Iraq. UN Inspectors

Your refusal to allow UN inspectors back into Iraq has left the
international community befuddled. Worse, it has fed suspicions that the
US does not want UN inspectors in country lest they impede efforts to
"plant" some "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, should efforts to
find them continue to fall short. The conventional wisdom is less
conspiratorial but equally unsatisfying. The cognoscenti in Washington
think tanks, for example, attribute your attitude to "pique." We find neither
the conspiracy nor the "pique" rationale persuasive. As we have admitted
before, we are at a loss to explain the barring of UN inspectors. Barring
the very people with the international mandate, the unique experience,
and the credibility to undertake a serious search for such weapons
defies logic. UN inspectors know Iraq, know the weaponry in question,
know the Iraqi scientists/engineers who have been involved, know how
the necessary materials are procured and processed; in short, have
precisely the expertise required. The challenge is as daunting as it is
immediate; and, clearly, the US needs all the help it can get. The lead
Wall Street Journal article of April 8 had it right: "If the US doesn't make
any undisputed discoveries of forbidden weapons, the failure will feed
already-widespread skepticism abroad about the motives for going to
war." As the events of last week show, that skepticism has now
mushroomed here at home as well.

Recommendation #3
We recommend that you immediately invite the UN inspectors back
into Iraq. This would go a long way toward refurbishing your credibility.
Equally important, it would help sort out the lessons learned for the
intelligence community and be an invaluable help to an investigation of
the kind we have suggested you direct Gen. Scowcroft to lead.

If Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity can be of any further
help to you in the days ahead, you need only ask.

Ray Close, Princeton, NJ
David MacMichael, Linden, VA
Raymond McGovern, Arlington, VA
Steering Committee
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity