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New Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively to Subscribers: Patrick Cockburn's Eyewitness in Baghdad: Saddam's Stuffed Horse; Inside the Looting of the Iraq National History Museum; the Rise of the Guerrilla War; Jeffrey St. Clair on The Anatomy of a Swindle: How the Bush Administration is Giving Away Public Lands to Its Political Cronies; Scott Handleman on the Return of the Aliens: Why the CIA Was Paranoid About UFOs. Remember, the CounterPunch website is supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide web audience is soaring, with more than 60,000 visitors a day. This is inspiring news, but the work involved also compels us to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Or Call Toll Free 1-800-840 3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Coming in September From AK Press Featuring Essays by: Edward Said, Robert Fisk, Michael Neumann, Shahid Alam, Alexander Cockburn, Uri Avnery, Bill and Kathy Christison and More Recent Stories August 5, 2003 Edward Said Orientallism: 25 Years Later Website of the Day National Prayer Day August 4, 2003 Bruce K. Gagnon Another Peace Activist Detained by Airport Cops: My Story David Lindorff Fear-Mongering About Social Security Mark Zepezauer George F. Will: Descent into Self-Parody James Plummer Tracking You Through the Mail Mickey Z. Marriage Insecurity from Sharon to Bush Bruce Jackson News that Isn't News: How the NYT's Pimps for the White House August 2 / 3, 2003 Alexander Cockburn Meet the Real WMD Fabricator: Rolf Ekeus Tamara R. Piety Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down Francis Boyle My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool David Vest Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side Neve Gordon Nightlife in Jerusalem Uri Avnery Their Master's Voice: Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus Robert Fisk Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq Jerry Kroth Israel, Yellowcake and the Media Noah Leavitt What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to Intervene? Saul Landau The Film Industry: Business and Ideology Ron Jacobs One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson Thomas Croft In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta Amadi Ajamu Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader? Poets' Basement Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming   August 1, 2003 Joanne Mariner Stopping Prison Rape Alex Coolman Who Moved My Soap: Trivializing Prison Rape Steve J.B. Prison Bitch Stan Goff Injury and Decorum: The Missing Wounded in Iraq Wayne Madsen Europe Unplugs from the Matrix Robert Fisk Wolfowitz the Censor Elaine Cassel Ashcroft Loses Big in Puerto Rico Website of the Day Stop Prisoner Rape     July 31, 2003 Ray McGovern The Prostitution of Intelligence Brian Cloughley Wolfowitz's Operative Statement Sheldon Hull The RIAA's Jihad: The Devil's Music (Industry) Elaine Cassel The Next Time You Crack a Lawyer Joke, Think of These Attorneys Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber True Lies: Propaganda and Bush's Wars Hammond Guthrie Speculation Blues Website of the Day Army of One?   July 30, 2003 David Lindorff Poindexter the Terror Bookie Marjorie Cohn Why Iraq and Afghanistan? It's About the Oil Elaine Cassel How Ashcroft Coerces Guilty Pleas in Terror Cases Zvi Bar'el The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War Lisa Walsh Thomas Killing Mustafa Hussein: Death of a Child, Birth of a Legend? Sean Carter Pat Robertson's Prayer Jihad: God, Sodomy and the Supremes ND Jayaprakash India and Ariel Sharon Steve Perry Bush's Top 40 Lies Standard Schaefer Correction about Bloomberg and Outscourcing Website of the Day Bring Them Home Now! Congratulations to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD July 29, 2003 Jeffrey St. Clair "Journalist Spotted! Journalist Dead!" Guatemala Bleeds; US Press Yawns Thomas J. Nagy The Belligerent Dr. Pipes Kurt Nimmo Tom Delay Goes to Jerusalem Chris Floyd Dead Reckoning: Bush Warriors Sign Off on War Crimes Robert Fisk Another Botched Raid; Another Massacre Jason Leopold Did Chalabi Help Write Bush's State of the Union Address? Conn Hallinan Food Bully: Bush's Biotech Shock and Awe Campaign Dan Bacher Sacramento's War on Free Speech Ray McGovern Cheney Chicanery Website of the Day Julie Hilden Caught on Tape July 26 / 27, 2003 Alexander Cockburn NYT's Screws Up Again; Uday and Qusay Deaths Bad for Bush; Gen. Hitchens at the Front Gary Leupp Faith-Based Intelligence Saul Landau A Report from Syria Stan Goff Bring 'Em On Home, Now! Jeffrey St. Clair Book Cooking at Boeing Andrew Cockburn The Sons Are Dead; Now the Blood Feud Begins Jason Leopold CIA Points the Finger at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans Robert Fisk The Power of Death Joanne Mariner Monsieur Moussaoui Standard Schaefer Joblessness and the Invisible Hand M. Shahid Alam The Global Economy Since 1800: a Short History Harry Browne Northern Ireland: the Other Faltering Peace Process Fidel Castro Moncada, 50 Years Later Lula Democracy Requires Social Justice Edward S. Herman Refuting Brad DeLong's Smear Job on Noam Chomsky Ron Jacobs Guided by a Great Feeling of Love: a Review of Gordon's The Company You Keep Julie Hilden A Photographer, an Offer and Cameron Diaz's Topless Photos Adam Engel Man Talk Poets' Basement Keeney, Witherup, Short, Nimba, Guthrie and Albert   Hot Stories 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 Elaine Cassel Civil Liberties Watch Michel Guerrin Embedded Photographer Says: "I Saw Marines Kill Civilians" Uzma Aslam Khan The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War: What America Says Does Not Go Paul de Rooij Arrogant Propaganda Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch

August 7, 2003 Wolfowitz Lets Slip Iraq Was Not Involved in 9/11; No Ties to Al-Qaeda By JASON LEOPOLD Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, one of the main architects for the war in Iraq, admitted for the first time that Iraq had nothing to do with the September 11 terrorist attacks, contradicting public statements made by senior White House and Pentagon officials whose attempt to link Saddam Hussein and the terrorist organization al-Qaeda was cited by the Bush administration as one of the main reasons for launching a preemptive strike in March against Iraq. In an interview with conservative radio personality Laura Ingraham, Wolfowitz was asked when he first came to believe that Iraq was behind the 9-11 terrorist attacks. "I'm not sure even now that I would say Iraq had something to do with it," Wolfowitz said in the interview, aired Friday. Wolfowitz's answer confirms doubts long held by critics of the Iraq war that the Bush administration had no evidence linking Iraq to 9-11 or al-Qaeda, but simply used the horrific terrorist attacks as a reason to overthrow Saddam Hussein and his Baathist regime. "I think what the realization to me is -- the fundamental point was that terrorism had reached the scale completely different from what we had thought of it up until then. And that it would only get worse when these people got access to weapons of mass destruction which would be only a matter of time," Wolfowitz said in the interview. "...What you really got to do is, eliminate terrorist networks and eliminate terrorism as a problem. And clearly Iraq was one of the country -- you know top of the list of countries actively using terrorism as an instrument of national policy." Since the United States invaded Iraq 111 days ago, no chemical or biological weapons have been found in the country. A spokesman for Wolfowitz would not return repeated calls for comment. During the buildup to the war in Iraq, the Bush administration successfully convinced the public and members of Congress that Iraq had played some role in the 9-11 terrorist attacks, according to numerous polls that showed a majority of the American public believe Iraq was involved in 9-11 attacks, despite the absence of evidence to support the allegations. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld last year boasted that the Pentagon and CIA had "bulletproof" evidence linking Iraq to al-Qaeda, although Rumsfeld refused to declassify any of the intelligence he had to support his claims. Shortly after the attacks, however, the administration claimed that Mohammed Atta, the suspected ringleader of the 9-11 attacks, met with an Iraqi agent in Prague in early 2001, suggesting a possible connection with Saddam Hussein. Reports of the meeting were based primarily on accounts of Czech officials like Prime Minister Milos Zeman, who discussed it with officials in Washington in November. But Federal law-enforcement officials concluded in May that no such meeting took place. Since Bush declared in May an end to major combat in Iraq, Wolfowitz has given numerous interviews contradicting the administrations rationale for starting the war. Most notably, Wolfowitz told a reporter for Vanity Fair a few months ago that: "the decision to highlight weapons of mass destruction as the main justification for going to war in Iraq was taken for bureaucratic reasons...." But despite the obvious contradictions about the reasons cited for war and unanswered questions as to whether the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to build a stronger case for striking Iraq, the president and his senior staff maintains that the war was justified. But Democrats in Congress, a majority of who supported a resolution authorizing the use of military force to overthrow Saddam Hussein, said they are particularly interested in questioning Wolfowitz and other Pentagon officials about its use of intelligence information that critics claim the Pentagon hyped to show Iraq not only played a part in 9-11, but that the country had a stockpile of chemical and biological weapons that it planned to use against the U.S. Republican lawmakers, however, in an attempt to protect the White House from further embarrassment about the accuracy of its use of prewar intelligence, are thwarting efforts by Democrats to launch such a probe. At issue is a secret Pentagon committee headed by Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, that is widely believed to be responsible for gathering much of the erroneous intelligence information used by President Bush and senior White House officials on the so-called Iraqi threat, specifically, its ties to al-Qaeda. The Pentagon unit, called the Office of Special Plans, was formed, according to published reports, after the 9-11 terrorist attacks to find links between Iraq and al-Qaeda. It was disbanded late last year, Feith said during a briefing with reporters in May. About a dozen former CIA intelligence officials have been quoted as saying that the Office of Special Plans cherry-picked intelligence, much of which was gathered by unreliable Iraqi defectors, to make a stronger case for war and delivered directly to Vice President Dick Cheney's office and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice without first being vetted by the CIA. Congressman David Obey, D-Wisconsin, is planning on writing a letter to the General Accounting Office sometime this week urging the agency to immediately launch an inquiry into the group to find out if Wolfowitz and his underlings in the Special Plans Office knowingly manipulated intelligence to help the White House win support for a war in Iraq. Jason Leopold can be reached at: jasonleopold@hotmail.com Weekend Edition Features for August 2/3, 2003 Alexander Cockburn Meet the Real WMD Fabricator: Rolf Ekeus Tamara R. Piety Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down Francis Boyle My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool David Vest Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side Neve Gordon Nightlife in Jerusalem Uri Avnery Their Master's Voice: Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus Robert Fisk Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq Jerry Kroth Israel, Yellowcake and the Media Noah Leavitt What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to Intervene? Saul Landau The Film Industry: Business and Ideology Ron Jacobs One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson Thomas Croft In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta Amadi Ajamu Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader? Poets' Basement Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming       Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /