Coming
in October
From Common Courage Press
Today's
Stories
Robert Fisk
The US
Needs to Blame Anyone But Locals for UN Bombing
Virginia Tilley
The Quisling Policies of the UN in Iraq: Toward a Permanent War?
Marjorie Cohn
Siergio Vieira de Mello: Victim of Terror or US Policy in Iraq?
Rep. Henry Waxman
Bush Owes the Public Some Serious Answers on Iraq
Vicente Navarro
Media
Double Standards: The Case of Mr. Aznar, Friend of Bush
August 20, 2003
Robert Fisk
Now No
One Is Safe in Iraq
Caoimhe Butterly
Life and Death on the Frontlines of Baghdad
Kurt Nimmo
UN Bombing: Act of Terrorism or Guerrilla War?
Michael Egan
Revisiting the Paranoid Style in the Dark
Ramzi Kysia
Peace
is not an Abstract Idea
Steven Higgs
NPR and the NAFTA Highway
John L. Hess
A Downside Day
Edward Said
The Imperial Bluster of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Gridlock at Path 15: the California Blackouts were the "Wake
Up Call"
Website of the Day
Ashcroft's Patriotic Hype
Recent
Stories
August 19, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Blackouts Happen
Gary Leupp
"Our Patch": Australia v. the Evil Doers of the South
Pacific
Sean Donahue
Uribe's Cruel Model: Colombia Moves Toward Totalitarianism
Matt Martin
Bush's Credibility Problem on Missile Defense
Juliana Fredman
Recipe for the Destruction of a Hudna
John Ross
Fox Government's Attack on Mexican Basques
Sasan Fayazmanesh
What Kermit Roosevelt Didn't Say
Website of the Day
Tom Delay's Dual Loyalities
August 18, 2003
Uri Avnery
Hero in War and Peace
Stan Goff
The Volunteer Military and the Wicked Adventure
Cathy Breen
Baghdad on the Hudson
Michael Kimaid
Fight the Power (Companies)!
Jason Leopold
The California Rip-Off Revisited: Arnold, Milken and Ken Lay
Matt Siegfried
The Bush Administration in Context
Elaine Cassel
At Last, A Judge Who Acts Like a Judge
Alexander Cockburn
Judy Miller's War
Harvey Wasserman
The Legacy of Blackout Pete Wilson
Website of the Day
Fire Griles!
August 16 / 17, 2003
Flavia Alaya
Bastille
New Jersey
Jeffrey St. Clair
War Pimps
Saul Landau
The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50
Brian Cloughley
What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq?
William S. Lind
Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles
Col. Dan Smith
Time for Straight Talk
Wenonah Hauter
Which
Electric System Do We Want?
David Lindorff
Where's Arnold When We Need Him?
Harvey Wasserman
This Grid Should Not Exist
Don Moniak
"Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline
for August 14, 2003
David Vest
Rolling Blackout Revue
Merlin Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Sherman Austin
Adam Engel
The Loneliest Number
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Hamod & Albert
Book of the Weekend
Powerplay by Sharon Beder
August 14, 2003
Peter Phillips
Inside
Bohemian Grove: Where US Power Elites Party
Brian Cloughley
Charlie Wilson and Pakistan: the Strange Congressman Behind the
CIA's Most Expensive War
Linville and Ruder
Tyson
Strike Draws the Line
Jim Lobe
Bush Administration Divided Over Iran
Ramzy Baroud
Sharon Freezes the Road Map
Tom Turnipseed
Blowback in Iraq
Gary Leupp
Condi's
Speech: From Birgmingham to Baghdad, Imperialism's Freedom Ride
Website of the Day
Tony Benn's Greatest Hits
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 13, 2003
Joanne Mariner
A Wall of Separation Through the
Heart
Donald Worster
The Heavy Cost of Empire
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Elaine Cassel
Murderous Errors: Executing the Innocent
Ralph Nader
Make the Recall Count
Alexander Cockburn
Ted Honderich Hit with "Anti-Semitism" Slur
Website of the Day
Defending Yourself Against DirectTV Lawsuits: 9000 and Counting
August 12, 2003
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Ron Jacobs
Revisionist History: the Bush Administration, Civil Rights and
Iraq
Josh Frank
Dean's Constitutional Hang-Up
Wayne Madsen
What's a Fifth Columnist? Well, Someone Like Hitchens
Ray McGovern
Relax,
It Was All a Pack of Lies
Wendy Brinker
Hubris in the White House
Website of the Day
Black
Mustache
Hot Stories
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
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.
|
August
21, 2003
Bush Owes the Public
Some Serious Answers
Who
Forged the Iraq Evidence and Why?
By Rep. HENRY WAXMAN
Controversy is growing over President Bush's use
of forged evidence in his State of the Union address. Indeed,
the issue is fast becoming a whodunit. Who inserted the fabricated
claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from an African country into
the statements of the President and other Administration officials?
Currently, the White House is saying
a speechwriter, not the butler, did it. But even a quick look
at the record reveals that's just another fiction. With potentially
grave national security implications at stake, it's essential
we find out what really happened.
To rebuild the trust that has been lost,
we need open congressional hearings and an independent commission
to investigate.
Key Questions Remain
Unanswered
I've been investigating the Niger hoax
since March. From the beginning, I have asked whether this was
a failure of our intelligence experts, or a knowing manipulation
of intelligence by the White House. With each new revelation,
it becomes more likely this is a case of deception, not incompetence.
The most recent revelation is this: National
Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice's top deputy, Stephen Hadley,
received written warnings about the Niger hoax from the CIA last
October, but supposedly forgot that he had ever read them. This
new admission contradicts several months' worth of White House
statements.
The Idea That the
Perpetrator Was a Speechwriter Is Not Plausible
As noted above, the current White House
explanation is that a speechwriter was responsible. But that's
not plausible.
Rather, the evidence reveals that, during
the six crucial months between September 2002 and March 2003,
there was a concerted campaign to promote the unsubstantiated
uranium claim.
The campaign began on September 24, 2002,
when the White House officially embraced the British dossier
asserting that Iraq sought uranium from Africa. In December,
the State Department used the evidence as a cornerstone of the
U.S. response to Iraq's arms declaration, stating in a widely
publicized "fact sheet" that the Iraqi declaration
"ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger."
Then, in January 2003, Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
reiterated the claim. Indeed, in a January 23 New York Times
op-ed, Ms. Rice cited it as the leading example of Iraqi duplicity.
Then, Mr. Hadley himself used the claim
in a February 16, 2003 op-ed in the Chicago Tribune. As late
as February 20-just two weeks before U.N. inspectors revealed
the evidence to be a fraud-U.S. officials continued to use it.
Clearly, this wasn't the work of a single
speechwriter. Nor was it the work of CIA Director George Tenet,
who repeatedly tried to debunk the uranium claim. So who was
responsible? And how high does this reach into the upper atmosphere
of the White House?
A Failure of Candor
After the Forgery Was Disclosed
Events since March 7, when the International
Atomic Energy Agency disclosed the forgery, have also been extremely
disturbing.
It's apparent now that the White House
has not been candid about what it knew about the Niger claim.
For months, a wide cast of senior officials-including Ari Fleischer,
Ms. Rice, and the President himself-have professed that no one
in White House was told about the CIA's doubts. Given the latest
developments, that explanation is demonstrably false.
There would seem to be just two remaining
options: either there was a knowing attempt to mislead the public
or there was a stupefying level of incompetence.
Congressman Henry A. Waxman has represented the Los Angeles area of California
since 1974. He is the Ranking Minority Member on the House Committee
on Government Reform and a member of the House Committee on Energy
and Commerce. This essay originally appeared on Findlaw.
Weekend
Edition Features for August 16 / 17, 2003
Flavia Alaya
Bastille
New Jersey
Jeffrey St. Clair
War Pimps
Saul Landau
The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50
Brian Cloughley
What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq?
William S. Lind
Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles
Col. Dan Smith
Time for Straight Talk
Wenonah Hauter
Which
Electric System Do We Want?
David Lindorff
Where's Arnold When We Need Him?
Harvey Wasserman
This Grid Should Not Exist
Don Moniak
"Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline
for August 14, 2003
David Vest
Rolling Blackout Revue
Merlin Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Sherman Austin
Adam Engel
The Loneliest Number
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Hamod & Albert
Book of the Weekend
Powerplay by Sharon Beder
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|