Terror Gate

Terror Gate

by VirtualTruth

Sun Jul 17th, 2005 at 13:12:42 PDT

Terror Gate
It is not just about the war on terror in Afghanistan, and the Iraq invasion being The Wrong War at the Wrong Time for the Wrong Reasons.

Terror Gate is more than being about if Rove divulged the name of a covert CIA agent, lied under oath, or obstructed a federal investigation. The Rove connection is just the tip of a huge iceberg of the WMD issue. WMD meaning both Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Bush Administration Willful use of Misinformation and Deception. This large elaborate web of lies of omission, misinformation and deception has been masterfully woven with intricate layers throughout all of the below issues.

Preface:
Rebuilding America's Defenses.
Strategy, Forces, Resources for a New Century
The Project For the New American Century

History of 'NeoCons' attempt to enact 'New American Century' The first Gulf War.

9/11

Patriot Act

Afghanistan/Bin Laden/Al qaida

Downing Street Memos

Office of Special Plans

Axis of Evil

'Coalition of the Willing'

"Bring It On"

Iraq/Saddam/WMDs

Post "Mission Accomplished"

Madrid Bombing

2004 Election Campaign

TerrorGate

London Bombing

Options and Solution?

What is occurring now in the news is not about Right or Wrong, though these elements are prominent components of the actions of those involved? It goes to an even deeper and far more significant issue. What is at stake is the very continuance of the United States of America as a Free and open Democracy that is the shining beacon to the world, or America as a blueprint of how to subvert a population by fear propaganda misinformation political payback and the systematic obliteration by any means possible anyone who questions the leadership of the Nation.

This battle is being waged between the Internet Bloggers and The Republican Political Media Machine. The 'Free' Press is just along for the ride.

Over the next days I will flesh out this outline to show how all of these issues connect and overlap in the largest and most dangerous political hijacking of Democracy since Watergate.

The similarities between Watergate and TerrorGate are two numerous to ignore. Both involve political payback deception, lies, denial and the breakdown of trust between the Presidency and the American people. The stakes now are much higher. Because of the actions of a few, the safety of the Majority has been put at greater risk.

 

If people only knew the facts, they would not be fighting for the 'RIGHT' to be screwed over.

+ $1,751,132,130,359 Social Security Trust Fund
– $7,805,708,317,936 The Gross National Debt

Time will tell all the Truth.
VT

Sean Lewis/VirtualTruth/VT

Founder
OpenDebateForum
http://VTSL.blogspot.com


clock

There are times I wish I was wrong, this is one of them

Subj:	Latest Bush administration act of incompetence.
Date:	8/18/2004
To:	opendebateforum@groups.aol.com, Virtualtruth

Once again it appears a larger opportunity was squandered by the Bush Administration.

In reporting the Capture of the Al qaida computer expert, the US administration short circuited an international attempt by our allies to capture al qaida operatives in recent contact with the expert.

Way to go Bush.

The once again ill conceived and poorly thought out policies of the Bush Administration in releasing the terror threat alert announced just after the Democratic Convention ended, effectively ended all attempts to capture additional al qaida operatives by announcing the capture of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan.

We need competent leaders in the White House capable of actions that will enhance the safety of US citizens, not continue to keep America in danger.

Cast your vote in this real time nation wide vote.
http://www.electionguide04.com/straw_poll.adp

Time will tell all of the Truth

VT

 

If people only knew the facts, they would not be fighting for the 'RIGHT' to be screwed over.

+ $1,751,132,130,359 Social Security Trust Fund
– $7,805,708,317,936 The Gross National Debt

Time will tell all the Truth.
VT

Sean Lewis/VirtualTruth/VT

Founder
OpenDebateForum
http://VTSL.blogspot.com


clock

Bush Incompetence may have help warn Al qaida in London Attacks!!!!

ABC News just reported that the British authorities say they have evidence that the London attacks last week were an operation planned by Al Qaeda for the last two years. This was an operation the Brits thought they caught and stopped in time, but they were wrong. The piece of the puzzle ABC missed is that this is an operation the Bush administration helped botch last year.

 

1. The London bombers, per ABC, are connected to an Al Qaeda plot planned two years ago in Lahore, Pakistan.

2. Pakistani authorities recovered the laptop of a captured Al Qaeda leader, Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, on July 13, 2004. On that laptop, they found plans for a coordinated series of attacks on the London subway. According to an expert interviewed by ABC, "there is absolutely no doubt that Khan was part of a worldwide Al Qaeda operation, not just in the United States but also in Great Britain and throughout the west."

3. ABC reports that names in the computer matched a suspected cell of Britain's of Pakistani decent, many of who lived near the town of Luton, England. According to ABC, authorities thought they had stopped the subway plot with the arrest of more than a dozen people last year. Obviously, they hadn't.

4. Those arrests were the arrests that the Bush administration botched by announcing a heightened security alert the week of the Democratic Convention. Because the US let the cat out of the bag, the media got a hold of Khan's name, his Al Qaeda contacts found out he was co-opted, and they fled. The Brits had to have a high speed chase to catch some of them as they fled, and, according to press reports, the Brits and Pakistanis both fear that some slipped away.

 

If people only knew the facts, they would not be fighting for the 'RIGHT' to be screwed over.

+ $1,751,132,130,359 Social Security Trust Fund
– $7,805,708,317,936 The Gross National Debt

Time will tell all the Truth.
VT

Sean Lewis/VirtualTruth/VT

Founder
OpenDebateForum
http://VTSL.blogspot.com


clock

Saving Karl Rove

Saving Karl Rove

Paul Waldman

July 14, 2005

Paul Waldman is a senior fellow with  Media Matters for America and a senior
contributor to The Gadflyer.

Every administration has its share of scandals to deal with, and every one
handles them in a slightly different way (of course, it helps if your party
controls both houses of Congress, so there will be no pesky Congressional
investigations to deal with). But the Bush administration’s furious effort to save
Karl Rove and justify the outing of a covert CIA operative is a remarkable case
study in misdirection, a campaign whose scaffolding of spin is plain for all to
see.

Listen to the party hacks and conservative pundits and you can hear an
endlessly repeated version of the talking points issued by the Republican National
Committee. ( You can see them here, courtesy of Raw Story).

When we unpack its elements we can see not only the state of the art in
political damage control but the tools that allow the Republicans to come out on
top again and again when controversy rears its ugly head.

Step 1: It’s not really about us, it’s about them.

This is one of the fundamental divides between the two parties today,
something Republicans understand and Democrats don’t: If the controversy is about
you, you lose; if it’s about your opponent, you win. So when Democrats responded
to Karl Rove’s slander about their response to 9/11 by saying that they
supported the war in Afghanistan, they were making the mistake of arguing about
whether they were or weren’t a bunch of wimps. Every time one of these
controversies erupts, the Republicans always make it about Democrats: Who they are, what
they’ve said and what they’ve done.

So now when Republicans talk about Rove, we hear the phrases “angry left”
and “smear campaign” repeated over and over, as they argue that this is all a
tempest in a teapot being drummed up by those mean liberals. Apparently,
Democrats are angry that national security would be compromised to punish a Bush
administration opponent—go figure.

But the real target of the spin effort is Joe Wilson. As the Republicans
understand, if they can get everyone to talk about whether Wilson should have been
sent to Niger, whether he should have contributed to the Kerry campaign, or
whether a Republican Senate report did or did not contradict him, pretty soon
no one will be talking about Karl Rove anymore. Which brings us to…

Step 2: Lie through your teeth.

Republicans have argued that Valerie Plame was not a covert agent (she was),
and some have even suggested that Iraq really might have been seeking uranium
from Niger, something even the Bush administration has admitted is false. But
much of their arguments centers on the utterly phony claim that Karl Rove was
trying to stop Matthew Cooper from writing about Wilson because Wilson had
claimed that Vice President Cheney sent him to Niger. Wilson never said any such
thing; he said that the vice president’s office asked the CIA to investigate
the uranium claim, and the CIA asked him to take part in that investigation.
Spinner after Republican spinner has lied about this, trying to paint Rove’s
outing of Plame as “discouraging a reporter from writing a false story based on a
false premise,” as RNC chairman Ken Mehlman put it.

Step 3: Argue the semantics, or, it depends on what the meaning of “identify”
is.

More than once, Karl Rove has denied being the leaker. But when we look at
his past comments, we see an attention to semantic detail that is reminiscent of
no one so much as our last president. “I didn’t know her name and didn’t
leak her name,” he said. In other words, I did not have naming relations with
that woman.

Others are echoing this line. “There’s no evidence at all that he ever used
her name,” said Newt Gingrich. And even some reporters seem to be accepting
this as a reasonable defense. David Sanger of The New York Times reported that
the fact that Rove revealed Plame’s identity but not her name “could save his
job” if President Bush decides it allows him to worm out of his pledge to fire
the leaker.

In fact, the statute in question makes it illegal not to reveal an agent’s
name, but “any information identifying such covert agent.” But whether Rove can
be convicted in a court of law is a relatively minor point; he revealed the
identity of a covert CIA operative for the purpose of a political vendetta. He
may be able to avoid jail time if he didn’t know she was undercover, but his
actions were no less deplorable or harmful to American national security.

A year ago, President Bush was asked whether he would fire anyone who leaked
Plame’s name; Bush responded, “Yes”; Scott McClellan has said the same thing
more than once. But on Monday, Fox News’ Carl Cameron, who surely must be the
administration’s favorite reporter, tried to give the president some wiggle
room by claiming that Bush “never actually said the word ‘fired,’ but that is
what some reporters and Democrats seem to expect.”

This is all beginning to sound familiar.

Step 4: It’s all partisan politics.

When Richard Clarke revealed that the Bush White House virtually ignored the
issue of terrorism in the months leading up to 9/11, the White House decided
to attack the messenger and paint him as a partisan Democrat in the hopes that
doing so would convince the press to report the story as just one more
partisan squabble. The effort was largely successful, and the same template is being
applied here.

“The Democrats are engaging in blatant partisan political attacks,” said Ken
Mehlman. “They're just playing partisan politics,” said Dennis Hastert’s
spokesperson. The press will dutifully play along by reporting the conflict in he
said/she said, style, giving all claims—even blatantly false ones—equal
weight, lest they be accused of “bias.” The public, seeing yet one more case of
partisan bickering, lines up with whichever party they have more sympathy for,
and the substance of the wrongdoing begins to fade away. As The Christian
Science Monitor wrote, “At this highly partisan time, much of the public will
likely glaze over at the appearance of yet another bout of wrangling in Washington
on an issue that does not directly affect them.” The public may well glaze
over—but only if the press plays their part in Republican spin.

Politics By Other Means

Reporters have long gazed in wonderment at Rove, passing on even his most
transparent attempts at shaping news coverage as cleverly discovered insights
into the White House’s closely guarded strategies. But is it possible that the “
Boy Genius” who bestrides our political world like a colossus could have been
so utterly stupid as to compromise national security for no reason other than
punishing someone who had the temerity to criticize the administration?
Apparently so.

As Ron Suskind wrote two years ago, “In conversation with scores of people
who know him, the assessment ultimately is the same: For Karl Rove, it’s all and
only about winning. The rest—vision, ideology, good government, ideas to bind
a nation, reasonable dissent, collegiality, mutual respect—is for later.”
James Moore and Wayne Slater, authors of Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George
W. Bush Presidential came to the same conclusion. “He seemed to be driven by
a roaring internal engine to control every disagreement, rule every dispute,
and dominate every contest,” they wrote. “In everything he did, Karl Rove
wanted to win.”

And winning alone has never seemed enough for Rove. The opponent must not
simply be defeated but utterly destroyed, both personally and professionally.
Suskind reports waiting outside Rove’s door in the White House for an interview,
and hearing Rove issue a tirade about a political operative who had displeased
him. “We will fuck him,” Rove said, “Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We
will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!”

As Joshua Green recently reported in The Atlantic Monthly , a campaign Rove
ran for an Alabama judicial candidate featured a whisper campaign spreading
rumors that the opponent was a pedophile. “What Rove does,” said one campaign
consultant who had opposed Rove, “is try to make something so bad for a family
that the candidate will not subject the family to the hardship.”

Rove tried to do something similar to Joe Wilson, but in the process he
endangered national security—a fact no amount of spin will conceal. As George H.W.
Bush once said, “I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray
the trust by exposing the names of our sources. They are, in my view, the most
insidious of traitors.”

http://www.tompaine.com/print/saving_karl_rove.php

 

If people only knew the facts, they would not be fighting for the 'RIGHT' to be screwed over.

+ $1,751,132,130,359 Social Security Trust Fund
– $7,805,708,317,936 The Gross National Debt

Time will tell all the Truth.
VT

Sean Lewis/VirtualTruth/VT

Founder
OpenDebateForum
http://VTSL.blogspot.com


clock

Colateral Damage, The republicans and their myopic Twisted sense of justice.

Don't Forget! Many, many other agents outed

by Sherlock Google

Thu Jul 14th, 2005 at 09:51:41 PDT

Valerie Plame Not the Only Agent Outed

Let's not let the media ignore anymore the fact that many, many other agents were outed by Novak when he revealed the CIA's front company, Brewster Jennings & Associates, which was listed as Plame's employer on a political contribution.

The extent of the damage done when the Brewster Jennings cover was blown could be what Tenet and Pavitt testified about before the Grand Jury last year.  Because BJA was taking action and gathering intelligence on WMDs and energy, especially Saudi oil production, the damage was severe and will continue for years to come.

Nowhere have I heard on the extensive TV commentary, the name Brewster Jennings and Associates, and how the damage was far greater than outing Plame alone.  

We need to swarm on this issue and get Keith Olbermann to bring this up.

The CIA Memorial Wall for dead agents:

Update [2005-7-14 20:21:3 by Sherlock Google]: VICTORY! COUNTDOWN JUST HAD A FORMER AGENT ON TALKING ABOUT ALL THE COLLATERAL DAMAGE TO THE AGENCY!! AND HOW HAVING GUYS IN PINSTRIPE SUITS, WRAPPING THEMSELVES IN GOD COUNTRY AND THE FLAG, THEN REVEAL THE NAMES, NO AGENTS WILL WANT TO WORK FOR THE CIA!!

Leak of Agent's Name Causes Exposure of CIA Front Firm

The leak of a CIA operative's name has also exposed the identity of a CIA front company, potentially expanding the damage caused by the original disclosure, Bush administration officials said yesterday.

The company's identity, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, became public because it appeared in Federal Election Commission records on a form filled out in 1999 by Valerie Plame, the case officer at the center of the controversy, when she contributed $1,000 to Al Gore's presidential primary campaign.

After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front. They said the obscure and possibly defunct firm was listed as Plame's employer on her W-2 tax forms in 1999 when she was working undercover for the CIA. Plame's name was first published July 14 in a newspaper column by Robert D. Novak that quoted two senior administration officials. They were critical of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, for his handling of a CIA mission that undercut President Bush's claim that Iraq had sought uranium from the African nation of Niger for possible use in developing nuclear weapons.

...
The inadvertent disclosure of the name of a business affiliated with the CIA underscores the potential damage to the agency and its operatives caused by the leak of Plame's identity. Intelligence officials have said that once Plame's job as an undercover operative was revealed, other agency secrets could be unraveled and her sources might be compromised or endangered.

A former diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said yesterday that every foreign intelligence service would run Plame's name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities.

"That's why the agency is so sensitive about just publishing her name," the former diplomat said.

...It could not be learned yesterday whether other CIA operatives were associated with Brewster-Jennings.

...The name of the CIA front company was broadcast yesterday by Novak, the syndicated journalist who originally identified Plame. Novak, highlighting Wilson's ties to Democrats, said on CNN that Wilson's "wife, the CIA employee, gave $1,000 to Gore and she listed herself as an employee of Brewster-Jennings & Associates."

"There is no such firm, I'm convinced," he continued. "CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're under a deep cover -- they're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told. Sort of adds to the little mystery."

In fact, it appears the firm did exist, at least on paper. The Dun & Bradstreet database of company names lists a firm that is called both Brewster Jennings & Associates and Jennings Brewster & Associates.

The phone number in the listing is not in service, and the property manager at the address listed said there is no such company at the property, although records from 2000 were not available.

Staff writers Dana Milbank, Susan Schmidt and Dana Priest, political researcher Brian Faler and researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.

Oct 3 2003 WP

AND Knight Ridder:

CIA Identity Leak Far Worse Than Reported

by Warren P. Strobel

Knight Ridder Newspapers

October 11, 2003

WASHINGTON -- It's just a 12-letter name - Valerie Plame - but the leak by Bush administration officials of that CIA officer's identity may have damaged U.S. national security to a much greater extent than generally realized, current and former agency officials say.

Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush critic Joseph Wilson, was a member of a small elite-within-an-elite, a CIA employee operating under "nonofficial cover," in her case as an energy analyst, with little or no protection from the U.S. government if she got caught.

Training agents such as Plame, 40, costs millions of dollars and requires the time-consuming establishment of elaborate fictions, called "legends," including in this case the creation of a CIA front company that helped lend plausibility to her trips overseas.

Compounding the damage, the front company, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, whose name has been reported previously, apparently also was used by other CIA officers whose work now could be at risk, according to Vince Cannistraro, formerly the agency's chief of counterterrorism operations and analysis.

Now, Plame's career as a covert operations officer in the CIA's Directorate of Operations is over. Those she dealt with - whether on business or not - may be in danger. The DO is conducting an extensive damage assessment.

And Plame's exposure may make it harder for American spies to convince foreigners to share important secrets with them, U.S. intelligence officials said.

Larry Johnson - a former CIA and State Department official who was a 1985 classmate of Plame's in the CIA's case officer-training program at Camp Peary, Va., known as "the Farm" - predicted that when the CIA's internal damage assessment is finished, "at the end of the day, (the harm) will be huge and some people potentially may have lost their lives."

"This is not just another leak. This is an unprecedented exposing of an agent's identity," said former CIA officer Jim Marcinkowski, who's now a prosecutor in Royal Oak, Mich., and who also did CIA training with Plame.

The name suggested work in the energy field: The late Brewster Jennings was president of the old Socony-Vacuum oil company, predecessor to Mobil, now Exxon Mobil Corp.

A June 2000 listing in Dun & Bradstreet for a Boston-based "Brewster Jennings & Associates" names the company's CEO and only employee as "Victor Brewster" and says it had annual sales of $60,000.

While that might seem like flimsy cover, former intelligence officials say that in fact meticulous steps are taken to create a life-like legend to support and protect CIA officers operating under nonofficial cover.

It appears that the Brewster-Jennings front was more than what is called "nominal cover," and was used as part of Plame's espionage, Johnson said.

That means anyone she met with could be in danger now, said Johnson, who described himself as "furious, absolutely furious" at the security breach.

Researcher Tish Wells contributed to this article.

Knight Ridder Oct 11 2003

 

If people only knew the facts, they would not be fighting for the 'RIGHT' to be screwed over.

+ $1,751,132,130,359 Social Security Trust Fund
– $7,805,708,317,936 The Gross National Debt

Time will tell all the Truth.
VT

Sean Lewis/VirtualTruth/VT

Founder
OpenDebateForum
http://VTSL.blogspot.com


clock

Silence from the right. They got nothing to defend Rove

I am on the Republican Website Town Hall. Surfing around to see if there is ANY mention of the Rove issue. Virtually NOTHING!!! The republicans have no response for the unraveling of yet ANOTHER WHITE HOUSE MESS. The Bush Administration is awe inspiring in the extent of it's incompetence.

 

LOL the only thing I found was this:

 

Let's come to an agreement

By wademarr
Posted on Wed Jul 13th, 2005 at 12:02:12 PM EST

     The Democrats want Carl Rove to resign.  It is alleged that he intentionally leaked classified information that endangered an agents life, he then lied to government officials denying having done so.  If this is true, it is a serious allegation that should be investigated.
     First, let's all agree that if it can be proven that anyone leaked confidential classified information in any way, they should be forced to resign without retirement and unable to be considered for any future government employment.
     Second, If it can be proven that any individual put out information with the knowledge that it could endanger the life or lives of other govt. personnel, they should be charged with a capital offense and subject to jail time.  If other govt. personnel die as a result, the punishment could be life in prison.
      Third, if it can be proven the accused intentionally lied to govt. employees investigating the situation, he or she should automatically be relieved of any government duties (present or in the future), and be forced to pay a large fine. 
     Forth, if it can be proven that any other govt. personnel were aware of, and / or aided in the cover up of the lie, they will be relieved of their duties.
     Fifth, if the accusations prove to be false, any media outlet carrying the accusations will be required to give equal space to be filled by the exonerated person and his accusers required to perform public allocution, to his satisfaction and be forced to resign.
     Sixth, investigations into the activities of any govt. employee must be undertaken if an accusation is made by another govt. employee.  All accusers must sign an authorization to investigate and be subject the fifth step above.
     LET THE INVESTIGATIONS BEGIN
        

 

If people only knew the facts, they would not be fighting for the 'RIGHT' to be screwed over.

+ $1,751,132,130,359 Social Security Trust Fund
– $7,805,708,317,936 The Gross National Debt

Time will tell all the Truth.
VT

Sean Lewis/VirtualTruth/VT

Founder
OpenDebateForum
http://VTSL.blogspot.com


clock

The True Cost of the Bush administration

The True Cost of the Bush administration

by VirtualTruth

Wed Jul 13th, 2005 at 09:57:31 EST

America is becoming politically aware. This is not a fad but a long term cultural change.  

The errors of THIS administration unlike Nixon's mistakes have caused America long term consequences. The Iraq war and the spin off Terror organizations it is creating as well as the continued threat of Al qaida and bin Laden caused by White House opportunistic Mission Drift will haunt this nation for years and possibly decades to come. People will not soon forget what the republicans have wrought on this nation. Nixon's mistake did not cost American lives, so people lost interest. Bush's mistake is and will not only cost lives but is becoming an ever increasing black hole of destruction. The Blow back on the Republican party and the Religious Right will be significant.

 

If people only knew the facts, they would not be fighting for the 'RIGHT' to be screwed over.

+ $1,751,132,130,359 Social Security Trust Fund
– $7,805,708,317,936 The Gross National Debt

Time will tell all the Truth.
VT

Sean Lewis/VirtualTruth/VT

Founder
OpenDebateForum
http://VTSL.blogspot.com


clock

more tasty Plame morsels

July 12, 2005 -- 10:46 PM EDT

As Atrios rightly notes, the real scoop or hint in Murray Waas's blog post tonight is the suggestion that Fitzgerald is looking seriously at conspiracy or obstruction charges against Rove et al. and perhaps even Novak himself.

Here are two key passages ...

Federal investigators have been skeptical of Novak's assertions that he referred to Plame as a CIA "operative" due to his own error, instead of having been explicitly told that was the case by his sources, according to attorneys familiar with the criminal probe.

That skepticism has been one of several reasons that the special prosecutor has pressed so hard for the testimony of Time magazine's Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

...

Also of interest to investigators have been a series of telephone contacts between Novak and Rove, and other White House officials, in the days just after press reports first disclosed the existence of a federal criminal investigation as to who leaked Plame's identity. Investigators have been concerned that Novak and his sources might have conceived or co-ordinated a cover story to disguise the nature of their conversations. That concern was a reason-- although only one of many-- that led prosecutors to press for the testimony of Cooper and Miller, sources said.

They're right to be skeptical of Novak's mendacious claim.

I know I've been something of a  broken record on this. But I have to again refer to back to this October 9th, 2003 post which I think shows quite clearly that Novak has a history of being careful and precise when he uses the term 'operative' in a CIA or intelligence context.

A review of Novak's earlier columns shows he only uses it to refer to clandestine or covert agents.

To suggest that in this one case he simply lapsed into a colloquialism (as one might refer to a 'Democratic political operative'), as he has repeatedly claimed, just doesn't pass the laugh test.

And, if you'll indulge me, a reference to one more old post, this one from several hours earlier on the same day, October 9th, 2003.

As I've stated above, once the Plame story burst into the open and the DOJ got involved, Novak made the rounds claiming that neither he nor his sources knew she was covert. But, particularly with the alleged spate of phone calls between Novak and his White House sources, the relevant question would be, What was he saying before the story caught fire?

As we noted in that earlier post, there's a way we can get at this question.

The first newspaper report on the Plame outing was written by Timothy Phelps and Knut Royce in Newsday on July 22nd, 2003, about a week after Novak's column first ran.

The story's lede read: "The identity of an undercover CIA officer whose husband started the Iraq uranium intelligence controversy has been publicly revealed by a conservative Washington columnist citing 'two senior administration officials.'"

As you'd expect from that introduction, the whole focus of the article was Novak's exposure of an 'undercover' or covert agent. And the article, as you might also suspect, had a number of quotes from Wilson and others arguing for how damaging it was to have revealed the identity of a covert agent.

They interviewed Novak too. And this was his response: "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me. They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."

Plame's covert status was a centerpiece of the article. Phelps and Royce must have raised the point when they talked to Novak. Yet, at this point, before the controversy became a big media story and prior to the beginning of a DOJ investigation, Novak made no attempt to claim that his article said anything other than what it appeared to say. He made no effort to claim he didn't know Plame was covert, that his sources didn't know; or that they were the source of his knowledge.

All he said is that he thought it was newsworthy and so he used it.

Given what we know now, I think that speaks volumes. Novak's claims that he didn't mean 'operative' when he wrote 'operative' don't hold up against his history of intelligence reportage. And he only started making this claim after federal investigators got involved -- and after, it would seem, a series of phone conversations with Rove and other White House officials.

-- Josh Marshall

 

If people only knew the facts, they would not be fighting for the 'RIGHT' to be screwed over.

+ $1,751,132,130,359 Social Security Trust Fund
– $7,805,708,317,936 The Gross National Debt

Time will tell all the Truth.
VT

Sean Lewis/VirtualTruth/VT

Founder
OpenDebateForum
http://VTSL.blogspot.com


clock

The Big Lie About Valerie Plame

The Big Lie About Valerie Plame

By Larry Johnson

From: TPMCafe Special Guests

The misinformation being spread in the media about the Plame affair is alarming and damaging to the longterm security interests of the United States.  Republicans' talking points are trying to savage Joe Wilson and, by implication, his wife, Valerie Plame as liars.  That is the truly big lie.

For starters, Valerie Plame was an undercover operations officer until outed in the press by Robert Novak.  Novak's column was not an isolated attack.  It was in fact part of a coordinated, orchestrated smear that we now know includes at least Karl Rove.

Valerie Plame was a classmate of mine from the day she started with the CIA.  I entered on duty at the CIA in September 1985.  All of my classmates were undercover--in other words, we told our family and friends that we were working for other overt U.S. Government agencies.  We had official cover.  That means we had a black passport--i.e., a diplomatic passport.  If we were caught overseas engaged in espionage activity the black passport was a get out of jail free card.

Jul 13, 2005 -- 12:47:20 AM EST

A few of my classmates, and Valerie was one of these, became a non-official cover officer.  That meant she agreed to operate overseas without the protection of a diplomatic passport.  If caught in that status she would have been executed.

The lies by people like Victoria Toensing, Representative Peter King, and P. J. O'Rourke insist that Valerie was nothing, just a desk jockey.  Yet, until Robert Novak betrayed her she was still undercover and the company that was her front was still a secret to the world.  When Novak outed Valerie he also compromised her company and every individual overseas who had been in contact with that company and with her.

The Republicans now want to hide behind the legalism that "no laws were broken".  I don't know if a man made law was broken but an ethical and moral code was breached.  For the first time a group of partisan political operatives publically identified a CIA NOC.  They have set a precendent that the next group of political hacks may feel free to violate.

They try to hide behind the specious claim that Joe Wilson "lied".  Although Joe did not lie let's follow that reasoning to the logical conclusion.  Let's use the same standard for the Bush Administration.  Here are the facts.  Bush's lies have resulted in the deaths of almost 1800 American soldiers and the mutilation of 12,000.  Joe Wilson has not killed anyone.  He tried to prevent the needless death of Americans and the loss of American prestige in the world.

But don't take my word for it, read the biased Senate intelligence committee report.  Even though it was slanted to try to portray Joe in the worst possible light this fact emerges on page 52 of the report:  According to the US Ambassador to Niger (who was commenting on Joe's visit in February 2002), "Ambassador Wilson reached the same conclusion that the Embassy has reached that it was highly unlikely that anything between Iraq and Niger was going on."  Joe's findings were consistent with those of the Deputy Commander of the European Command, Major General Fulford.

The Republicans insist on the lie that Val got her husband the job.  She did not.  She was not a division director, instead she was the equivalent of an Army major.  Yes it is true she recommended her husband to do the job that needed to be done but the decision to send Joe Wilson on this mission was made by her bosses.

At the end of the day, Joe Wilson was right.  There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  It was the Bush Administration that pushed that lie and because of that lie Americans are dying.  Shame on those who continue to slander Joe Wilson while giving Bush and his pack of liars a pass.  That's the true outrage.

 

If people only knew the facts, they would not be fighting for the 'RIGHT' to be screwed over.

+ $1,751,132,130,359 Social Security Trust Fund
– $7,805,708,317,936 The Gross National Debt

Time will tell all the Truth.
VT

Sean Lewis/VirtualTruth/VT

Founder
OpenDebateForum
http://VTSL.blogspot.com


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White House Ethics. Let me see If I got this Right.

 

White House Ethics.

Let me see If I got this Right.

 

President Clinton under went years of investigations conducted by the Republican controlled Congress. Some would call it a witch hunt, especially when President Clinton was never charged with any wrong doing and all investigations for all intent and purposes ended after the Monica Blow Job.

 

President Clinton lied about an affair he had while in the White House. It wasn't the first and he isn't the only President who has done this. It wasn't smart. It also did not interfere with the running of the government.

 

President Clinton lied about an affair. He did this under oath. The republicans decided this act was an impeachable event. So they tried to impeach a President about a Blow Job.

 

President Bush and his Administration has a colorful tenure also.

 

The Bush White House has paid Reporters to write articles about policy issues without disclosing this conflict of interest.

 

The White House has decided that the Geneva Conventions is a bad idea. This way US can aggressively question enemy combatants to obtain information. So far 106 enemy combatants have died from these questioning sessions. 

 

The Bush White House has allowed fake Reporters into the White House pool with unlimited access to ask softball questions while eliminating long standing established reporters who asked hardball questions about apparent policy mismanagement.

 

The Bush White House has apparently negotiated a war with allies determining the legal strategy on how to present such a war to their perspective countries. The Administration attempted to force Iraq into war through unreasonable UN sanctions and undisclosed bombing beyond the no fly zone 9 months prior to declaring war.

 

The Bush Administration is passing questionable laws with the help of the Republican Congress. The Most recent example is the Terri Schiavo Law. At issue is the narrow special interest and extremely narrow ultra Right base Bush is pandering to. The Terri Schiavo law was a law that 70% of America felt was inappropriate.

 

The most recent event is a high level White House Aide that felt it was appropriate to proactively call Reporters to release National Security information about the WIFE of a US Ambassador as political payback for not following the Bush party line.

 

Yet through all of these questionable actions that deal lying to the public, possibly lying under oath, Going to war under false pretenses, passing laws that where deemed unconstitutional, and now protecting White House aides whose actions are borderline treasonable. The Republican Controlled Congress does not only feel these actions do not merit an impeachment hearing. The Republican Congress does not even feel these actions warrant ANY investigation.

 

I guess it is just a matter of who is doing the questionable act. the good guys, or the bad guys. Or should i say whether you are RIGHT or not.

 

If people only knew the facts, they would not be fighting for the 'RIGHT' to be screwed over.

+ $1,751,132,130,359 Social Security Trust Fund
– $7,805,708,317,936 The Gross National Debt

Time will tell all the Truth.
VT

Sean Lewis/VirtualTruth/VT

Founder
OpenDebateForum
http://VTSL.blogspot.com


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Inside Iraq's 2nd Largest Force..Private Contractors

A closer look at a the companies profiled in the film, with internal documents and background on their operations and the challenges they confront.     There are tens of thousands of private contractors living and working in Iraq. They have provided logistical support to the military -- building and running the bases, including supplying food, water, electricity, and laundry services. They have protected U.S. diplomats, including former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Ambassador Paul Bremer. And they have contributed to and provided security for Iraq's reconstruction. But they operate outside of the military command structure and have been criticized for their rough treatment of Iraqi citizens. Has their presence become a liability? And which parts of the U.S. military's mission are appropriate to oursource? Here are the views of Col. Thomas X. Hammes (Ret.) and Col. John Toolan, both of the U.S. Marines; Steven Schooner, a professor at The George Washington University Law School and an expert on government contracting; and Peter Singer, the author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry. The High-Risk Contracting Business The people it attracts and the hard lessons learned from the shocking killings of Blackwater contractors in Fallujah in 2004.   One of the arguments for downsizing the military after the Cold War was that private contractors could be brought in to do some jobs more efficiently and the cost would be cheaper than the expense of a larger standing army. But there is a real debate within and outside of the military as to whether the use of private contractors has saved taxpayer funds or not. Here are the views of Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association (an association of private security contractors); Paul Cerjan, vice president of worldwide military affairs for Halliburton/KBR; Peter Singer, author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry; Col. Thomas X. Hammes (Ret.), U.S. Marines; and Steven Schooner, an expert on government contracting.   Profiles of the companies featured in "Private Warriors," with links to investigative reports by the Center for Public Integrity and other articles and Web sites about private companies operating in Iraq.   Long before Iraq -- in fact, centuries ago -- private contractors operated in war zones. Two specialists on international politics and the military's use of private contractors offer some history and context for how we should understand these companies and the evolution of their use. In her Foreign Policy article, "Think Again: Mercenaries," Deborah Avant debunks some myths and conspiracies on private military contractors. And, in his recent Foreign Affairs article, "Outsourcing War," Peter Singer offers a lucid rundown of the history of private military firms (PMFs) and their increasing use in U.S. policy, focusing on their presence in Iraq where "nowhere has the role of PMFs been more integral -- and more controversial."   These memos offer a glimpse inside the contracting business in Iraq and the new urgency in hiring, arming and coordinating security contractors that followed the upsurge in violence in the spring of 2004. In the Minutes of Private Security Company Working Group, a meeting that took place March 30, 2004, at CPA Headquarters, Green Zone, here's one of the many comments candidly summing up some of the issues confronting CPA and contractors: "We are creating a private army on an unprecedented scale. ... It will be a force for good or harm depending on our insistance on the rule of law." The following month, Lawrence Peter, the U.S. official in charge of regulating the security business in Iraq, was dealing with the difficulties security contractors were having getting licenses to import guns -- many of them turned to the black market which contributed to lawlessness. Here is Peter's April '04 memo on the subject. In another April '04 memo to Coalition authorities -- "Private Security Firms Call for More Fire Power in Combat Zone" -- Peter criticizes regulations limiting contractors to small-caliber weapons only, citing an incident where security contractors came to the rescue of Coalition forces. Around this same time, Coalition authorities were gearing up for how best to track and coordinate the explosion in security contractors due to the growing insurgency. Here's a draft document, "The Structure of National Regional and Governorate Coordination Centers", on this. [Note: The urgency of events following the shocking contractors' killings in Fallujah and the escalating violence in the following weeks, led to the CPA's signing a $300 million contract with the British firm Aegis to coordinate and track all security teams operating in Iraq.] Finally, with a number of proposals coming from DoD, Congress and others to significantly increase the regulation and oversight of private contractors, this invitation to a May '04 "Roundtable Discussion--Battlefield Contractors" was forwarded by Peter to over 100 individuals with the military, private contractor firms and the CPA to discuss the issues facing the burgeoning industry.

 

If people only knew the facts, they would not be fighting for the 'RIGHT' to be screwed over.

+ $1,751,132,130,359 Social Security Trust Fund
– $7,805,708,317,936 The Gross National Debt

Time will tell all the Truth.
VT

Sean Lewis/VirtualTruth/VT

Founder
OpenDebateForum
http://VTSL.blogspot.com


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US Military Personnel Growing Critical of the War in Iraq

DER SPIEGEL 3/2005 - January 17, 2005
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,337091,00.html

Rancor in the US Ranks
 
US Military Personnel Growing Critical of the War in Iraq

By Georg Mascolo and Siegesmund von Ilsemann

US military officials are becoming increasingly vocal in their criticism of the war in Iraq, telling Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that more troops are needed to prevail over the insurgents. Moreover, recruitment is down and more reservists and members of the National Guard are being sent to Baghdad.

REUTERS US Marines carry an injured colleague from the fighting. Some soldiers are frustrated over a war that seems unwinnable.

The war is over, at least as far as Darrell Anderson is concerned. Anderson, a 22-year-old GI from Lexington, Kentucky, deserted a week ago, heading across the US' loosely controlled border with Canada. When his fellow soldiers in the First US Tank Division, stationed in Hessen, Germany, ship out to Iraq for their second tour of duty, he'll be in Canada.

Anderson spent seven months in Iraq last year as a part of a unit assigned the dangerous mission of guarding police stations in Baghdad. He was wounded by grenade shrapnel during an insurgent attack, was awarded the Purple Heart and allowed to spend Christmas at home in the United States. But instead of returning to duty, Anderson fled to Toronto.

Now he's a deserter and a warrant has been issued for his arrest. If apprehended, he faces several years in a US military prison. In justifying his desertion, Anderson says: "I can't go back to this war. I don't want to kill innocent people." He talks about the constant pressure soldiers face to make decisions in the daily grind of war. Once, when a car came too close to their Baghdad checkpoint, his commanding officer ordered him to shoot, even though Anderson could only make out a man and children in the vehicle. The soldier refused. "Next time you shoot," his commanding officer barked.

On another occasion, the safety on his automatic weapon was all that prevented Anderson from losing control. "I was holding a heavily injured comrade in my arms, there was blood all over the place, and Iraqis were cheering all around us," he recalls. "I was so furious that all I wanted to do was kill someone, anyone."

Anderson has now applied for political asylum in Canada. His attorney, Jeffry House, was once one of the 50,000 draft dodgers who fled to Canada to avoid serving in the Vietnam War. Deserters who are now fleeing to Canada to avoid the Iraq war have reawakened memories of an exodus that took place more than thirty years ago. House says: "Every day I get calls from at least two soldiers looking for a way out."

Revolt no longer Rare

REUTERS US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld paid a surprise Christmas visit to troops in Mosul, scene of the deadliest attack on Americans since the war to oust Saddam Hussein began.

Deserting US recruits -- once a rarity -- are not alone in their search. Three months after being reelected and immediately prior to what is expected to be a triumphant inaugural party to mark the start of his second term, US President George W. Bush will be hard-pressed not to reevaluate the strategy for the deployment of US troops in Iraq. He faces massive doubts among the members of his own military, who are becoming increasingly vocal in their opinion that the US war with Iraqi insurgents is being conducted with insufficient manpower and equipment. Lieutenant General James Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, warns that his troops in Iraq have "deteriorated into a broken force."

A revolt seems to be taking place within the ranks. Even though daily bomb attacks in Iraq and the latest death toll of 1,361 US soldiers have yet to trigger any significant reversal in US public opinion, and even though President Bush reiterated last week that the world is a safer place without Saddam Hussein, Bush's soldiers and officers seem increasingly convinced that the opposite is true. Almost without warning, America's armed forces, superior to any of the world's other militaries but faced with severe personnel shortages, are suddenly encountering almost insurmountable obstacles -- politically, strategically and financially.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld particularly faces growing criticism. In light of the disastrous situation on the ground in Iraq, even fellow Republicans are quietly demanding his removal and calling for a change in strategy. Rumsfeld bears the brunt of the blame for the precarious situation in which the US military now finds itself. The Iraq war has cost US taxpayers more than $150 billion to date, with the Pentagon spending $4.5 billion a month on its campaign in Iraq.

And there appears to be no end in sight, at least for the time being. Rumsfeld, in an attempt to boost morale among his frustrated troops, has said that he expects the Americans to withdraw from Iraq within his second four-year term as Secretary of Defense. However, only the most optimistic of the president's closest advisors believe that the situation in Iraq will improve in the wake of the January 30 elections.

Retired general D. Brent Scowcraft, national security advisor under the first President Bush, sees the election as providing nothing but "substantial potential for expanding the conflict." Last week, Lieutenant General Thomas Metz, commander of US ground forces in Iraq, openly admitted that regular elections are no longer a likely scenario in four of Iraq's 18 provinces. Because a quarter of the Iraqi population lives in these provinces, the question arises as to how meaningful this election, now called into jeopardy by increasingly violent attacks, can be.

Even though the 125,000-strong Iraq security forces are not even remotely capable of keeping the peace in their own country, politicians in Washington have already begun debating the possibility of a withdrawal of US forces. During Congress' Christmas recess, many lawmakers were forced to respond to questions from their constituents who wanted at least some indication of whether there is an end in sight to the US' bloody adventure in Iraq. Last week, outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell confessed that he hopes the withdrawal will get underway this year.

Retired four-star general Gary Luck has been sent to Iraq to determine how and how quickly the United States can withdraw from the Iraqi conflict without losing face. Within a few weeks, he is expected to provide Rumsfeld with an unfiltered assessment of the current situation and of the overall US Iraq strategy. According to retired general Sir Michael Rose, the well-respected former commander of Britain's contingent of UN peacekeepers in Bosnia, "the Americans' current strategy clearly isn't working."

Recruitment Getting Tougher

The Pentagon's original plans called for the withdrawal of US forces by September 2003. After that, a small protective force was to remain behind to guaranty security in postwar Iraq. Until now, however, only US allies have withdrawn their troops, including Ukraine, which announced its plans to withdraw just last week.

The increasingly heated debate in the United States over withdrawal from Iraq is being fueled by the fact that US forces stationed in and around Baghdad have long since ceased to consist entirely of professional military personnel. 40 percent of the 150,000 US troops in Iraq are army reservists or members of the National Guard. These troops, whose service normally consists of occasional weekend drills and yearly exercises, are people who have long since turned to other more or less successful careers. Now, they have been forced to temporarily abandon those careers to serve in Iraq, an obligation hardly any of these part-time soldiers had expected.

As a result, both the Army Reserves and National Guard are having trouble recruiting new members. "It's the mothers who are warning their kids about going to war," complains Sergeant Kevin Hudgins, a Tennessee recruiter. "In the past, the kids saw it as an easy way to pay for college," says Curtis Mills, a veteran who was severely wounded in Iraq. The National Guard is currently 30 percent shy of its recruitment goals. To make up for the difference, it is introducing an incentive system under which new recruits will receive up to $10,000 to join the National Guard.

Indignation is growing, especially among reservists once derided as weekend warriors. Although national guardsmen and reservists are generally assigned to support positions, their jobs as mechanics, drivers and cooks are also dangerous, as demonstrated by last month's suicide attack on a military mess hall near the Iraqi city of Mosul.

National Guard commander Steven Blum has asked the Pentagon for $20 billion, with the bulk of the requested funds earmarked for re-outfitting his troops, who were previously treated as second-class soldiers when it came to equipment. "I would have felt safer in a Volvo than in our Humvee," complains Richard Murphy, who was compelled to serve for 15 months in Iraq. In Alabama, veterans and schoolchildren even forged home-made armor to protect jeeps when their local National Guard troop was given its marching orders.

The regular armed forces will also find their patriotism severely tested in coming months as the Pentagon uses every trick it knows to extend tours of duty by up to one year. A new rule, for example, prohibits soldiers from leaving the service if their unit is scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq within three months' time.

How Can Security Be Improved?

DPA Medics tend to wounded members of the Iraqi National Guard after an attack on Mosul on Jan. 10.

Proposals being considered to improve the security situation in Iraq also show signs of desperation. For the first time, regular soldiers are being offered training to fight insurgents. Until now, such special training was reserved for members of the elite forces and for marine infantry troops. Part of the training includes a marines' training manual written in 1940. Some is helpful, but parts are completely antiquated. For instance, there is a section labeled "working with animals," (mules, mostly) and another on "mixed-race" companies. According to the manual, such companies are unusually "unmanageable due to a lack of strong character."

Models that have long since been discarded as failures are hectically being revived. For example, US military advisors are to be embedded as supervisors and support personnel within units of the new Iraqi army, who have the dubious but well-deserved reputation of fleeing the minute they come under fire.

Precisely the same recipe was incapable of stopping the Vietnam debacle 40 years ago. Military officials are also talking about forming death squads, whose job would be to track down and eliminate the insurgents within the territory they control or to which they normally withdraw. This would include foreign territory beyond the borders of Iraq. It's a strategy that was largely discredited during civil wars in Latin American in the 1970s.

These experiences have led military personnel in particular to call for a rethinking of Washington's strategy. The Pentagon's civilian leadership has not been faced with so much criticism from within its own ranks since the Vietnam War. Retired general D. Barry McCaffrey is even concerned that "the army will lose its base in the next 24 months." General Peter Schoomaker, the current Chief of Staff of the US Army, has already warned Congress against drastic consequences, saying that "it may be necessary to augment the regular armed forces," something that Rumsfeld wants to avoid at all costs, mainly for budgetary reasons.

To maintain a security force of 150,000 troops in Iraq in the longer term, the United States will in fact need three times as many soldiers. According to military planners, a third of these troops would be preparing for deployment, a third would actually be deployed, and a third would be involved in post-deployment work or on vacation.

This approach would thus require 450,000 troops to be available for Iraq at all times. However, the entire US armed forces, which would provide the lion's share of this military force, currently comprises only 500,000 troops. It's mainly because of these anticipated personnel needs that US military commanders are opposed to Rumsfeld's pet project -- converting the US armed forces into a relatively small but highly mobile high-tech commando force designed for lightning missions throughout the world. Military commanders argue that although this concept may have ensured the US a rapid initial victory over Iraq, it cannot guarantee peace in Iraq.

But it is precisely the military's desire for more troops that could unleash a public debate over the reintroduction of compulsory military service -- a discussion that no Washington politician of any stripe truly wants to tackle. The threat of a general draft could trigger a massive exodus to Canada which, until now, has only been an option occasionally resorted to by American opponents of the war. But even the few deserters that have already fled have put the Canadian government into an embarrassing bind.

Until now, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin has responded evasively to asylum requests filed by US soldiers. "We are a nation of immigrants and I have no intention of discriminating against anyone," he explained. But even though the Iraq war is as unpopular in Canada as US President George W. Bush himself, Martin knows full well that Washington would view Canada's granting asylum to GIs from south of the border as an open insult.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
 

 

If people only knew the facts, they would not be fighting for the 'RIGHT' to be screwed over.

+ $1,751,132,130,359 Social Security Trust Fund
– $7,805,708,317,936 The Gross National Debt

Time will tell all the Truth.
VT

Sean Lewis/VirtualTruth/VT

Founder
OpenDebateForum
http://VTSL.blogspot.com


clock