THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
February 2007:
Week Three
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- February 15: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warns Bush that he lacks the authority to invade Iran without specific approval from Congress.
War with Iran
She notes that Bush has consistently said he supports a diplomatic resolution to differences with Iran, "and I take him at his word." She adds, "I do believe that Congress should assert itself, though, and make it very clear that there is no previous authority for the president, any president, to go into Iran." - The House is locked in a marathon debate over a nonbinding measure that disapproves of the military buildup in Iraq while expressing support for the troops. The measure will likely be passed tomorrow; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the Senate will hold plans to hold a test vote the next day. Republicans have so far prevented a Senate vote on the troop increase, insisting on equal treatment for an alternative rules out the "elimination or reduction of funds for troops in the field."
- Pelosi and other Democrats have said approval on the nonbinding measure would mark the first step in an effort by the new Democratic-controlled Congress to force Bush to change course in a war that has killed more than 3,100 US troops. Bush administration officials and their Congressional allies are resigned to House passage of the resolution and have worked in recent days to hold down defections by GOP lawmakers. Bush, however, swipes at his critics, saying, "This may become the first time in the history of the United States Congress that it has voted to send a new commander into battle and then voted to oppose his plan that is necessary to succeed in that battle." Bush is referring to Lieutenant General David Petraeus, who was confirmed last week to take over as the top US commander in Iraq.
- Administration critics have accused Bush of looking for a pretense to attack the Islamic republic, which is also at loggerheads with the United Nations about what tehran says is a nuclear program aimed at developing energy for peaceful purposes.
- Democratic representative John Murtha, who is leading the effort to pass the nonbinding resolution, has said the measure may be changed to require that any troops deployed must meet formal Army readiness standards. He added that the measure may be changed to prohibit any military action against Iran without specific congressional approval. Pelosi says she fully supports Murtha's ideas, and adds that she will propose it as stand-alone legislation if it is not included in the bill that provides more money for the Iraq war. Bush has said that he will ignore the resolution even if it passes. (AP/Truthout)
- February 15: A giant, multinational arms sale -- the International Defense Exhibition (IDEX) -- is going on in the Arab Gulf state of Dubai, with representatives from countries and organizations throughout the Middle East lining up to buy everything from sniper gear to gunboats.
Middle East unrest
Though American authorities will say little about the huge arms fair, it is well known that allies of the Iraqi Sunni insurgents, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan, are buying arms and equipment to arm their comrades against their American and Shi'ite enemies in Iraq. "The growth of the official and unofficial Saudi and Jordanian support for the militants is one of the most worrying developments," says a senior British official. And Arab states are arming themselves in preparation for the US offensive against Iran -- either to help the US or the Iranians. No one is as yet sure what the arms will be used for, or who they will be used against. (First Post) - February 15: Federal investigators auditing expenditures in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion say that billions of taxpayer dollars have already been wasted, and billions more are likely to be similarly wasted in the upcoming months.
Iraq war and occupation
Three top Government Accountability Office auditors overseeing contract work in Iraq tells the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that $10 billion in spending was wasteful or poorly tracked. They point to numerous instances in which Defense and State department officials condoned or otherwise allowed poor accounting, repeated work delays, bloated expenses and payments for work shoddily or never done by US contractors. And the problem will likely worsen, given limited improvement so far by the Department of Defense even as the Bush administration prepares to boost the US presence in Iraq. David Walker, comptroller general of the GAO, Congress' auditing arm, says his agency has been pointing out problems for years, only to be largely ignored or given lip service with little result. "There is no accountability," he says. "Organizations charged with overseeing contracts are not held accountable. Contractors are not held accountable. The individuals responsible are not held accountable. ...People should be rewarded when they do a good job. But when things don't go right, there have to be consequences." - Senate Democrats, calling recently cited cases of waste "outrageous rip-offs of the American taxpayer," have legislation in thw works that will curtail cronyism in contracting and stiffen penalties for war profiteers. The bill, sponsored by conservative Democrat Byron Dorgan and signed by 22 other senators, would impose penalties of up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $1 million for war profiteering and restore a rule that prohibits awarding federal contracts to companies exhibiting a pattern of breaking the law in performance of government contracts. That rule, put in place by President Clinton, was dropped by the Bush administration upon taking office. (Republican senator Jon Kyl will block debate, and therefore passage, of the bill.)
- The auditors' joint appearance before the committee comes as Congress is preparing for a showdown with President Bush next month over his budget request of nearly $100 billion to pay for more US troops in Iraq. Also testifying are Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, and William Reed, director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency.
- Among other things, the investigators:
- found overpricing and waste in Iraq contracts amounting to $4.9 billion since the Defense Contract Audit Agency began its work in 2003, although some of that money has since been recovered. Another $5.1 billion in expenses were charged without proper documentation.
- urged the Pentagon to reconsider its growing reliance on outside contractors to run the nation's wars and reconstruction efforts. Layers of subcontractors, poor documentation and lack of strong contract management are rampant and promote waste even after the GAO first warned of problems 15 years ago.
- pointed to growing Iraqi sectarian violence as a significant factor behind wasted US dollars. Iraqi officials must begin to take primary responsibility for reconstruction efforts, an uncertain goal given widespread corruption in Iraq and the local government's inability to fund projects.
- February 15: House Democrats are pressuring Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to modify his decision to fire US Attorney Carol Lam.
US Attorney firings
They want Gonzales to allow Lam to continue heading the corruption and fraud investigation into former Republican representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham and his cronies. Lam, two days after bringing indictments against Cunningham's business colleagues Kyle Foggo and Brent Wilkes (see above items), was notified that she was being replaced. Four House members, including the chairman of the Judiciacy Committee, John Conyers, and Rahm Emanuel, Howard Berman, and Linda Sanchez, send Gonzales a letter following up on Emanuel's first request that Lam be retained -- a letter that was ignored by Gonzales. The letter notes that not only Lam, but two other fired US attorneys, Daniel Bogdan of Nevada and Paul Charlton of Arizona, were dismissed while in the midst of investigating elected officials. "Carol Lam's indictments of Foggo and Wilkes underscore the importance of last week's request and the need for an explanation of why these diligent public servants were dismissed. It is vital that US Attorneys be able to prosecute wrongdoing free from political pressure." (TPM Muckraker) - February 15: A profile of indicted war profiteeer Brent Wilkes (see above items) by the San Diego Union-Tribune shines a light on the greedy and incestuous network of California defense contractors and Republican lawmakers and operatives that is proving fertile ground for the US Attorney's office in California.
Randy Cunningham corruption investigation
That prosecutor, Carol Lam, recently brought indictments against Wilkes and his cohort, former top CIA official Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, but Lam will not be continuing the investigation -- she was recently fired by the Department of Justice. Yesterday, Wilkes pleaded not guilty to improperly using his friendship with Foggo to land a $1.7 million contract in Iraq. He also pleaded not guilty to bribing former Republican representative Randy Cunningham to gain other contracts from the Defense Department. Foggo also pled not guilty to charges in the case. - Former colleagues of Wilkes, who headed the defense contracting firm ADCS, recall him as being ecstatic when he heard the US was about to invade Iraq. "He and some of his top executives were really gung-ho about the war," says one former employee. "Brent said this would create new opportunities for the company. He was really excited about doing business in the Middle East." Wilkes's company landed a huge contract, through Foggo and Cunningham, to provide $1.7 million worth of bottled water and other goods to CIA operatives in Iraq. That contract is now one basis of Wilkes's indictment. Government watchdogs say the case is emblematic of the way contracts have been awarded during the Iraq war. "Many contracts have gone to companies who had the best contacts instead of the best bid," says Mary Boyle, spokeswoman at Common Cause. "Performance and cost has often been irrelevant. What matters is who you know."
- Since its founding in 1995, ADCS obtained more than $100 million in federal contracts with the help of congressional allies who received campaign contributions from Wilkes. Cunningham, who sat on the House Intelligence Committee and the House Appropriations Committee, was one of his chief benefactors. When the Iraq war began in 2003, Wilkes redoubled his efforts to woo politicians and officials in the Pentagon and CIA. "He was trying to build a business in the Middle East and needed support from some politicians," says another former employee. "It was one of the things [the top executives of ADCS] were really excited about." Wilkes's plan to deliver water to Iraq began in the summer of 2003, shortly after the invasion. At the time, CIA operatives in Iraq were relying on contractors in Kuwait and other friendly countries to supply them with bottled water, first-aid kits and other provisions. Wilkes had little obvious experience ferrying goods overseas, especially to a war zone. But he wanted the CIA supply business to go to his holding company, Group W. He was aided by Foggo, who was then a logistics officer in Frankfurt, Germany, overseeing CIA purchases throughout Europe and the Middle East, including Iraq. Foggo had long been Wilkes' best friend. The two men grew up together in Chula Vista, served as best men at each other's weddings and named their sons after each other.
- In August 2003, Wilkes took Foggo and his family on an all-expenses-paid vacation to Scotland, including $12,000 in jet flights, $4,000 for a helicopter ride to a round of golf and $44,000 for a stay in the Pitcastle estate in Scotland, where a seven-person staff attended to the Wilkes and Foggo families. While in Scotland, Wilkes and Foggo went trout fishing and skeet shooting and enjoyed one of their favorite pastimes, smoking fine cigars. An e-mail included in the indictment, sent from Foggo to Wilkes, sent shortly after their return and entitled "Scotland and Cigars," said in part, "I'll work this water thing.... Group W is in this deal." The indictment refers to the person running the project as "Wilkes Subordinate X" and details how Foggo coached him on how to deal with CIA contracting officers. "I'll need to brief you a bit on how you need to play this," Foggo wrote in another e-mail. Some CIA operatives in Iraq balked at having to pay Group W for supplies, the indictment says. At least one operative wrote Foggo, noting that the supplies could easily be purchased off the shelf. Wilkes' water had a 60% markup, according to the indictment. To stave off concerns about cronyism, Foggo, Wilkes and Subordinate X agreed that the water contract should not be traced to Wilkes. Subordinate X was told to say that he and Foggo had met in a cigar bar in Washington. Wilkes then asked Subordinate X to set up a separate company to handle the water contract. In his firm's headquarters, Wilkes made no secret about the water contract. A former business associate recalls visiting Wilkes in 2003 and seeing an array of water bottles on his desk. "It looks like we're in the water business now," Wilkes grinned.
- Foggo was later promoted to the position of executive director of the CIA, the agency's third-highest position, in charge of day-to-day operations. But he wrote to a banker that he expected to retire within three years, having received an offer to work at an unnamed California company. Wilkes had set aside an office in his Poway headquarters for Foggo to work after his retirement. The indictment says Foggo was trying to help Wilkes obtain other deals with the CIA. Sources within the CIA said that in mid-2005, Wilkes was negotiating a deal worth more than $200 million to provide transportation services for CIA operations overseas. But the deal fell through when Wilkes's name became associated with the Cunningham scandal. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
A New York Times graphic illustrating the political and defense contractor connections of Brent Wilkes
- February 15: ABC News reports something that the "liberal" press has been saying for years: the Pentagon rejected qualified experts for reconstruction work in Iraq because they were not deemed loyal to the Republican party.
Iraq war and occupation
The ABC report comes from information provided by the former chief of staff of the Washington Office of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Frederick Smith. In an interview, Smith says, "Some people were overlooked because they didn't meet the political saliva test." Smith says political appointees at the Pentagon, including a special assistant to the secretary of defense and White House liaison, James O'Beirne, led the screening. "We needed to get the best people out there," Smith says, "not just because they were a member of the Young Republicans Club at Michigan State." The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is now investigating the role of O'Beirne and allegations of what Democratic chairman Henry Waxman calls "an organized and systematic screening process." Waxman has also demanded all e-mails between O'Beirne and the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and "other think tanks, political parties or activists." Smith says he personally saw O'Beirne favor Republican candidates over others. "We did not send our A-team to Baghdad," Smith says, recounting how O'Beirne pushed for a candidate based on the fact that he had been involved in counting chads during the presidential election recount in Florida in 2000. Smith says he attempted to talk to O'Beirne about changing his hiring policies, but "that fell on deaf ears." (ABC News) - February 15: White House advisors are telling Bush to cut Congress out of the government's decision-making process as much as possible, focusing especially on the issuance of executive orders.
Secrecy of Bush administration
"He should get a list of the executive orders for the last 200 years, as a guide, and choose what he wants to do," says an informal Bush adviser. One proposal that fiscal conservatives are pushing is to halve all capital-gains taxes, as a way to encourage investment and job creation. Some conservatives argue that even if Bush somehow regains his political footing, whatever he might work out with the Democratic majority in Congress wouldn't be very good legislation, so he should go the executive-order route and bypass Congress altogether. - Bush has already relied on more executive orders than any president in recent memory. One recent example is January 18's Executive Order 12866, giving Bush "much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy," according to Columbia Law School professor Peter Strauss. The order, which mandates that each government agency in charge of overseeing public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy must have a political appointee -- a Regulatory Policy Officer -- and not a civil servant or scientific expert in charge, "achieves a major increase in White House control over domestic government," says Strauss. "Having lost control of Congress, the president is doing what he can to increase his control of the executive branch." Business executives and consumer advocates say the administration is particularly concerned about rules and guidance issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Wesley Warren, program director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who worked at the White House for seven years under Clinton, says, "The executive order is a backdoor attempt to prevent EPA from being able to enforce environmental safeguards that keep cancer-causing chemicals and other pollutants out of the air and water." (US News and World Report, New York Times/CommonDreams, Center for American Progress)
"I'm not sure anything went wrong [in Iraq]." -- White House press secretary Tony Snow, February 15
- February 15: Reaching perhaps a new level of inanity and disconnection from reality, White House press secretary and Fox News alumnus Tony Snow is asked about the release of military documents from 2002 that reveal that the US expected that by now a token American force of 5,000 would be able to keep things under control in Iraq -- and the occupation would require only a two or three month "stabilization" period.
Iraq war and occupation
(See above item.) The reporter asks Snow, "What went wrong?" to which Snow responds, "I'm not sure anything went wrong." Snow, adopting the posture of a teacher patiently lecturing ignorant children, elaborates, "At the beginning of the Civil War, people thought it would all be over at Manassas. It is very difficult -- no, Jessica, the fact is, a war is a big, complex thing. And what you're talking about is a 2002 assessment. We're now in the year 2007, and it is well-known by anybody who has studied any war that war plans immediately become moot upon the first contact with the enemy. For instance, a lot of people did not think that we would have the success we had moving swiftly into Baghdad. All I'm saying is that -- what happens is, you're looking at a pre-war assessment, and there have been constant assessments ever since. A war is not a situation where you can sit down and neatly predict what exactly is going to happen. You make your best estimates, but you also understand that there are going to continue to be challenges, there are going to be things that you don't anticipate, there are going to be things that the enemy doesn't anticipate. And the most important task, frankly, is to continue to try to assess near-term and mid-term to figure out how best to address the situation." - Answering a follow-up from a disbelieving reporter: "Is the President being equally unrealistic about his current assessments of Iraq and Afghanistan?" Snow responds with equal ingenuousness (though one must admire the skill with which he weaves administration talking points into his non-answer): "No. And the President is also not making a five-year assessment. What he's talking about is a highly specific plan that deals with Baghdad security, it deals with Anbar, Diyala, and a little bit up north. It is being done not only with military planners, but in concert with the Iraqis. If you take a look at the Baghdad security plan, it is something that, to use a term of art in the military, it's highly granular; it's very detailed in terms of trying to develop strong and credible forces in nine separate districts within Baghdad. There is a parallel operation in Anbar province, which, incidentally, has been highly successful, and I believe your colleague who has just come back will be able to tell you about that. And so what you have here is it's still a war-time situation. Nobody is going to promise that you're going to have a specified result within a period of weeks or months, but you have to make your best guess about what is required to achieve success. And after a very considerable period of study and consultation with people in all -- sort of all walks of life when it comes to dealing with these issues, including the Iraqis, we've come up with a joint plan for trying to deal with Baghdad security first, and also security in other areas. Let's remind people that about 80, 85% of the country is relatively peaceful at this juncture." (Editor and Publisher)
- February 15: Former Democratic senate aide Lawrence O'Donnell writes a column bluntly entitled, "Libby is Guilty."
Lewis Libby perjury trial
O'Donnell says that Libby's guilt became obvious, if it wasn't already, when NBC's Tim Russert shattered Libby's claim that Russert had informed him of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. O'Donnell writes, "The multi-million dollar defense, which provided no defense at all, did not call Libby to the witness stand for one very simple reason: Libby is very very guilty. Publicly, defense lawyers cling to the text book theory that the defendant has no burden of proof and that no negative inference should ever be taken when a defendant doesn't defend himself on the witness stand. Practically, every defense lawyer knows that the jury desperately wants to hear from the defendant and that the only reason not to put him on the stand is that he is soooo guilty that every answer he gives after his name will eradicate any shred of reasonable doubt. Think about it. Your whole life is at stake in the outcome of a criminal trial. You're innocent. And you don't testify in your own defense? Around the courthouse when defense lawyers are chatting about their cases, the only question they ask each other is can you put your guy on the stand? Those conversations always assume the defendant is guilty. The question is just about the degree of difficulty in presenting a defense." - O'Donnell says that the reason why Libby didn't testify in his own defense is simple: he was "too guilty to put on the witness stand." He further believes that the defense never intended to call Dick Cheney to testify: "Telling the judge that they were going to call Libby and Cheney was just a mirage they were trying to create to misdirect Patrick Fitzgerald's focus. I'd be shocked if Fitzgerald was fooled for even a second. If Libby called Cheney, it actually would have hurt his defense and been a hostile act to the White House. Cheney would have been humiliated by Fitzgerald's cross-examination and Libby would have forever lost his chief pardon advocate in the White House."
- Instead, O'Donnell writes, Libby is obviously pinning his hopes on being pardoned by the White House. "Libby has conducted a defense that is very friendly to the White House," he writes. "He has made it clear to the White House that he had the power to call the Vice President, but, good soldier that he is, he declined to put Cheney through that ordeal. Last year, I told Keith Olbermann on MSNBC that Libby's highly publicized defense-fund fundraiser was really the first step in the pardon campaign. Libby is a very rich man. He didn't need the defense fund. He needed the public rally with Mary Matalin types walking the virtual red carpet on the way in singing his praises as a great public servant. Fred Thompson, the senator-actor, did a version of this at the trial -- showing up, giving 'moral' support, then offering his TV prosecutor view of how unfair the Libby prosecution is. Look for the popular TV prosecutor to play an important role in the pardon campaign." (O'Donnell fails to mention that Thompson sits on the board of Libby's defense fund organization.)
- O'Donnell concludes, "Libby knows more than his lawyers do about the next stage of his legal proceedings. Libby helped obtain the sleaziest pardon that Bill Clinton issued on his way out of the White House. Clinton pardoned Libby's client, the fugitive billionaire Marc Rich, over the unanimous objections of the White House staff. When Cheney hand-delivers Libby's pardon application to President Bush, who is going to object?" (Huffington Post)
- February 16: Outgoing Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker says in a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the increase of 17,500 Army combat troops in Iraq represents only the "tip of the iceberg" and will potentially require thousands of additional support troops and trainers, as well as equipment, all of which will further erode the Army's readiness to respond to other world contingencies.
Iraq war and occupation
Schoomaker says that US commanders in Iraq have requested an additional 2,500 soldiers to serve as embedded trainers for Iraqi forces, and 5,000 to 6,000 additional soldiers could be needed to provide logistical and other support to the five Army combat brigades flowing into Baghdad. "We are having to go to some extraordinary measures to ensure we can respond," and adds that even then he can't guarantee the combat units would receive all the translators, civil affairs soldiers and other support troops they request. "We are continuing today to get requests for forces that continue to stress us." Schoomaker says that he expressed his concerns about Bush's plans to escalate American troop levels in Iraq, and spoke out to Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates about his worries that the escalation would further deplete Army units at home. "We laid out...exactly what the risks are in terms of other contingencies...to include my concerns about the lack of adequate dwell time," he says, referring to the fact that active-duty soldiers now spend only about a year at home between 12-month war zone rotations. - Virtually all of the US-based Army combat brigades are rated as unready to deploy, Army officials say, and to meet the immediate needs in Iraq and Afghanistan they are finding it necessary to transfer personnel and gear to those units now first in line to deploy. "I am not satisfied with the readiness of our non-deployed forces," Schoomaker tells the committee, noting that the increased demands in Iraq and Afghanistan "aggravate that" and increase his concern. "We are in a dangerous period," he says, and notes that he recently met with his Chinese counterpart, who made it clear that China is scrutinizing US capabilities.
- In the same hearings, Marine commandant General James Conway says that his chief concern is that Marines are not training for other types of conflicts beyond the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as conventional ground wars. "My largest concern has to do with training," he says. "We're not doing amphibious training, we're not doing mountain training," as well as some large-scale exercises, he says. About 40% of Army and Marine Corps equipment is now in Iraq or Afghanistan or undergoing repair or maintenance. To outfit the additional forces for Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army is drawing gear from prepositioned stocks of armored Humvees, tanks and other major equipment that would not then be available for another conflict, Conway says.
- Schoomaker stresses the ongoing need for funding to repair, replace and upgrade Army equipment, criticizing funding shortfalls in 2005 and 2006 that forced layoffs and slowdowns in production at Army repair depots. Even if the United States were to carry out a significant troop reduction in Iraq, Schoomaker says he would advise going ahead with the Army's plan for a permanent increase of 65,000 active-duty soldiers by 2013. "The Army's too small for the century we're in," he says. (Washington Post)
- February 16: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dodges and weaves under sharp questioning from both Democrats and Republicans on a House Appropriations subcommittee asking about the administration's plans to spend $6 billion in supplemental funds requested for the State Department, much of that money for Iraq and Afghanistan.
Congressional oversight
"I think you've got a lot of explaining to do," says Democrat David Obey. "A huge majority of the funds in the supplemental are for military, not political or economic or reconstructive, purposes." Republican Frank Wolf tells Rice that the administration must increase its diplomatic engagement with Iraq's neighbors in the Middle East, especially in light of the tremendous expenditures being made by the Bush administration. "I plead with you, I beg of you," Wolf says, "if we're going to ask a young man or woman in our military to go to Iraq three different times, it's not asking too much...to send somebody to engage with regard to the Syrians." Rice responds to Wolf, "We don't have an ideological problem with talking to Syria, [but] there just isn't any evidence that they're trying to change their behavior." - The supplemental funding is in addition to more than $140 billion in emergency money that Bush has requested, primarily to fund new military operations. Bush recently urged Congress to provide $11.8 billion to accelerate military and police training and reconstruction in Afghanistan, where he said al-Qaeda and the Taliban are launching new offensives after having been "driven from power" by US forces in 2001.
- Rice also acknowledges that the US has had little success in stemming Afghan opium production, which reached record levels last year. "I have to say this is a case where priority and success actually are not linked," she says. "We have put enormous effort into this, and it's just a tough problem to crack." Republican Jerry Lewis retorts, "Yeah, but it's not good enough." He has heard a lot about various US counternarcotics programs, he says, "but there have been no results."
- Panel members want to know the details of both the supplemental funding request and other requests, including including a planned $250 million cash payment to the government of Lebanon, $86 million requested for security assistance for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and more than $500 million being spent for a new, lavish US Embassy in Baghdad. Rice explains, unsatisfactorily, that much of the Iraqi funding will go to augmenting the Provincial Reconstruction Teams, which are small groups led by US diplomats throughout the country and embedded with US military units, where they assist in developing the Iraqi economy and governance. The teams will "bring about 40,000 jobs [to] critical areas" in Iraq, she says. Iraqi government money, she adds, would pay for additional job creation. As yet the Iraqi government has not allocated the $10 billion it is required to allocate under Bush's "benchmarks" for the government's performance when he announced his new strategy last month. Iraq has a $12.5 billion surplus of previously budgeted but unspent funds. But Bush claimed yesterday that the Iraqi government has already "met that benchmark" by again budgeting the money, though it remains as yet unspent. (Washington Post)
- February 16: In May 2003, Karl Rove, Bush's chief political advisor, received a copy of the secret Iranian proposal for negotiations with the US from then-Republican congressman Bob Ney, according to Iranian-American scholar Trita Parsi, who was then on Ney's Congressional staff.
War with Iran
According to Parsi, Ney, who is now serving 30 months in jail for his role in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, took a copy of the Iranian proposal to the White House, where it was delivered specifically to Rove. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has denied ever seeing the proposal. Parsi says the proposal was delivered to Rove the same week that the State Department received it by fax, which was on or about May 4, 2003, according to the cover letter accompanying it. Ney was chosen by Swiss Ambassador in Tehran Tim Guldimann to carry the Iranian proposal to the White House, according to Parsi, because he knew the Ohio congressman to be the only Farsi-speaking member of Congress and particularly interested in Iran. Guldimann helped the Iranians draft the proposal and passed it on the United States. Bush officials have implied that Guldimann may have forged the proposal, a ludicrous accusation without any evidence or motive. - The Iranian proposal for negotiations, which suggested that Iran was willing to consider far-reaching compromises on its nuclear program, relations with Hezbollah and Hamas and support for a Palestinian peace agreement with Israel as part of a larger peace agreement with the United States, and which was brushed off by Bush officials, has become a contentious issue between the Bush administration and its critics in and out of Congress. The IPS news report, written by author Gareth Porter, observes, "The identification of Rove as a recipient of the secret Iranian proposal throws new light on the question of who in the Bush administration was aware of the Iranian proposal at the time. ...Condoleezza Rice denied in Congressional testimony last week that she had seen the Iranian offer in 2003 and even chastised former State Department, National Security Council and Central Intelligence Agency official Flynt Leverett for having failed to bring it to her attention at the time. ...In May 2003, both Rove and Rice were considered to be part of Bush's inner circle on foreign policy matters, along with Vice President Dick Cheney. When Bush met with South Korea President Roh Moo-hyun on May 13, for example, the only advisers accompanying him were Rove and Rice. The revelation that Rove received a copy of the Iranian negotiating proposal within days of the receipt of the State Department makes it appear very unlikely that Rice was not immediately made aware of the document."
- The proposal is now available to the public as it was received in Washington, as is the cover letter by Guldimann. Porter writes, "The two documents contradict the suggestion by Rice and by other State Department officials that Guldimann was acting on his own in forwarding the proposal, and that it did not reflect the intentions of the Iranian government." The documents can be found online through the Washington Post Web site, accompanying an article by Post reporter Glenn Kessler, who himself writes that they had been provided by "a source who felt its contents were mischaracterised by State Department officials."
- According to Guldimann's May 4 cover letter, the proposal was drafted by Iran's ambassador to France, Sadeq Kharrazi, in consultation with Guldimann but only after extensive discussions between Kharrazi and the three top figures in Iranian foreign policy: Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, then-president Mohammad Khatami and his Foreign Minister, Kamal Kharrazi. As the memo notes, Ambassador Kharrazi, a former deputy foreign minister, was extremely well connected to the very top level of Iranian leadership. Khamenei's son is married to his sister, and the foreign minister is his uncle. The memo recounts that a first draft of what was to be called a "roadmap" was done by Ambassador Kharazzi with Guldimann's help during a long discussion on April 21, 2003. It was that document that Parsi later obtained from Iranian sources and has been reported in previous accounts of the proposal. After that initial meeting Kharrazi had two long meetings with Khamenei, President Khatami and the foreign minister. (Inter Press News Service, Think Progress)
- February 16: The House overwhelmingly passes a non-binding resolution denouncing Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq.
Iraq war and occupation
17 Republicans join the vast majority of Democrats to pass the two-sentence resolution, 246-182. The Senate will bring the measure up for debate tomorrow, but it is likely Senate Republicans will block the measure from even being brought to the floor. - Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says the passage of the resolution "should send a very clear and firm message to the president of the United States: that the American people spoke in November, that they wanted a new direction in Iraq. This resolution today sets the stage for that new direction." House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer adds, "The Congress of the United States knows that if we pass a bill, a law, a binding document, the president can veto that. What the president cannot veto is the opinion of the Congress of the United States, the judgment of the United States Congress, the advice and counsel of the Congress of the United States. He cannot veto that."
- The resolution says that Congress supports the military but disapproves of Bush's plan to send 21,500 additional troops to Iraq.
- Republicans fought the passage of the resolution throughout the four-day debate. After the resolution's passage, Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen misrepresents the Democrats' position by grumbling, "One vision sees no hope for us in Iraq and counsels that we withdraw, just give up. By contrast, the other vision focuses on success." She is joined by Minority Leader John Boehner, who says, "Democrats in the House and Senate intend to tie the president's hands when it comes to the conduct of war in Iraq. That's why we want a vote in the House and Senate that says that we will not, we the United States Congress, will not cut funding for our troops in harm's way." Democrats have repeatedly said they will not cut funds for troops already in Iraq, but John Murtha, chairman of the committee in charge of the Defense Department's budget, has signaled he may attempt to tie future deployments to legislation requiring the troops be fully equipped and armored before they're allowed to be shipped out. Republicans say that Murtha's measure is not necessary, even though reams of evidence show that US soldiers have been poorly equipped since the invasion of 2003. Republican Duncan Hunter introduces the next GOP talking point, accusing the Democrats of wanting to "micromanage" the war: "Micromanaging DoD personnel policies and trying to choke off equipment and people for the war-fighting theater is extremely dangerous."
- In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid is echoing demands previously made by the former Republican leadership that the minority party allow a vote on the resolution. "We demand an up-or-down vote," he says. "The resolution says we support the troops and oppose the escalation of the presence in Iraq. We're determined to give our troops and the American people the debate they deserve." It is highly doubtful that Reid will get such a vote. Democrats have a slim 51-49 majority in the Senate, and Democrat Tim Johnson, still recovering from a seizure, will again not be able to participate or vote. And "independent Democrat" Joseph Lieberman is fully ensconced with the Republican opposition on the war. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says that Republicans will once again insist on debating, and voting on, any number of what he calls "alternative resolutions," which have no chance of passing but will tie up the Senate in procedural knots. On February 5, all but two Republican senators voted to block debate on another non-binding resolution backed by most Democrats and several Republicans that would have expressed the Senate's opposition to deploying additional troops.
- Opinions differ on the importance of the resolution's passage. Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security advisor to Jimmy Carter, says, "This is an important moment. And it's an important moment not only about what's in the past, or even in the present, but also what might be happening in the future." The resolution "tells the president that the country's increasingly tired of the war and the country's reaction to his provoking a new war would be even worse." But David Rothkopf, author of the book Running the World, about the making of modern foreign policy, says, "To me, this is kind of a baby step. It doesn't have teeth. The real question is going to be whether the Democratic leadership goes further and challenges funding, because that's where Congress historically has been able to show its influence." And Bush's national security advisor Stephen Hadley is having some success in persuading Republicans not to support any such measure, ensuring that passage through the Senate is difficult at best. "If Republicans go along with this," one administration official says, "it sends a message to Murtha about what he might be able to do with the supplemental" war-spending measure. (CNN, Washington Post)
White House directly linked to US attorney firing
- February 16: New evidence directly links the White House to the firing of at least one US attorney and his replacement with a crony of Karl Rove.
US Attorney firings
US attorney H.E. "Bud" Cummins was fired after then-White House counsel Harriet Miers intervened on behalf of his replacement, former Rove aide Timothy Griffin. The evidence is provided by Congressional aides who were briefed on the matter. According to the aides, Miers telephoned an aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and suggested that Griffin replace Cummins. Griffin is a former military prosecutor with little civilian prosecutorial experience, but most of his experience is political, having most recently served as a political director for the Republican National Committee and as Rove's deputy. Shortly after Miers's phone call, Cummins was fired without explanation and replaced on an "interim" basis by Griffin. - Paul McNulty, the deputy attorney general, said at a hearing last week that Cummins had done nothing wrong but was removed to make room for Griffin. It was not known at the time that McNulty testified that Miers had intervened on Griffin's behalf. Her involvement was disclosed on February 7 by Justice Department officials led by McNulty, who held a closed-door briefing for senators on the Judiciary Committee after Democrats criticized the dismissals of 7 to 10 United States attorneys as politically motivated.
- Miers resigned as Bush's chief counsel on January 31. She is best remembered for Bush's abortive efforts to get her named to the Supreme Court despite being wildly unqualified for the post.
- At the briefing, Justice Department officials denied that the White House had been involved in any of the other dismissals, and suggested that the department had acted on its own after advising the White House of its intention to remove incumbents. Democrats believe the removals were an effort to make room for rising political favorites of the Bush administration and to be rid of independent-minded prosecutors, all of whom had been previously appointed by Bush. "Yesterday's briefing by the deputy attorney general did little to alleviate our concerns that politics was involved and, in fact, raised those concerns," Democratic senator Charles Schumer said after the briefing. "Some may have been fired for political reasons because they may have not done what Justice Department wanted them to do."
- An obviously exasperated Schumer said yesterday that the Senate will "get to the bottom" of the administration's December purge of federal prosecutors, and said that if they found that the prosecutors had indeed received positive job evaluations from the Justice Department before being booted, "there will be real trouble." Fellow Democrat Patrick Leahy, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, adds, "In our hearing last week, Paul McNulty, the second in command at the Department of Justice, testified that Mr. Cummins' dismissal was not related to how well he did his job. In fact, Mr. McNulty said he had no 'performance problems,' but was removed merely to give an opportunity to Mr. Griffin, a person whom he admitted was not the 'best person possible' for the job and who is reported to have been involved in an effort during the 2004 election to challenge voting by primarily African-American voters serving in the Armed Forces overseas. This was not a vacancy created by necessity or emergency. This was a vacancy created by choice to advance a political crony."
- Leahy adds, "I have heard not a word from the apologists who seek to use the Constitution as a shield for these activities about what the Constitution says. The Constitution provides congressional power to direct the appointment power. In Article II, the part of the Constitution that this Administration reads as if it says that all power resides with the President, the President's appointment power is limited by the power of Congress. Indeed, between its provisions calling for appointments with the advice and consent of the Senate and for the President's limited power to make recess appointments, the Constitution provides: 'But the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the Heads of Departments.' Thus, the Constitution contemplates exactly what our statutes and practices have always provided. Congress is well within its authority when it vests in the courts a share of the appointment power for those who appear before them."
- Another US attorney, California's Carol Lam, was removed without cause two days after bringing an indictment against two business partners of Republican lawmaker Randy Cunningham, convicted in 2006 of fraud and corruption. Senate Democrat Dianne Feinstein says, "Ms. Lam has had a distinguished career, and she served the southern district of San Diego well and everyone in that district knows that. I regret that main Justice does not. I am quite disappointed that main Justice chose to remove her, especially given the ongoing work in which the office is involved." Feinstein, as exasperated and outraged as her colleagues, goes on to discuss the firings of other US attorneys. She notes that three other fired attorneys -- Daniel Bogdan, John McKay, and Cummins -- were given "glowing reviews" during their performance evaluations. She cites press reports that McKay was "stunned" at his abrupt firing, and McKay's denial that he heard of any problems with his performance. McKay told the press, "I was told to resign by the end of January. I asked what the reason was, and they told me there was none." And Cummins revealed last month that the Director of the Executive Office of US Attorneys, Michael Battle, made it clear to him that although he was being asked to leave, "it was not about me but about their desire to give someone else the opportunity to have the appointment." In fact, Battle told McKay that the issue was not his job performance: "[Battle] assured me it was exactly to the contrary."
- Feinstein tells the committee, "Now, like Senator Schumer, I was present yesterday when the Justice Department briefed us and several other Senators as to why they asked these US attorneys to leave. With the record I just pointed out [a detailed account of Lam's prosecutorial successes], nothing that was said yesterday justifies asking this US attorney to leave without cause -- nothing. That is why this is an issue. I believe their intent was to bring in people from the outside to give some of their bright young people an opportunity. This might not be wrong, if they weren't also attempting to avoid confirmation. Without confirmation, the Department of Justice could bring in political operatives or anybody else. That is wrong." (New York Times/CommonDreams, TPM Muckraker)
- February 16: An Italian judge indicts 26 Americans and five Italians in the first criminal trial over the CIA's extraordinary rendition program.
US torture allegations
The trial will begin June 8, though it is highly unlikely that the Bush administration will allow the Americans -- all but one CIA agents -- to be extradited. Prosecutors say that five Italian intelligence officials worked with the Americans to abduct terror suspect Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr from a Milan street on February 17, 2003. (See earlier items on Nasr's kidnapping and the resultant court case.) Nasr was taken to the Aviano Air Force base near Venice, and then flown to the US airbase in Ramstein, Germany. From there, he was flown to Egypt, where he was tortured by Egyptian interrogators under the supervision of the CIA. The 26 Americans include the former station chiefs in Rome and Milan, and a US Air Force officer stationed at the time at Aviano. The CIA refuses to discuss the matter, and Italy's intelligence agency, SISMI, says it was not involved in Nasr's kidnapping. - The only defendant to appear during the preliminary hearing, Nicolo Pollari, told the judge that he was unable to defend himself properly because documents clarifying his position had been excluded from the proceedings because they contain state secrets. The 26 Americans have court-appointed lawyers, none of whom have spoken with their clients. "It's a defense in the dark," says Guido Meroni, who represents six Americans accused of helping organize the abduction. Meroni has argued that the evidence connecting his clients to Nasr's disappearance was circumstantial, based on phone records and their presence in hotels in Italy during the period before the abduction.
- Prosecutors say the kidnapping operation was a breach of Italian sovereignty that compromised Italy's own anti-terrorism efforts. Nasr was under investigation for terrorism-related activities at the time of his abduction, and Milan prosecutors issued a warrant for his arrest more than two years after he disappeared from Milan, while he was in Egyptian custody.
- Nasr was kept in Egyptian custody for four years before being released last week without charge. Nasr's lawyer says his client wants to return to Italy, where he had been granted the status of political refugee.
- Prosecutors elsewhere in Europe are moving ahead with cases aimed at the CIA program. This week, the Swiss government approved prosecutors' plans to investigate the flight that allegedly took Nasr over Swiss air space from Italy to Germany. And a Munich prosecutor recently issued arrest warrants for 13 people in connection with another alleged CIA-orchestrated kidnapping, this one of a German citizen who says he was abducted in December 2003 at the Serbian-Macedonia border and flown to Afghanistan.
- On February 28, the US announces that it will not allow the extradition of any CIA agents for any of the rendition trials. "If we got an extradition request from Italy, we would not extradite US officials to Italy," says State Department legal advisor John Bellinger. It is most likely that the indictees will stand trial in absentia in early June. (AP/ABC News, Reuters)
- February 16: USA Today founder Al Neuharth commerorates Presidents Day by stating that he now believes Bush is the worst president in US history.
George W. Bush
Neuharth writes, "I remember every president since Herbert Hoover, when I was a grade school kid. He was one of the worst. I've personally met every president since Dwight Eisenhower. He was one of the best. A year ago I criticized Hillary Clinton for saying "this [Bush] administration will go down in history as one of the worst.' 'She's wrong,' I wrote. Then I rated these five presidents, in this order, as the worst: Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan, Ulysses Grant, Hoover and Richard Nixon. 'It's very unlikely Bush can crack that list,' I added. I was wrong. This is my mea culpa. Not only has Bush cracked that list, but he is planted firmly at the top." Neuharth says that four "Bushisms" will follow him through the course of history as marking the abject failures of his presidency: "Shock and Awe," early 2003; "Mission Accomplished," May 1, 2003; "Stay the Course," June 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006; and "New Strategy," 2007. "Is he just a self-touted decider doing what he thinks right? Or is he an arrogant ruler who doesn't care or consider what the public or Congress believes best for the country? Despite his play on words and slogans, Bush didn't learn the value or meaning of mea culpa...during his years at Yale. Bush admitting his many mistakes on Iraq and ending that fiasco might make many of us forgive, even though we can never forget the terrible toll in lives and dollars." (USA Today)
