Wednesday, July 30, 2003

 
911 Report: Rice Lied About Pre-911 Intelligence

The congressional report on pre-Sept. 11 intelligence calls into question answers that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice gave the public last year about the White House's knowledge of terrorism threats.

It's a fresh credibility issue for the adviser whose remarks about prewar Iraq information also have been questioned by members of Congress.

President Bush's adviser told the public in May 2002 that a pre-Sept. 11 intelligence briefing for the president on terrorism contained only a general warning of threats and largely historical information, not specific plots, the report said.

But the authors of the congressional report, released last week, stated the briefing given to the president a month before the suicide hijackings included recent intelligence that al-Qaida was planning to send operatives to the United States to carry out an attack using high explosives.

The White House defended Rice, saying her answers were accurate given what she could state publicly at the time about still-classified information and that Bush retains full confidence in Rice.

"She is strongly committed with the president to making America safer," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.

The Sept. 11 congressional investigators underscore their point three times in their report, using nearly identical language to contrast Rice's answers with the actual information in the presidential briefing.

Bush's daily briefing on Aug. 6, 2001, contained "information acquired in May 2001 that indicated a group of [Osama] bin Laden supporters was planning attacks in the United States with explosives," the report said.

A footnote to that passage compares the information with what Rice told the public at a May 16, 2002, news conference.

Rice "stated, however, that the report did not contain specific warning information, but only a generalized warning, and did not contain information that al-Qaida was discussing a particular planned attack against a specific target at any specific time, place, or by any specific method," the footnote said.

At the same May 2002 press briefing, Rice also said that "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."

But the congressional report states that "from at least 1994, and continuing into the summer of 2001, the Intelligence Community received information indicating that terrorists were contemplating, among other means of attack, the use of aircraft as weapons."

The report says that Rice and other top officials seemed unaware of the intelligence and concludes the information must not have been widely circulated. - Article

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posted by Thomas Ball 10:05 AM

 
As Bush Loyalist, Colin Powell Cannot Function Without Lying

Colin Powell has escaped the controversy that has engulfed President Bush and the intelligence services over the president's use of discredited information in his State of the Union speech. Powell didn't use those now-infamous 16 words about an alleged Iraqi attempt to purchase uranium in Africa when he addressed the U.N. Security Council in February.

But Powell isn't off the hook. The intelligence he did use was equally dubious while arguably more persuasive.

In his Feb. 5 brief making the case for war, the secretary of state repeated the canard that Saddam Hussein had forged close ties to al-Qaida, cementing in the minds of many Americans a tie-in between Saddam and Sept. 11. It was that false connection -- never explicitly stated, but implied by several administration spokesmen -- that helped President Bush to win popular support for his invasion of Iraq. (By October 2002, more than two-thirds of Americans believed -- wrongly -- that Saddam had a hand in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, according to the Pew Research Center.)

Yet, as weapons of mass destruction have not been discovered, neither has any evidence that Saddam had made common cause with Osama bin Laden. That's no surprise. The claims of an alliance between Iraq and al-Qaida were never credible.

While bin Laden is a religious fundamentalist, Saddam is a secular tyrant who worships only himself. Besides, Saddam knew that he was closely watched by U.S. intelligence services. It's unlikely he would further inflame the U.S. by linking up with Osama.

So why would a man of Powell's intelligence and integrity -- not to mention caution -- make such an implausible claim? Why would a former military commander of Powell's stature allow young men and women to be sent off to war under false pretenses?

Powell was undoubtedly under intense pressure to get with Bush's program. The White House badly wanted to connect Saddam and Osama, regardless of whether the facts supported it. As early as Sept. 12, 2001, according to Bob Woodward's book, "Bush at War," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld proposed invading Iraq. (And a government-in-exile of neoconservatives, the Project for a New American Century, had suggested toppling Saddam in the 1990s.)

The charitable view of Powell's conduct is that he believed he had a better chance of persuading the White House to moderate its policies on Iraq -- at least by building a strong coalition of allies -- if he were seen as a team player. It didn't work. Instead, the White House ended up using Powell's considerable credibility to build support for a risky and farfetched scheme to remake the Middle East.

So far, that scheme has not worked out as the White House planned. Iraq is a mess; the occupation is costing $4 billion a month; and the Middle East may end up less, not more, stable.

Worse, as Gen. John Abizaid, commander of allied forces in Iraq, finally acknowledged last week, the war is not over. "It's low-intensity conflict, in our doctrinal terms, but it's war, however you describe it."

Indeed, an American soldier dies nearly every day.

Powell probably couldn't have stopped this war, no matter what he said or did. Bush was determined to invade under any pretext.

But Powell didn't have to add the sheen of his credibility to this grotesque misadventure. He might simply have resigned -- a move which would have sent a signal to allies and the American public alike about the dubiousness of this enterprise.

Reflecting on his experiences in Vietnam in his autobiography, "My American Journey," Powell wrote: "I had gone off to Vietnam in 1962 standing on a bedrock of principle and conviction. And I had watched that foundation eroded by euphemisms, lies and self-deception."

Having discerned what author Neil Sheehan called the "bright shining lie" in Southeast Asia, an older Powell not only failed to discern it in Iraq, he became part of it. - Article

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posted by Thomas Ball 9:59 AM

 
'Operation Rockingham', Established by UK Ministry of Defense in 1991: Set Up to 'Cherry-Pick' Intelligence Proving an Active Iraqi WMD Program

BRITAIN ran a covert 'dirty tricks' operation designed specifically to produce misleading intelligence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction to give the UK a justifiable excuse to wage war on Iraq.
Operation Rockingham, established by the Defence Intelligence Staff within the Ministry of Defence in 1991, was set up to 'cherry-pick' intelligence proving an active Iraqi WMD programme and to ignore and quash intelligence which indicated that Saddam's stockpiles had been destroyed or wound down.

The existence of Operation Rockingham has been confirmed by Scott Ritter, the former UN chief weapons inspector, and a US military intelligence officer. He knew members of the Operation Rockingham team and described the unit as 'dangerous', but insisted they were not 'rogue agents' acting without government backing. 'This policy was coming from the very highest levels,' he added.

'Rockingham was spinning reports and emphasising reports that showed non-compliance (by Iraq with UN inspections) and quashing those which showed compliance. It was cherry-picking intelligence.'

Ritter and other intelligence sources say Operation Rockingham and MI6 were supplying skewed information to the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) which, Tony Blair has told the Commons, was behind the intelligence dossiers that the government published to convince the parliament and the people of the necessity of war against Iraq. Sources in both the British and US intelligence community are now equating the JIC with the Office of Special Plans (OSP) in the US Pentagon. The OSP was set up by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to gather intelligence which would prove the case for war. In a staggering attack on the OSP, former CIA officer Larry Johnson told the Sunday Herald the OSP was 'dangerous for US national security and a threat to world peace', adding that it 'lied and manipulated intelligence to further its agenda of removing Saddam'.

He added: 'It's a group of ideologues with pre-determined notions of truth and reality. They take bits of intelligence to support their agenda and ignore anything contrary. They should be eliminated.'

Johnson said that to describe Saddam as an 'imminent threat' to the West was 'laughable and idiotic'. He said many CIA officers were in 'great distress' over the way intelligence had been treated. 'We've entered the world of George Orwell,' Johnson added. 'I'm disgusted. The truth has to be told. We can't allow our leaders to use bogus information to justify war.'

Many in British intelligence believe the planned parliamentary inquiry by MPs on the Intelligence and Security Committee will pass the blame for the use of selective intelligence to the JIC, which includes senior intelligence figures .

Intelligence sources say this would be unfair as they claim the JIC was following political instructions. Blair has been under sustained criticism following allegations that intelligence on the threat from Iraq was 'sexed up' to make it more appealing to the public.

The rebel Labour MP and Father of the House, Tam Dalyell, said he would raise the Sunday Herald's investigation into Operation Rockingham in the Commons on Thursday and demand an explanation from the government about selective intelligence. Ritter has also offered to give evidence to parliament.

Both the MoD and Downing Street refused to comment on Ritter's allegations about Operation Rockingham, saying they did not make statements on intelligence matters.

British and American intelligence analysts have also come forward to dispute claims made by President Bush that two military trailers found in Iraq were bio-weapons labs. - Article

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posted by Thomas Ball 9:53 AM

 
The Inescapable Conclusions to the Bipartisan 911 Report

The recently released Report of the Joint Congressional Inquiry Into The Terrorist Attacks Of September 11, and its dismal findings, have been well reported by the news media. What has not been widely reported, however, are the inescapable conclusions that must be drawn from a close reading of this bipartisan study.

Obviously, Republicans were not going to let Democrats say what needed to be said, or maybe Democrats did not want to politicize the matter. But since the facts could not be ignored or suppressed, they reported them without drawing certain obvious, not to mention devastating, conclusions.

Bluntly stated, either the Bush White House knew about the potential of terrorists flying airplanes into skyscrapers (notwithstanding their claims to the contrary), or the CIA failed to give the White House this essential information, which it possessed and provided to others.

Bush is withholding the document that answers this question. Accordingly, it seems more likely that the former possibility is the truth. That is, it seems very probable that those in the White House knew much more than they have admitted, and they are covering up their failure to take action.

The facts, however, speak for themselves.

Bush's Claim Of Executive Privilege For His Daily Intelligence Briefing

One of the most important sets of documents that the Congressional Inquiry sought was a set of copies of the President's Daily Brief (PDB), which is prepared each night by the CIA. In the Appendix of the 9/11 Report we learn that on August 12, 2002, after getting nowhere with informal discussions, Congress formally requested that the Bush White House provide this information.

More specifically, the Joint Inquiry asked about the process by which the Daily Brief is prepared, and sought several specific Daily Brief items. In particular, it asked for information about the August 6, 2001 Daily Brief relating to Osama Bin Laden's terrorist threats against the United States, and other Daily Brief items regarding Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and pre-September 11 terrorism threats.

The Joint Inquiry explained the basis for its request: "the public has a compelling interest ... in understanding how well the Intelligence Community was performing its principal function of advising the President and NSC of threats to U.S. national security."

In short, the Joint Inquiry wanted to see the records. Bush's public assertion that his intelligence was "darn good" was not sufficient.

The Inquiry had substantial background material, for the Clinton Administration's national security team had been very forthcoming. As a result, it warned President Bush of the inevitable consequences of refusal to provide access to the requested Daily Briefs.

The Inquiry told Bush: "In the absence of such access, we will have no choice but to extrapolate the number and content of [Daily Brief] items on these subjects from the items that appeared on these subjects in the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief and other lower level intelligence products during the same period."

Bush nevertheless denied access, claiming Executive Privilege. While the Inquiry did not chose to draw obvious conclusions, they are right there in the report for everyone else to draw. So I have drawn them, to see what they look like.

Revealing Information In the 9/11 Report

After pulling together the information in the 9/11 Report, it is understandable why Bush is stonewalling. It is not very difficult to deduce what the president knew, and when he knew it. And the portrait that results is devastating.

The president's briefing of August 6, 2001 was the subject of public discussion even before the Inquiry started its work. As the 9/11 Report notes in a footnote (at page 206), "National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice stated in a May 16, 2002 press briefing that, on August 6, 2001, the President Daily Brief (PDB) included information about Bin Laden's methods of operation from a historical perspective dating back to 1997." (Emphasis added.)

At that May 16, 2002 briefing, Rice went on to say that the Brief made clear that one method Bin Laden might choose was to hijack an airline, taking hostages to gain release of one of their operatives. She said it was "a generalized warring" with nothing about time, place or method. And she added, "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon."

Unfortunately, Rice's statements don't fit comfortably with the Inquiry's information. It appears from the 9/11 Report that either Rice was dissembling, or the CIA was withholding information from the President (and hence also from Rice).

But as we have been learning with the missing Weapon of Mass Destruction, the CIA has consistently been forthcoming. So it seems that it is Rice who should explain herself.

A Closer Look At Rice's Statement

Note again that Rice stated, in explaining the August 6, 2001 Daily Brief, that it addressed Bin Laden's "methods of operation from a historical perspective dating back to 1997."

What exactly did it say? We cannot know. But the Inquiry's 9/11 Report lays out all such threats, over that time period, in thirty-six bullet point summaries. It is only necessary to cite a few of these to see the problem:


In September 1998, the [Intelligence Community] obtained information that Bin Laden's next operation might involve flying an explosive-laden aircraft into a U.S. airport and detonating it. (Emphasis added.)
In the fall of 1998, the [Intelligence Community] obtained information concerning a Bin Laden plot involving aircraft in the New York and Washington, D.C. areas.
In March 2000, the [Intelligence Community] obtained information regarding the types of targets that operatives of Bin Laden's network might strike. The Statute of Liberty was specifically mentioned , as were skyscrapers, ports, airports, and nuclear power plans. (Emphasis added.)

In sum, the 9/11 Report of the Congressional Inquiry indicates that the intelligence community was very aware that Bin Laden might fly an airplane into an American skyscraper.

Given the fact that there had already been an attempt to bring down the twin towers of the World Trade Center with a bomb, how could Rice say what she did?

Certainly, someone could have predicted, contrary to Rice's claim that, among other possibilities, "these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon."

The Unanswered Questions

Is Rice claiming this information in the 9/11 Report was not given to the White House? Or could it be that the White House was given this information, and failed to recognize the problem and take action? Is the White House covering up what the President knew, and when he knew it?

The Joint Inquiry could not answer these questions because they were denied access to Bush's Daily Brief for August 6, 2001, and all other dates. Yet these are not questions that should be stonewalled.

Troublingly, it seems that President Bush trusts foreign heads of state with the information in this daily CIA briefing, but not the United States Congress. It has become part of his routine, when hosting foreign dignitaries at his Crawford, Texas ranch, to invite them to attend his CIA briefing.

Yet he refuses to give Congress any information whatsoever about these briefings, and he has apparently invoked Executive Privilege to suppress the August 6, 2001 Daily Brief. It can only be hoped that the 9/11 Commission, which has picked up where the Congressional Inquiry ended, will get the answers to these questions.

Rest assured that they will be aware of the questions, for I will pass them along. - Article

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posted by Thomas Ball 9:50 AM

 
As Americans Face Surging Energy Prices, Oil Companies Are Producing Largest Quarterly Profits Ever Recorded by Publicly Traded Companies

Royal Dutch/Shell Group, the world’s second largest oil firm, reported a consensus-beating 51% rise in second-quarter profits yesterday, but disappointed the market somewhat by saying it would not buy back any more of its own shares this year.

Shell is the first of the world’s top three oil companies to report second-quarter results. World leader ExxonMobil Corp and No. 3 BP plc will follow next week.

All three have been producing some of the largest quarterly profits ever recorded by publicly traded companies, helped by oil prices that have soared on the back of the war in Iraq and supply disruptions in Nigeria and Venezuela. - Article

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posted by Thomas Ball 9:48 AM

 
Dean Says Jump and We Say 'How High?': Outdoes Cheney on the Fundraising Front

Vice President Dick Cheney got up yesterday morning, boarded Air Force Two and flew to Columbia, S.C., where he rode in a motorcade to a private home, shook hands, and posed for pictures with 150 donors at a luncheon. There he raised $300,000 for the Bush-Cheney reelection committee before flying home.

Over four days ending last night, Howard Dean outdid the vice president -- without leaving his campaign headquarters in Burlington, Vt.

In a testament to the power of Internet fund-raising, and the intensity of the Democratic presidential contender's support, Dean raised $344,000 for his campaign by the time of the Cheney lunch. All Dean's staff did was tell their supporters about Cheney's event via the Internet and challenge them to surpass the vice president's total.

By 12:30 this morning, Dean's total stood at $507,150, with contributions from 9,500 people, the campaign said, adding that the counting was expected to continue overnight. The drive, which started late last Thursday, ended at midnight last night. For the Republican-held White House, it was more direct evidence of a fund-raising phenomenon that Dean's eight Democratic rivals witnessed last month, when the former Vermont governor posted the highest total of the group for the second quarter of the year, $7.6 million. In one day in late June, the campaign raised more than $800,000, much of it via the Internet. The latest cybertake had professionals shaking their heads.

''That amount of money raised in that amount of time for an event that wasn't even their own event strikes me as spectacular,'' said Richard Armstrong, a direct-mail specialist in Washington who wrote a book about politics in the electronic era titled, ''The Next Hurrah.''

''Although there have been candidates with websites going back 10 years, this is clearly the most effective we've seen ever.''

Joe Trippi, Dean's campaign manager, said the effort proved Dean is no fluke, either as a candidate or as a fund-raiser.

''I keep reading people saying things like, `I don't know if he can sustain this,' or, `Do they have a product,' but we don't know where those blind quotes are coming from,'' Trippi said.

The campaign manager said the message extends to the core of Dean's populist message.

Cheney ''does it with people who get plaques for raising $100,000. (Dean's supporters) are regular people -- students, retirees -- who give $50,'' Trippi said. ''If George Bush is running against that, it's not a left-wing thing or a right-wing thing, but people participating in their democracy. People don't want to believe that about us, but we'll just keep talking about it -- and proving it -- until they do.''

Cheney also has prowess as a fund-raiser. So far this year he has raised $4.7 million for his and President Bush's reelection. The incumbents had more than $32 million in the bank as of June 30, according to their campaign.

Dean's campaign also used a few tactics to meet the self-imposed challenge, including counting money that otherwise would have been received over the Internet, about $20,000 daily. In addition, it updated its supporters each half-hour, building support as Cheney's noontime event drew near.

By 11 p.m. Sunday, the total had reached $250,000, the initial estimate of what Cheney had been expected to raise, based on newspaper reports about his visit.

By noon, when Cheney's lunch started, Dean's total stood at $344,428. The number of donors totaled 6,558 -- about 6,400 more than Cheney's.

Each of the vice president's donors gave $2,000, the maximum allowed for an individual during the primaries, but the average donation for Dean by that hour -- $52 -- meant his campaign could go back and seek additional money from most of the contributors as his primary campaign continues. - Article

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posted by Thomas Ball 9:43 AM

 
Krugman: Difference Between Blair and Bush

wo leaders politicized intelligence to sell a war. But while one has suffered a catastrophic loss of public trust, the other hasn't, at least not yet.

Are Tony Blair's troubles the shape of things to come for George Bush? Or does the aftermath of the Iraq war show, once again, that we are two nations divided by a common language?

In Britain the news remains dominated by the death of Dr. David Kelly, a W.M.D. specialist who became a pawn in a vicious war between the Blair government and the BBC over claims of politicized intelligence. According to news accounts, someone in the Blair government leaked Dr. Kelly's name as the likely source of a critical BBC report, apparently provoking his suicide.

The government's aim seems to have been to discredit the BBC. After attributing the report to Dr. Kelly, officials questioned whether the BBC had accurately reported what Dr. Kelly said. They also suggested that he was at too low a level to know how intelligence on Iraqi weapons had been put together.

But this attack has backfired badly. The BBC apparently has evidence, including a tape, that Dr. Kelly made the key allegations it reported. Moreover, Dr. Kelly was, in fact, in a position to know what he claimed. More information may emerge as a judicial inquiry proceeds, but at this point the BBC seems largely in the clear, while the government looks like a villain.

The failure to find weapons of mass destruction, followed by the Kelly affair, has severely damaged Tony Blair's standing. Two-thirds of the British public thinks that Mr. Blair misled his nation into war (though only a minority believes he did so "knowingly"). Only 37 percent thinks he is doing a good job. For the first time since Mr. Blair took office in 1997, the hapless Tories are leading in the polls.

And it's not just Iraq. Clare Short, who resigned as secretary for international development over the Iraq war, says that Mr. Blair is "obsessed with spin" — and many Britons seem to share her view. In June only 36 percent of the public described Mr. Blair as "trustworthy," while 54 percent called him "untrustworthy."

Now the Bush administration was at least as guilty of hyping the case for war. It was a campaign not so much of outright falsehoods — though there were some of those — as of exaggeration and insinuation. Here's what the public thought it heard: Last month, 71 percent of those polled thought the administration had implied that Saddam Hussein had been involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.

And when it comes to domestic spin, Mr. Blair isn't remotely in Mr. Bush's league. Whether pretending that the war on terror — not tax cuts, which have cost the Treasury three times as much — is responsible for record deficits, or that those hugely elitist tax cuts are targeted on working families, or that opening up wilderness areas to loggers is a fire-prevention plan, Mr. Bush has taken misrepresentation of his own policies to a level never before seen in America.

But while Mr. Bush's poll numbers have fallen back to prewar levels, he hasn't suffered a Blair-like collapse. Why?

One answer, surely, is the kid-gloves treatment Mr. Bush has always received from the news media, a treatment that became downright fawning after Sept. 11. There was a reason Mr. Blair's people made such a furious attack on the ever-skeptical BBC.

Another answer may be that in modern America, style trumps substance. Here's what Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, said in a speech last week: "To gauge just how out of touch the Democrat leadership is on the war on terror, just close your eyes and try to imagine Ted Kennedy landing that Navy jet on the deck of that aircraft carrier." To say the obvious, that remark reveals a powerful contempt for the public: Mr. DeLay apparently believes that the nation will trust a man, independent of the facts, because he looks good dressed up as a pilot. But it's possible that he's right.

What must worry the Bush administration, however, is a third possibility: that the American people gave Mr. Bush their trust because in the aftermath of Sept. 11, they desperately wanted to believe the best about their president. If that's all it was, Mr. Bush will eventually face a terrible reckoning. - Article

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posted by Thomas Ball 9:40 AM

 
Ronald Reagan Jr: Looking to Host Liberal Talk Show

On Monday, July 28, Ron Reagan started a week-long run as guest co-host on MSNBC’s Buchanan & Press, with the son of the former President sitting decidedly to the left of Pat Buchanan. But Mr. Reagan was doing more than just filling the seat of vacationing co-host Bill Press; he told The Observer that he hopes to anchor his own liberal-leaning talk show. And what better place to test his talking head than against Old Man Crossfire himself, the squinty-eyed hatchet man who, after all, worked for his father back in the day. Having spent the past three years hosting dog shows on the cable network Animal Planet, Mr. Reagan relishes the idea of going up against the bark and bite of the right wing.

"I’d love to do another talk show, and I’m talking to some other people about that," he said following his Buchanan & Press appearance. "I’m still in the planning stages, and I think there’s a lot of room for this. Despite this supposed ‘liberal bias’ in the media, I can hardly find any on TV."

Mr. Reagan was invited to Buchanan & Press by the show’s new executive producer, Tammy Haddad, who helped invent Larry King Live in 1985. Ms. Haddad said she met Mr. Reagan at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in 2000 and was impressed by the former ballet dancer and sometime TV presence.

"People think that there aren’t many good liberals out there that can carry a show," said Ms. Haddad. "We had dinner together and I thought, ‘This guy is so good, he should be on TV.’ I’m sure he’ll get offers after this. Let’s hope he talks to MSNBC first."

MSNBC might want to act fast: Mr. Reagan said he was approached by two journalists associated with an "Internet entity" who were pitching, he said, an "unabashedly" liberal show to cable networks. "We’ve had the conversations, and now we’re meeting people at various media outlets," he said, adding that the proposed show is of the time-honored sit-down variety, "with the telltale, piquant little bits like ‘The Lie of the Week’ or a ‘Right-Wing Moment’—like Tom DeLay talking about teaching children about biology: ‘We evolutized up from the mud!’ O.K., we’re in trouble as a country."

The show could be a tough sell. To date, the 45-year-old Mr. Reagan hasn’t shown much prime-time promise. Since working as the "adventure correspondent" on ABC’s Good Morning America in the late 1980’s, the thin, affable, occasionally acid-tongued Son of the Gipper has mostly bummed around the cable dial. After The Ron Reagan Show, a syndicated late-night chat-fest, failed to take off in 1991, he worked as a producer and host on E!, hosted a computer show for Cnet, did documentary voice-overs for the History Channel and co-hosted Fox’s short-lived newsmagazine Front Page. Things have been a bit better over at Animal Planet, where, he said, his pooch program gets the highest ratings on the network. Still, he’s yet to equal the sensation he caused during his father’s second administration when he hosted NBC’s Saturday Night Live and danced around the stage in his tighty-whities in a Risky Business skit.

Lately, he’s been edging back into the political fray. Mr. Reagan first went on MSNBC as Mr. Buchanan’s guest in April to discuss George W. Bush. During the Iraq war, Mr. Reagan described the Bush administration as "overly reaching, overly aggressive, overly secretive and just plain corrupt. I don’t trust these people."

For his part, Mr. Buchanan, the former director of communications for Reagan père, said he’d made the younger Reagan’s acquaintance years ago.

"I’ve not known him well, but I saw him when I was out at his dad’s place in Pacific Palisades in 1976, when he was a teenager," Mr. Buchanan said, adding, "His father’s a great hero of mine."

Mr. Reagan said he knew liberals aren’t known for being great TV.

"I think the bar is set higher for liberals," he said. "It’s easy to be Ann Coulter."

Regarding Ms. Coulter’s recent comment about Joseph McCarthy being an American patriot, for instance, Mr. Reagan said that "to dignify those remarks by refuting them takes time. Conservatives have it easy: They just blurt out some nonsense."

In preparation for the July 28 broadcast of Buchanan & Press, MSNBC’s Web site promised: "Sparks fly when Pat and guest host Ron Reagan Jr. tackle the controversy over America’s first gay high school." But the sparks came mostly from Mr. Buchanan, who had the benefit of his trademark bark and tomahawk-chop gesture.

Mr. Reagan was smooth enough, but he didn’t leap off the screen. He did get in a slightly school-marmish jab at conservative guest Michael Long when he said: "Hey, Mike, I can’t help but notice that anything involving gay people gets you conservatives’ panties in a real twist. Why is that?" Then he cocked his head and looked quizzical for effect—a little too quizzical, maybe, but it seemed like a workable riff. - Article

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posted by Thomas Ball 9:28 AM

 
Crimes From the Past: Remembering Reagan's Support for Terrorism

In October and November 1986, two secret U.S. Government operations were publicly exposed, potentially implicating Reagan Administration officials in illegal activities. These operations were the provision of assistance to the military activities of the Nicaraguan contra rebels during an October 1984 to October 1986 prohibition on such aid, and the sale of U.S. arms to Iran in contravention of stated U.S. policy and in possible violation of arms-export controls. In late November 1986, Reagan Administration officials announced that some of the proceeds from the sale of U.S. arms to Iran had been diverted to the contras.

As a result of the exposure of these operations, Attorney General Edwin Meese III sought the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate and, if necessary, prosecute possible crimes arising from them.

The Special Division of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit appointed Lawrence E. Walsh as Independent Counsel on December 19, 1986, and charged him with investigating:

(1) the direct or indirect sale, shipment, or transfer since in or about 1984 down to the present, of military arms, materiel, or funds to the government of Iran, officials of that government, persons, organizations or entities connected with or purporting to represent that government, or persons located in Iran;

(2) the direct or indirect sale, shipment, or transfer of military arms, materiel or funds to any government, entity, or person acting, or purporting to act as an intermediary in any transaction referred to above;

(3) the financing or funding of any direct or indirect sale, shipment or transfer referred to above;

(4) the diversion of proceeds from any transaction described above to or for any person, organization, foreign government, or any faction or body of insurgents in any foreign country, including, but not limited to Nicaragua;

(5) the provision or coordination of support for persons or entities engaged as military insurgents in armed conflict with the government of Nicaragua since 1984.

This is the final report of that investigation.

Overall Conclusions
The investigations and prosecutions have shown that high-ranking Administration officials violated laws and executive orders in the Iran/contra matter.

Independent Counsel concluded that:

-- the sales of arms to Iran contravened United States Government policy and may have violated the Arms Export Control Act1

1 Independent Counsel is aware that the Reagan Administration Justice Department took the position, after the November 1986 revelations, that the 1985 shipments of United States weapons to Iran did not violate the law. This post hoc position does not correspond with the contemporaneous advice given the President. As detailed within this report, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger (a lawyer with an extensive record in private practice and the former general counsel of the Bechtel Corporation) advised President Reagan in 1985 that the shipments were illegal. Moreover, Weinberger's opinion was shared by attorneys within the Department of Defense and the White House counsel's office once they became aware of the 1985 shipments. Finally, when Attorney General Meese conducted his initial inquiry into the Iran arms sales, he expressed concern that the shipments may have been illegal.

-- the provision and coordination of support to the contras violated the Boland Amendment ban on aid to military activities in Nicaragua;

-- the policies behind both the Iran and contra operations were fully reviewed and developed at the highest levels of the Reagan Administration;

-- although there was little evidence of National Security Council level knowledge of most of the actual contra-support operations, there was no evidence that any NSC member dissented from the underlying policy -- keeping the contras alive despite congressional limitations on contra support;

-- the Iran operations were carried out with the knowledge of, among others, President Ronald Reagan, Vice President George Bush, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey, and national security advisers Robert C. McFarlane and John M. Poindexter; of these officials, only Weinberger and Shultz dissented from the policy decision, and Weinberger eventually acquiesced by ordering the Department of Defense to provide the necessary arms; and

-- large volumes of highly relevant, contemporaneously created documents were systematically and willfully withheld from investigators by several Reagan Administration officials.

-- following the revelation of these operations in October and November 1986, Reagan Administration officials deliberately deceived the Congress and the public about the level and extent of official knowledge of and support for these operations.

In addition, Independent Counsel concluded that the off-the-books nature of the Iran and contra operations gave line-level personnel the opportunity to commit money crimes.


The Basic Facts of Iran/contra

The Iran/contra affair concerned two secret Reagan Administration policies whose operations were coordinated by National Security Council staff. The Iran operation involved efforts in 1985 and 1986 to obtain the release of Americans held hostage in the Middle East through the sale of U.S. weapons to Iran, despite an embargo on such sales. The contra operations from 1984 through most of 1986 involved the secret governmental support of contra military and paramilitary activities in Nicaragua, despite congressional prohibition of this support.

The Iran and contra operations were merged when funds generated from the sale of weapons to Iran were diverted to support the contra effort in Nicaragua. Although this ``diversion'' may be the most dramatic aspect of Iran/contra, it is important to emphasize that both the Iran and contra operations, separately, violated United States policy and law.2 The ignorance of the ``diversion'' asserted by President Reagan and his Cabinet officers on the National Security Council in no way absolves them of responsibility for the underlying Iran and contra operations.

2 See n. 1 above.

The secrecy concerning the Iran and contra activities was finally pierced by events that took place thousands of miles apart in the fall of 1986. The first occurred on October 5, 1986, when Nicaraguan government soldiers shot down an American cargo plane that was carrying military supplies to contra forces; the one surviving crew member, American Eugene Hasenfus, was taken into captivity and stated that he was employed by the CIA. A month after the Hasenfus shootdown, President Reagan's secret sale of U.S. arms to Iran was reported by a Lebanese publication on November 3. The joining of these two operations was made public on November 25, 1986, when Attorney General Meese announced that Justice Department officials had discovered that some of the proceeds from the Iran arms sales had been diverted to the contras.

When these operations ended, the exposure of the Iran/contra affair generated a new round of illegality. Beginning with the testimony of Elliott Abrams and others in October 1986 and continuing through the public testimony of Caspar W. Weinberger on the last day of the congressional hearings in the summer of 1987, senior Reagan Administration officials engaged in a concerted effort to deceive Congress and the public about their knowledge of and support for the operations.

Independent Counsel has concluded that the President's most senior advisers and the Cabinet members on the National Security Council participated in the strategy to make National Security staff members McFarlane, Poindexter and North the scapegoats whose sacrifice would protect the Reagan Administration in its final two years. In an important sense, this strategy succeeded. Independent Counsel discovered much of the best evidence of the cover-up in the final year of active investigation, too late for most prosecutions.


Scope of Report

This report provides an account of the Independent Counsel's investigation, the prosecutions, the basis for decisions not to prosecute, and overall observations and conclusions on the Iran/contra matters.

Part I of the report sets out the underlying facts of the Iran and contra operations. Part II describes the criminal investigation of those underlying facts. Part III provides an analysis of the central operational conspiracy. Parts IV through IX are agency-level reports of Independent Counsel's investigations and cases: the National Security staff, the private operatives who assisted the NSC staff, Central Intelligence Agency officials, Department of State officials, and White House officials and Attorney General Edwin Meese III.

Volume I of this report concludes with a chapter concerning political oversight and the rule of law, and a final chapter containing Independent Counsel's observations. Volume II of the report contains supporting documentation. Volume III is a classified appendix.

Because many will read only sections of the report, each has been written with completeness, even though this has resulted in repetition of factual statements about central activities.


The Operational Conspiracy

The operational conspiracy was the basis for Count One of the 23-count indictment returned by the Grand Jury March 16, 1988, against Poindexter, North, Secord, and Hakim. It charged the four with conspiracy to defraud the United States by deceitfully:

(1) supporting military operations in Nicaragua in defiance of congressional controls;

(2) using the Iran arms sales to raise funds to be spent at the direction of North, rather than the U.S. Government; and

(3) endangering the Administration's hostage-release effort by overcharging Iran for the arms to generate unauthorized profits to fund the contras and for other purposes.

The charge was upheld as a matter of law by U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell even though the Justice Department, in a move that Judge Gesell called ``unprecedented,'' filed an amicus brief supporting North's contention that the charge should be dismissed. Although Count One was ultimately dismissed because the Reagan Administration refused to declassify information necessary to North's defense, Judge Gesell's decision established that high Government officials who engage in conspiracy to subvert civil laws and the Constitution have engaged in criminal acts. Trial on Count One would have disclosed the Government-wide activities that supported North's Iran and contra operations.

Within the NSC, McFarlane pleaded guilty in March 1988 to four counts of withholding information from Congress in connection with his denials that North was providing the contras with military advice and assistance. McFarlane, in his plea agreement, promised to cooperate with Independent Counsel by providing truthful testimony in subsequent trials.

Judge Gesell ordered severance of the trials of the four charged in the conspiracy indictment because of the immunized testimony given by Poindexter, North and Hakim to Congress. North was tried and convicted by a jury in May 1989 of altering and destroying documents, accepting an illegal gratuity and aiding and abetting in the obstruction of Congress. His conviction was reversed on appeal in July 1990 and charges against North were subsequently dismissed in September 1991 on the ground that trial witnesses were tainted by North's nationally televised, immunized testimony before Congress. Poindexter in April 1990 was convicted by a jury on five felony counts of conspiracy, false statements, destruction and removal of records and obstruction of Congress. The Court of Appeals reversed his conviction in November 1991 on the immunized testimony issue.


The Flow of Funds

The illegal activities of the private citizens involved with the North and Secord operations are discussed in detail in Part V. The off-the-books conduct of the two highly secret operations circumvented normal Administration accountability and congressional oversight associated with covert ventures and presented fertile ground for financial wrongdoing. There were several funding sources for the contras' weapons purchases from the covert-action Enterprise formed by North, Secord and Hakim:

(1) donations from foreign countries;

(2) contributions from wealthy Americans sympathetic to President Reagan's contra support policies; and

(3) the diversion of proceeds from the sale of arms to Iran.

Ultimately, all of these funds fell under the control of North, and through him, Secord and Hakim.

North used political fundraisers Carl R. Channell and Richard R. Miller to raise millions of dollars from wealthy Americans, illegally using a tax-exempt organization to do so. These funds, along with the private contributions, were run through a network of corporations and Swiss bank accounts put at North's disposal by Secord and Hakim, through which transactions were concealed and laundered. In late 1985 through 1986 the Enterprise became centrally involved in the arms sales to Iran. As a result of both the Iran and contra operations, more than $47 million flowed through Enterprise accounts.

Professional fundraisers Channell and Miller pleaded guilty in the spring of 1987 to conspiracy to defraud the Government by illegal use of a tax-exempt foundation to raise contributions for the purchase of lethal supplies for the contras. They named North as an unindicted co-conspirator.

Secord pleaded guilty in November 1989 to a felony, admitting that he falsely denied to Congress that North had personally benefited from the Enterprise. Hakim pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor count of supplementing the salary of North. Lake Resources Inc., the company controlled by Hakim to launder the Enterprise's money flow, pleaded guilty to the corporate felony of theft of Government property in diverting the proceeds from the arms sales to the contras and for other unauthorized purposes. Thomas G. Clines was convicted in September 1990 of four tax-related felonies for failing to report all of his income from the Enterprise.


Agency Support of the Operations

Following the convictions of those who were most central to the Iran/contra operations, Independent Counsel's investigation focused on the supporting roles played by Government officials in other agencies and the supervisory roles of the NSC principals. The investigation showed that Administration officials who claimed initially that they had little knowledge about the Iran arms sales or the illegal contra-resupply operation North directed were much better informed than they professed to be. The Office of Independent Counsel obtained evidence that Secretaries Weinberger and Shultz and White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan, among others, held back information that would have helped Congress obtain a much clearer view of the scope of the Iran/contra matter. Contemporaneous notes of Regan and Weinberger, and those dictated by Shultz, were withheld until they were obtained by Independent Counsel in 1991 and 1992.


The White House and Office of the Vice President
As the White House section of this report describes in detail, the investigation found no credible evidence that President Reagan violated any criminal statute. The OIC could not prove that Reagan authorized or was aware of the diversion or that he had knowledge of the extent of North's control of the contra-resupply network. Nevertheless, he set the stage for the illegal activities of others by encouraging and, in general terms, ordering support of the contras during the October 1984 to October 1986 period when funds for the contras were cut off by the Boland Amendment, and in authorizing the sale of arms to Iran, in contravention of the U.S. embargo on such sales. The President's disregard for civil laws enacted to limit presidential actions abroad -- specifically the Boland Amendment, the Arms Export Control Act and congressional-notification requirements in covert-action laws -- created a climate in which some of the Government officers assigned to implement his policies felt emboldened to circumvent such laws.

President Reagan's directive to McFarlane to keep the contras alive ``body and soul'' during the Boland cut-off period was viewed by North, who was charged by McFarlane to carry out the directive, as an invitation to break the law. Similarly, President Reagan's decision in 1985 to authorize the sale of arms to Iran from Israeli stocks, despite warnings by Weinberger and Shultz that such transfers might violate the law, opened the way for Poindexter's subsequent decision to authorize the diversion. Poindexter told Congress that while he made the decision on his own and did not tell the President, he believed the President would have approved. North testified that he believed the President authorized it.

Independent Counsel's investigation did not develop evidence that proved that Vice President Bush violated any criminal statute. Contrary to his public pronouncements, however, he was fully aware of the Iran arms sales. Bush was regularly briefed, along with the President, on the Iran arms sales, and he participated in discussions to obtain third-country support for the contras. The OIC obtained no evidence that Bush was aware of the diversion. The OIC learned in December 1992 that Bush had failed to produce a diary containing contemporaneous notes relevant to Iran/contra, despite requests made in 1987 and again in early 1992 for the production of such material. Bush refused to be interviewed for a final time in light of evidence developed in the latter stages of OIC's investigation, leaving unresolved a clear picture of his Iran/contra involvement. Bush's pardon of Weinberger on December 24, 1992 pre-empted a trial in which defense counsel indicated that they intended to call Bush as a witness.

The chapters on White House Chief of Staff Regan and Attorney General Edwin Meese III focus on their actions during the November 1986 period, as the President and his advisers sought to control the damage caused by the disclosure of the Iran arms sales. Regan in 1992 provided Independent Counsel with copies of notes showing that Poindexter and Meese attempted to create a false account of the 1985 arms sales from Israeli stocks, which they believed were illegal, in order to protect the President. Regan and the other senior advisers did not speak up to correct the false version of events. No final legal determination on the matter had been made. Regan said he did not want to be the one who broke the silence among the President's senior advisers, virtually all of whom knew the account was false.

The evidence indicates that Meese's November 1986 inquiry was more of a damage-control exercise than an effort to find the facts. He had private conversations with the President, the Vice President, Poindexter, Weinberger, Casey and Regan without taking notes. Even after learning of the diversion, Meese failed to secure records in NSC staff offices or take other prudent steps to protect potential evidence. And finally, in reporting to the President and his senior advisers, Meese gave a false account of what he had been told by stating that the President did not know about the 1985 HAWK shipments, which Meese said might have been illegal. The statute of limitations had run on November 1986 activities before OIC obtained its evidence. In 1992, Meese denied recollection of the statements attributed to him by the notes of Weinberger and Regan. He was unconvincing, but the passage of time would have been expected to raise a reasonable doubt of the intentional falsity of his denials if he had been prosecuted for his 1992 false statements.


The Role of CIA Officials

Director Casey's unswerving support of President Reagan's contra policies and of the Iran arms sales encouraged some CIA officials to go beyond legal restrictions in both operations. Casey was instrumental in pairing North with Secord as a contra-support team when the Boland Amendment in October 1984 forced the CIA to refrain from direct or indirect aid. He also supported the North-Secord combination in the Iran arms sales, despite deep reservations about Secord within the CIA hierarchy.

Casey's position on the contras prompted the chief of the CIA's Central American Task Force, Alan D. Fiers, Jr., to ``dovetail'' CIA activities with those of North's contra-resupply network, in violation of Boland restrictions. Casey's support for the NSC to direct the Iran arms sales and to use arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar and Secord in the operation, forced the CIA's Directorate of Operations to work with people it distrusted.

Following the Hasenfus shootdown in early October 1986, George and Fiers lied to Congress about U.S. Government involvement in contra resupply, to, as Fiers put it, ``keep the spotlight off the White House.'' When the Iran arms sales became public in November 1986, three of Casey's key officers -- George, Clarridge and Fiers -- followed Casey's lead in misleading Congress.

Four CIA officials were charged with criminal offenses -- George, the deputy director for operations and the third highest-ranking CIA official; Clarridge, chief of the European Division; Fiers; and Fernandez. George was convicted of two felony counts of false statements and perjury before Congress. Fiers pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress. The four counts of obstruction and false statements against Fernandez were dismissed when the Bush Administration refused to declassify information needed for his defense. Clarridge was awaiting trial on seven counts of perjury and false statements when he, George and Fiers were pardoned by President Bush.


State Department Officials

In 1990 and 1991, Independent Counsel received new documentary evidence in the form of handwritten notes suggesting that Secretary Shultz's congressional testimony painted a misleading and incorrect picture of his knowledge of the Iran arms sales. The subsequent investigation focused on whether Shultz or other Department officials deliberately misled or withheld information from congressional or OIC investigators.

The key notes, taken by M. Charles Hill, Shultz's executive assistant, were nearly verbatim, contemporaneous accounts of Shultz's meetings within the department and Shultz's reports to Hill on meetings the secretary attended elsewhere. The Hill notes and similarly detailed notes by Nicholas Platt, the State Department's executive secretary, provided the OIC with a detailed account of Shultz's knowledge of the Iran arms sales. The most revealing of these notes were not provided to any Iran/contra investigation until 1990 and 1991. The notes show that -- contrary to his early testimony that he was not aware of details of the 1985 arms transfers -- Shultz knew that the shipments were planned and that they were delivered. Also in conflict with his congressional testimony was evidence that Shultz was aware of the 1986 shipments.

Independent Counsel concluded that Shultz's early testimony was incorrect, if not false, in significant respects, and misleading, if literally true, in others. When questioned about the discrepancies in 1992, Shultz did not dispute the accuracy of the Hill notes. He told OIC that he believed his testimony was accurate at the time and he insisted that if he had been provided with the notes earlier, he would have testified differently. Independent Counsel declined to prosecute because there was a reasonable doubt that Shultz's testimony was willfully false at the time it was delivered.

Independent Counsel concluded that Hill had willfully withheld relevant notes and prepared false testimony for Shultz in 1987. He declined to prosecute because Hill's claim of authorization to limit the production of his notes and the joint responsibility of Shultz for the resulting misleading testimony, would at trial have raised a reasonable doubt, after Independent Counsel had declined to prosecute Shultz.

Independent Counsel's initial focus on the State Department had centered on Assistant Secretary Elliott Abrams' insistence to Congress and to the OIC that he was not aware of North's direction of the extensive contra-resupply network in 1985 and 1986. As assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, Abrams chaired the Restricted Inter-Agency Group, or RIG, which coordinated U.S. policy in Central America. Although the OIC was skeptical about Abrams' testimony, there was insufficient evidence to proceed against him until additional documentary evidence inculpating him was discovered in 1990 and 1991, and until Fiers, who represented the CIA on the RIG, pleaded guilty in July 1991 to withholding information from Congress. Fiers provided evidence to support North's earlier testimony that Abrams was knowledgeable about North's contra-supply network. Abrams pleaded guilty in October 1991 to two counts of withholding information from Congress about secret Government efforts to support the contras, and about his solicitation of $10 million to aid the contras from the Sultan of Brunei.


Secretary Weinberger and Defense Department Officials

Contrary to their testimony to the presidentially appointed Tower Commission and the Select Iran/contra Committees of Congress, Independent Counsel determined that Secretary Weinberger and his closest aides were consistently informed of proposed and actual arms shipments to Iran during 1985 and 1986. The key evidence was handwritten notes of Weinberger, which he deliberately withheld from Congress and the OIC until they were discovered by Independent Counsel in late 1991. The Weinberger daily diary notes and notes of significant White House and other meetings contained highly relevant, contemporaneous information that resolved many questions left unanswered in early investigations.

The notes demonstrated that Weinberger's early testimony -- that he had only vague and generalized information about Iran arms sales in 1985 -- was false, and that he in fact had detailed information on the proposed arms sales and the actual deliveries. The notes also revealed that Gen. Colin Powell, Weinberger's senior military aide, and Richard L. Armitage, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, also had detailed knowledge of the 1985 shipments from Israeli stocks. Armitage and Powell had testified that they did not learn of the November 1985 HAWK missile shipment until 1986.

Weinberger's notes provided detailed accounts of high-level Administration meetings in November 1986 in which the President's senior advisers were provided with false accounts of the Iran arms sales to protect the President and themselves from the consequences of the possibly illegal 1985 shipments from Israeli stocks.

Weinberger's notes provided key evidence supporting the charges against him, including perjury and false statements in connection with his testimony regarding the arms sales, his denial of the existence of notes and his denial of knowledge of Saudi Arabia's multi-million dollar contribution to the contras. He was pardoned less than two weeks before trial by President Bush on December 24, 1992.

There was little evidence that Powell's early testimony regarding the 1985 shipments and Weinberger's notes was willfully false. Powell cooperated with the various Iran/contra investigations and, when his recollection was refreshed by Weinberger's notes, he readily conceded their accuracy. Independent Counsel declined to prosecute Armitage because the OIC's limited resources were focused on the case against Weinberger and because the evidence against Armitage, while substantial, did not reach the threshold of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.


The Reagan, Bush and Casey Segments

The Independent Counsel Act requires a report as to persons not indicted as well as those indicted. Because of the large number of persons investigated, those discussed in individual sections of this report are limited to those as to whom there was a possibility of indictment. In addition there are separate sections on President Reagan and President Bush because, although criminal proceedings against them were always unlikely, they were important subjects of the investigation, and their activities were important to the action taken with respect to others.

CIA Director Casey is a special case. Because Casey was hospitalized with a fatal illness before Independent Counsel was appointed, no formal investigation of Casey was ever undertaken by the OIC. Casey was never able to give his account, and he was unable to respond to allegations of wrongdoing made about him by others, most prominently North, whose veracity is subject to serious question. Equally important, fundamental questions could not be answered regarding Casey's state of mind, the impact, if any, of his fatal illness on his conduct and his intent.

Under normal circumstances, a prosecutor would hesitate to comment on the conduct of an individual whose activities and actions were not subjected to rigorous investigation, which might exculpate that individual. Nevertheless, after serious deliberation, Independent Counsel concluded that it was in the public interest that this report expose as full and complete an account of the Iran/contra matter as possible. This simply could not be done without an account of the role of Director Casey.


Observations and Conclusions

This report concludes with Independent Counsel's observations and conclusions. He observes that the governmental problems presented by Iran/contra are not those of rogue operations, but rather those of Executive Branch efforts to evade congressional oversight. As this report documents, the competing roles of the attorney general -- adviser to the President and top law-enforcement officer -- come into irreconcilable conflict in the case of high-level Executive Branch wrongdoing. Independent Counsel concludes that congressional oversight alone cannot correct the deficiencies that result when an attorney general abandons the law-enforcement responsibilities of that office and undertakes, instead, to protect the President.

Independent Counsel asks the Congress to review the difficult and delicate problem posed to the investigations and prosecutions by congressional grants of immunity to principals. While recognizing the important responsibility of Congress for investigating such matters thoroughly, Congress must realize that grants of use immunity to principals in such highly exposed matters as the Iran/contra affair will virtually rule out successful prosecution.

Independent Counsel also addresses the problem of implementing the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) in cases steeped in highly classified information, such as many of the Iran/contra prosecutions. Under the Act, the attorney general has unrestricted discretion to decide whether to declassify information necessary for trial, even in cases in which Independent Counsel has been appointed because of the attorney general's conflict of interest. This discretion is inconsistent with the perceived need for independent counsel, particularly in cases in which officers of the intelligence agencies that classify information are under investigation. This discretion gives the attorney general the power to block almost any potentially embarrassing prosecution that requires the declassification of information. Independent Counsel suggests that the attorney general implement standards that would permit independent review of a decision to block a prosecution of an officer within the Executive Branch and legitimate congressional oversight.



Classified Information

In addition to the unclassified Volumes I and II of this report, a brief classified report, Volume III, has been filed with the Special Division. The classified report contains references to material gathered in the investigation of Iran/contra that could not be declassified and could not be concealed by some substitute form of discussion. - Article

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posted by Thomas Ball 9:23 AM

 
New Book: "Weapons of Mass Deception" is thick with case studies and meticulously footnoted examples of how the administration sold a fantasy called "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Appearing before the House Intelligence Committee last Thursday, former CIA director John Deutch delivered a sobering assessment of the questions that have arisen regarding President Bush's prewar claims about Iraqi threats: "If no weapons of mass destruction or only a residual capacity (is) found, the principal justification enunciated by the U.S. government for launching this war will have proven not to be credible," Deutch said.

Whether there was an "intelligence failure" or a highly successful manipulation of information by an unscrupulous president and his team of spin doctors was the subject of lively discussion in the Capitol last week. Official Washington is catching up with John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, the PR Watchers who for months have been busy exposing the president's penchant for marketing - as opposed to truth-telling.

Stauber and Rampton, the Madison-based debunkers of corporate spin, have written up their compelling case against the White House's "case" for war in an exceptional new book, "Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq" (Tarcher/Putnam). It is difficult to imagine a more timely text.

Stauber and Rampton, who will discuss "Weapons of Mass Deception" at 7 tonight at Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative, 426 W. Gilman St., have a long track record of cutting through the official spin to get to the hidden truths about environmental, public health and safety with books such as "Toxic Sludge Is Good for You" and "Trust Us, We're Experts." But, while their past books exposed the manipulation of scientific data by bottom-line-obsessed corporations and bottom-feeding public relations firms, "Weapons of Mass Deception" explores even more troubling manipulations of those who would bend the truth in order to legitimize a "pre-emptive war."

Using their knowledge of classic public relations scams, the authors explain how the administration and its willing accomplices in the media hyped the case for an invasion of a distant land that posed no realistic threat to America.

"Weapons of Mass Deception" is thick with case studies and meticulously footnoted examples of how the administration sold a fantasy called "Operation Iraqi Freedom." The book's most important sections detail the administration's preparations for what White House aides referred to as the war's "product launch" last fall, and the propaganda techniques employed by the administration to successfully create the false impression that there was a link between Iraq's secularist Baath Party leadership and the fundamentalist al-Qaida network.

As the president's use of false "evidence" in his State of the Union address leads to calls for an independent investigation of the White House spin cycle in the weeks and months before the war began, "Weapons of Mass Deception" is arguably a more credible intelligence document than anything put together by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. And this book could well turn out to be the essential road map through the burgeoning scandals of the Bush White House.

But the most revealing sections of this book are those that deal with the "postwar" era that we are supposedly in. Stauber and Rampton's deconstruction of the president's "mission accomplished" flight onto a returning aircraft carrier to film "Top Gun"-style 2004 campaign commercials, for instance, serves as a powerful indictment of the administration's ethics and judgment.

Equally devastating is Stauber and Rampton's indictment of the American media, which fostered the impression that, after the arrival of U.S. troops in Baghdad, crowds of Iraqis stormed a city square to tear down a statue of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Stauber and Rampton invite readers to step back from the stage-managed scene shown on their television screens and observe a long-shot photo, taken by a top photographer for the Reuters news service at the time the statue went down. That perspective shows a square that was empty expect for the handful of U.S.-linked "celebrants" gathered near the statue itself.

Like a flashlight in a cave, "Weapons of Mass Deception" shows the way out from the spin zone that the Bush administration and its stenographic media have created. - Article

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posted by Thomas Ball 9:21 AM