Practically the first thing President William Jefferson Clinton did on entering the White House was in effect to shut off congressional investigation into the Reagan-Bush scandal of Iran-Contra. Practically the last thing
This is an open letter to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institution for War and Peace, the Federalist Society, the Republican National Committee (RNC), the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), the editorial boards of the Weekly Standard and the Washington Times, and prominent media personalities connected to Fox News and to the programs of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O
The National Security Archive now reveals that the Pentagon knew from 1999 on that invasion and occupation of Iraq would entail disaster.
Through a FOIA request, the National Security Archive has obtained documents of “Desert Crossing” war games conducted by CENTCOM (U.S. Central Command) in April 1999 to assess outcomes of invading Iraq. Outcomes were not rosy.
As the NSArchive introduction observes, “Some of these conclusions are interestingly similar to the events which actually occurred after Saddam was overthrown. (Note 1) The report forewarned that regime change may cause regional instability by opening the doors to “rival forces bidding for power” which, in turn, could cause societal “fragmentation along religious and/or ethnic lines” and antagonize “aggressive neighbors.” Further, the report illuminated worries that secure borders and a restoration of civil order may not be enough to stabilize Iraq if the replacement government were perceived as weak, subservient to outside powers, or out of touch with other regional governments. An exit strategy, the report said, would also be complicated by differing visions for a post-Saddam Iraq among those involved in the conflict.”
General Zinni, who retired after the war games, tried unsuccessfully to remind the current administration about Desert Crossing. In an act of political heroism, he went public with some of his concerns. Aside from other problems, “the former CENTCOM commander noted that his plan had called for a force of 400,000 for the invasion — 240,000 more than what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved. “We were concerned about the ability to get in there right away, to flood the towns and villages,” USA Today quoted Zinni as saying in July 2003. “We knew the initial problem would be security.” (Note 7)”
Portions of the conclusions are being reported on CNN.com today.
Selected emails disclose that one of the entities involved in planning Desert Crossing, along with CENTCOM, was the giant security contractor “Booz Allen.” The emails refer to Booz Allen Hamilton, a huge northern Virginia firm numbering members and signatories of PNAC among its principals and the government among its chief clients. Booz Allen is a privately held mega-funded global contractor.
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The company name hit the news earlier this fall with revelations that the Bush administration was secretly monitoring bank transactions (SWIFT). The White House said that the electronic surveillance was being supervised by Booz Allen, a claim that itself arouses problems. As this article by Liana Forest reminds, Booz Allen also developed Carnivore, the discredited data mining process, for use by the FBI. Thus we have a purported check and audit on government electronic surveillance being handled by a company that has demonstrably not seen fit to warn the public about what government is doing, either in regard to Iraq or in regard to financial spying.
Back to Desert Crossing: no argument can be made that key government agencies were left out of the loop. As the report afterward makes clear, “Over 70 participants, including the Department of State, Department of Defense, National Security Council, and the Central Intelligence Agency took part in the seminar.” Donald Rumsfeld, I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby and David Addington had access to the information processed by their predecessors in the Defense department. Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley had access to material available to the National Security Council.
Even couched in the value-neutral language of bureaucracy, the conclusions of the report are horrifying: “The dimensions of preparing a post-Saddam policy for Iraq and the region are vast and complex. Early preparation of a political-military plan as called for in Presidential Decision Directive 56 should be a priority. The accompanying policy debate will expose a variety of contentious positions that must be reconciled and managed. Key discussion points include: benefits and risks associated with various strategic options; information requirements; and the likelihood that intervention will be costly in terms of casualties and resources.”
Setting aside if one could that calling the invasion of another country “intervention” is quintessentially Orwellian; setting aside if one could that one nation has no right to remake another nation in the first place; setting aside if one could the injuries and deaths of thousands, one is still faced with the obscene presumptuousness with which under-qualified individuals set themselves on a course to do something they never had a chance of doing. We keep asking how–how could they do it? –how could personnel as negligible as George Walker Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Wolfowitz and Libby, Hadley and Addington even think they could accomplish the remaking of Iraq? What made them think they had the right to do so?
PNAC
In a sense the question answers itself. Invading and trashing a country that has not attacked us is self-evidently invalid. Only unqualified, ignorant, selfish people–ignorant in spite of all their resources, their wealth and their access to information and expertise–could imagine either that they could, or that they should give it a try.
Bush-connected company won in court September 12, 2001
In a brief unpublished opinion, the California court system handed an obscure and now-defunct security company called Securacom one of its few court wins. The date is memorable–Sept. 12, 2001.
Securacom, as readers may recall, was the name of a security contractor later renamed Stratesec. Its board of directors throughout the 1990s included Marvin Bush, youngest brother of George W. Bush. It was headed by Wirt D. Walker, who also headed two other now-disbanded companies, Aviation General (formerly Commander Aircraft) and the Kuwait-American Company (KuwAm). It was capitalized largely with funding from Kuwaiti royals; a member of the ruling al-Sabah, Mishal al-Sabah, a longtime friend and business associate of Walker’s, also held company positions and sat on the board of directors.
The unpublished ruling reads in full,
“Information Systems and Networks Corporation, Cross-complainant and Appellant v. Securacom Inc., Cross-defendant and Respondent S099607SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA
2001 Cal. LEXIS 6179September 12, 2001, Decided
NOTICE: [*1] DECISION WITHOUT PUBLISHED OPINION
PRIOR HISTORY: Appeal from First Appellate District. Division One. No. A091315.
OPINION: Petition for review DENIED.”
Securacom, the company, was notable chiefly for its big-time, long-term clients including the World Trade Center and Dulles Airport; for its repeated infusions of capital in spite of a track record of questionable financial management; and for its connections to the Bush family.
With all the press attention now given–belatedly–to longtime ties between the Bushes and the Sauds, the fact that the ruling family of Kuwait has also looked after Bush family interests for years has been overlooked.
Two versions of Dubya’s Yale grades
George W. Bush’s grades at Yale seem to be far lower than the ones published by the university, according to records of his grades stored at his former residence house.
Yale has an august tradition of housing students in separate residential colleges, not dorms but smaller and more cohesive versions of the college experience. Bush’s residence hall wasDavenport, where his daughter Barbara also lived as a Yale student, graduating in 2004.
So integral to the institution were and are these residential halls that for many years, important records including student grade and discipline records were stored at the individual colleges. This practice continued well up into the twentieth century past the sixties. Then it was decided that it would be good to have them in a more official place, so academic records came to be stored in the registrar’s office. However, the old records continued to be stored in the basements of the twelve residential colleges.
Also, the records stored in the residential halls were not just grades. George W. Bush’s records, for example, contained reports of his undergraduate shenanigans, including his police records.
According to an informed source, the “official school records at the registrar’s office were much kinder” than these other records. The key observations come from recent Yale alumni. One Yale student, offspring of an award winning educator, who graduated in 2002 with a strong undergraduate record, found out while at Yale that Bush had lived in the same residence and was not charmed by this discovery. A number of students were aware that the residences traditionally kept old grade records. This student was among those who went down to the basement, checked the older records physically and looked at them. Students discussed among themselves the disparities between some grades published for Bush and those stored in the residence hall basement. According to anecdote, some of the housed grade records had also been physically altered, with grades whited out or obscured and other grades substituted.
One key question among others would be when the records were altered. Student hearsay has it that the altering took place during the presidential term of the senior Bush, but that may be conjecture generated by stories still floating around the institution from 1998 and beyond about visits from former First Lady Barbara Bush to campus. In the words of one mother of a recent Yale alum, there was “this sense of control” about the visits. “The university was very uncomfortable,” evidently from a sense of influence if not pressure for reasons not publicly clarified. Ties between the first family and the university donor base are deep and longstanding.
The White House has not answered questions, telephoned and emailed in September 2006 and earlier, on this topic.
As most parents know, discipline issues are not entirely separate from grade issues. One observer says, “we just honestly don’t think he [Bush] went to history class.” Bush has said he did attend, but the grade records indicate otherwise. “We don’t think he was ever there.” The cached version of the official presidential biography, from the White House web site, says that Bush graduated from Yale with a BA in history.
Yale students’ proximity to records — under the same roof — was what gave them the information. According to the current webmaster for Davenport Hall,
“Davenport was renovated two years ago, so any files that were stored in the basement were surely moved. I’m not sure anyone would know if they still exist, but the people to ask would be the master and the dean.”
Questions emailed to the pertinent officials have not been answered. Davenport Hall has now been extensively renovated, including its basement. Questions to the architecture firm about archives in the basement have not been addressed.
Davenport Hall, Pierson Hall, Yale
Issues here include the comparative lack of vetting Bush received as a candidate for the White House. While other contenders were being put through the meat grinder, the Bush campaign in Texas and in DC adeptly presented its candidate as a homey Jimmy Stewart type–modest in demeanor, so that his modest accomplishments were a given, to be taken for granted. Thus the secrecy, drift and dishonesty in Bush’s background were largely given a pass.
One large question is why Bush or anyone connected to him would try altering grades. One answer is Vietnam. John Kerry’s clumsy witticism about being stuck in Iraq is a flashback to Vietnam, when any student who flunked out was genuinely liable to be shipped out if his name was not George W. Bush.
Difficult as the Ivy League was to get into, it was notoriously gentle about flunking out a student once admitted, including legacy students like George Walker Bush who would anticipate getting the gentleman’s C in any case.
At this stage, some question remains as to whether Bush attained even that. For family members to go so far as to pressure the institution to keep Bush inside the hedges to keep him stateside, if they did so, he must have been failing. Unfortunately, there is no inherent unlikelihood in this narrative, given the way Bush was leapfrogged over more than a hundred other applicants for the Texas Air National Guard.
George W. Bush in Texas Air National Guard uniform
The deeper issue is character rather than grades. Assuming that these anecdotes are correct, and there is no reason to assume otherwise, they have frattitude written all over them. Any teacher knows that it is one thing to help your fellow students by filing professors’ old tests and passing around copies from previous years; it is quite another to help by passing around answers to a test or copies of a test that students are not supposed to have seen. Studying from old tests rather than going to class may not be the ideal way to learn, but it is minimally legitimate–cramming rather than reading, something most of us have done at some point. The other is cheating. By the same token, it is one thing to oppose all grades, the grading system, on the basis of reasoned argument that grades do not well reinforce learning. It is another to game the existing grading system by dishonesty. Whatever one thinks of grade point averages, class standing, or the grading system in general, there is no argument in favor of altering selected grades ex post facto.
From another perspective, the years that George Walker Bush and Joe Lieberman attended Yale were also years that the Ivies including Yale did not admit women. If the elite institutions had more than doubled their talent pool by admitting women and historically excluded groups, presumably some of these bums would not have gotten in.
The most recent television commercial for George Allen, presumably aimed at women, contains this reverse blurb:
[female voice-over:]
Transcript excerpt from panel yesterday, Tucker Carlson on GOP and evangelicals
Carlson on air
From the transcripts:
Copyright 2006 National Broadcasting Co. Inc.
All Rights Reserved
NBC News TranscriptsSHOW: The Chris Matthews Show Various Times NBC
October 8, 2006 Sunday
LENGTH: 3972 words
HEADLINE: Maureen Dowd of The New York Times, Andrew Sullivan of The New Republic and MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell and Tucker Carlson discuss Foley scandal, war on Iraq, woman like Hillary Clinton as American president and their scoops and predictions
ANCHORS: CHRIS MATTHEWS
REPORTERS: TUCKER CARLSON, NORAH O’DONNELL
BODY: . . . [discussion of the Mark Foley scandal with high school pages]
Mr. SULLIVAN: This–and I think Norah’s right. The real theme here is abuse of power, and so it ties in with corruption, the pork, the abuse of our troops in Iraq who have not been given the support they need or even a war plan to succeed.
MATTHEWS: OK, so everyone agrees here that this story, emblematic of whatever…
Mr. SULLIVAN: Just emblematic of abuse.
CARLSON: It goes deeper than that though. The deep truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for the evangelicals who put their party in power. Everybody in… [emphasis added]
MATTHEWS: How do you know that? How do you know that?
CARLSON: Because I know them. Because I grew up with them. Because I live with them. They live on my street. Because I live in Washington, and I know that everybody in our world has contempt for the evangelicals. And the evangelicals know that, and they’re beginning to learn that their own leaders sort of look askance at them and don’t share their values.
MATTHEWS: So this gay marriage issue and other issues related to the gay lifestyle are simply tools to get elected?
CARLSON: That’s exactly right. It’s pandering to the base in the most cynical way, and the base is beginning to figure it out. (Unintelligible).
MATTHEWS: OK. Where are you…
Mr. SULLIVAN: The right is right to be mad about this. They have been duped by these people, and now they’re venting and they have every right to vent.
[further discussion on other issues]
Tucker Carlson says it aloud. The Republican elite has contempt for the evangelicals.
Tucker Carlson
The Sunday morning talk shows today, October 8, 2006, included some refreshingly frank or realistic discourse, for a rarity.
Probably most attention tomorrow will be devoted to Bob Woodward narrating how Vice President Cheney used the bullshit word and hung up on him. Possibly some attention will go to the congressional tin ear from Illinois, GOP Congressman Ray LaHood, talking about the Foley scandal: “The real disservice was done to the speaker.”
Mark Foley
But for my money, the real jaw dropper this morning was Tucker Carlson finally saying publicly what millions of us have known for years: “The Republican elite has contempt for the evangelicals.”
Carlson opening up on air
The commentary centered around the Mark Foley scandal and attendant ironies–that a member of Congress who for years ostentatiously paraded his concern for children and for youth has solicited, also for years, the sexual attentions of teenagers, and not just any teenagers, but teenaged pages specifically under the protection of Congress. Furthermore, all signs indicate that the entire top GOP leadership of Congress, even while campaigning aggressively in some bogus morality posture, either covered up for Foley or at best deliberately avoided knowing enough of his activities to do anything about them.
To call this hypocrisy is just an insult to hypocrites.
As I have said before, this is not hypocrisy. It is deliberate imposture. It is analogous to the current White House policy of pouring gasoline on the flames in geopolitics, under the guise of fighting terrorism, when as it well knows, its policies ignite terrorism, from which it profits. In the ratios of the Miller Analogy Test, Mark Foley is to protecting children what George W. Bush is to protecting Americans. If they really wanted less terrorism, they would eliminate cluster bombs and land mines.
But of all the commentators on all three major television networks, none to my knowledge has made the basic connection, until today. Carlson made the basic, direct statement that for years has needed making. “Everybody in our world has contempt for the evangelicals,” he continued under questioning. When asked, “How do you know?” in response to his initial claim about the GOP, he gave the unequivocal answer: “Because I see them.” As Carlson said, he works with them, meaning members of the power elite or the opinion makers. He has moved among them for years. “They live on my street.”
Following up the statements that “The Republican elite has contempt for the evangelicals,” and “Everybody in our world has contempt for the evangelicals,” he continued, “and everybody knows that. The evangelicals are beginning to figure it out.”
What came home for this viewer is that on a more modest scale I have seen the same thing. Certainly not all Republican women, or all women who sometimes vote Republican, feel the same way on social issues. And some of the most rock-ribbed longtime Republican women voters, at least those of my acquaintance, who also tend to be economically well off or affluent, are exactly the individuals most dismissive of the party line on social issues. They let the men talk, but if a woman or girl they care about or to whom they are related wants an abortion, they are highly unlikely to let the men stand in the way. Or even to let the men know, if that’s the way to play it.
As for the public pronouncements of their party, and the most prominent of their professional religious spokesmen, they roll their eyes. I have seen them do it. You do not get more eye-rolling about the Reverend Mr. Pat Robertson or about the unreverend Ralph Reed anywhere than in the nearest lunch of Republican women at the local country club, and the only people who seem not to know it are the people whose faithful votes keep the corporate hogs in office. So the GOP agenda accomplishes its real objectives such as keeping plaintiffs out of court, letting insurance companies off the hook on large claims, raiding or undermining pension funds, bailing out the top management of mismanaged industries, and preventing any progressive taxation whatever for billionaires.
Meanwhile, the rare genuine voter of rightwing conscience who gets into office, like GOP Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, could not be more sidelined if he were a high schooler trying to play in the NFL. I have said it before. The only real purpose regarding abortion for this administration is to splinter what would otherwise have been moral opposition to its policies, domestic and foreign.
Ron Paul
There could have been a clue to the nature of the faith typically espoused by the likes of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. One clue could have been Cheney, come to think of it. But the broad clue could have been the policies of this White House and of the top crust of this administration. Look at current policies and practices and try to find the gospels in there anywhere. Try to find the New Testament in a takeover attempt on a historic scale, in careers of relentless self advancement and relentless exploitation of others, lying, bullying, bragging, whining, bribery and corruption. A little reading, the merest reminder or thought of comparative religion, would have gotten the idea across.
Instead, ironically, it took a Mark Foley to clarify the disconnect.
If this had happened on stage or in film, in the words of Shakespeare, it would be condemned as most improbable fiction.
Note: The post above was re-posted after being deleted by the system.
Update on Mark Foley, hobnobbing with Grover Norquist at the 2012 Republican convention, here.
Foley, Norquist at convention
Even claims of show biz endorsements for the exploitative ABC miniseries are wrong
Regarding the challenged ABC miniseries on events before 9/11*, right-wing commentator Hugh Hewitt sends around this graf:
“An exclamation point on this event is the fact that Oliver Stone will endorse the project this week. Not known for his conservative leanings, he loves the project. Perhaps this and the fact that the production company that made Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth” are endorsing it would underline just how far out or touch and scared the Clinton Admin is about the revelation of the facts as portrayed in this project. Is it just that Clinton is continuing to re-define his legacy? Or is it his fears for this election cycle and 2008? Or both?”
The really splashy claim here? –Oliver Stone loves it!
Hugh Hewitt
So far, that claim is rebuffed, at least by anyone available for comment.
Lawrence Bender Productions, via Bender, distances self from any notion that Stone endorsed the miniseries.
Participant Productions–which also made Fast Food Nation among other credits–sends the following, in response to emailed questions.
“Dear Margie,
Thank you for contacting Participant Productions. I am not aware of any such endorsement from our company regarding the ABC miniseries set to air this coming week. For confirmation on this matter, please contact our PR firm at . . .”
A remarkable claim by Hewitt, all in all.
Source, unstated. Thesis, unlikely. Evidence, nonexistent.
*Link inserted.
Boston Globe
August 31, 2006
By George Soros
The failure of Israel to subdue Hezbollah demonstrates the many weaknesses of the war-on-terror concept. One of those weaknesses is that even if the targets are terrorists, the victims are often innocent civilians, and their suffering reinforces the terrorist cause.
In response to Hezbollah’s attacks, Israel was justified in attacking Hezbollah to protect itself against the threat of missiles on its border. However, Israel should have taken greater care to minimize collateral damage. The civilian casualties and material damage inflicted on Lebanon inflamed Muslims and world opinion against Israel and converted Hezbollah from aggressors to heroes of resistance for many. Weakening Lebanon has also made it more difficult to rein in Hezbollah.
Another weakness of the war-on-terror concept is that it relies on military action and rules out political approaches. Israel previously withdrew from Lebanon and then from Gaza unilaterally, rather than negotiating political settlements with the Lebanese government and the Palestinian authority. The strengthening of Hezbollah and Hamas was a direct consequence of that approach. The war-on-terror concept stands in the way of recognizing this fact because it separates “us” from “them” and denies that our actions help shape their behavior.
A third weakness is that the war-on-terror concept lumps together different political movements that use terrorist tactics. It fails to distinguish between Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda or the Sunni insurrection and the Mahdi militia in Iraq. Yet all these terrorist manifestations, being different, require different responses. Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah can be treated merely as targets in the war on terror because they have deep roots in their societies; yet there are profound differences between them.
Looking back, it is easy to see where Israeli policy went wrong. When Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority, Israel should have gone out of its way to strengthen him and his reformist team. When Israel withdrew from Gaza, the former head of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, negotiated a six-point plan on behalf of the Quartet for the Middle East (Russia, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations). It included opening crossings between Gaza and the West Bank, an airport and seaport in Gaza, opening the border with Egypt, and transferring the greenhouses abandoned by Israeli settlers into Arab hands.
None of the six points was implemented. This contributed to Hamas