110^th in continuing blog series on the administration push to war. As November begins, things do not get any easier for the White House, politically. Fiscal Year 2004 appropriations bills are passed, increasing the federal budget deficit to new record highs with a continuing combination of regressive tax cuts for the wealthy, uneconomic lack of societal support, and the costs of the ‘war on terror’. For the dates from Nov. 1 through Dec. 9, 2003, the non-profit organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) later determines that the Office of Management and Budget has no email records. Newly credentialed White House journalist Jeff Gannon/James Guckert sustains his efforts to help the administration. At this time, there is a death in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research in the State Department. Questions about the death, with inconsistent and specious explanations coming from unnamed official sources, remain unresolved.
November 1-7, 2003: 

Nov. 3, 2003 – A web site by Jeff Gannon/Guckert, titled Talon News, posts part 3 of three interviews with Joe Wilson. The interview and spin support talking points on the CIA leak, used by the administration and by its allies in rightwing media outlets:

“TN: Nicholas Kristoff wrote in the New York Times recently that the CIA believes that Aldrich Ames may have betrayed your wife to the Russians prior to his arrest in 1994. That would make her not an undercover operative for the CIA in effect.

Wilson: I don't know where Kristoff got that. I think that there is a fair amount of material in the public record to suggest that there is a lot of concern that Mr. Ames betrayed a number of American operatives during his spying.

TN: Including you wife?

Wilson: I don't know about that. I can't tell you anything about that.

TN: But if that is in fact true, then the leak is not necessarily a leak.

Wilson: Let me put it to you this way, I don't believe that the CIA would refer this to the Justice Department frivolously, if they thought it was a frivolous matter or if it was not a leak that might be a violation of the Intelligence Agents Identification Act.

TN: There are some who are skeptical that the CIA is fully on board with our actions in Iraq.

Wilson: Well, the CIA is not a policy organization, the CIA is paid to provide the best intelligence information it can.

TN: So you don't believe the CIA has an agenda that's different from that of the from the White House?

Nov. 4, 2003 – Some off-year elections are held in a few states including Virginia. In an early sign of trouble for GOP dominance in government, a limited and predictable “anti-tax” faction loses some local elections in the northern Virginia suburbs of D.C.

The local losses seem to have been a surprise to the editorial voices of conventional wisdom in the Washington media, habitually used to representing Virginia as a “red state.”

Nov. 5, 2003 – Jeff Gannon/James Guckert again contributes an editorial question about the Plame matter at a White House press briefing:

“Go ahead, Jeff.

Q I know that you said you hadn't seen the Rockefeller memo that Jim referred to, but I have, and it clearly outlines a Democrat plan to exploit the information gathered by the committee to undermine the president's reelection chances. Under those circumstances, would the White House consider halting the transfer of documents to the Senate Intelligence Committee until a Senate ethics panel investigates the matter?

MR. MCCLELLAN: We have been and will continue to work cooperatively with the Senate Intelligence Committee. That is our position. We want to assist them and help -- we want to be helpful in their efforts to review the intelligence relating to Iraq. That's exactly what we plan to continue doing. Again, I just have not seen that specific memo. I've seen the news reports. But, you know, we would hope that people are not trying to politicize an issue of such importance.

Q Doesn't the implication of the memo cast a whole new light on the Niger controversy and all of the things that have ensued after the remarks of Joe Wilson?”

Nov. 5, 2003 – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announces a suspension of Halliburton's no-bid contract for oil services in Iraq. The announcement comes after several weeks of pressure by House Democrats to increase transparency regarding Halliburton contracting procedures and costs. For months, Congressmen Waxman and Dingell submit inquiries to the Office of Management and Budget as well as to other administration officials, asking for information on Halliburton's prices.

Nov. 6, 2003 – President Bush addresses the National Endowment for Democracy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Building, Washington, D.C. Abandoning the WMD and al-Qaeda themes regarding Iraq, Bush calls for a “forward strategy of freedom” to promote democracy throughout the Middle East”:

“Successful societies guarantee religious liberty, the right to serve and honor God without fear of persecution. Successful societies privatize their economies and secure the rights of property. They prohibit and punish official corruption, and invest in the health and education of their people. They recognize the rights of women. And instead of directing hatred and resentment against others, successful societies appeal to the hopes of their own people.

These vital principles are being applied in the nations of Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Nov. 7, 2003 – On a Friday evening, senior analyst John J. Kokal of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) in the State Department is found dead at the bottom of theState Department building in Foggy Bottom, according to Fox News and the Washington Post, which report the information very briefly. The Social Security administration gives date of death as Nov. 8, 2003. According to Fox News,

“Fire Department Spokesman Alan Etter said the man, a white male, was wearing a dress shirt, tie and slacks, but was not wearing shoes nor a suit jacket. He was found lying in the bottom of a concrete window well near 23rd and D streets, about eight stories below the top of the building. The well drops about 20 feet from ground level.”

The death of Kokal, who worked in Near East matters in the INR and whose wife also works for the State Department, is suggested in vague accounts to be suicide by jumping from either a window of the State Department building or the roof. According to personnel at State, the windows cannot be opened, for security reasons, and also for security reasons the roof is not accessible.