Ted Rall
THE BEGINNING OF THE END?
Thu Jul 17 22:22:28 2003
208.152.73.118

THE BEGINNING OF THE END?
By Ted Rall

Bush's Cover-Up Precedes the Scandal

NEW YORK--"When it's all said and done," Bush still confidently insists, "the people of the United States and the world will realize that Saddam Hussein had a weapons program." This once again begs the question of presidential dyslexia: You're supposed to find the WMDs before the war, silly rabbit!

This bizarro Administration does everything bass-ackwards. The recession is hardest on the poor and middle-class, so Bush gives tax cuts to the rich. When an overwhelming invasion force was needed to secure Afghanistan and Iraq, Rumsfeld sent in a skeleton crew. Now that the citizens of those countries want us to go home, Gen. Tommy Franks has announced that our 148,000-man, $5 billion-a-month occupation army will get bigger and stick around until whenever.

Now the Bushists are reversing the traditional lifecycle of every political ruckus from Teapot Dome to Watergate. Knowing that most scandals last as long as a mosquito, smart politicians wait to see whether a given outrage will spark lasting popular fury before concocting a risky cover-up. Not these guys. They've started the cover-up before the scandal has had a chance to catch on!

Little things hook big fish: tax evasion for Al Capone, a minor stock trade for Martha Stewart, a sexual dalliance for Bill Clinton. So it is with George W. Bush: whether or not the man who conned us into two wars ends up sharing a cage with Khalid Sheikh Mohammad could come down to this line from the 2003 State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

The source for that claim is a now-debunked British intelligence dossier from September 24, 2002. Forged letters in the UK report purport to document Iraq's attempts to purchase 550 tons of "yellowcake" uranium ore from Niger. No one is saying who forged the fake purchase orders, though Foreign Secretary Jack Straw claims that the "dodgy dossier" came from a third, unknown, nation.

"A bunch of bull," Ari Fleischer calls the simmering scandal, ridiculing the suggestion that fear of Iraqi nukes was "why we went to war, a central issue of why we went to war."

In fact, in the same State of the Union address in which he referenced Niger, Bush did make Iraqi nuclear weapons a "central issue." "Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans--this time armed by Saddam Hussein," Bush leered into the cameras. "It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known." Vials, canisters and crates refer to, respectively, biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.

Almost immediately after receiving it from the British, CIA analysts determined that the Niger info was probably bogus. According to The New York Times, CIA director George Tenet then personally met with Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley--Condi Rice's right-hand man--to make sure Bush didn't mention Niger uranium ore anymore. The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency went further, determining that Iraq simply didn't have a nuke program. Based on these facts, "The reference was omitted when Mr. Bush gave [a] speech in Cincinnati on October 7." And it stayed out of Bush's talks until it suddenly popped up in the State of the Union--despite more CIA warnings. Even then, Secretary of State Colin Powell refused to use it in his presentation to the UN a week later. "It was not standing the test of time," said a squeamish Powell.

Behold Slaughtergate's smoking gun: Not only had the CIA had told the White House about the Niger forgery in October 2002, the White House had gotten the message. Nonetheless Bush, after months of excising that argument from his speeches, revived it in January 2003 for use in what is traditionally the most widely watched TV appearance a president makes each year.

Many Americans knew that Bush was lying about Iraqi WMDs. They just didn't care, which is how he retains a 59 percent job approval rating. After getting called on his lies, a smarter politician would have apologized and said that liberating Iraq justified a few fibs.

Considering the conventional wisdom that Bush's idiocy is mitigated by his brilliant cabinet, Bush opted for a weird defense: I'm not a liar--my staff is incompetent! And so the cover-up began.

In the most transparently brokered deal since Ford's pardon of Nixon, Tenet agreed to take the blame for the Niger imbroglio in exchange for not taking the fall. "These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president," said Tenet in a prepared statement. "The president is pleased that the director of Central Intelligence acknowledged what needed to be acknowledged," said Ari Fleischer the next day. Bush got his patsy and Tenet kept his job. But career CIA staffers are furious at Bush for sticking them with the blame for a snafu they specifically tried to talk him out of. This is just beginning.

Lying about Niger yellowcake pales next to Bush's other evil chicanery: hobbling the U.S. economy with debt, feeding corporate corruption, opening concentration camps for Muslims and bombing thousands of people to death. But those acts are almost too monstrous to comprehend. Americans easily understand the myriad of little lies--the faked Jessica Lynch "rescue," the phony Saddam statue toppling and now the Niger uranium story--and how they add up to the character of a man unworthy of the office he holds.

(Ted Rall is the author of "Gas War: The Truth Behind the American Occupation of Afghanistan," an analysis of the underreported Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline project and the real motivations behind the war on terrorism. Ordering information is available at amazon.com and http://www.barnesandnoble.com .)
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Throw Away Those Yellow Ribbons, Because Johnny Is Never
Marching Home
By Chuck Baldwin
July 18, 2003


In spite of the fact that our brave fighting men have now assumed
the unflattering role of Iraqi policemen, the word from The
Pentagon is, "Our troops are not coming home anytime soon."
That's the understatement of the year!

The truth is, our troops are never coming home! The United States
currently has military personnel in nearly 120 countries around the
world, and President Bush is about to make it one more as he
prepares to send troops to Liberia.

The forces that fought the war against Iraq are understandably
chagrined. Soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq voiced
their grievances on ABC's Good Morning America recently. One
soldier declared, "If [Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfield were
here, I'd ask for his resignation." He continued by saying, "I would
ask him why we are still here. I don't have a clue as to why we are
still in Iraq."

What the brave soldier and many Americans do not understand is
the United States is no longer an independent country. It is a global
empire carrying out the whims and wishes of the internationalist
cabal at the United Nations. Therefore, even after the 3rd Infantry
Division returns from Iraq (whenever that is), American troops will
yet be left in harm's way all over the world.

In an attempt to deride me for my criticism of the Bush
administration's policy in Iraq, a reader wrote, "We did not go to
war with Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction. (Funny, I
could have sworn that's the reason Bush gave.) We went to war
because Iraq violated 17 UN resolutions, yet the UN lacked the
backbone to respond." Actually, this reader is absolutely correct.

Yes, my friends, America went to war against Iraq to do the
bidding of the United Nations! And that's the same reason our
troops remain in Iraq. Furthermore, that's the reason our troops are
languishing in over 100 countries around the world. Our political
leaders have become pawns of multinational corporations and
entities. They do not act independently; neither do they act in the
best interests of our troops or our people. It's all about money and
power on a global scale.

Perhaps this helps explain why the House of Representatives voted
this week 74-350 to reject Rep. Ron Paul's bill to get America out
of the United Nations. Therefore, throw away those yellow
ribbons, because Johnny is never marching home!

© Chuck Baldwin
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