Written by veteran investigative reporter Bob Dreyfuss , The Dreyfuss Report offers readers the story behind daily headlines and policies pursued on behalf of national security.
September 17, 2004
Yesterday I reported on Kofi Annan’s forthright (and refreshingly candid) comment that the war in Iraq was illegal. Here’s a question for Mr. Bush’s lawyers, who crafted the legal defense of the illegal war: You say that the United States went to war in Iraq to enforce UN resolutions that Saddam Hussein had supposedly defied. What if Iran had made the same decision, in 2003, and invaded Iraq to enforce those resolutions? Would that be okay?
Or, what if, let’s say, Russia decides to enforce Resolutions 242 and 338, calling for Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders, and invades. Would that be okay?
Members of Mr. Bush’s Coalition of the Willing are, of course, attacking Annan. In a huff is Colin Powell, who ought to be cheering Annan, but no. In an interview with the editors of The Washington Times, the Moonie rag, Powell says he will give Annan a piece of his mind :
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday expressed strong disapproval of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's description of the U.S.-led war in Iraq as illegal, saying the comment was "not a very useful statement to make at this point."
"What does it gain anyone? We should all be gathering around the idea of helping the Iraqis, not getting into these kinds of side issues," Mr. Powell said in an interview with editors and reporters at The Washington Times .
"I'm sure I will have the opportunity to talk to Kofi about this," Mr. Powell added.
With 19 more dead Americans in Iraq this week so far, and hundreds of Iraqis, it is also clear that the war in Iraq was also stupid, besides being illegal. (Either one of those flaws ought to be enough to bring down Bush, but I guess not.) Sid Blumenthal, writing in the Guardian, quotes General Odom on Iraq thusly :
Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, told me: "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost." He adds: "Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends."
General Odom said: "This is far graver than Vietnam. There wasn't as much at stake strategically, though in both cases we mindlessly went ahead with the war that was not constructive for US aims. But now we're in a region far more volatile, and we're in much worse shape with our allies."
For a thorough summary of the pessimism on Iraq, see Jim Lobe’s latest here .
Rumsfeld, obviously tapping into the neocon happy-talk gas, suggests that things are good because Iraqis are going to get tired of being killed. This, from USA Today:
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld cast it a little differently this week, at a news conference in Missouri. Iraq is making progress, he said. “At some point the Iraqis will get tired of getting killed and we'll have enough of the Iraqi security forces that they can take over responsibility for governing that country,” he said.
Mr. Rumsfeld, let’s put it this way. Do you think Iraqis are going to get tired of winning?
September 16, 2004
It’s too late to make a difference, with President Bush cruising toward re-election and rolling over the pathetic, disorganized Kerry “campaign,” but Kofi Annan spoke the truth :
The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, declared explicitly for the first time last night that the U.S.-led war on Iraq was illegal.
Mr. Annan said that the invasion was not sanctioned by the UN security council or in accordance with the UN's founding charter. In an interview with the BBC World Service broadcast last night, he was asked outright if the war was illegal. He replied: "Yes, if you wish."
He then added unequivocally: "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view and from the charter point of view it was illegal."
Reading that underlines the enormous gap between reality—that Bush launched an illegal war, and then bungled it besides—and Kerry’s stunningly inept mantra about Iraq being the “wrong” war. Kerry seems incapable of making a declarative statement on Iraq, just intellectual posturing—and incapable of attacking Bush for the biggest foreign policy blunder since Vietnam.
Annan also said there is no chance of having elections as things stand now:
Mr. Annan also questioned whether it will be feasible on security grounds to go ahead with the first planned election in Iraq scheduled for January. "You cannot have credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now," he said.
That seems to be the view of the CIA, too. Now, the CIA got everything on Iraq so wrong, thanks to George Tenet’s kowtowing to the Pentagon, that anything it says is like crying wolf, in spades. Still, the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq from CIA, reported in the Times, makes it clear that the CIA thinks it’s a slam-dunk that Iraq is a mess. Forgive me for thinking that we don’t need a highly classified document to tell us that Iraq is headed to hell in a hand basket, but that’s what the CIA does. Reports Doug Jehl :
The estimate outlines three possibilities for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst case being developments that could lead to civil war, the officials said. The most favorable outcome described is an Iraq whose stability would remain tenuous in political, economic and security terms.
"There's a significant amount of pessimism," said one government official who has read the document, which runs about 50 pages.
Pessimism? Really? About Iraq? Even funnier is this:
All the officials who described the assessment said they had read the document or had been briefed on its findings. The officials included both critics and supporters of the administration's policies in Iraq. But they insisted they not be identified by name, agency or branch of government because the document remained highly classified.
Now why would they be so afraid to talk about something so obvious? Not because this particular secret is so deep and dark. Of course, it’s because it contradicts the Pollyanna-like optimism from the White House.
|
 |
What you shouldn’t miss from today’s progressive blogosphere. We read the top political blogs and give you our choice of the day’s best entries.
Steve Clemons
September 17, 2004
From Washington Note:
KINSEY: SEX, POLITICS AND AMERICA'S RELIGIOUS STRAIGHTJACKET
LIAM NEESON AND LAURA LINNEY STAR IN KINSEY, a new movie by Director Bill Condon, scheduled to be released November 12th. This film is powerful, political, and needs to be out in October.
Fox Searchlight Productions, the independent film arm of Fox, is distributing the film -- and the folks there are into thoughtful social and political commentary. I hosted a film screening for Bill Condon -- Academy Award winning writer and director who wrote and directed Gods and Monsters and wrote Chicago -- with a bunch of policy wonk friends of mine at the Motion Picture Association of America theatre in Washington last week.
But Tuesday night, I saw the movie again courtesy of Gloria Steinem and Tina Brown who hosted a star-studded screening and dinner in New York. First, I want to tell you about the party -- because it was useful to hear what the movie set thinks of Bush and Kerry. Secondly, I want to chat about the film a bit.
[Click here for lots more]
Andrew Sullivan
September 17, 2004
From AndrewSullivan.com:
THE BUSH COCOON: Ryan Lizza observes the surreal nature of Dr Pangloss's re-election tour:
[F]or the most part, spending time on the trail with Bush is like being transported to a parallel universe. The only music is Christian rock and country tunes about plain-talking everymen. The only people who ask the president questions are his most feverish supporters, never the press. In this alternate universe, Iraq and Afghanistan are marching effortlessly toward democracy. The economy is, in the words of former Broncos quarterback John Elway, who introduces Bush in Greenwood Village, "the best in the world." John Kerry, whose platform is to the right of Clinton's in 1992, is calling for a massive expansion of government.
Yes, it's working - for now. But if the voters realize at some point in this campaign that the president is simply living in a dreamworld, they might vote for someone who, for all his faults, is at least able to recognize reality.
The Campaign Desk
September 16, 2004
From The Campaign Desk:
For months now, Campaign Desk has been encouraging political reporters to commit two kinds of heresy: first, to put an end to their slavish reliance on anonymous sources, and second, to take one giant step beyond the revered he-said/she-said/I'm-outta-here school of campaign reporting that so often leaves readers befuddled, as opposed to informed.
We've cited and deconstructed specimens of these flawed species dozens of times, yet for the most part it's been like firing away at the kewpie dolls at the county fair -- no matter how many you take out, another pops up.
Today, however, we entered a parallel universe. We picked up The New York Times and, lo, there on page one was a story on Democrats urging vice presidential candidate John Edwards to assume a more confrontational and high profile-stance on the campaign trail. Randal C. Archibold and Adam Nagourney write about how concerned Democrats worry that the soft-spoken Edwards has been invisible next to attack dog Dick Cheney, his Republican counterpart. And then -- drumrollll -- they reel off not just comments, but the names of the chatterboxes: Donna Brazile (who managed Al Gore's campaign in 2000), Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, Tony Coelho, a Democratic strategist who also had a hand in the Gore campaign, and Paul C. Light, an NYU professor and expert on the vice presidency.
In a saner world, there would be nothing noteworthy about a campaign story that actually names the names of the folks commenting and elaborating upon a reporter's thesis. But in the Year of our Lord 2004, it's little short of revolutionary.
Drunk with gratitude, we next turned to Elisabeth Bumiller's story about Kerry's campaign stop in Detroit. And there was another phenomenon we've seen all too little of this year -- a reporter (Bumiller) rattling off the claims of each side, then stepping back to systematically compare those claims to the known facts. Bumiller does it four separate times, including one detailed three-paragraph breakdown of John Kerry's voting record on proposed tax increases that demonstrates, show-&-tell style, to the reader how Kerry's record varies from the standard portrayal of it offered up by the Bush campaign.
Again, that's the kind of thing that ought to be second nature to a seasoned campaign reporter armed with Internet information available at the click of a mouse. But in fact, looking for examples of that simple kind of enterprise in this campaign year has been like panning for nuggets of gold in a sewer.
So here's to Archibold, Nagourney, and Bumiller -- and to whomever it was at The Times who lit a fire under them.
Katrina vanden Heuvel
September 16, 2004
From Editor's Cut:
The International Ethical Collegium is an important new global voice. Its membership includes philosophers, diplomats, scientists, human rights activists and current and former Heads of State and governments, like ex-President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, who want the global community to respond "intelligently and forcefully to the decisive challenges facing humankind." (The group has recently published an important Open Letter to George W. Bush and John Kerry, which is reprinted below.)
The Collegium sees three great challenges confronting the modern world--all of which require robust multilateral solutions: an ecological threat that includes global warming, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and a shortage of drinkable water in many of the world's poorest regions; a global economy in which deregulation has created massive disparities in income and a less secure world; and, finally, a "crisis of thought and meaning" whereby humanity is thwarted by forces like "violence and intolerance [and] materialistic obsession."
In an interview this week, the International Collegium's Secretary General Sacha Goldman talked about how sovereign states' own self-interest, threatened to undermine the hope of collective action to confront the world's most immediate problems. "The US is losing its moral leadership," Goldman said, and that's troubling because nations "don't exist anymore on their own." Interdependence, as the Open Letter states, "is the new reality of this century--from global warming to global markets, global crime and global technology."
[Read on for the Collegium's letter]
Lawrence Lessig
September 15, 2004
From lessig blog:
Gilmore v. Ashcroft
John Gilmore’s battle to force the government to explain the basis upon which it demands that airlines verify an ID before permitting someone on a plane got a small victory last week. The government had asked to file its brief, defending a rule that is itself secret, in secret. The 9th Circuit said no.
Steve Clemons
September 15, 2004
From Washington Note:
JAMES WOOLSEY & CO. WILL OUTLINE WORLD WAR IV STRATEGIES at a forum scheduled two weeks from now on Wednesday, 29 September, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.
The forum is disconcertingly titled: "World War IV: Why We Fight, Whom We Fight, How We Fight," and is sponsored by the Committee on the Present Danger and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
They won't let you in the door as the conference is being organized as a watering hole for like-minded supporters of the Iraq War and those committed to broadening America's military engagement with other "problem nations" (think Iran and Syria). It runs from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. in case you want to peek in the doors at the Mayflower; there are big open hallways there.
The intro blurb on the announcement reads:
The Cold War is now being called by some "World War III" because it was global, had an ideological basis, involved both military and non-military actions, required skill and the mobilization of extensive resources and lasted for years. Today's "war on terrorism" has the same elements, hence a broader name, "World War IV." Our speakers will explore its antecedents, its methods and its possible outcome.
Featured speakers in the program include Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz (invited), Senator Jon Kyl (invited), Senator Joseph Lieberman (apparently confirmed -- Joe, what are you thinking?!), R. James Woolsey, Norman Podhoretz, Eliot Cohen, Rachel Ehrenfeld, and others.
I can just see Jim Woolsey soon releasing bumper stickers at these events and maybe tee-shirts, coffee mugs, and buttons that say "WORLD WAR IV: Test of Loyalty," or some other sticky absurdity.
I am going to try and attend this meeting, but if there are readers out there who make it through the "non-transferable invitation" guards at the door, inquire about how Woolsey can live with himself encouraging Americans to sacrifice lives and treasure on one hand while personally profiting off of their defense of our democracy on the other.
War profiteering is a disgusting trade. But someone of James Woolsey's credentials should either recuse himself from commenting on national security policy -- or forfeit his defense/war-related profit-making activities.
Another alternative might be for Woolsey to contribute all the profits he is making at Paladin, Fluor, Booz Allen and other firms to those servicemen and women (and their families) who have been killed, are missing or wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.
|
