Month: July 2004

Oh Please

The thrust of the SSIC report is that the CIA greatly overestimated the threat of Saddam Hussein and led our unsuspecting Dear Leader to invade Iraq on false pretenses. Imagine that. And one of the main documents cited in the SSIC report as proof of that claim was the October 2002 NIE report (that, incidentally, had to be specifically requested by Senators on the committee.)

Today’s LA Times notes that the SSIC report points to the fact that key revisions were made to the public version of this NIE, which is interesting because nobody knows who did it. Evidently, the public NIE was phrased in language that was much less ambiguous than the original CIA document:

During a briefing before the report was released, one committee aide said the Senate panel had asked Tenet and Stu Cohen — who, as acting chairman of the National Intelligence Council, oversaw production of the NIE — who was responsible for inserting those words into the unclassified document.

“They did not know and could not explain,” said the aide, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A similar degree of mystery surrounds the larger question of exactly how the classified NIE morphed into its unclassified version.

According to the committee report, the intelligence community began preparing an unclassified white paper on Iraq’s banned weapons in May 2002, at the request of the National Security Council.

Months later, as the administration began to make its public case for war, Congress requested an official NIE. Officials at the National Intelligence Council decided to merge the white paper with declassified elements of the NIE to produce the official unclassified version.

Yes, it’s quite a mystery as to who revised that NIE. One clue might be the fact that a month before the NIE was completed, the White House had released a “background paper” called “A Decade of Deception and Defiance” which very unambiguously laid out the case that Iraq was swimming in bio and chem weapons and could make a nuclear bomb in a matter of months. (Interestingly, this very same backround paper has recently been revealed to have used Judith Miller’s Chalabi-fed reporting over the CIA’s in at least one case.)

Now, this proves nothing about whether the White House “sexed up” the NIE but it’s a fact that the White House released a backround report in September of 2002 that made sweeping claims about Saddam’s WMD and terrorist ties. It is also a fact that the CIA created a classified National Intelligence Estimate a month or so later that was riddled with caveats and ambiguities about the Iraq threat. And it is now known that someone altered this classified NIE’s language for public consumption to reflect the unambiguous assertions set forth in the earlier White House backround paper.

“The fact that the NIE changed so dramatically from its classified to its unclassified form and broke all in one direction, toward a more dangerous scenario … I think was highly significant,” the committee’s vice chairman, Sen. John D. “Jay” Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), said Friday.

No kidding.

As The Yellowcake Turns

An interesting deconstruction of Steno Sue Schmidt’s article in today’s Wapo by Josh Marshall. Typically, Schmidt spins the GOP case against Joe Wilson and it’s the usual mix of innuendo, bad legal reasoning and inside baseball she’s known for. And it will undoubtedly take its toll on Wilson’s reputation among the kewl kidz as Schmidt’s special brand of whorish writing usually does.

When you cut through all the suggestive blather, the main theme seems to be that Wilson lied about his wife recommending him for the job, which even non-kewl kid Kevin Drum believes shoots Wilson’s credibility all to hell.

Now, I realize that Robert Novak and the rest will be crowing about this as if they’ve just uncovered the Rosetta Stone, but I don’t get it and I never did. From the beginning, the main thrust of the Rove/Novak item (which for some reason the White House thought would blow Wilson out of the water) was that Plame got Wilson the unpaid assignment which was apparently evidence that he’s whipped by his macho secret agent wife and therefore can’t be believed. It never made any sense, but I can see that it’s going to be trotted out again as the ultimate gotcha and that everybody’s going to be running around chasing this story when it has nothing to do with anything and never did. What would her recommendation, (whether Wilson later lied about it or not) have to do with his report?

I thought Hollywood was bad with the infighting and obsession with gossip and juvenile power games. But, DC media take the cake. If the Democrats want to get with the program they’d better learn to feed the media tittilating gossip and silly trivia to keep them running in circles. Frame any situation as soap opera and you can get your version of events into the mainstream.

Big Problem

I think we are all going to have to begin to come to grips with the fact that there is something terribly wrong with our military. It’s not just that the Bush administration opened the floodgates to any and all kinds of barbaric behavior. They lost all perspective and fanned the flames of a counterproductive bloodlust for their own purposes and we’ll be dealing with that for a generation at a minimum.

But, there is also something deeply amiss when a supposedly disciplined organization can deteriorate into utter chaos and depravity in the short time it took Abu Ghraib to become a hell on earth. And people knew. Lots of people knew, but it continued for months until one lowly soldier armed with irrefutable evidence finally blew the whistle.

U.S. News obtains all classified annexes to the Taguba report on Abu Ghraib:

The most comprehensive view yet of what went wrong at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, based on a review of all 106 classified annexes to the report of Major General Antonio Taguba, shows abuses were facilitated–and likely encouraged–by a chaotic and dangerous environment made worse by constant pressure from Washington to squeeze intelligence from detainees.

Daily life at Abu Ghraib, the documents show, included riots, prisoner escapes, shootings, corrupt Iraqi guards, filthy conditions, sexual misbehavior, bug-infested food, prisoner beatings and humiliations, and almost-daily mortar shellings from Iraqi insurgents. Troubles inside the prison were made worse still by a military command structure that was hopelessly broken.

[…]

Col. Henry Nelson, an Air Force psychiatrist who prepared a report for Taguba on Abu Ghraib, described it as a “new psychological battlefield,” and detailed the nature of the challenge faced by the Americans working in the overcrowded prison. “These detainees are male and female, young and old,” Nelson wrote; “they may be innocent, may have high intelligence value, or may be terrorists or criminals. No matter who they are, if they are at Abu Ghraib, they are remanded in deplorable, dangerous living conditions, as are soldiers.”

[…]

As the top commanders battled it out, soldiers at Abu Ghraib were confused over who was in charge, the documents show. Weak leadership in the prison meant soldiers couldn?t accomplish basic tasks, like feed their detainees, much less find someone to prosecute abuse. And without a clear chain of authority, some soldiers just ran wild. “One of the tower guards was shooting prisoners with lead balls and slingshot,” a company commander testified. Soldiers ran around wearing civilian clothes, and covered latrines with so much graffiti that a commander had them painted black, and then threatened to post a guard at each location. An Army captain allegedly secretly photographed female subordinates while they were showering in outside stalls.

The most serious riot, at Camp Vigilant, took place on the night of November 23 when guards shot and killed four detainees. “The prisoners were marching and yelling, ‘Down with Bush,’ and ‘Bush is bad,'” another Army review said. “They became violent and started throwing rocks at the guards, both in the towers and at the rovers around the wire…” Guards feared for their lives “the sky was black with rocks,” the report saidand a mass breakout appeared imminent. The review of the November riot cited the failure of guard commanders to post rules of engagement for dealing with insurrections. Soldiers were hesitant to shoot, and when they did shoot, they often didn?t know whether they were using lethal or non-lethal ammunition because they had mixed the ammo in their shotguns.

Another classified annex reported that the prison complex was seriously overcrowded, with detainees often held for months without ever being interrogated. Detainees walked around in knee-deep mud, “defecating and urinating all over the compounds,” said Capt. James Jones, commander of the 229th MP Battalion. “I don’t know how there’s not rioting every day,” he testified.

Among the more shocking exchanges revealed in the Taguba classified annexes are a series of E-mails sent by Major David Dinenna of the 320th MP Battalion. The E-mails, sent in October and November to Major William Green of the 800th MP Brigade, and copied to the higher chain of command, show a quixotic attempt to simply get the detainees at Abu Graib edible food. Dinenna pressed repeatedly for food that wouldn’t make prisoners vomit. He criticized the private food contractor for shorting the facility on hundreds of meals a day, and for providing food containing bugs, rats, and dirt.

“As each day goes by tension within the prison population increases,” Dinenna wrote. “…Simple fixes, food, would help tremendously.” Instead of getting help, Major Green scolded him. “Who is making the charges that there is dirt, bugs or what ever in the food?,” Major Green replied in an E-mail. “If it is the prisoners I would take it with a grain of salt.” Dinenna shot back: “Our MPs, Medics and field surgeon can easily identify bugs, rats, and dirt, and they did.” Ultimately, the food contract was not renewed, an Army spokeswoman says, although the contractor holds other contracts with the military.

There is no excuse for this callous attitude by officers in the American military in Iraq — a country we were ostensibly liberating. The insurgency was and is difficult. But, this complete institutional breakdown within just a few short months is shocking. We have a problem.

Much of the blame, of course, must be laid at the top. I’m reminded again of this letter from Josh Marshall’s friend in Iraq who wrote:

About the Army – Man, it hurts my heart to write this about an institution I dearly love but this army is completely dysfunctional, angry and is near losing its honor. We are back to the Army of 1968. I knew we were finished when I had a soldier point his Squad Automatic Weapons at me and my bodyguard detail for driving down the street when he decided he would cross the street in the middle of rush hour traffic (which was moving at about 70 MPH) … He made it clear to any and all that he was preparing to shoot drivers who did not stop for his jaunt because speeding cars are “threats.”

I also once had a soldier from a squad of Florida National Guard reservists raise weapons and kick the door panel of a clearly marked CPA security vehicle (big American flag in the windshield of a $150,000 armored Land Cruiser) because they wanted us to back away from them so they could change a tire … as far as they were concerned WE (non-soldiers) were equally the enemy as any Iraqi.

Unlike the wars of the past 20 years where the Army encouraged (needed) soldiers, NGOs, allies and civil organizations to work together to resolve matters and return to normal society, the US Forces only trust themselves here and that means they set their own limits and tolerances. Abu Ghuraib are good examples of that limit. I told a Journalist the other day that these kids here are being told that they are chasing Al Qaeda in the War on Terrorism so they think everyone at Abu Ghuraib had something to do with 9/11. So they were encouraged to make them pay. These kids thought they were going to be honored for hunting terrorists.

Since Bush came into office it seems as if he has made it his purpose to corrupt every single institution in the United States. From the Supreme Court to the press to the SEC to the US Military there is nothing left of us but the bare bones of the constitution and the hope that we at least have one more free election.

Neither anarchists or terrorists have ever been so efficient.

Spooky

The General has a scoop on Secret Agent Man and freelance prison warden, Keith Idema.

This is the shocker:

Well, the one identified as Jonathan Idema, appears to be “Jonathan “Keith” Idema,” a fine patriotic paintball enthusiast, former Green Beret, ex-con, “father” of a someday-to-be-cloned dog (I’m not making any of this up), a “civilian” military advisor to the Northern Alliance and the “finder” of all those Al Qaeda videotapes liberated from an Afghan house awhile back.

Yes, this is the patriot who provided one of the greatest intelligence successes of the Afghan War, or at least one of the greatest public relations successes of the war–remember, under Our Leader, perception is at least as, if not more, important than reality. Of course, our government has to distance itself from him now, but there’s little doubt that he served as a CIA contractor in the early stages of the war–It was a CIA operation.

Not that he was really working for the CIA or anything, but if he was, (hypothetically mind you) would hanging Afghans upside down by their feet be considered the equivalent of pain on the scale of organ failure? I don’t think so. No harm no foul.

Read the rest of the General’s post for more. This is war planned by the Farrelly Brothers.

Lick Bush and Dick in ’04

And, why does the New York Times think this is worth not just one, but two stories?

This year was Whoopi Goldberg’s turn. In her rambling monologue she made lewd jokes related to the president’s surname, which President Bush’s supporters pounced on as evidence of Democrats’ “sickness.”

[…]

The Bush campaign, however, immediately scolded Mr. Kerry for reportedly enjoying the show and demanded that his campaign release a video of the event to the public.

“At this event, there was a great deal of extreme venom and vitriol that spewed forth,” said Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the Bush campaign. ‘Both John Kerry and John Edwards lacked the leadership to stand up and say this kind of rhetoric is wrong and it demeans our civic discourse. The fact that John Kerry said these people represent the heart and soul of America shows just how far outside the mainstream John Kerry truly is.”

Oh my goodness, let’s see a fine example of mainstream Republican rhetoric, shall we? And it only went out to 30 million people or so, so it’s not as if it demeans our civic discourse.

During an appearance on last night’s “Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” comedian Dennis Miller unleashed a torrent of political humor aimed at Democrats who he says “are going to hell in a handbasket.”

[…]

“Those are frightening affairs. That is such an empty-headed scrum those Democratic debates. I tune in, you see all nine of them together, it’s like a Pez-dispenser séance.”

“You know all the Democrats are going to hell in a handbasket. Now they got [California’s] Nancy Pelosi. … You ever see she has that pop-eyed look all the time? I always thought she might be hyper-thyroid, but then I heard her speak a couple times. She’s stupid! The reason her eyes are so wide is that she’s as shocked as we are that she made it that high!”

“Robert Byrd, this guy stands there and lectures Bush in the well of the Senate. He was in the Ku Klux Klan! He’s demented. You know this guy’s burning the cross at both ends! And you know something, if Robert Byrd were your grandfather and he came to Thanksgiving dinner and went off one of these demented screeds, everybody would sit there smiling at him, and as soon as he left the room, somebody’d say, ‘Hey, what the hell are we gonna do about grandpa?'”

“And the Clintons won’t shut up. If that marriage were any more about convenience, they’d have to install a Slim-Jim rack and a Slurpee machine at the base of the bed. [Hillary] jumps on every opportunity to take a shot at Bush. They have a blackout in New York, she starts blaming it on Bush. You know, this woman doesn’t miss a trick – unless it’s the one her old man’s with on any given night.”

I don’t recall the Democrats calling a press conference and whining like a bunch of blubbering little sissies over that, but I could be mistaken.

These articles today are yet another perfect example of the press being useful idiots and conscious tools for the RNC. Limbaugh and his gang of thugs are on the air five days a week reaching tens of millions of people every single day, claiming that Democrats are filthy, traitorous enemies of America. (Not to mention his little S&M fantasies about torture to “blow off steam.”) But none of that is worthy of mention in two separate articles in the same paper discussing the problems of alleged “hate-filled” rhetoric at a Democratic fundraiser, which the Republicans are blatently flogging as an example of Kerry being outside the mainstream of America.

This must be what they mean by context, balance and objectivity at the NY Times. Very impressive. I know that Bush has Saddam’s pistol in the Oval Office, but I wonder if Rove has Pfc Lyndie Raines’ famous leash sitting on his desk in the White House? It’s such a perfect metaphor for his relationship with the press.

Life on Mars:

“I want Bush in there, because the other guy is like sending a boy to do a man’s job,” said Glenn Foldessy, 45, of Streetsboro, Ohio, outside Cleveland.

Back on planet Earth:

Dear Ken,

One of the sad things about old friends is that they seem to be getting older — just like you!

55 years old. Wow! That is really old.

Thank goodness you have such a young beautiful wife.

Laura and I value our friendship with you. Best wishes to Linda, your family and friends.

Your younger friend,

George W. Bush

Come And Get It, Little Heathers

Ok. I thought the Drudge “John-John” item was funny and I even posted about it. And it is. But if anyone thinks it’s just some sort of one-off joke, think again.

From Wes “wish I was in the land of cotton” Pruden, editor of the Washington Times:

The two Johns lock eyes frequently in deep contact and stop barely short of demonstrating what great kissers they may be. Monsieur Kerry might yet give us a demonstration of French kissing but, if he does, Mr. Edwards, a good ol’ Carolina boy after all, will be entitled to slap his face. (Secret Service bodyguards, take note.)

Over the past two days, since Monsieur Kerry introduced his running mate at his wife’s estate near Pittsburgh, “candidate handling,” in the description of the Drudge Report, “has become the top buzz on the trail.”

“I’ve been covering Washington and politics for 30 years [said one wire-service photographer]. I can say I’ve never seen this much touching between two men, publicly.” Indeed, editors determined to preserve the appearance of a little presidential dignity and campaign decorum on “the trail” are frustrated in their search for photographs suitable for a respectable mainstream newspaper. The photographers, keen competitors for the most startling shot of the day, naturally love it.

The candidates are giving the term “Johns,” heretofore familiar only in certain neighborhoods illuminated by the glow of dim red lights, an entirely new meaning. These buff and manly Johns are only following instructions to demonstrate warmth — cuddly warmth though it may be — to contrast with the chilly Republican images projected by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who keep their legs crossed and their hands to themselves at all times. No one imagines George W. inspecting Dick Cheney’s cheek for razor burn in anticipation of a friendly kiss to greet the day. The president, after all, is the scion of generations of reserved and genteel WASP breeding, and the veep is a man from Wyoming, where the wrong kind of familiarity can invite a swift and fatal case of lead poisoning.

Besides, says a Kerry spokesperson, “I think we’re just seeing genuine affection between them.” But he adds nervously, “I hope we do not see them wearing matching outfits when they ride bikes together this weekend.” No one suggests that Monsieur Kerry, who sent the Viet Cong fleeing into wild retreat into Cambodia and Laos after serving just four months in Vietnam, is any less a man than John Wayne or Clint Eastwood. John Edwards’ smile makes even a feminist’s heart throb with erotic speculation. The carefully calculated “candidate handling” is merely a pose to reassure voters that Monsieur Kerry does, too, have a pulse. All that’s expected of John Edwards is that he learn to hug (but not kiss) in French. The rest of us will just have to grin and bear it, but from a distance. November is only five months away.

This theme is one of those snotty, RNC-fed bitch items designed to thrill the little mediawhores and make them subconsciously further the image of Democrats as “soft.” And, it’s about making the little tarts mindlessly portray Junior and Gepetto as the “real men” instead of the empty codpiece and the flaccid chickenhawk they are.

They are very clever with this stuff. The tone is nasty elitist, both frat-boy macho and cheerleader exclusive, the greater purpose being to plant the seed in the minds of Wolfie, MoDo, Timmy and the other Heathers, which is best accomplished by using this patented high school form of ridicule.

As the incomparable Sommerby wrote today:

Our modern press is itself a high elite; despite pious tales about Buffalo boyhoods, its opinion leaders are all multimillionaires, and even hard-charging young elite scribes know they’re on the millionaire track—and they’re careful not to blow it by getting outside the narrow confines of their elders’ world view. Most of these upscale scribes have little class perspective to suppress in the first place. But beyond that, they have no incentive to challenge their group’s perspectives, and that helps explain the nasty treatment Moore’s film has received in the press. After all, is there any elite more phony and fake than the one that is currently trashing Moore’s film? And make no mistake—these overpaid and pampered poodles tend to identify, not with Moore, but with the powdered phonies he mocks.

Republicans understand them because their lives have been shaped by the image of spoiled rich adolescence as well — an immature elitism, born of social climbing and emotional sado-masochism. They are of the same tribe.

The John-John thing is a joke, to be sure. But, there’s a message and they are confident that the mediaqueens will take the bait. They may not pass it on verbatim, but every time they get together they’ll be mentioning it with hushed giggles and raised eyebrows. No doubt everyone at The Note just howled when they read Pruden’s little screed this morning. He’s such a delicious little bitch, isn’t he? Pass it on.

Let’s Role Model

Kevin tells me that good, decent Americans are having prissy fits over last night’s descent into moral depravity in NYC. The shame, the decadence the…political hate speech!!! Dear Gawd, will they ever stop???

When asked this morning about the lewd, hate mongering Democrats, President Bush said solemly, “John Kerry is a major league asshole. Fuck him, we’re taking him out.” Dick Cheney added, “Big time. He can go fuck himself.”

God bless the grown-ups of the GOP.

Promise Keeping

In the spirit of the generous advice David Brooks gave to the Democrats on the issue of our lack of proper religiosity, I’d like to return the favor. I’d like to suggest that if the Republicans want to win this fall, they need to embrace this concept with everything they’ve got. The whole “women should be subordinate to their husbands” idea is one their caucus should run on all across the country. The time has come.

It’s true that this might, on first glance, seem counterintuitive considering that most women would burst into wild gales of laughter at the mere idea, but you have to understand that the idea hasn’t been adequately explained before. Just because the woman is supposed to “place herself under the authority of the man” doesn’t mean it’s a one way street. As Orrin Hatch says, “I don’t think anybody can read this without understanding husbands have tremendous obligations in order to gain the respect of their wives.”

See? It’s not like the man gets off scott free. He has to do a bunch of stuff too. That’s what these bitche…er ladies don’t understand. And that’s what our new federal judge, J. Leon Holmes, is going to help them understand — just like he helps 13 year old rape victims understand that they have to bear their father’s child.

Like I said, I think the GOP has a winner with this campaign theme. If the Democrats bring it up over and over and over again — after all, every single one of the Republican senators voted for it — it will be bad news for them. There are many tens of millions of women in this country who are just dying to vote for a party that thinks women should be subserviant to men. It would be a terrible mistake to try to hang this around Republican necks. Honest. I mean that. Don’t go there.

Wouldn’t You Know It

Talk about your bad luck.

Pentagon Says Bush Records of Service Were Destroyed

Military records that could help establish President Bush’s whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have been inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon.

It said the payroll records of “numerous service members,” including former First Lt. Bush, had been ruined in 1996 and 1997 by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service during a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm. No back-up paper copies could be found, it added in notices dated June 25.

The destroyed records cover three months of a period in 1972 and 1973 when Mr. Bush’s claims of service in Alabama are in question.

The disclosure appeared to catch some experts, both pro-Bush and con, by surprise. Even the retired lieutenant colonel who studied Mr. Bush’s records for the White House, Albert C. Lloyd of Austin, said it came as news to him.

The loss was announced by the Defense Department’s Office of Freedom of Information and Security Review in letters to The New York Times and other news organizations that for nearly half a year have sought Mr. Bush’s complete service file under the open-records law.

There was no mention of the loss, for example, when White House officials released hundreds of pages of the President’s military records last February in an effort to stem Democratic accusations that he was “AWOL” for a time during his commitment to fly at home in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director who has said that the released records confirmed the president’s fulfillment of his National Guard commitment, did not return two calls for a response.

The disclosure that the payroll records had been destroyed came in a letter signed by C. Y. Talbott, chief of the Pentagon’s Freedom of Information Office, who forwarded a CD-Rom of hundreds of records that Mr. Bush has previously released, along with images of punch-card records. Sixty pages of Mr. Bush’s medical file and some other records were excluded on privacy grounds, Mr. Talbott wrote.

He said in the letter that he could not provide complete payroll records, explaining, “The Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) has advised of the inadvertent destruction of microfilm containing certain National Guard payroll records.”

He went on: “In 1996 and 1997, DFAS engaged with limited success in a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm. During this process the microfilm payroll records of numerous service members were damaged, including from the first quarter of 1969 (Jan. 1 to March 31) and the third quarter of 1972 (July 1 to Sept. 30). President Bush’s payroll records for these two quarters were among the records destroyed. Searches for backup paper copies of the missing records were unsuccessful.”

I seem to recall that this used to be the kind of thing for which we assigned special prosecutors and held televised congressional hearings. But that was when we had a president who had no honor and integrity so it was different.

This is just one more of the hundreds of felicitous coincidences that have beset our Crusader Codpiece over the years. Just because people have been trying to get ahold of those records for ages and it’s only now that we find out that they were destroyed seven or eight years ago is no reason to be suspicious. I’ll bet Junior is just mad as heck about the whole business. The one thing he really wanted to do was clear this thing up before the election.