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Today's
Stories
October
14, 2003
Peter
Linebaugh
"Remember
Orr!"
October
11 / 13, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Kay's
Misleading Report; CIA/MI-6 Syrian Plot; Dershowitz Flaps Broken
Wings
Saul Landau
Contradictions: Pumping Empire and Losing Job Muscles
Phillip Cryan
The War on Human Rights in Colombia
Kurt Nimmo
Cuba and the "Necessary Viciousness" of the Bushites
Nelson P. Valdes
Traveling to Cuba: Where There's a Will, There's a Way
Lisa Viscidi
The Guatemalan Elections: Fraud, Intimidation and Indifference
Maria Trigona and Fabian
Pierucci
Allende Lives
Larry
Tuttle
States of Corruption
William A. Cook
Failing America
Brian
Cloughley
US Economic Space and New Zealand
Adrian Zupp
What Would Buddha Do? Why Won't the Dalai Lama Pick a Fight?
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
The Strange and Tragic Case of Sherman Marlin Austin
Ben Tripp
Screw You Right Back: CIA FU!
Lee Ballinger
Grits Ain't Groceries
Mickey Z.
Not All Italians Love Columbus
Bruce
Jackson
On Charles Burnett's "Warming By the Devil's Fire"
William Benzon
The Door is Open: Scorsese's Blues, 2
Adam Engel
The Eyes of Lora Shelley
Walt Brasch
Facing a McBlimp Attack
Poets'
Basement
Mickey Z, Albert, Kearney
October 10, 2003
John Chuckman
Schwarzenegger
and the Lottery Society
Toni Solo
Trashing
Free Software
Chris
Floyd
Body
Blow: Bush Joins the Worldwide War on Women
October
9, 2003
Jennifer
Loewenstein
Bombing
Syria
Ramzi
Kysia
Seeing
the Iraqi People
Fran Shor
Groping the Body Politic
Mark Hand
President Schwarzenegger?
Alexander
Cockburn
Welcome
to Arnold, King for a Day
Website of the Day
The Awful Truth about Wesley Clark
October
8, 2003
David
Lindorff
Schwarzenegger
and the Failure of the Centrist Dems
Ramzy
Baroud
Israel's
WMDs and the West's Double Standard
John Ross
Mexico
Tilts South
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Repub Guru Compares Taxes to the Holocaust
James
Bovard
The
Reagan Roadmap for Antiterrorism Disaster
Michael
Neumann
One
State or Two?
A False Dilemma
October
7, 2003
Uri Avnery
Slow-Motion
Ethnic Cleansing
Stan Goff
Lost in the Translation at Camp Delta
Ron Jacobs
Yom Kippurs, Past and Present
David
Lindorff
Coronado in Iraq
Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
Outing a CIA Operative? Why A Special Prosecutor is Required
Cynthia
McKinney
Who Are "We"?
Elaine Cassel
Shock and Awe in the Moussaoui Case
Walter
Lippman
Thoughts on the Cali Recall
Gary Leupp
Israel's
Attack on Syria: Who's on the Wrong Side of History, Now?
Website
of the Day
Cable News Gets in Touch With It's Inner Bigot
October
6, 2003
Robert
Fisk
US
Gave Israel Green Light for Raid on Syria
Forrest
Hylton
Upheaval
in Bolivia: Crisis and Opportunity
Benjamin Dangl
Divisions Deepen in Third Week of Bolivia's Gas War
Bridget
Gibson
Oh, Pioneers!: Bush's New Deal
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey
Wasserman
The Bush-Rove-Schwarzenegger Nazi Nexus
Nicole
Gamble
Rios Montt's Campaign Threatens Genocide Trials
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The
New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor
Website
of the Day
Guerrilla Funk
October
3 / 5, 2003
Tim Wise
The
Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment
Peter
Linebaugh
Rhymsters
and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW
Gary Leupp
Occupation
as Rape-Marriage
Bruce
Jackson
Addio
Alle Armi
David Krieger
A Nuclear 9/11?
Ray McGovern
L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's
War on Whistleblowers
Col. Dan Smith
Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean
Mickey
Z.
In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest
Roger Burbach
Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq
John Chuckman
Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus
William S. Lind
Versailles on the Potomac
Glen T.
Martin
The Corruptions of Patriotism
Anat Yisraeli
Bereavement as Israeli Ethos
Wayne
Madsen
Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can
M. Junaid Alam
The Racism Barrier
William
Benzon
Scorsese's Blues
Adam Engel
The Great American Writing Contest
Poets'
Basement
McNeill, Albert, Guthrie
October
2, 2003
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
What's
So Great About Gandhi, Anyway?
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
The
Ashcroft-Rove Connection
Doug Giebel
Kiss and Smear: Novak and the Valerie Plame Affair
Hamid
Dabashi
The Moment of Myth: Edward Said (1935-2003)
Elaine Cassel
Chicago Condemns Patriot Act
Saul Landau
Who
Got Us Into This Mess?
Website of the Day
Last Day to Save Beit Arabiya!
October 1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Married
with Children: the Supremes and Gay Families
Robert
Fisk
Oil,
War and Panic
Ron Jacobs
Xenophobia
as State Policy
Elaine
Cassel
The
Lamo Case: Secret Subpoenas and the Patriot Act
Shyam
Oberoi
Shooting
a Tiger
Toni Solo
Plan Condor, the Sequel?
Sean Donahue
Wesley
Clark and the "No Fly" List
Website of the Day
Downloader Legal Defense Fund
September
30, 2003
After
Dark
Arnold's
1977 Photo Shoot
Dave Lindorff
The
Poll of the Shirt: Bush Isn't Wearing Well
Tom Crumpacker
The
Cuba Fixation: Shaking Down American Travelers
Robert
Fisk
A
Lesson in Obfuscation
Charles
Sullivan
A
Message to Conservatives
Suren Pillay
Edward Said: a South African Perspective
Naeem
Mohaiemen
Said at Oberlin: Hysteria in the Face of Truth
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
Does
a Felon Rove the White House?
Website
of the Day
The Edward Said Page
September 29, 2003
Robert
Fisk
The
Myths of Western Intelligence Agencies
Iain A. Boal
Turn It Up: Pardon Mzwakhe Mbuli!
Lee Sustar
Paul
Krugman: the Last Liberal?
Wayne Madsen
General Envy? Think Shinseki, Not Clark
Benjamin
Dangl
Bolivia's Gas War
Uri Avnery
The
Magnificent 27
Pledge
Drive of the Day
Antiwar.com
September
26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Alan
Dershowitz, Plagiarist
David Price
Teaching Suspicions
Saul Landau
Before the Era of Insecurity
Ron Jacobs
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and
the Patriot Act
Brian
Cloughley
The Strangeloves Win Again
Norman Solomon
Wesley and Me: a Real-Life Docudrama
Robert
Fisk
Bomb Shatters Media Illusions
M. Shahid Alam
A Muslim Sage Visits the USA
John Chuckman
American Psycho: Bush at the UN
Mark Schneider
International Direct Action
The Spanish Revolution to the Palestiniana Intifada
William
S. Lind
How $87 Billion Could Buy Some Real Security
Douglas Valentine
Gold Warriors: the Plundering of Asia
Chris
Floyd
Vanishing Act
Elaine Cassel
Play Cat and Moussaoui
Richard
Manning
A Conservatism that Once Conserved
George Naggiar
The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said
Omar Barghouti
Edward Said: a Corporeal Dream Not Yet Realized
Lenni Brenner
Palestine's Loss is America's Loss
Mickey
Z.
Edward Said: a Well-Reasoned Voice
Tanweer Akram
The Legacy of Edward Said
Adam Engel
War in the Smoking Room
Poets' Basement
Katz, Ford, Albert & Guthrie
Website
of the Weekend
Who the Hell is Stew Albert?
September
25, 2003
Edward
Said
Dignity,
Solidarity and the Penal Colony
Robert
Fisk
Fanning
the Flames of Hatred
Sarah
Ferguson
Wolfowitz at the New School
David
Krieger
The
Second Nuclear Age
Bill Glahn
RIAA Doublespeak
Al Krebs
ADM and the New York Times: Covering Up Corporate Crime
Michael
S. Ladah
The Obvious Solution: Give Iraq Back to the Arabs
Fran Shor
Arnold and Wesley
Mustafa
Barghouthi
Edward Said: a Monument to Justice and Human Rights
Alexander Cockburn
Edward Said: a Mighty and Passionate
Heart
Website
of the Day
Edward Said: a Lecture on the Tragedy of Palestine
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 24, 2003
Stan Goff
Generational
Casualties: the Toxic Legacy of the Iraq War
William
Blum
Grand Illusions About Wesley Clark
David
Vest
Politics
for Bookies
Jon Brown
Stealing Home: The Real Looting is About to Begin
Robert Fisk
Occupation and Censorship
Latino
Military Families
Bring Our Children Home Now!
Neve Gordon
Sharon's
Preemptive Zeal
Website
of the Day
Bands Against Bush
September
23, 2003
Bernardo
Issel
Dancing
with the Diva: Arianna and Streisand
Gary Leupp
To
Kill a Cat: the Unfortunate Incident at the Baghdad Zoo
Gregory
Wilpert
An
Interview with Hugo Chavez on the CIA in Venezuela
Steven
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause--Part 2: Charity Ryerson, Young and
Radical
Stan Cox
The Cheney Tapes: Can You Handle the Truth?
Robert
Fisk
Another Bloody Day in the Death of Iraq
William S. Lind
Learning from Uncle Abe: Sacking the Incompetent
Elaine
Cassel
First They Come for the Lawyers, Then the Ministers
Yigal
Bronner
The
Truth About the Wall
Website
of the Day
The
Baghdad Death Count
September
20 / 22, 2003
Uri Avnery
The
Silliest Show in Town
Alexander
Cockburn
Lighten
Up, America!
Peter Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Execution of Robert Emmet
Anne Brodsky
Return
to Afghanistan
Saul Landau
Guillermo and Me
Phan Nguyen
Mother Jones Smears Rachel Corrie
Gila Svirsky
Sharon, With Eyes Wide Open
Gary Leupp
On Apache Terrorism
Kurt Nimmo
Colin
Powell: Exploiting the Dead of Halabja
Brian
Cloughley
Colin Powell's Shame
Carol Norris
The Moral Development of George W. Bush
Bill Glahn
The Real Story Behind RIAA Propaganda
Adam Engel
An Interview with Danny Scechter, the News Dissector
Dave Lindorff
Good Morning, Vietnam!
Mark Scaramella
Contracts and Politics in Iraq
John Ross
WTO
Collapses in Cancun: Autopsy of a Fiasco Foretold
Justin Podur
Uribe's Desperate Squeals
Toni Solo
The Colombia Three: an Interview with Caitriona Ruane
Steven Sherman
Workers and Globalization
David
Vest
Masked and Anonymous: Dylan's Elegy for a Lost America
Ron Jacobs
Politics of the Hip-Hop Pimps
Poets
Basement
Krieger, Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Ted Honderich:
Terrorism for Humanity?
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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October
14, 2003
Memo For: Colleagues
in Intelligence
Subject:
One Person Can Make a Difference
By Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity
Our most recent open appeal to you, "Now
It's Your Turn," was made on August 22, 2003. On that same
day, it turns out, former Australian intelligence analyst Andrew
Wilkie testified before a parliamentary committee examining the
justification given by Prime Minister John Howard for Australia's
decision to join the war in Iraq. Wilkie had been a senior analyst
in Australia's premier intelligence agency, the Office of National
Assessments. Of all the Australian, British, and American intelligence
analysts with direct knowledge of how intelligence was abused
in the run-up to the war-Wilkie was the only one to resign in
protest and speak truth to power.
Those who dismiss such efforts as an
exercise in futility should know that, on October 7 the Australian
Senate, in a rare move, censured Howard for misleading the public
in justifying sending Australian troops off to war. The Senate
statement of censure noted that Howard had produced no evidence
to justify his claims last March that Iraq had stockpiles of
biological and chemical weapons, and castigated him for suppressing
Australian intelligence warnings that war with Iraq would increase
the likelihood of terrorist attacks. One senator accused Howard
of "unprecedented deceit."
This important story received little
attention in the US media. We call it to your attention as a
reminder of what one honest person can do. Thanks to the courage
and determination of Andrew Wilkie, much of the Australian populace
understands much better that the reasons adduced for war on Iraq
were cooked in Washington and served up by Australian leaders
all too willing to give unquestioning support to the Bush administration.
Those Australian leaders are now being held accountable.
As some of you know, VIPS invited Andrew
Wilkie here to Washington in July to speak at a briefing in the
House Rayburn Building. (Wilkie, of course, is out of a job;
so mutual Australian friends paid for his flight, and we in VIPS
passed the hat to cover his expenses here.) After his well received
presentation on July 14, we strongly encouraged him to keep throwing
light on this dark chapter of history. We also voiced our hope
that US intelligence analysts who have also watched the deceit
close-up would soon join him in speaking out. With a wan smile
Wilkie shook his head, pointing to the cost-including the character
assassination to which he had already been subjected at the hands
of his government. Integrity and thick skin are what it takes,
but a little outside encouragement helps. The month after Wilkie
was here, he laid out his case before parliament.
Wilkie testified that the attack on Iraq
had little to do with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or terrorism.
We single out one particularly telling paragraph:
"Please remember the Government
was also receiving detailed assessments on the US in which it
was made very clear the US was intent on invading Iraq for more
important reasons than WMD and terrorism. Hence all this talk
about WMD and terrorism was hollow. Much more likely is the
proposition the Government deliberately exaggerated the Iraq
WMD threat so as to stay in step with the US."
In the wake of Wilkie's testimony, Australian
pundits have become more critical of Australia's current leaders'
continuing refusal to acknowledge that, as one journalist put
it, they were "conned by master manipulators masquerading
as purveyors of objective intelligence." We include Wilkie's
testimony below, with a reminder that
You too can make a difference.
Gene Betit
Ray Close
Pat Lang
Dave MacMichael
Ray McGovern
Greg Thielmann
Steering Group, VIPS
VIPS can be reached at: RRMcGovern@aol.com
Opening Remarks to the Parliamentary
Joint Committee on
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO),
Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), and
Defence Signals Directorate (DSD)
22 August 2003
Andrew Wilkie
Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting
me to appear before the Committee.
You would be well aware that I resigned
from the Office of National Assessments, before the Iraq war,
because I assessed that invading Iraq would not be the most sensible
and ethical way to resolve the Iraq issue. I chose resignation,
specifically, because compromise or seeking to create change
from within ONA were not realistic options.
At the time I resigned I put on the public
record three fundamental concerns. Firstly, that Iraq did not
pose a serious enough security threat to justify a war. Secondly,
that too many things could go wrong. And, thirdly, that war was
still totally unnecessary because options short of war were yet
to be exhausted.
My first concern is especially relevant
today. It was based on my assessment that Iraq's conventional
armed forces were weak, that Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction
programme was disjointed and contained, and that there was no
hard evidence of any active cooperation between Iraq and al Qaida.
Now the government has claimed repeatedly
I was not close enough to the Iraq issue to know what I'm talking
about. Such statements have misled the public and have been exceptionally
hurtful to me.
I was a Senior Analyst with a top secret
positive vet security clearance. I'd been awarded a Superior
rating in my last performance appraisal, and not long before
I resigned I'd been informed by the Deputy Director-General that
thought was being given to my being promoted.
Because of my military background (I
had been a regular army infantry Lieutenant Colonel), I was required
to be familiar with war-related issuesand was on standby to cover
Iraq once the war began.
I've also worked specifically on WMD
issues. In 1999 I prepared the assessment on WMD and terrorism,
and represented ONA at the WMD working group held in the UK.
In 2001 I helped prepare the update on my 1998 assessment, and
I represented ONA at the Australian WMD working group.
I was involved also in covering global
terrorism issues. In fact, on two occasions I provided the relevant
brief for the Standing Advisory Committee for the Protection
Against Violence.
Finally, as the Senior ONA Transnational
Issues Analyst, I was involved routinely in matters relating
to Iraq. This provided me with almost unrestricted access to
intelligence on that country. In particular, my December 2002
assessment on the possible humanitarian implications of a war
required me to research in detail the strategic threat posed
by Saddam Hussein.
If I could now turn more directly to
the Committee's Terms of Reference. When I said that Iraq's WMD
programme was 'disjointed and contained', I was describing a
limited chemical and biological programme focussed on developing
a break-out capability, in part by reliance on dual-use facilities.
Weapons production was possible, though only on a small scale.
My view was broadly consistent with ONA's position, maybe a little
more moderate. I still believe evidence of such a programme may
be found eventually, if not already.
Now, in fairness to Australian and Allied
intelligence agencies, Iraq was a tough target. From time to
time there were shortages of human intelligence on the country.
At other times the preponderance of anti-Saddam sources desperate
for US intervention ensured a flood of disinformation. Collecting
technical intelligence was equally challenging.
A problem for Australian agencies was
their reliance on Allies. We had virtually no influence on foreign
intelligence collection planning, and the raw intelligence seldom
arrived with adequate notes on sources or reliability. More problematic
was the way in which Australia's tiny agencies needed to rely
on the sometimes weak and skewed views contained in the assessments
prepared in Washington.
A few problems were inevitable. For instance,
intelligence gaps were sometimes back-filled with the disinformation.
Worst-case sometimes took primacy over most-likely. The threat
was sometimes overestimated as a result of the fairy tales coming
out of the US. And sometimes Government pressure, as well as
politically correct intelligence officers themselves, resulted
in its own bias.
But, overall, Australian agencies did,
I believe, an acceptable job reporting on the existence of, the
capacity and willingness to use, and immediacy of the threat,
posed by Iraq. Assessments were OK, not least because they were
always heavily qualified to reflect the ambiguous intelligence
picture.
How then to explain the big gap between
the Government's pre-war claims about Iraq possessing a massive
arsenal of WMD and cooperating actively with al Qaida and the
reality that no arsenal of weapons or evidence of substantive
links have yet been found?
Well, most often the Government deliberately
skewed the truth by taking the ambiguity out of the issue. Key
intelligence assessment qualifications like 'probably', 'could'
and 'uncorroborated evidence suggests' were frequently dropped.
Much more useful words like 'massive' and 'mammoth' were included,
even though such words had not been offered to the government
by the intelligence agencies. Before we knew it, the Government
had created a mythical Iraq, one where every factory was up to
no good and weaponisation was continuing apace.
Equally misleading was the way in which
the Government misrepresented the truth. For example, when the
Government spoke of Iraq having form (being up to no good), it
cited pre-1991 Gulf War examples, like the use of chemical weapons
against Iran and the Kurds. Mind you, the Government needed to
be creative, because 12 years of sanctions, inspections and air
strikes had virtually disarmed modern Iraq.
The Government also chose to use the
truth selectively. For instance, much was said about the risk
of WMD terrorism. But what was not made clear was that the risk
of WMD terrorism is low, that leakage of weapons from a state
arsenal is unlikely, and that the weapon most likely to be used
will be crude. That is, the chemical, biological or radiological
device most likely to be used will not be a WMD.
The Government even went so far as to
fabricate the truth. The claims about Iraq cooperating actively
with al Qaida were obviously nonsense. As was the Government's
reference to Iraq seeking uranium in Africa, despite the fact
that ONA, the Department of Defence, and the Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade, all knew the Niger story was fraudulent. This
was critical information. It beggars belief that ONA knew it
was discredited but didn't advise the Prime Minister, Defence
knew but didn't tell the Defence Minister, and Foreign Affairs
knew but didn't tell the Foreign Minister.
Please remember the Government was also
receiving detailed assessments on the US in which it was made
very clear the US was intent on invading Iraq for more important
reasons than WMD and terrorism. Hence all this talk about WMD
and terrorism was hollow. Much more likely is the proposition
the Government deliberately exaggerated the Iraq WMD threat so
as to stay in step with the US.
In closing, I wish to make it clear that
I do not apologise for, or withdraw from, my accusation that
the Howard government misled the Australian public over Iraq,
both through its own public statements, as well as through its
endorsement of Allied statements.
The government lied every time it said
or implied that I was not senior enough or appropriately placed
in ONA to know what I was talking about. And the government lied
every time it skewed, misrepresented, used selectively and fabricated
the Iraq story.
But these examples are just the tip of
the iceberg. For instance, the government lied when the Prime
Minister's Office told the media I was mentally unstable. The
government lied when it associated Iraq with the Bali bombing.
And the government lied every time it linked Iraq to the War
on Terror.
The Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister
in particular have a lot to answer for. After all, they were
the chief cheerleaders for the invasion of another country, without
UN endorsement, for reasons that have now been discredited.
Mr. Chairman, I've skimmed over a lot
of important issues here. Of course I'd now welcome the opportunity
to discuss any particular aspect in more detail.
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 26 / 28, 2003
Tim Wise
The
Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment
Peter
Linebaugh
Rhymsters
and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW
Gary Leupp
Occupation
as Rape-Marriage
Bruce
Jackson
Addio
Alle Armi
David Krieger
A Nuclear 9/11?
Ray McGovern
L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's
War on Whistleblowers
Col. Dan Smith
Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean
Mickey
Z.
In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest
Roger Burbach
Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq
John Chuckman
Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus
William S. Lind
Versailles on the Potomac
Glen T.
Martin
The Corruptions of Patriotism
Anat Yisraeli
Bereavement as Israeli Ethos
Wayne
Madsen
Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can
M. Junaid Alam
The Racism Barrier
William
Benzon
Scorsese's Blues
Adam Engel
The Great American Writing Contest
Poets'
Basement
McNeill, Albert, Guthrie
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