"Peter Kelsey" <peter_a_kelseyNO@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:4YOdnRaLeoZWvDjanZ2dnUVZ_v6rnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Deadrat wrote:
>
>> The OP can't tell the difference between Clinton and W. He thinks
>> they're both part of some "dictatorial elite." He thinks that Clinton
>> had Vince Foster killed, but apparently doesn't think about W's
>> responsibiliity for the dead in Iraq. He can't consider anything that
>> Clinton says because he thinks *everything* Clinton says is a lie.
>
> It's not at all unlike the folks that think "everything" Bush
> says is a lie.
(a) Will Withdraw if Asked
President Bush said in an interview on Thursday that he would withdraw
American forces from Iraq if the new government that is elected on Sunday
asked him to do so, but that he expected Iraq's first democratically
elected
leaders would want the troops to remain as helpers, not as occupiers. . .
.
But asked if, as a matter of principle, the United States would pull out
of
Iraq at the request of a new government, he said: "Absolutely. This is a
sovereign government. They're on their feet."
The Bush administration has ignored repeated requests to set a timetable
for
withdrawal of U.S. troops.
June 2005: Eighty two Iraqi lawmakers from across the political spectrum
have pressed for the withdrawal of the US-led occupation troops from their
country. The ****ite, Kurdish, Sunni Arab, Christian and communist
legislators made the call in a letter sent by Falah Hassan Shanshal of the
United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the largest bloc in parliament, to speaker
Hajem Al-Hassani, re****ted Agence France-Presse (AFP). "We have asked in
several sessions for occupation troops to withdraw. Our request was
ignored," read the latter, made public on Sunday, June 19.
====
(b) Iraq Imminent Threat to US
The Bush administration repeatedly claimed that Iraq presented an imminent
threat to the US and its allies, although it would later claim:
On January 27, 2004, White House spokesman Scot McClellan claimed that the
administration never said Iraq was an imminent threat. "the media have
chose
to use the word imminent" to describe the Iraqi threat. In a February 2004
speech at Georgetown University, CIA Director Tenet revealed that CIA
"analysts never said there was an imminent threat" from Iraq before the
war.
In terms of the administration claims it never said or suggested an
imminent
threat, below are a sample of such comments:
"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the
security
of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam
Hussein in Iraq." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (09.19.02)
"This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly
imagined." President Bush (09.26.02)
"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency. . . . It has developed
weapons of mass death" President Bush (10.02.02)
"There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is." President Bush (10.02.03)
"There are many dangers in the world; the threat from Iraq stands alone
because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place.
President Bush (10.07.02)
"The Iraqi regime is a serious and growing threat to peace." President
Bush
(10.16.02)
"There is a real threat, in my judgment, a real and dangerous threat to
America in the form of Saddam Hussein." President Bush (10.28.02)
"I see a significant threat to the security of the United States in Iraq."
President Bush (11.01.02)
"Today the world is...uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed
by Iraq." President Bush (11.01.02)
"The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by
Iraq whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill
thousands." President Bush (11.23.02)
In January 2003, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett, when
asked "is Saddam an imminent threat to U.S. interests"; he replied "Well,
of
course he is."
In February 2003, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said "[t]his is
about [an] imminent threat."
In May 2003, Ari Fleisher was asked "Didn't we go to war because we said
WMD's
were a direct and imminent threat to the U.S?" He responded, "Absolutely."
----------
The director of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence & Research
stated that "Iraq possessed no imminent threat to either its neighbors or
to
the United States."
A January 2004 re****t by the Army War College concluded that Iraq was not
an
imminent threat and characterized the war as "an unnecessary preventive
war
of choice against a deferred Iraq."
The Carnegie Endowment for Peace's re****t on WMD's in Iraq also concluded
that Iraq did not pose an immediate threat to the United States or to
global
security.
Sources: Daily Mis-Lead 02.05.04; Rivers-Pitt - Truthout.org 07.11.03,
McGovern -AlterNet 06.30.03, NBC News 07.21.03, Krugman - New York Times
07.22.03; WMD in Iraq - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace;
Bounding
the Global War on Terror - Army War College.Daily Mis-Lead 01.28.04, CAP
Daily Progress Re****t 01.29.04
========
(c) Iraq WMDs
The Bush administration religiously chanted the contention that Iraq
possessed weapons of mass destruction as its basis for a war.
For example, in his address to the nation Bush said the intelligence
"leaves
no doubt that . . . Iraq . . . continues to possess and conceal some of
the
most lethal weapons ever devised." Vice President Cheney also was part of
the chorus and declared that "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now
has
weapons of mass destruction."
The absence of WMDs did not prevent the administration from claiming they
had found them.
BUSH: We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological
laboratories. [Bush on Polish TV, 5/29/03]
POWELL: We have already discovered mobile biological factories of the kind
that I described to the Security Council on the 5th of February. We have
now
found them. There is no question in our mind that that's what their
purpose
was. Nobody has come up with an alternate purpose that makes sense.
[Powell,
6/2/03]
WOLFOWITZ: We - as the whole world knows - have in fact found some
significant evidence to confirm exactly what Secretary Powell said when he
spoke to the United Nations about the development of mobile biological
weapons production facilities that would seem to confirm fairly precisely
the information we received from several defectors, one in particular who
described the program in some detail. [Wolfowitz, 6/3/03]
RICE: But let's remember what we've already found. Secretary Powell on
February 5th talked about a mobile, biological weapons capability. That
has
now been found and this is a weapons laboratory trailers capable of making
a
lot of agent that-dry agent, dry biological agent that can kill a lot of
people. So we are finding these pieces that were described. . This was a
program that was built for deceit and concealment. [CNBC, 6/3/03]
JOHN BOLTON: And I think the presentation that Secretary Powell made to
the
Security Council some months ago, which he worked on day and night for
four
or five days before going up to New York, is actually standing up very
well
to the test of reality as we learn more about what was going on inside
Iraq.
He explained to the Security Council and, indeed, showed diagrams of
mobile
biological weapons production facilities. We have already found two such
laboratories. [Testimony before House International Relations Committee,
6/4/03]
BUSH: We recently found two mobile biological weapons facilities which
were
capable of producing biological agents. [Bush, 6/5/03]
POWELL: I reviewed that presentation that I made on the 5th of February a
number of times, as you might imagine, over recent weeks, and it holds up
very well. It was the solid, coordinated judgment of the intelligence
community. Some of the things that I talked about that day we have now
seen
in reality. We have found the mobile biological weapons labs that I could
only show cartoons of that day. We now have them. [NBC Today Show,
6/30/03]
CHENEY: We had intelligence re****ting before the war that there were at
least seven of these mobile labs that he had gone out and acquired. We've,
since the war, found two of them. They're in our possession today, mobile
biological facilities that can be used to produce anthrax or smallpox or
whatever else you wanted to use during the course of developing the
capacity
for an attack. [Meet the Press, 9/14/03]
(Center for American Progress)
-----
The 2006 Senate Intelligence Committee re****t found that:
Findings do not sup****t the 2002 NIE judgment that Iraq was reconstituting
its nuclear weapons program.
Findings do not sup****t the 2002 NIE *****sment that Iraq's acquisition of
high-strength aluminum tubes was intended for an Iraqi nuclear program.
Findings do not sup****t the 2002 NIE *****sment that Iraq was "vigorously
trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake" from Africa.
Findings do not sup****t the 2002 NIE *****sment that "Iraq has biological
weapons.
Findings do not sup****t the 2002 NIE *****sment that Iraq possessed, or
ever
developed, mobile facilities for producing biological warfare agents.
Findings do not sup****t the 2002 NIE *****sment that Iraq "has chemical
weapons" or "is expanding its chemical industry to sup****t chemical
weapons."
Findings do not sup****t the 2002 NIE *****sment that Iraq likely retained
covert SCUD SRBMs.
Findings do not sup****t the 2002 NIE *****sment that Iraq and developed a
program for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle to deliver biological agents.
Similarly, the CIA's Duelfer's Re****t Iraq concluded that Iraq:
HAD NO WMD's.
"had no . . . strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions"
ended
Iraq failed "to acquire long range Iraq's nuclear program ended in 1991
following the Gulf War."
"Iraq unilaterally destroyed is undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in
1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of
chemical munitions thereafter."
In spite of exhaustive investigation, ISG found no evidence that Iraq
possessed, or was developing BW agent product systems mounted on road
vehicles or railway wagons."
This is consistent with pre-war findings:
Former Treasury Secretary O'Neil, who was a member of the National
Security
Council, indicated that "[i]n the 23 months I was there, I never saw
anything that I would characterize as evidence of weapons of mass
destruction."
In January 2004, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace re****t on
WMDS in Iraq concluded that the evidence prior to the war indicated that
Iraq's nuclear program had been dismantled and its chemical weapons had
lost
most of their lethality. In addition, the re****t concluded that the
administration "systematically misrepresented the threat from Iraq's WMD
and
ballistic missile programs".
In September 2002, the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency concluded
"there is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and
stockpiling chemical weapons, or whether Iraq has - or will - establish
its
chemical warfare agent production facilities."
The Wa****ngton Post re****ted an explosive story that a secret,
fact-finding
team of scientists and engineers sponsored by the Pentagon determined in
May
2003 that two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops were not
evidence of an Iraqi biological weapons program. The nine-member team
"transmitted their unanimous findings to Wa****ngton in a field re****t on
May
27, 2003." Despite having authoritative evidence that the biological
laboratories claim was false, the administration continued to peddle the
myth over the next four months. (Center for American Progress)
Sources: Comprehensive Re****t of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's
WMD; Ruben Bannerjee - Al Jazeera 04.06.03, NOW Update 05.22.03, Scheer -
AlterNet.org 06.10.03; WMD in Iraq - Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace; 60 Minutes 01.11.14; Dreyfus & Vest - Mother Jones Jan-Feb 04;
Suskind - The Price of Loyalty.
======
(d) Congress had same pre-war intelligence
During his Veteran's Day 2005 address, Bush charged that " . . more than
a
hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate -- who had access to the
same
intelligence -- voted to sup****t removing Saddam Hussein from power. "
---
The Wa****ngton Post extensively analyzed this claim, concluding that:
"Bush
and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information
than did lawmakers, who were ependent on the administration to provide the
material.Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the
President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National Intelligence
Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat
from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the
use of force in that country. In addition, there were doubts within the
intelligence community not included in the NIE. And even the doubts
expressed in the NIE could not be used publicly by members of Congress
because the classified information had not been cleared for release."
(Wa****ngton Post, 11/13/05) See
http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpc-new.cfm?doc_name=sr-109-1-129
This was confirmed by a Congressional Research Service re****t which found
that the "President, and a small number of presidentially-designated
Cabinet-level officials, including the Vice President (3) - in contrast to
Members of Congress (4) - have access to a far greater overall volume of
intelligence and to more sensitive intelligence information, including
information regarding intelligence sources and methods."
=========
(e) Troop Levels
Defense Donald Rumsfeld claimed that the number of troops in Iraq is not a
decision I make. This is a decision that's made by the military
commanders.
[Retired] Gen. [Tommy R.] Franks, Gen. [John P.] Abizaid, Gen. [George W.]
Casey [Jr.] have decided what those numbers are.
And I have yet to hear from our commanders on the ground that they need
more
troops. President Bush (11/04/04)
-----
In fact, substantial evidence suggests that in developing the war plan
Rumsfeld rejected the advice of top military commanders who warned that
more
troops would be necessary to secure postwar Iraq. And even after the end
of
"major combat operations," Rumsfeld re****tedly squelched requests from
military commanders -- as well as L. Paul Bremer III, who headed the
U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority until the transfer of sovereignty
to Iraq in June 2004 -- for more troops.
Tommy Franks, the former commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command
(CENTCOM), has acknowledged that he felt more troops were needed in Iraq.
He
wrote in his recent book American Soldier (Regan, 2004) that he projected
that 250,000 troops would be required to secure postwar Iraq, as he
acknowledged in an August 16, 2004, appearance on CNN's Paula Zahn Now.
In an October 17, 2004, article on the Bush administration's Iraq policy,
Knight Ridder re****ted that Rumsfeld successfully opposed higher troop
levels that military planners thought were necessary. The article found
that
"[t]he administration also failed to provide some 100,000 additional U.S.
troops that American military commanders originally wanted to help restore
order and reconstruct a country." The article explained: Central Command
originally proposed a force of 380,000 to attack and occupy Iraq.
Rumsfeld's
opening bid was about 40,000, "a division-plus," said three senior
military
officials who participated in the discussions. Bush and his top advisers
finally approved the 250,000 troops the commanders requested to launch the
invasion. But the additional troops that the military wanted to secure
Iraq
after Saddam's regime fell were either delayed or never sent.
Most famously, in February 2003, a few weeks before the invasion began,
then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric ****nseki, now retired, told Congress
that
"[s]omething on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers ... would
be
required" to stabilize postwar Iraq. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul
Wolfowitz
rejected this claim, insisting that he was "reasonably certain that they
[the Iraqis] will greet us as liberators, and that will help us to keep
[troop] requirements down." Rumsfeld shared Wolfowitz's optimism.
"Rumsfeld
said the post-war troop commitment would be less than the number of troops
required to win the war. He also said 'the idea that it would take several
hundred thousand U.S. forces, I think, is far from the mark,' " [CNN,
3/3/03].
Similarly, though he is not a military commander, Bremer, who headed the
Coalition Provisional Authority, stated in October 2004 that "We never had
enough troops on the ground." Rumsfeld maintained lower troop levels than
commanders wanted during the post-invasion period. According to a February
7
article in Newsweek, Rumsfeld has effectively rejected at least one
postwar
appeal already, from Abizaid and other military commanders.
The April 12, 2004 New York Daily News re****ted that Abizaid "has been
repeatedly discouraged from asking for more soldiers," according to a
"senior military official." The article further quoted that official:
"Rumsfeld has made it clear to the whole building that he wasn't
interested
in getting any requests for more troops."
Following the death of 19 Marines from the same unit in an ambush attack,
the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Editors commented: There may be a lesson as
well as sorrow in the tragic deaths of 19 Marines from the same Ohio unit
last week. Their Marine regiment had been asking for more troops for
months,
.. . . . President Bush said June 28, "If our commanders on the ground say
we
need more troops, I will send them." The generals re****ting to Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld apparently cater to his desire to hold down
troop
numbers. So, if the generals don't ask, Rumsfeld doesn't tell the
president,
giving Bush a kind of plausible fiction. It's no wonder Americans have
grown
more skeptical of Bush's words (Media Matters 06/28/05, Seattle Post
Intelligencer (08/09/05)
=========
(f) Domestic Spy Program
Neccessary Following 9/11. "President determined it was necessary
following
September 11 to create an early warning detection system. FISA could not
have provided the speed and agility required for the early warning
detection
system." Department of Justice 12/22/05 letter to House and Senate
Intelligence Committees.
------
The program was not established on or after 9/11 but rather on Day 11 of
the
Bush Administration - 7 months before 9/11. The NSA has assembled "the
largest database in the world" containing detailed records of all calls
made
by customers of AT&T and participating carriers.
"What's really disturbing is that some of those people the vice president
was curious about were people who worked at the White House or the State
Department," one former counterterrorism official said. "There was a real
feeling of paranoia that permeated from the vice president's office and I
don't think it had anything to do with the threat of terrorism. I can't
say
what was contained in those taps that piqued his interest. I just don't
know."
======
(g) Subject to a Warrant and/or No Time For Warrants.
During the 2004 campaign, Bush claimed "Now, by the way, any time you hear
the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a
wiretap
requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're
talking
about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order
before we do so."
Once the story broke, however, the administration then claimed that it
could
not wait to get a warrant because it needed "to move quickly to detect"
plotting of terrorism between people in the United States and abroad.
(President Bush 12/19/05)
Alternatively, the administration argued that Congress had given the
administration the authority to do so in its September 11th resolution.
-----
(1) Limited in Nature. "The truth is that after 9/11, the "stream" of
information from the NSA to the FBI "soon became a flood, requiring
hundreds
of agents to check out thousands of tips a month." Investigators were
overwhelmed by the amount of information pouring into their offices.
"After
you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get
some
frustration," said one former FBI official. To day's revelations sup****t a
previous New York Times re****t that found the "volume of information
harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without
court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has
acknowledged." NSA whistleblower Russell Tice recently told ABC News "the
number of Americans subject to eavesdropping by the NSA could be in the
millions."
(2) Vital to the War on Terror, Could Have Prevented 9/11. A New York
Times re****t debunks the administration's claim that the program is vital
to
America's national security. In fact, the flood of "unfiltered
information"
from the NSA program "was swamping [FBI] investigators" in the months
after
9/11. "There were no imminent plots - not inside the United States," a
former F.B.I. official said. "The information was so thin," one prosecutor
said, "and the connections were so remote, that they never led to
anything,
and I never heard any follow-up." Additionally, "some F.B.I. officials and
prosecutors also thought the checks, which sometimes involved interviews
by
agents, were pointless intrusions on Americans' privacy."
As Media Matters explains "the 9-11 Commission and congressional
investigators re****tedly reached a very different conclusion: that the
Bush
administration had information on two of the 9-11 hijackers well over a
year
before the attacks occurred, and it was primarily bureaucratic problems --
rather than a lack of information -- that were responsible for the
security
breakdown.
According to a January 24 Wa****ngton Post article, Cheney and Hayden "did
not mention that the NSA, CIA and FBI had significant information about
two
of the leading hijackers as early as January 2000 but failed to keep track
of them or capitalize on the information, according to the Sept. 11
commission and others." The article went on to note that Hayden "also did
not mention NSA intercepts warning of the attacks the day before, but not
translated until Sept. 12, 2001."
This argument ultimately fails because the program stared before 9/11.
(3) Other Presidents Had the Authority. FISA was only enacted in 1978, so
what prior Presidents did is irrelevant since after 1978 the President had
to comply with FISA.
See ACLU, NSA Spying on Americans is Illegal (12/29/2005); Media Matters
for
America, Top 12 media myths and falsehoods on the Bush administration's
spying scandal (12/23/05); The Progress Re****t (1/17/06)
========
(h) Iran
"So I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III,
it
seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the
knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I take the threat of Iran
with
a nuclear weapon very seriously." [Bush, 10/17/07]
"Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a
terror-sup****ting state fulfills its grandest ambitions. . The Iranian
regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course the
international community is prepared to impose serious consequences."
[Cheney, 10/21/07]
"The problem is Iran, and Iran has not stepped back from trying to pursue
a
nuclear weapon, and - or reprocessing and enriching uranium, which would
lead to a nuclear weapon." [White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, 10/26/07]
"We talked about Iran and the desire to work jointly to convince the
Iranian
regime to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions, for the sake of peace."
[Bush, 11/7/07]
"We're in a position now, clearly, especially when we look at Iran, where
it's
very, very im****tant we succeed in our efforts, our national security
efforts, to discourage the Iranians from enriching uranium and producing
nuclear weapons." [Cheney, 11/9/07]
"We are convinced that they are developing nuclear weapons." [Energy
Secretary Samuel Bodman, 11/13/07]
Despite Knowledge That Iran Halted Nuke Program, White House Continued To
Warn Of False Threat, Think Progress (12/3/07)
----
The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released in December 2007
concluded
that "in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." It adds
that
"Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007," and
the country is "less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have
been
judging since 2005."
The *****sment, which relies on data collected through Oct. 31, was
re****tedly completed in 2006, but was blocked by administration officials
who wanted it to be more in line with Vice President Cheney's hardline
views.
As The Wa****ngton Monthly's Kevin Drum notes, the NIE's "basic parameters
were almost certainly common knowledge in the White House" at least by
last
year, when the do***ent was finished.
=======
(i) Torture / 9.11
FOILED TERRORIST PLOTS
In his October 6th speech on the War on Terror at National Endowment for
Democracy, President Bush said"The United States and our partners have
disrupted at least ten serious al Qaeda terrorist plots since September
the
11th, including three al Qaeda plots to attack inside the United States.
The West Coast Airliner Plot: In mid-2002 the U.S. disrupted a plot to
attack targets on the West Coast of the United States using hijacked
airplanes. The plotters included at least one major operational planner
involved in planning the events of 9/11.
The East Coast Airliner Plot: In mid-2003 the U.S. and a partner disrupted
a
plot to attack targets on the East Coast of the United States using
hijacked
commercial airplanes.
The Jose Padilla Plot: In May 2002 the U.S. disrupted a plot that involved
blowing up apartment buildings in the United States. One of the plotters,
Jose Padilla, also discussed the possibility of using a "dirty bomb" in
the
U.S.
Most recently, Bush has claimed that "aggressive interrogation techniques"
have thwarted terrorist attacks. In his September 6 speech, Bush
announced
that 14 high-level suspected terrorists had been transferred from CIA
prisons to the Pentagon's detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. Bush
talked
at length about the information gleaned from one of the prisoners, Abu
Zubaydah, whom the United States captured in March 2002. Bush described
him
as a "senior terrorist leader and a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden"
and declared that Zubaydah had given the United States information that
"turned out to be quite im****tant." From the speech:
------
The plots that Bush claimed his administration disrupted actually had
already been abandoned by the time they were discovered.
1. West Coast Airliner Plot. When the plot was disclosed last year,
authorities said publicly that they had viewed the claims by captured Al
Qaeda chieftain Khalid Shaikh Mohammed with skepticism. They said that, at
best, the alleged plot was something that had been discussed but never put
into action. By the time anybody knew about it, the threat - if there had
been one - had passed, federal counter-terrorism officials said Friday.
To
take that and make it into a disrupted plot is just ludicrous," said one
senior FBI official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance
with
departmental guidelines. [LA Times 10/7/05]
2. East Coast Airliner Plot - Lyman Faris. Faris was an Ohio truck driver
who pleaded guilty in June 2003 to two felony charges of sup****ting a
foreign terrorist organization. He was charged with plotting to destroy
the
Brooklyn Bridge, but U.S. officials admitted that Faris had abandoned the
plot because he deemed it unlikely to succeed. "After scouting the bridge
and deciding its security and structure meant the plot was unlikely to
succeed, he passed along a message to al Qaeda in early 2003 that said
'the
weather is too hot.'" [CNN, 6/19/03]
3. Jose Padilla. "Paul Wolfowitz, Mr. Rumsfeld's deputy, stressed on
Monday
that 'there was not an actual plan' to set off a radioactive device in
America and Padilla had not begun trying to acquire materials.
Intelligence
officials said his research had not gone beyond surfing the internet."
Since
being detained in O'Hare air****t in 2002, Padilla has not been charged
with
any crime or permitted to talk to a lawyer. [Daily Telegraph, 12/06/02;
Wa****ngton Post, 9/10/05]
Media Matters disects Bush's September 6th speech in detail. A September 7
article by Post staff writers Dan Eggen and Dafna Linzer noted that the
CIA
had, in fact, learned KSM's alias as early as August 2001.
A September 7 by staff writers Dan Eggen and Dafna Linzer noted that the
CIA
had, in fact, learned KSM's alias as early as August 2001.
What the DNI do***ents also do not mention is that the CIA had identified
Mohammed's nickname in August 2001, according to the Sept. 11 commission
re****t. The commission found that the agency failed to connect the
information with previous intelligence identifying Mukhtar as an al-Qaeda
associate plotting terrorist attacks, and identified that failure as one
of
the crucial missed op****tunities before Sept. 11.
Indeed, the 9-11 Commission re****t disclosed that the CIA unit tasked with
finding bin Laden had connected KSM to the alias "Mukhtar" on August 28,
2001.
The final piece of the puzzle arrived at the CIA's Bin Ladin unit on
August
28 in a cable re****ting that KSM's nickname was Mukhtar. No one made the
connection to the re****ts about Mukhtar that had been circulated in the
spring. This connection might also have underscored concern about the June
re****ting that KSM was recruiting terrorists to travel, including to the
United States.
Ron Suskind do***ents in his new book, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep
Inside
America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (Simon & Schuster, June 2006),
how the CIA was in the dark regarding KSM's location until a $25 million
reward led an Al Qaeda operative to tip them off. At the end of February
2003 that changed. The CIA got what various officials at Langley called a
"walk-in." He was a man who was moving through the al Qaeda ranks, moving
in
and out of various operations in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, and
Rawalpindi, an old Silk Road trading post that is now a city of 3 million.
He contacted CIA, which has one of its largest stations -- with nearly
fifty
agents -- in Islamabad. Suskind goes on to detail KSM's capture the
following morning.
A September 8 article, New York Times re****ter Mark Mazzetti took issue
with
Bush's assertion that Zubaydah "identified" bin al-****bh. Mazzetti noted
that U.S. authorities had been aware of bin al-****bh's involvement in the
9-11 attacks by December 2001.2001.
American officials had identified Mr. bin al-****bh's role in the attacks
months before Mr. Zubaydah's capture. A December 2001 federal grand jury
indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, said that
Mr.
Moussaoui had received money from Mr. bin al-****bh and that Mr. bin
al-****bh
had shared an apartment with Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the plot.
Indeed, the indictment states that bin al-****bh "shared an apartment" with
Atta in 1998 and 1999, and that he repeatedly wired money to the 9-11
hijackers in 2000 and 2001.
Further, Bush's claim that Zubaydah "helped lead to the capture" of bin
al-****bh is contradicted by Suskind's re****ting. In The One Percent
Doctrine, Suskind describes how information gleaned from an Al Jazeera
re****ter and the Emir of Qatar provided crucial leads regarding his
location. The re****ter, Yosri Fouda, had interviewed KSM and bin al-****bh
in
a safe house in Karachi, Pakistan, on April 19, 2002, and subsequently
informed the Emir of the likely whereabouts of the two Al Qaeda
lieutenants.
The Emir in turn disclosed this information to then-CIA director George
Tenet and, on September 11, 2002, the CIA stormed the safe house and
captured bin al-****bh.
In a September 6 interview on Salon.com regarding Bush's speech, Suskind
noted that the Emir -- not Zubaydah -- had provided the "key break" that
led
the CIA to bin al-****bh:
That was the key break in getting those guys. KSM slipped away; in June of
2002, the Emir of Qatar passed along information to the CIA as to
something
that an Al Jazeera re****ter had discovered as to the safehouse where KSM
and
bin al ****bh were hiding in Karachi slums. He passed that on to the CIA,
and
that was the key break. Whether Zubaydah provided some sup****ting
information is not clear, but the key to capturing those guys was the help
of the Emir.
But Suskind re****ts in The One Percent Doctrine that the CIA's harsh
techniques -- Zubaydah was "water-boarded," "beaten," "repeatedly
threatened," "bombarded with deafening, continuous noise," and deprived of
his medication -- only led him to disclose a variety of apparently
nonexistent plots. Suskind went on to note that the only valuable
information gleaned from Zubaydah came when the CIA switched to
non-physical
tactics. When asked about Bush's characterization of the interrogation of
Zubaydah during the Salon.com interview, Suskind confirmed that "we got
the
stuff of value" through milder tactics.
BUSH: After he recovered, Zubaydah was defiant and evasive. He declared
his
hatred of America. During questioning, he at first disclosed what he
thought
was nominal information -- and then stopped all cooperation. Well, in
fact,
the "nominal" information he gave us turned out to be quite im****tant. For
example, Zubaydah disclosed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- or KSM -- was the
mastermind behind the 9-11 attacks and used the alias "Mukhtar." This was
a
vital piece of the puzzle that helped our intelligence community pursue
KSM.
The claim that Zubaydah identified KSM's moniker also appeared in a
do***ent
summarizing the CIA's "High Value Detention Program" released by the
Office
of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on September 6. Bush
further
claimed in the speech that Zubaydah "provided information that helped in
the
planning and execution of the operation that captured" KSM.
In the September 6 speech, Bush similarly claimed that the CIA's
interrogation of Zubaydah led to the arrest of Al Qaeda lieutenant Ramzi
bin
al-****bh:
BUSH: Zubaydah was questioned using these procedures, and soon he began to
provide information on key al Qaeda operatives, including information that
helped us find and capture more of those responsible for the attacks on
September the 11th. For example, Zubaydah identified one of KSM's
accomplices in the 9/11 attacks -- a terrorist named Ramzi bin al ****bh.
The
information Zubaydah provided helped lead to the capture of bin al ****bh.
In his speech, Bush presented the information extracted from Zubaydah as
evidence that the CIA interrogation program "has saved lives; of why it
remains vital to the security of the United States, and our friends and
allies; and why it deserves the sup****t of the United States Congress and
the American people." Bush claimed that when the CIA interrogated Zubaydah
using these "tough" procedures, "he began to provide information on key al
Qaeda operatives."
(j)
9/11 WARNINGS
In her public testimony before the 9-11 commission, Dr. Rice stated: "I do
not remember any re****ts to us, a kind of strategic warning, that planes
might be used as weapons."
After the attacks, Ari Fleischer stated that the President had no
warnings
of an attack and President Bush explained
"[n]ever [in] anybody's thought processes . . . did we ever think that
the
evil doers would fly not one but four commercial aircraft into precious US
targets . . . never."
In May 2002, Condoleezza Rice claimed, "I don't think anybody could have
predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked
airplane as a missile." (05.16.02)
Dr. Rice: "[W]e received no intelligence that terrorists were preparing
to
attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles, though some analysts
speculated that terrorists might hijack airplanes to try to free U.S.-held
terrorists." (03.22.04)
President Bush: "Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to
strike America, to attack us. I would have used very resource, every
asset,
every power of this government to protect the American people."
(03.25.04)
Surprisingly, Bush reiterated this comment at an April 13 press
conference.
"[T]here was nobody in our government, at least, and I don't think the
prior
government that could envision flying airplanes into buildings."
July 2001 Warning
Condoleezza Rice describes her briefing with CIA officials George Tenet
and
Cofer Black on July 10, 2001 as relatively unremarkable. Here's how her
spokesman Sean McCormack described it :
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack [said]. the information Rice got
"was not new'' and didn't amount to an urgent warning. "Rather, it was a
good summary from the threat-re****ting from the previous several weeks,''
McCormack said in a statement from Saudi Arabia where Rice is traveling.
Earlier in the day, Rice questioned whether the meeting even happened and
said that it was "incomprehensible" the meeting included a warning that
U.S.
interests faced an imminent threat from al-Qaeda.
----
Dr. Rice admitted privately to the 9-11 panel that she had "misspoken"
when
she said there were no prior warnings, but then proceeded to repeat this
claim in public.
The warnings received (see below) were sufficient for Attorney General
Ashcroft to begin "traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of
commercial airlines" because of what the Justice Department called "a
threat
*****sment." The Justice Department has yet to release this "threat
*****sment."
Sibel Edmonds, a translator with the FBI, indicates "that it was clear
there
was sufficient information during the spring and summer of 2001 to
indicate
terrorists were planning an attack."
"President Bush said they had no specific information about 11 September
and
that is accurate but only because he said 11 September," she said. There
was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an
attack was just months away. (22)
Condoleezza Rice was the top National Security official with President
Bush
at the July 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa. There, "U.S. officials were warned
that Islamic terrorists might attempt to crash an airliner" into the
summit,
prompting officials to "close the airspace over Genoa and station
antiaircraft guns at the city's air****t."
Bush received an August 6, 2001 memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined to
Strike in U.S." which mentioned bin Laden's desire and capability to
strike
the US possibly using hijacked airplanes. The CIA warned that bin Laden
will launch an attack against the US and/or Israel in the coming weeks
that
"will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against US
facilities or interests."
The Bush administration prevented the release of details of the August 6th
briefing in the re****t issued by the Joint Congressional Committee
investigating the 9-11 attack.
Also that spring and summer intelligence re****ts indicated that
(i) Middle Eastern terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft
to
use as weapons to attack "American and Israeli symbols which stand out";
(ii) there was a threat to assassinate Bush at the July 2001 G-8 summit
using an airplane stuffed with explosives;
(iii) al-Qaeda was planning an attack using multiple airplane hijackings;
and
(iv) that bin Laden was in advanced stages of executing a significant
operation within the US.
This was included in re****ts entitled "Bin Laden planning multiple
operations," "Bin Laden's network's plan advancing," and "Bin Laden
threats
are real" which warned of catastrophic damage.
The CIA's National Reconnaissance Office had scheduled an exercise in
which
a small cor****ate jet would crash into an office tower following equipment
failure for the morning of September 11th.
In February 2001, the Hart-Rudman re****t warned that "mass-casualty
terrorism directed against the U.S. homeland was of serious and growing
concern" and that the US was woefully unprepared for a "catastrophic"
domestic terrorist attack.
President Bush refused to act on this re****t, preferring to await the
findings of Cheney's terrorist task force which failed to even meet before
9-11. The Bush administration prevented the release of details of the
August
6 briefing in the re****t issued by the Joint Congressional Committee
investigating the 9-11 attack.
Sources: (1) The Left Coaster 07.14.03, Waterman - UPI 07.23.03, Priest -
Wa****ngton Post 07.25.03, Dean - Findlaw.com 07.29.03, Ridgeway - Village
Voice 07.31.03, Franken - Lies And The Liars Who Tell Them, Daily Mis-Lead
03.11.04, Center for American Progress Fact Sheet 03.22.04, Progress
Re****t
03.26.04, Rice - Wa****ngton Post 03.22.04, Progress Re****t 03.26.04, Daily
Mis-Lead 04.14.04; Lumpkin - Associated Press 10.28.03; CAP Fact Sheets
04.08.04
Rice July 2001 Warning
Here's how the briefing was described by the officials who prepared it,
according to McClatchy:
One official who helped to prepare the briefing, which included a
PowerPoint
presentation, described it as a "10 on a scale of 1 to 10? that "connected
the dots" in earlier intelligence re****ts to present a stark warning that
al-Qaida, which had already killed Americans in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and
East
Africa, was poised to strike again.
"The briefing was intended to `connect the dots' contained in other
intelligence re****ts and paint a very clear picture of the threat posed by
bin Laden," said the official, who described the tone of the re****t as
"scary."
=====
(k) Torture
We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. We are gathering
information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to
disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do ... to that end in this
effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture." -
President Bush (Nov. 7, 2005).
---
The State Department's annual re****t on human rights practices worldwide
has
condemned countries such as Burma and North Korea for the disappearance
and
indefinite detention of political prisoners without trial; while also
condemning Libya, Syria and other countries for engaging in acts of
torture
that include hooding, stripping detainees ****d, sleep deprivation,
subjecting detainees to extremes of heat, cold, noise and light,
threatening
them with dogs, submerging them in water to simulate drowning - which is
known as water-boarding - and other acts of physical abuse all of which
have
occured at U.S. detention facilities. See State Dept. Study Cites Torture
of Prisoners: Rumself Approved Similar Practices (Wa****ngton Post March
10,
2005).
Rumsfeld Approved Similar Practices
In addition, post-World War II Japanese war crimes tribunals found that
both
the Japanese soldiers engaging in water-boarding and the officers who
approved it were guilty of war crimes.
========
(l) Guantanamo
GUANTANAMO DETAINEES & ABUSE
These are people picked up off the battlefield in Afghanistan. They
weren't
wearing uniforms . . . but were there to kill. (President Bush 06/20/05)
These detainees are dangerous enemy combatants . . . They were picked up
on
the battlefield, fighting American forces, trying to kill American forces.
(Scott McClellan 06/21/05)
The people that are there are people we picked up on the battlefield,
primarily in Afghanistan. They're terrorists. They're bomb makers. They're
facilitators of terror. They're members of Al Qaeda and the
Taliban....We've
let go those that we've deemed not to be a continuing threat. But the
520-some that are there now are serious, deadly threats to the United
States. (Vice President Cheney 06/23/05)
These are people, all of whom were captured on a battlefield. They're
terrorists, trainers, bomb makers, recruiters, financiers, [Osama bin
Laden's] bodyguards, would-be suicide bombers, probably the 20th 9/11
hijacker. (Defense Secretary Rumsfeld 06/27/05)
Concerns about abuse at Guantanamo are based on allegations made by
"people
who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been
trained in some instances to disassemble [sic]." President Bush
(05/31/05)
----
Defense Department Data. Counsel for the detainees released a re****t based
entirely on the Defense Department's own data which found:
1. Fifty-five percent (55%) of the detainees are not determined to
have committed any hostile acts against the United States or its coalition
allies.
2. Only 8% of the detainees were characterized as al Qaeda fighters.
Of
the remaining detainees, 40% have no definitive connection with al Qaeda
at
all and 18% are have no definitive affiliation with either al Qaeda or the
Taliban.
The Government has detained numerous persons based on mere affiliations
with
a large number of groups that in fact, are not on the Department of
Homeland
Security terrorist watchlist. Moreover, the nexus between such a detainee
and such organizations varies considerably. Eight percent are detained
because they are deemed "fighters for;" 30% considered "members of;" a
large
majority - 60% -- are detained merely because they are "associated with" a
group or groups the Government asserts are terrorist organizations. For 2%
of the prisoners their nexus to any terrorist group is unidentified.
Only 5% of the detainees were captured by United States forces. 86% of the
detainees were arrested by either Pakistan or the Northern Alliance and
turned over to United States custody. This 86% of the detainees captured
by
Pakistan or the Northern Alliance were handed over to the United States at
a
time in which the United States offered large bounties for capture of
suspected enemies.
National Journal Review of Defense Department Filings in Habeas Petitions.
National Journal reviewed the transcripts for 314 Gitmo prisoners and
found
the following:
A high percentage, perhaps the majority, of the 500-odd men now held at
Guantanamo were not captured on any battlefield, let alone on "the
battlefield in Afghanistan" (as Bush asserted) while "trying to kill
American forces" (as McClellan claimed).
Fewer than 20 percent of the Guantanamo detainees, the best available
evidence suggests, have ever been Qaeda members.
Many scores, and perhaps hundreds, of the detainees were not even Taliban
foot soldiers, let alone Qaeda terrorists. They were innocent, wrongly
seized noncombatants with no intention of joining the Qaeda campaign to
murder Americans.
The majority were not captured by U.S. forces but rather handed over by
reward-seeking Pakistanis and Afghan warlords and by villagers of highly
doubtful reliability.
Seventy-five of the 132 men, or more than half the group, are -- like --
not
accused of taking part in hostilities against the United States or its
coalition partners. (The 75 include 10 detainees whom the U.S. government
"no longer" considers enemy combatants, although at least eight of the 10
are still being held at Guantanamo.) Typically, do***ents describe these
men
as "associated" with the Taliban or with Al Qaeda -- sometimes directly
so,
and sometimes through only weak or distant connections. Several men worked
for charities that had some ties to Al Qaeda; one detainee lived in a
house
associated with the Taliban.
Some of the "associated" men are said to have attended jihadist training
camps before September 11, an accusation admitted by some and denied by
others. The U.S. government says that some of the suspected jihadists
trained in Afghanistan, even though other records show that they had not
yet
entered the country at the time of the training camps. Just 57 of the 132
men, or 43 percent, are accused of being on a battlefield in post-9/11
Afghanistan.
The government's do***ents tie only eight of the 132 men directly to plans
for terrorist attacks outside of Afghanistan.
At least eight prisoners at Guantanamo are there even though they are no
longer designated as enemy combatants. One perplexed attorney, whose
client
does not want public attention, learned that the man was no longer
considered an enemy combatant only by reading a footnote in a Justice
Department motion asking a federal judge to put a slew of habeas corpus
cases on hold. The attorney doesn't know why the man is still in Cuba.
The re****ts of abuse are not based on allegations by detainees but
"accounts
by agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation." The FBI agents wrote
in
memorandum that "they had seen female interrogators forcibly squeeze male
prisoners' genitals, and that they had witnessed other detainees stripped
and shackled low to the floor for many hours." Nevertheless, Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld said military interrogators know "that any
detainees
[should] be treated in a humane way, and they have been." (Center for
American Progress 6/10/05)
--
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