Niger Uranium Forgery Mystery Solved?- by Justin Raimondo: "October 19, 2005 | The Fitzgerald/Plame investigation goes in a new direction
Amid all the brouhaha over whether I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Karl Rove, or any number of Bush administration insiders had a hand in leaking the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame, the essential crime at the core of the investigation – and its probable starting point – often gets lost in the shuffle. ...
...
In early October 2002, Italian journalist Elisabetta Burba, a writer for Italy's Panorama magazine, delivered some documents to the U.S. embassy in Rome: a cache of letters and other papers purporting to be correspondence between officials of the Niger government and the Iraqis relating to the acquisition of uranium "yellowcake." The documents soon found their way to Washington, D.C., where key administration officials were quick to incorporate them into their "talking points" for war with Iraq – and into Bush's Jan. 28, 2003 speech.
When the IAEA asked to see evidence of the administration's contentions, they were put off, until finally the Niger uranium documents were handed over. It took IAEA scientists just a few hours to demonstrate that the documents were not only forgeries, but were particularly crude ones at that – an amateur could have debunked them using Google. As the Washington Post reported, one administration official's response was "We fell for it."
...
Even as the FBI was following the trail of the forgers, the Italians were looking into the matter from their end. A parliamentary committee was charged with investigating, and they issued a heavily redacted report:...
"Previous versions of the report were redacted and had all the names removed, though it was possible to guess who was involved. This version names Michael Ledeen as the conduit for the report and indicates that former CIA officers Duane Clarridge and Alan Wolf were the principal forgers. All three had business interests with Chalabi."
...
I am hardly the first to implicate Ledeen in connection with the Niger uranium forgeries. Former CIA counterterrorism officials Vince Cannistraro and Larry Johnson have pointed the finger in Ledeen's direction. As the latter put it:
"Italy's SISME [sic] also reportedly had a hand in producing the forged documents delivered to the U.S. embassy in Rome in early October 2003 [sic: should be 2002 – Ed.] that purported to show a deal with Iraq to buy uranium. Many in the intelligence community are convinced that a prominent neocon with long-standing ties to SISME played a role in the forgery. The truth of that proposition remains to be proven. This much is certain, either SISME or someone with ties to SISME, helped forge and circulate those documents which some tried to use to bolster the case to go to war with Iraq."
Cannistraro, asked by an interviewer if Ledeen was involved with the forgers, said "you'd be very close." ...
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Good news ... as long as Ambassador Bolton is in New York [at the UN], he will not be wreaking diplomatic havoc anywhere else.
Ambassador Bolton - New York Times: Published: August 2, 2005
If there's a positive side to President Bush's appointment of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations yesterday, it's that as long as Mr. Bolton is in New York, he will not be wreaking diplomatic havoc anywhere else. Talks with North Korea, for instance, have been looking more productive since Mr. Bolton left the State Department, and it's hard not to think that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's generally positive performance in office is due, in part, to her canniness in dispatching Mr. Bolton out of Washington.
But the appointment is, of course, terrible news for the United Nations, whose diplomats have heard weeks of Senate testimony about Mr. Bolton's lack of respect for their institution and his deeply undiplomatic, bullying style of doing business. Senator George Voinovich, the Ohio Republican who became one of Mr. Bolton's strongest critics, said yesterday that he planned to send the new ambassador a book on how to be an effective manager. It couldn't hurt, but this may be the first time a world superpower has used its top United Nations post as a spot for the remedial training of a troublesome government employee.
...
The problem here from the beginning has been that Mr. Bush clearly has little respect for either the United Nations or international diplomacy in general.
If there's a positive side to President Bush's appointment of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations yesterday, it's that as long as Mr. Bolton is in New York, he will not be wreaking diplomatic havoc anywhere else. Talks with North Korea, for instance, have been looking more productive since Mr. Bolton left the State Department, and it's hard not to think that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's generally positive performance in office is due, in part, to her canniness in dispatching Mr. Bolton out of Washington.
But the appointment is, of course, terrible news for the United Nations, whose diplomats have heard weeks of Senate testimony about Mr. Bolton's lack of respect for their institution and his deeply undiplomatic, bullying style of doing business. Senator George Voinovich, the Ohio Republican who became one of Mr. Bolton's strongest critics, said yesterday that he planned to send the new ambassador a book on how to be an effective manager. It couldn't hurt, but this may be the first time a world superpower has used its top United Nations post as a spot for the remedial training of a troublesome government employee.
...
The problem here from the beginning has been that Mr. Bush clearly has little respect for either the United Nations or international diplomacy in general.
Monday, August 01, 2005
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Bush bypasses Senate to install neo-con at UN
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Bush bypasses Senate to install neo-con at UN: "James Sturcke and agencies | Monday August 1, 2005
The US president, George Bush, today bypassed the senate and installed the controversial neo-conservative John Bolton as ambassador to the UN.
Mr Bush took advantage of his power to fill vacancies without senate approval while Congress is in recess. Under the constitution, Mr Bolton's recess appointment during the senators' August break will last until the next session of Congress, which begins in January 2007.
...
Mr Bolton's appointment ends a five-month impasse between the administration and Senate Democrats. The battle grabbed headlines in April amid accusations that Mr Bolton abused subordinates and twisted intelligence to shape his conservative ideology. ...
The US president, George Bush, today bypassed the senate and installed the controversial neo-conservative John Bolton as ambassador to the UN.
Mr Bush took advantage of his power to fill vacancies without senate approval while Congress is in recess. Under the constitution, Mr Bolton's recess appointment during the senators' August break will last until the next session of Congress, which begins in January 2007.
...
Mr Bolton's appointment ends a five-month impasse between the administration and Senate Democrats. The battle grabbed headlines in April amid accusations that Mr Bolton abused subordinates and twisted intelligence to shape his conservative ideology. ...
Thursday, July 28, 2005
State Dept admits Bolton gave inaccurate answers: nominees swear out affidavits stating the information is true and accurate.
Excite News: "State Dept admits Bolton gave inaccurate answers | Jul 28, 10:52 PM (ET) | By Vicki Allen and Saul Hudson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department reversed itself on Thursday night and acknowledged that President Bush's U.N. ambassador nominee gave Congress inaccurate information about an investigation he was involved in.
The acknowledgment came after the State Department had earlier insisted nominee John Bolton's "answer was truthful" when he said he had not been questioned or provided information to jury or government investigations in the past five years.
"When Mr. Bolton completed his form during the Senate confirmation process he did not recall being interviewed by the State Department inspector general. Therefore his form as submitted was inaccurate in this regard and he will correct the form," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
Earlier, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware said he had information Bolton was interviewed as part of a State Department-CIA joint investigation on intelligence lapses that led to the Bush administration's pre-Iraq war claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger.
Biden, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said that should have been noted on the questionnaire, for which nominees swear out affidavits stating the information is true and accurate.
"It now appears that Mr. Bolton's answers may not meet that standard," Biden wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department reversed itself on Thursday night and acknowledged that President Bush's U.N. ambassador nominee gave Congress inaccurate information about an investigation he was involved in.
The acknowledgment came after the State Department had earlier insisted nominee John Bolton's "answer was truthful" when he said he had not been questioned or provided information to jury or government investigations in the past five years.
"When Mr. Bolton completed his form during the Senate confirmation process he did not recall being interviewed by the State Department inspector general. Therefore his form as submitted was inaccurate in this regard and he will correct the form," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
Earlier, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware said he had information Bolton was interviewed as part of a State Department-CIA joint investigation on intelligence lapses that led to the Bush administration's pre-Iraq war claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger.
Biden, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said that should have been noted on the questionnaire, for which nominees swear out affidavits stating the information is true and accurate.
"It now appears that Mr. Bolton's answers may not meet that standard," Biden wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Friday, June 24, 2005
Republicans prodding Bush to yield documents on Bolton
Republicans prodding Bush to yield documents on Bolton: "Thursday, June 23, 2005 | BY JAMES KUHNHENN | KRT NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON -- A growing number of Senate Republicans say John Bolton won't be confirmed as United Nations ambassador unless the White House turns over documents that Democrats say they need to assess his fitness for the post.
Though the White House continued yesterday to demand an up- or-down vote on Bolton, these Republican senators say the Senate is in a standoff that only President Bush can resolve.
'I hope the president will take a very hard look at the documents,' Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview with Knight Ridder.
"Unless we resolve this dilemma quickly, Mr. Bolton is not going to be the U.N. ambassador. ... The president should understand that we're at an impasse. It may be more important to preserve the doctrine of separation of powers than to have John Bolton in the U.N."
Alexander's comments came after Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), the former Senate majority leader, urged the White House to turn over documents to Bolton's two leading Democratic foes, Sens. Joseph Biden of Delaware and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut. Another Republican, Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, also called for the White House to relent.
WASHINGTON -- A growing number of Senate Republicans say John Bolton won't be confirmed as United Nations ambassador unless the White House turns over documents that Democrats say they need to assess his fitness for the post.
Though the White House continued yesterday to demand an up- or-down vote on Bolton, these Republican senators say the Senate is in a standoff that only President Bush can resolve.
'I hope the president will take a very hard look at the documents,' Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview with Knight Ridder.
"Unless we resolve this dilemma quickly, Mr. Bolton is not going to be the U.N. ambassador. ... The president should understand that we're at an impasse. It may be more important to preserve the doctrine of separation of powers than to have John Bolton in the U.N."
Alexander's comments came after Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), the former Senate majority leader, urged the White House to turn over documents to Bolton's two leading Democratic foes, Sens. Joseph Biden of Delaware and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut. Another Republican, Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, also called for the White House to relent.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Bush says Democrats stalling on Bolton; Yale classmates call U.N. ambassador nominee unfit
Bush says Democrats stalling on Bolton; Yale classmates call U.N. ambassador nominee unfit: "'I view that as just another stall tactic, another way to delay, another way to not allow Bolton to get an up-or-down vote,' Bush said.
'I would hope that when they get back that they stop stalling and give the man a vote. Just give him a simple up-or-down vote.'
Meanwhile, Yale classmates of Bolton's wrote to senators to oppose the nomination.
The 76 signers include cartoonist Garry Trudeau, who lampooned Bolton in his 'Doonesbury' strip in May. Others were fellow members of the Class of 1970 who participated in a 35th reunion over the Memorial Day weekend.
'We are embarrassed and ashamed that the Bush administration has nominated someone so manifestly unsuited to represent our country at the United Nations,' the Yale classmates wrote.
'As his classmates, we do not believe that Mr. Bolton has exhibited the values of civility, light and truth which our shared institution represents.'
Bush also attended Yale and graduated in 1968."
'I would hope that when they get back that they stop stalling and give the man a vote. Just give him a simple up-or-down vote.'
Meanwhile, Yale classmates of Bolton's wrote to senators to oppose the nomination.
The 76 signers include cartoonist Garry Trudeau, who lampooned Bolton in his 'Doonesbury' strip in May. Others were fellow members of the Class of 1970 who participated in a 35th reunion over the Memorial Day weekend.
'We are embarrassed and ashamed that the Bush administration has nominated someone so manifestly unsuited to represent our country at the United Nations,' the Yale classmates wrote.
'As his classmates, we do not believe that Mr. Bolton has exhibited the values of civility, light and truth which our shared institution represents.'
Bush also attended Yale and graduated in 1968."
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Analysts Behind Iraq Intelligence Were Rewarded
Analysts Behind Iraq Intelligence Were Rewarded: "By Walter Pincus | Washington Post Staff Writer | Saturday, May 28, 2005; Page A01
Two Army analysts whose work has been cited as part of a key intelligence failure on Iraq -- the claim that aluminum tubes sought by the Baghdad government were most likely meant for a nuclear weapons program rather than for rockets -- have received job performance awards in each of the past three years, officials said.
The civilian analysts, former military men considered experts on foreign and U.S. weaponry, work at the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC), one of three U.S. agencies singled out for particular criticism by President Bush's commission that investigated U.S. intelligence."
Two Army analysts whose work has been cited as part of a key intelligence failure on Iraq -- the claim that aluminum tubes sought by the Baghdad government were most likely meant for a nuclear weapons program rather than for rockets -- have received job performance awards in each of the past three years, officials said.
The civilian analysts, former military men considered experts on foreign and U.S. weaponry, work at the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC), one of three U.S. agencies singled out for particular criticism by President Bush's commission that investigated U.S. intelligence."
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
MSN Money - Financial Times Business News: Voinovich continues campaign against Bolton nomination
MSN Money - Financial Times Business News: Voinovich continues campaign against Bolton nomination: "May 24, 2005 11:42 PM ET
The Republican senator who snubbed the White House by opposing John Bolton's nomination for US ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday took the unusual move of asking his colleagues to vote against Mr Bolton.
George Voinovich, an Ohio Republican, wrote a letter to his fellow senators, arguing that the appointment of Mr Bolton, the outgoing undersecretary of state for arms control, would hurt US efforts to improve relations with its allies.
"John Bolton's nomination sends a negative message to the world community," Mr Voinovich wrote.
"In these dangerous times, we cannot afford to put at risk our nation's ability to successfully wage and win the war on terror with a controversial and ineffective Ambassador to the United Nations."
The Republican senator who snubbed the White House by opposing John Bolton's nomination for US ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday took the unusual move of asking his colleagues to vote against Mr Bolton.
George Voinovich, an Ohio Republican, wrote a letter to his fellow senators, arguing that the appointment of Mr Bolton, the outgoing undersecretary of state for arms control, would hurt US efforts to improve relations with its allies.
"John Bolton's nomination sends a negative message to the world community," Mr Voinovich wrote.
"In these dangerous times, we cannot afford to put at risk our nation's ability to successfully wage and win the war on terror with a controversial and ineffective Ambassador to the United Nations."
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Rice congratulates Chalabi, who fell from US favor
Reuters AlertNet - Rice congratulates Chalabi, who fell from US favor: "04 May 2005 22:16:58 GMT | Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON, May 4 (Reuters) - Ahmad Chalabi, the one-time Pentagon favorite who fell from grace in Washington amid accusations that he gave U.S. intelligence to Iran, has received a congratulatory call from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about his new Iraqi Cabinet posts.
U.S. officials said Rice called the secular Shi'ite politician on Tuesday to congratulate him on becoming deputy prime minister and acting oil minister in Iraq's first elected government since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003."
WASHINGTON, May 4 (Reuters) - Ahmad Chalabi, the one-time Pentagon favorite who fell from grace in Washington amid accusations that he gave U.S. intelligence to Iran, has received a congratulatory call from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about his new Iraqi Cabinet posts.
U.S. officials said Rice called the secular Shi'ite politician on Tuesday to congratulate him on becoming deputy prime minister and acting oil minister in Iraq's first elected government since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003."
'Rock Solid' Evidence [neocon favorite] Chalabi Spied for Iran
FOXNews.com - U.S. & World - 'Rock Solid' Evidence Chalabi Spied for Iran: "'Friday, May 21, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. officials believe they have "rock solid" evidence that Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi (search), once a darling of the American government, passed secrets to Iran, Fox News has learned.
"There is no need for an investigation because we're quite certain he did it," one senior Bush administration official said.
BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. officials believe they have "rock solid" evidence that Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi (search), once a darling of the American government, passed secrets to Iran, Fox News has learned.
"There is no need for an investigation because we're quite certain he did it," one senior Bush administration official said.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Bush is intent on painting allies and enemies in the Middle East as evil
Bush is intent on painting allies and enemies in the Middle East as evil: "By Robert Fisk | 09/10/02 'The Independent' - -
...
Only The Nation among all of America's newspapers and magazines has dared to point out that a large number of former Israeli lobbyists are now working within the American administration and the Bush plans for the Middle East – which could cause a massive political upheaval in the Arab world – fit perfectly into Israel's own dreams for the region. The magazine listed Vice-President Dick Cheney – the arch-hawk in the US administration – and John Bolton, now under-secretary of state for Arms Control, with Douglas Feith, the third most senior executive at the Pentagon, as members of the advisory board of the pro-Israeli Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (Jinsa) before joining the Bush government. Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board, is still an adviser on the institute, as is the former CIA director James Woolsey.
Michael Ledeen, described by The Nation as "one of the most influential 'Jinsans' in Washington" has been calling for "total war" against "terror" – with "regime change" for Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority. Mr Perle advises the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld – who refers to the West Bank and Gaza as "the so-called occupied territories" – and arranged the anti-Saudi "kernel of evil" briefing by Laurent Murawiec that so outraged the Saudi royal family last month. The Saudi regime may itself be in great danger as the princes of the House of Saud attempt to seize more power for themselves in advance of the depart-ure of the dying King Fahd.
Jinsa's website says it exists to "inform the American defence and foreign affairs community about the important role Israel can and does play in bolstering democratic interests in the Mediterranean and the Middle East". Next month, Michael Rubin of the right-wing and pro-Israeli American Enterprise Institute – who referred to the outgoing UN human rights commissioner Mary Robinson as an abettor of "terrorism" – joins the US Defence Department as an Iran-Iraq "expert".
According to The Nation, Irving Moskovitz, the California bingo magnate who has funded settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories, is a donor as well as a director of Jinsa.
President Bush, of course, will not be talking about the influence of these pro-Israeli lobbyists when he presents his vision of the Middle East at the United Nations on Thursday.
...
Only The Nation among all of America's newspapers and magazines has dared to point out that a large number of former Israeli lobbyists are now working within the American administration and the Bush plans for the Middle East – which could cause a massive political upheaval in the Arab world – fit perfectly into Israel's own dreams for the region. The magazine listed Vice-President Dick Cheney – the arch-hawk in the US administration – and John Bolton, now under-secretary of state for Arms Control, with Douglas Feith, the third most senior executive at the Pentagon, as members of the advisory board of the pro-Israeli Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (Jinsa) before joining the Bush government. Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board, is still an adviser on the institute, as is the former CIA director James Woolsey.
Michael Ledeen, described by The Nation as "one of the most influential 'Jinsans' in Washington" has been calling for "total war" against "terror" – with "regime change" for Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority. Mr Perle advises the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld – who refers to the West Bank and Gaza as "the so-called occupied territories" – and arranged the anti-Saudi "kernel of evil" briefing by Laurent Murawiec that so outraged the Saudi royal family last month. The Saudi regime may itself be in great danger as the princes of the House of Saud attempt to seize more power for themselves in advance of the depart-ure of the dying King Fahd.
Jinsa's website says it exists to "inform the American defence and foreign affairs community about the important role Israel can and does play in bolstering democratic interests in the Mediterranean and the Middle East". Next month, Michael Rubin of the right-wing and pro-Israeli American Enterprise Institute – who referred to the outgoing UN human rights commissioner Mary Robinson as an abettor of "terrorism" – joins the US Defence Department as an Iran-Iraq "expert".
According to The Nation, Irving Moskovitz, the California bingo magnate who has funded settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories, is a donor as well as a director of Jinsa.
President Bush, of course, will not be talking about the influence of these pro-Israeli lobbyists when he presents his vision of the Middle East at the United Nations on Thursday.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Arrest of Pentagon Official May Help Unravel Neo-Conservative Cabal
Arrest of Pentagon Official May Help Unravel Neo-Conservative Cabal: "This article appears in the May 13, 2005 issue of Executive Intelligence Review. | by Jeffrey Steinberg
Pentagon Iran desk officer and neo-con patsy Larry Franklin was arrested on May 4, on charges that he passed classified information based upon secret Pentagon documents to two American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) officials in June 2003, at a restaurant in Arlington, Va. The two AIPAC officials, who were not named in the complaint, were Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, who were both fired by AIPAC in recent weeks.
A number of senior intelligence sources, reached for comment on the Franklin charges, all had the same essential reading: The FBI has a prima facie case against Franklin. In FBI raids on his home, Federal agents confiscated 83 classified documents, which he was not authorized to have there. The case is cut and dried, and a charge of mishandling classified documents carries a ten-year Federal jail sentence. Franklin is being squeezed to provide prosecutors with a complete picture on the AIPAC/Israel espionage operation, including Pentagon officials who were part of the effort. These include, but are not limited to: Doug Feith, William Luti, Harold Rhode, and Abram Shulsky.
In addition, one source emphasized the importance of Franklin's December 2001 trip to Rome, accompanied by Rhode and Michael Ledeen. The trip centered around a meeting with former Iran-Contra swindler Manucher Ghorbanifar, whom Ledeen sought to reactivate as a Pentagon channel to the Iranian government, and as a source on activities inside Iraq and Afghanistan. The Rome trip coincided with the surfacing of the forged Niger government documents, falsely charging that Saddam Hussein was seeking large quantities of yellow cake uranium from the African nation.
Franklin was arrested on a criminal complaint, even as a grand jury continues to consider his case. He is widely considered to be providing information to prosecutors. A closer look at his associations with the neo-con crowd shows that by targetting him, FBI officials might be able to unravel a whole skein of wrongdoing, which could help bring down the inner circle linked to Vice President Dick Cheney."
Pentagon Iran desk officer and neo-con patsy Larry Franklin was arrested on May 4, on charges that he passed classified information based upon secret Pentagon documents to two American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) officials in June 2003, at a restaurant in Arlington, Va. The two AIPAC officials, who were not named in the complaint, were Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, who were both fired by AIPAC in recent weeks.
A number of senior intelligence sources, reached for comment on the Franklin charges, all had the same essential reading: The FBI has a prima facie case against Franklin. In FBI raids on his home, Federal agents confiscated 83 classified documents, which he was not authorized to have there. The case is cut and dried, and a charge of mishandling classified documents carries a ten-year Federal jail sentence. Franklin is being squeezed to provide prosecutors with a complete picture on the AIPAC/Israel espionage operation, including Pentagon officials who were part of the effort. These include, but are not limited to: Doug Feith, William Luti, Harold Rhode, and Abram Shulsky.
In addition, one source emphasized the importance of Franklin's December 2001 trip to Rome, accompanied by Rhode and Michael Ledeen. The trip centered around a meeting with former Iran-Contra swindler Manucher Ghorbanifar, whom Ledeen sought to reactivate as a Pentagon channel to the Iranian government, and as a source on activities inside Iraq and Afghanistan. The Rome trip coincided with the surfacing of the forged Niger government documents, falsely charging that Saddam Hussein was seeking large quantities of yellow cake uranium from the African nation.
Franklin was arrested on a criminal complaint, even as a grand jury continues to consider his case. He is widely considered to be providing information to prosecutors. A closer look at his associations with the neo-con crowd shows that by targetting him, FBI officials might be able to unravel a whole skein of wrongdoing, which could help bring down the inner circle linked to Vice President Dick Cheney."
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Bolton prevented a State Department memo accusing Israel of violating American arms-export laws reaching Colin Powell?
Forward Newspaper Online: "Senate Probes Bolton's Pro-Israel Efforts | By Ori Nir | May 6, 2005
WASHINGTON — John Bolton, President Bush's embattled choice to serve as American ambassador at the United Nations, is widely seen in Washington as a strong supporter of Israel. But recent media reports suggest that his support for the Jewish state goes further than previously believed.
Senate staffers are reportedly probing many allegations regarding Bolton's management style, including claims that Bolton took part in unauthorized meetings with Israeli officials and prevented a State Department memo accusing Israel of violating American arms-export laws from reaching the desk of then secretary of state Colin Powell."
...
According to a report in U.S. News & World Report, senate staffers are investigating suspicions that Bolton, in his current position of under secretary of state for arms control, shelved the memo suggesting that Israel violated American laws with its July 23, 2000, assassination of Salah Shehada, a senior Hamas activist in Gaza City.
Israel's air force used an American-made F-16 bomber to drop a one-ton bomb on a house in a densely populated part of Gaza, where Shehada was staying. The bomb killed him, as well as 14 civilians, and injured more than 100 people. According to U.S. News, several offices of the State Department, including the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and the legal office, issued a report saying that the attack represented a violation of America's Arms Export Control Act, which prohibits American weapons from being used for nondefensive purposes.
...
Late one evening, U.S. News reported, Bolton recalled the report, just as it was about to make its way to Powell's office, and allegedly replaced it with a new memo. That memo supposedly did not mention the assessment that Israel may have violated American laws. As a result, Powell never learned that some of his staffers disagreed with Bolton, officials told U.S. News.
WASHINGTON — John Bolton, President Bush's embattled choice to serve as American ambassador at the United Nations, is widely seen in Washington as a strong supporter of Israel. But recent media reports suggest that his support for the Jewish state goes further than previously believed.
Senate staffers are reportedly probing many allegations regarding Bolton's management style, including claims that Bolton took part in unauthorized meetings with Israeli officials and prevented a State Department memo accusing Israel of violating American arms-export laws from reaching the desk of then secretary of state Colin Powell."
...
According to a report in U.S. News & World Report, senate staffers are investigating suspicions that Bolton, in his current position of under secretary of state for arms control, shelved the memo suggesting that Israel violated American laws with its July 23, 2000, assassination of Salah Shehada, a senior Hamas activist in Gaza City.
Israel's air force used an American-made F-16 bomber to drop a one-ton bomb on a house in a densely populated part of Gaza, where Shehada was staying. The bomb killed him, as well as 14 civilians, and injured more than 100 people. According to U.S. News, several offices of the State Department, including the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and the legal office, issued a report saying that the attack represented a violation of America's Arms Export Control Act, which prohibits American weapons from being used for nondefensive purposes.
...
Late one evening, U.S. News reported, Bolton recalled the report, just as it was about to make its way to Powell's office, and allegedly replaced it with a new memo. That memo supposedly did not mention the assessment that Israel may have violated American laws. As a result, Powell never learned that some of his staffers disagreed with Bolton, officials told U.S. News.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
"Iraq as the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia as the strategic pivot [and] Egypt as the prize."
The Nation | Article | The Men From JINSA and CSP | Jason Vest: "August 15, 2002 | by Jason Vest"
...
Just as the right-wing defense intellectuals made CPD a cornerstone of a shadow defense establishment during the Carter Administration, so, too, did the right during the Clinton years, in part through two organizations: the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Center for Security Policy (CSP). And just as was the case two decades ago, dozens of their members have ascended to powerful government posts, where their advocacy in support of the same agenda continues, abetted by the out-of-government adjuncts from which they came. Industrious and persistent, they've managed to weave a number of issues--support for national missile defense, opposition to arms control treaties, championing of wasteful weapons systems, arms aid to Turkey and American unilateralism in general--into a hard line, with support for the Israeli right at its core.
On no issue is the JINSA/CSP hard line more evident than in its relentless campaign for war--not just with Iraq, but "total war," as Michael Ledeen, one of the most influential JINSAns in Washington, put it last year. For this crew, "regime change" by any means necessary in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority is an urgent imperative. Anyone who dissents--be it Colin Powell's State Department, the CIA or career military officers--is committing heresy against articles of faith that effectively hold there is no difference between US and Israeli national security interests, and that the only way to assure continued safety and prosperity for both countries is through hegemony in the Middle East--a hegemony achieved with the traditional cold war recipe of feints, force, clientism and covert action.
For example, the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board--chaired by JINSA/CSP adviser and former Reagan Administration Defense Department official Richard Perle, and stacked with advisers from both groups--recently made news by listening to a briefing that cast Saudi Arabia as an enemy to be brought to heel through a number of potential mechanisms, many of which mirror JINSA's recommendations, and which reflect the JINSA/CSP crowd's preoccupation with Egypt. (The final slide of the Defense Policy Board presentation proposed that "Grand Strategy for the Middle East" should concentrate on "Iraq as the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia as the strategic pivot [and] Egypt as the prize.") Ledeen has been leading the charge for regime change in Iran, while old comrades like Andrew Marshall and Harold Rhode in the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment actively tinker with ways to re-engineer both the Iranian and Saudi governments. JINSA is also cheering the US military on as it tries to secure basing rights in the strategic Red Sea country of Eritrea, happily failing to mention that the once-promising secular regime of President Isaiais Afewerki continues to slide into the kind of repressive authoritarianism practiced by the "axis of evil" and its adjuncts.
...
Just as the right-wing defense intellectuals made CPD a cornerstone of a shadow defense establishment during the Carter Administration, so, too, did the right during the Clinton years, in part through two organizations: the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Center for Security Policy (CSP). And just as was the case two decades ago, dozens of their members have ascended to powerful government posts, where their advocacy in support of the same agenda continues, abetted by the out-of-government adjuncts from which they came. Industrious and persistent, they've managed to weave a number of issues--support for national missile defense, opposition to arms control treaties, championing of wasteful weapons systems, arms aid to Turkey and American unilateralism in general--into a hard line, with support for the Israeli right at its core.
On no issue is the JINSA/CSP hard line more evident than in its relentless campaign for war--not just with Iraq, but "total war," as Michael Ledeen, one of the most influential JINSAns in Washington, put it last year. For this crew, "regime change" by any means necessary in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority is an urgent imperative. Anyone who dissents--be it Colin Powell's State Department, the CIA or career military officers--is committing heresy against articles of faith that effectively hold there is no difference between US and Israeli national security interests, and that the only way to assure continued safety and prosperity for both countries is through hegemony in the Middle East--a hegemony achieved with the traditional cold war recipe of feints, force, clientism and covert action.
For example, the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board--chaired by JINSA/CSP adviser and former Reagan Administration Defense Department official Richard Perle, and stacked with advisers from both groups--recently made news by listening to a briefing that cast Saudi Arabia as an enemy to be brought to heel through a number of potential mechanisms, many of which mirror JINSA's recommendations, and which reflect the JINSA/CSP crowd's preoccupation with Egypt. (The final slide of the Defense Policy Board presentation proposed that "Grand Strategy for the Middle East" should concentrate on "Iraq as the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia as the strategic pivot [and] Egypt as the prize.") Ledeen has been leading the charge for regime change in Iran, while old comrades like Andrew Marshall and Harold Rhode in the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment actively tinker with ways to re-engineer both the Iranian and Saudi governments. JINSA is also cheering the US military on as it tries to secure basing rights in the strategic Red Sea country of Eritrea, happily failing to mention that the once-promising secular regime of President Isaiais Afewerki continues to slide into the kind of repressive authoritarianism practiced by the "axis of evil" and its adjuncts.
Friday, April 22, 2005
Powell Playing Quiet Role in Bolton Battle : former chief of staff: Bolton would be an "abysmal ambassador."
Powell Playing Quiet Role in Bolton Battle (washingtonpost.com): "GOP Senators Sought Views on Nominee |
By Jim VandeHei and Robin Wright | Washington Post Staff Writers | Friday, April 22, 2005; Page A01
Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell is emerging as a behind-the-scenes player in the battle over John R. Bolton's nomination as ambassador to the United Nations, privately telling at least two key Republican lawmakers that Bolton is a smart but very problematic government official, according to Republican sources.
...
[Powell's] former chief of staff, Lawrence B. Wilkerson, recently told the New York Times that Bolton would be an "abysmal ambassador."
"On two occasions, he has let it be known that the Bolton nomination is a bad one, to put it mildly," a Democratic congressional aide said. "It would be great to have Powell on the record speaking for himself, but he's unlikely to do it."
By Jim VandeHei and Robin Wright | Washington Post Staff Writers | Friday, April 22, 2005; Page A01
Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell is emerging as a behind-the-scenes player in the battle over John R. Bolton's nomination as ambassador to the United Nations, privately telling at least two key Republican lawmakers that Bolton is a smart but very problematic government official, according to Republican sources.
...
[Powell's] former chief of staff, Lawrence B. Wilkerson, recently told the New York Times that Bolton would be an "abysmal ambassador."
"On two occasions, he has let it be known that the Bolton nomination is a bad one, to put it mildly," a Democratic congressional aide said. "It would be great to have Powell on the record speaking for himself, but he's unlikely to do it."
Friday, April 15, 2005
Wanted: Complete Asshole for U.N. Ambassador: John Bolton as a "quintessential kiss-up, kick-down kind of guy" ... a "bully"
village voice > news > Wanted: Complete Asshole for U.N. Ambassador by Jason Vest: "John Bolton has left a trail of alienated colleagues and ridiculed ideas. He's a shoo-in for Senate confirmation. | by Jason Vest | April 14th, 2005 12:19 PM
Truly righteous indignation is rare in Washington, and in that respect former State Department intelligence chief Carl Ford Jr.'s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday was about as good as it gets. Ford's sterling reputation as analyst—coupled with his staunchly conservative, pro-Bush/Cheney credentials—made it impossible for anyone to question his veracity or his judgment as he described U.N. ambassador hopeful John Bolton as a "quintessential kiss-up, kick-down kind of guy" and a "bully" whose "serial abuse" of subordinates causes so much "collateral damage and personal hurt" that he's unworthy of any high office.
Truly righteous indignation is rare in Washington, and in that respect former State Department intelligence chief Carl Ford Jr.'s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday was about as good as it gets. Ford's sterling reputation as analyst—coupled with his staunchly conservative, pro-Bush/Cheney credentials—made it impossible for anyone to question his veracity or his judgment as he described U.N. ambassador hopeful John Bolton as a "quintessential kiss-up, kick-down kind of guy" and a "bully" whose "serial abuse" of subordinates causes so much "collateral damage and personal hurt" that he's unworthy of any high office.
Sunday, April 03, 2005
[Bush mentor] Sharansky’s Double Standard: Zionism trumps all else for human right advocate ... refused two charged with massacring dozens
March 28, 2005 Issue
Copyright © 2005 The American Conservative | Sharansky’s Double Standard | For the advocate of universal democracy, human rights don’t begin at home. | by Michael C. Desch
In 1973, after being denied permission to emigrate to Israel, he became one of the leading Jewish refuseniks lobbying for greater human rights in Brezhnev’s Soviet Union. After four years of waging this campaign, constantly harried and harassed by the KGB, he was arrested in 1977 and tried and convicted of being an American spy in 1978.
...
But in real political life, moral clarity between liberty and despotism is not so easy to come by—and perhaps nowhere is that clearer than in Sharansky’s own path since he entered Israeli politics. For there his career has been marked not by moral clarity but rather by moral ambiguity and inconsistency in his advocacy of democracy and human rights, particularly in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
...
In the years since then, these suspicions have spread widely. As former America-Israel Public Affairs Committee official M.J. Rosenberg observed in a letter to the Washington Post in response to a review of Sharansky’s new book, “The test of whether one is a human rights activist or one who simply uses the issue for political ends is that person’s willingness to apply the human rights measuring stick to his own people. It is pretty easy to limit your calls for human rights to nations other than your own. For Sharansky, concern for Palestinians is the test of whether or not his claim to the mantle of human rights activist is genuine. As this book demonstrates, he fails—big time.”
...
Nor has Sharansky been a consistent advocate of democracy and the rule of law within Israel itself. As minister of the interior in 1999, he refused to extradite two Russian Jews living in Israel who were former NKVD officers charged with massacring dozens of civilians in Lithuania prior to World War II. In December 2003, Sharansky addressed a rally in Jerusalem where some other speakers advocated disenfranchising Israeli Arabs.
...
Finally, Sharansky told an American interviewer that he saw no incompatibility between his ardent Zionism and his commitment to the struggle for universal human rights and democracy. But when push comes to shove, Zionism trumps all else for him. Sharansky entertains few doubts about the Jews’ exclusive claim to the biblical land of Israel. In a recent Ha’aretz interview, he maintained the “Jews came here 3,000 years ago and this is the cradle of Jewish civilization. Jews are the only people in history who kept their loyalty to their identity and their land throughout the 2,000 years of exile, and no doubt that they have the right to have their place among nations—not only historically but also geographically. As to the Palestinians, who are the descendants of those Arabs who migrated in the last 200 years, they have the right, if they want, to have their own state... but not at the expense of the state of Israel.”
...
This divergence —between Sharansky’s rhetoric and real-world political behavior—suggests that he is not the reliable beacon for American foreign policy that the Bush administration so desperately seeks.
Copyright © 2005 The American Conservative | Sharansky’s Double Standard | For the advocate of universal democracy, human rights don’t begin at home. | by Michael C. Desch
In 1973, after being denied permission to emigrate to Israel, he became one of the leading Jewish refuseniks lobbying for greater human rights in Brezhnev’s Soviet Union. After four years of waging this campaign, constantly harried and harassed by the KGB, he was arrested in 1977 and tried and convicted of being an American spy in 1978.
...
But in real political life, moral clarity between liberty and despotism is not so easy to come by—and perhaps nowhere is that clearer than in Sharansky’s own path since he entered Israeli politics. For there his career has been marked not by moral clarity but rather by moral ambiguity and inconsistency in his advocacy of democracy and human rights, particularly in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
...
In the years since then, these suspicions have spread widely. As former America-Israel Public Affairs Committee official M.J. Rosenberg observed in a letter to the Washington Post in response to a review of Sharansky’s new book, “The test of whether one is a human rights activist or one who simply uses the issue for political ends is that person’s willingness to apply the human rights measuring stick to his own people. It is pretty easy to limit your calls for human rights to nations other than your own. For Sharansky, concern for Palestinians is the test of whether or not his claim to the mantle of human rights activist is genuine. As this book demonstrates, he fails—big time.”
...
Nor has Sharansky been a consistent advocate of democracy and the rule of law within Israel itself. As minister of the interior in 1999, he refused to extradite two Russian Jews living in Israel who were former NKVD officers charged with massacring dozens of civilians in Lithuania prior to World War II. In December 2003, Sharansky addressed a rally in Jerusalem where some other speakers advocated disenfranchising Israeli Arabs.
...
Finally, Sharansky told an American interviewer that he saw no incompatibility between his ardent Zionism and his commitment to the struggle for universal human rights and democracy. But when push comes to shove, Zionism trumps all else for him. Sharansky entertains few doubts about the Jews’ exclusive claim to the biblical land of Israel. In a recent Ha’aretz interview, he maintained the “Jews came here 3,000 years ago and this is the cradle of Jewish civilization. Jews are the only people in history who kept their loyalty to their identity and their land throughout the 2,000 years of exile, and no doubt that they have the right to have their place among nations—not only historically but also geographically. As to the Palestinians, who are the descendants of those Arabs who migrated in the last 200 years, they have the right, if they want, to have their own state... but not at the expense of the state of Israel.”
...
This divergence —between Sharansky’s rhetoric and real-world political behavior—suggests that he is not the reliable beacon for American foreign policy that the Bush administration so desperately seeks.
Anti-Islamic Crusade Gets Organized: Pipes moves on after Bush “recess appointment” to U.S. Institute for Peace (USIP)
Right Web | Analysis | Anti-Islamic Crusade Gets Organized: "By Jim Lobe | March 2, 2005
Daniel Pipes, the founder of the Middle East Forum and an anti-Islamist activist, is working to organize a new policy institute, which will be called the Anti-Islamist Institute (AII). According to Pipes, “In the long term ... the legal activities of Islamists pose as much or even a greater set of challenges than the illegal ones.” His new institute will expose legal “political activities” of “Islamists,” such as “prohibiting families from sending pork or pork by-products to U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq,” according to the draft of a grant proposal by Pipes' Middle East Forum (MEF).
Pipes is also working with Stephen Schwartz on a new “Center for Islamic Pluralism” (CIP) whose aims are to “promote moderate Islam in the U.S. and globally” and “to oppose the influence of militant Islam, and, in particular, the Saudi-funded Wahhabi sect of Islam, among American Muslims, in the America media, in American education ... and with U.S. governmental bodies...”
Schwartz, a former Trotskyite militant who became a Sufi Muslim in 1997, has received seed money from MEF, which is also accepting contributions on CIP's behalf until the government gives it tax-exempt legal status.
Pipes, who created MEF in Philadelphia in 1994, has long campaigned against “radical” Islamists in the United States , especially the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and several other national Islamic groups.
Long before the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, he also raised alarms about the immigration of foreign Muslims, suggesting that they constituted a serious threat to the political clout of U.S. Jews, as well as a potential “fifth column” for radical Islamists.
In addition, Pipes has been a fierce opponent of Palestinian nationalism. He told Australian television earlier this month, for example, that the Israeli Prime Minister's Gaza disengagement plan and his agreement to negotiate with the new Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, were a “mistake” because 80% of the Palestinian population, including Abbas, still favor Israel 's destruction.
In 2002, Pipes launched Campus Watch, a group dedicated to monitoring and exposing alleged anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian, and Islamist bias in teachers of Middle Eastern studies at U.S. colleges and universities. The group, which invites students to report on offending professors, has been assailed as a McCarthyite tactic to stifle open discussion of Middle East issues.
Pipes' nomination by Bush in 2003 to serve as a director on the board of the quasi-governmental U.S. Institute for Peace (USIP), a government-funded think tank set up in 1984 to “promote the prevention, management, and peaceful resolution of international conflicts,” moved the controversy over his work from academia into the U.S. Senate, where such appointments are virtually always approved without controversy.
Pipes' nomination, however, offered a striking exception. Backed by major Muslim, Arab-American, and several academic groups, Democratic senators--led by Edward Kennedy, Christopher Dodd, and Tom Harkin--strongly opposed the nomination as inappropriate, particularly in light of some of his past writings. Pipes has asserted that Muslim immigrants were “brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene.”
Several Republican senators subsequently warned Bush that they would oppose the nomination if it came to a vote, and, in the end, the president made a “recess appointment” that gave him a limited term lasting only until the end of 2004. It appears now that, despite the enhanced Republican majority in the Senate, Bush does not intend to re-nominate him.
Indeed, both the USIP and Bush now probably regret having nominated him in the first place. During his board tenure, Pipes blasted USIP for hosting a conference with the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, charging that it employed Muslim “radicals” on its staff.
Daniel Pipes, the founder of the Middle East Forum and an anti-Islamist activist, is working to organize a new policy institute, which will be called the Anti-Islamist Institute (AII). According to Pipes, “In the long term ... the legal activities of Islamists pose as much or even a greater set of challenges than the illegal ones.” His new institute will expose legal “political activities” of “Islamists,” such as “prohibiting families from sending pork or pork by-products to U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq,” according to the draft of a grant proposal by Pipes' Middle East Forum (MEF).
Pipes is also working with Stephen Schwartz on a new “Center for Islamic Pluralism” (CIP) whose aims are to “promote moderate Islam in the U.S. and globally” and “to oppose the influence of militant Islam, and, in particular, the Saudi-funded Wahhabi sect of Islam, among American Muslims, in the America media, in American education ... and with U.S. governmental bodies...”
Schwartz, a former Trotskyite militant who became a Sufi Muslim in 1997, has received seed money from MEF, which is also accepting contributions on CIP's behalf until the government gives it tax-exempt legal status.
Pipes, who created MEF in Philadelphia in 1994, has long campaigned against “radical” Islamists in the United States , especially the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and several other national Islamic groups.
Long before the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, he also raised alarms about the immigration of foreign Muslims, suggesting that they constituted a serious threat to the political clout of U.S. Jews, as well as a potential “fifth column” for radical Islamists.
In addition, Pipes has been a fierce opponent of Palestinian nationalism. He told Australian television earlier this month, for example, that the Israeli Prime Minister's Gaza disengagement plan and his agreement to negotiate with the new Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, were a “mistake” because 80% of the Palestinian population, including Abbas, still favor Israel 's destruction.
In 2002, Pipes launched Campus Watch, a group dedicated to monitoring and exposing alleged anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian, and Islamist bias in teachers of Middle Eastern studies at U.S. colleges and universities. The group, which invites students to report on offending professors, has been assailed as a McCarthyite tactic to stifle open discussion of Middle East issues.
Pipes' nomination by Bush in 2003 to serve as a director on the board of the quasi-governmental U.S. Institute for Peace (USIP), a government-funded think tank set up in 1984 to “promote the prevention, management, and peaceful resolution of international conflicts,” moved the controversy over his work from academia into the U.S. Senate, where such appointments are virtually always approved without controversy.
Pipes' nomination, however, offered a striking exception. Backed by major Muslim, Arab-American, and several academic groups, Democratic senators--led by Edward Kennedy, Christopher Dodd, and Tom Harkin--strongly opposed the nomination as inappropriate, particularly in light of some of his past writings. Pipes has asserted that Muslim immigrants were “brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene.”
Several Republican senators subsequently warned Bush that they would oppose the nomination if it came to a vote, and, in the end, the president made a “recess appointment” that gave him a limited term lasting only until the end of 2004. It appears now that, despite the enhanced Republican majority in the Senate, Bush does not intend to re-nominate him.
Indeed, both the USIP and Bush now probably regret having nominated him in the first place. During his board tenure, Pipes blasted USIP for hosting a conference with the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, charging that it employed Muslim “radicals” on its staff.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
59 American Ex-Diplomats Oppose Bolton
Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | 59 American Ex-Diplomats Oppose Bolton: "Tuesday March 29, 2005 5:16 AM | By BARRY SCHWEID
WASHINGTON (AP) - Challenging the White House, 59 former American diplomats are urging the Senate to reject John R. Bolton's nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
``He is the wrong man for this position,'' they said in a letter to Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Indiana Republican has scheduled hearings on Bolton's nomination for April 7.
``We urge you to reject that nomination,'' the former diplomats said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press and dated Tuesday.
The ex-diplomats have served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, some for long terms and others briefly. They include Arthur A. Hartman, ambassador to France and the Soviet Union under Presidents Carter and Reagan and assistant secretary of state for European affairs under President Nixon."
WASHINGTON (AP) - Challenging the White House, 59 former American diplomats are urging the Senate to reject John R. Bolton's nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
``He is the wrong man for this position,'' they said in a letter to Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Indiana Republican has scheduled hearings on Bolton's nomination for April 7.
``We urge you to reject that nomination,'' the former diplomats said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press and dated Tuesday.
The ex-diplomats have served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, some for long terms and others briefly. They include Arthur A. Hartman, ambassador to France and the Soviet Union under Presidents Carter and Reagan and assistant secretary of state for European affairs under President Nixon."
Monday, February 21, 2005
They are anti-conservatives, and their crusade for democracy will end as in disillusionment for the president and tragedy for this country
The Anti-ConservativesFebruary 28, 2005 Issue | Copyright � 2005 The American Conservative | by Patrick J. Buchanan
...
A conservative knows not whether to laugh or weep, for Mr. Bush has just asserted a right to interfere in the internal affairs of every nation on earth. Why? Because the “survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands.” But this is utterly ahistorical. The world has always been afflicted with despots. Yet America has always been free. And we have remained free by following the counsel of Washington, Jefferson, and Adams and staying out of foreign quarrels and foreign wars.
Who is feeding the president this interventionist nonsense?
....
Who and what converted a president who came to office with no knowledge of the world to the idea that only a global crusade for democracy could keep us secure? Answer: 9/11—and the neoconservatives.
...
The 9/11 killers were over here because we are over there. We were not attacked because of who we are but because of what we do. It is not our principles they hate. It is our policies. U.S. intervention in the Middle East was the cause of the 9/11 terror. Bush believes it is the cure. Has he learned nothing from Iraq?
In 2003, we invaded a nation that had not attacked us, did not threaten us, and did not want war with us to disarm it of weapons it did not have. Now, after plunging $200 billion and the lives of 1,400 of our best and bravest into this war and killing tens of thousands of Iraqis, we have reaped a harvest of hatred in the Arab world and, according to officials in our own government, have created a new nesting place and training ground for terrorists to replace the one we lately eradicated in Afghanistan.
...
Urging Bush not to press Israel into making peace with the Palestinians until Palestine embraces democracy is a clever way to postpone peace indefinitely and let Israel expand its settlements and consolidate its hold over the West Bank and East Jerusalem. That may be in Israel’s interest. But it is not in America’s interest. Sharansky’s idealism just happens to coincide with Sharon’s agenda. Can President Bush not see this?
...
Given that the neocons were wrong on every count about Iraq, does Bush truly wish to gamble the Middle East on their confident predictions that, once the Arab monarchies fall, Western democracy will flourish among people who seem to revile Bush and revere Osama bin Laden?
...
Giddy with excitement, the neocons are falling all over one another to hail the president. They are not conservatives at all. They are anti-conservatives, and their crusade for democracy will end as did Wilson’s, in disillusionment for the president and tragedy for this country.
...
A conservative knows not whether to laugh or weep, for Mr. Bush has just asserted a right to interfere in the internal affairs of every nation on earth. Why? Because the “survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands.” But this is utterly ahistorical. The world has always been afflicted with despots. Yet America has always been free. And we have remained free by following the counsel of Washington, Jefferson, and Adams and staying out of foreign quarrels and foreign wars.
Who is feeding the president this interventionist nonsense?
....
Who and what converted a president who came to office with no knowledge of the world to the idea that only a global crusade for democracy could keep us secure? Answer: 9/11—and the neoconservatives.
...
The 9/11 killers were over here because we are over there. We were not attacked because of who we are but because of what we do. It is not our principles they hate. It is our policies. U.S. intervention in the Middle East was the cause of the 9/11 terror. Bush believes it is the cure. Has he learned nothing from Iraq?
In 2003, we invaded a nation that had not attacked us, did not threaten us, and did not want war with us to disarm it of weapons it did not have. Now, after plunging $200 billion and the lives of 1,400 of our best and bravest into this war and killing tens of thousands of Iraqis, we have reaped a harvest of hatred in the Arab world and, according to officials in our own government, have created a new nesting place and training ground for terrorists to replace the one we lately eradicated in Afghanistan.
...
Urging Bush not to press Israel into making peace with the Palestinians until Palestine embraces democracy is a clever way to postpone peace indefinitely and let Israel expand its settlements and consolidate its hold over the West Bank and East Jerusalem. That may be in Israel’s interest. But it is not in America’s interest. Sharansky’s idealism just happens to coincide with Sharon’s agenda. Can President Bush not see this?
...
Given that the neocons were wrong on every count about Iraq, does Bush truly wish to gamble the Middle East on their confident predictions that, once the Arab monarchies fall, Western democracy will flourish among people who seem to revile Bush and revere Osama bin Laden?
...
Giddy with excitement, the neocons are falling all over one another to hail the president. They are not conservatives at all. They are anti-conservatives, and their crusade for democracy will end as did Wilson’s, in disillusionment for the president and tragedy for this country.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Cheney's Daughter Named to Mideast Post
Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Cheney's Daughter Named to Mideast Post: "Tuesday February 15, 2005 7:16 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) - Elizabeth Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, is returning to the post of deputy assistant secretary of state for the Near East with added responsibilities.
Cheney, who held the post from 2002 to 2003 in the first Bush administration, will assist newly appointed Assistant Secretary David Welch and also coordinate U.S. efforts to promote democracy and economic progress in the Middle East and Northern Africa, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday.
A lawyer who has worked in the U.S. embassies in Hungary and Poland, she left her State Department post to work in her father's re-election campaign last year.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Elizabeth Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, is returning to the post of deputy assistant secretary of state for the Near East with added responsibilities.
Cheney, who held the post from 2002 to 2003 in the first Bush administration, will assist newly appointed Assistant Secretary David Welch and also coordinate U.S. efforts to promote democracy and economic progress in the Middle East and Northern Africa, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday.
A lawyer who has worked in the U.S. embassies in Hungary and Poland, she left her State Department post to work in her father's re-election campaign last year.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Pentagon Spy Agency's Leader Quits After Disclosures: Pentagon created a new espionage team more than two years ago
courant.com | Pentagon Spy Agency's Leader Quits After Disclosures: "February 13, 2005 | By BARTON GELLMAN, Washington Post
The leader of a new Pentagon espionage unit has resigned shortly after public disclosure that the Defense Department is expanding into clandestine operations traditionally undertaken by the CIA.
...
The Post disclosed last month that Rumsfeld has reinterpreted U.S. law to grant him broad authority to dispatch clandestine teams into friendly and unfriendly nations, whether or not conventional war is in prospect. Designed to help cure what Rumsfeld described as his "near-total dependence on CIA," the Strategic Support Branch gathers intelligence alongside newly empowered forces from the military's Joint Special Operations Command.
In Congress, the House and Senate intelligence committees have held closed briefings in the past two weeks with senior Defense officials, including Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen Cambone. In sometimes heated exchanges, witnesses said, members of both parties complained to Cambone about learning from a newspaper account that the Pentagon created a new espionage team more than two years ago, using funds "reprogrammed" from congressional appropriations. Members of Congress also asked about Pentagon legal theories under which Defense personnel could conduct "routine" and "traditional" operations without notifying Congress.
The leader of a new Pentagon espionage unit has resigned shortly after public disclosure that the Defense Department is expanding into clandestine operations traditionally undertaken by the CIA.
...
The Post disclosed last month that Rumsfeld has reinterpreted U.S. law to grant him broad authority to dispatch clandestine teams into friendly and unfriendly nations, whether or not conventional war is in prospect. Designed to help cure what Rumsfeld described as his "near-total dependence on CIA," the Strategic Support Branch gathers intelligence alongside newly empowered forces from the military's Joint Special Operations Command.
In Congress, the House and Senate intelligence committees have held closed briefings in the past two weeks with senior Defense officials, including Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen Cambone. In sometimes heated exchanges, witnesses said, members of both parties complained to Cambone about learning from a newspaper account that the Pentagon created a new espionage team more than two years ago, using funds "reprogrammed" from congressional appropriations. Members of Congress also asked about Pentagon legal theories under which Defense personnel could conduct "routine" and "traditional" operations without notifying Congress.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Natan Sharansky [Israeli political official], [...Bush ... ] and US Israel Policy: Israeli author's thinking was "part of my presidential DNA."
Natan Sharansky and US Israel Policy - by Tom Barry: "February 8, 2005
There is little doubt that George W. Bush and Natan Sharansky, a Soviet �migr� who is a top political official in Israel, share a similar perspective about international affairs, especially in the Middle East.
Following his inaugural address, the U.S. president said that Sharansky's book The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, published last September, confirmed what he already believed. He added that the Israeli author's thinking was "part of my presidential DNA."
Paralleling Bush's own description of international affairs as a divide between good and evil, and those who are fighting terrorism and those who support it, Sharansky writes in his book that the world is "divided between those who are prepared to confront evil and those who are willing to appease it."
...
The November session between Sharansky and the president was not the first time that Bush had met Sharansky. On an official visit to Israel in 1998, Bush, then governor of Texas, met with then Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Industry Minister Sharansky.
According to Bush, who had dinner with Netanyahu and was personally escorted on a helicopter tour of the occupied territories by Sharon, "Israel has got a tremendous amount of talent – smart folks – many of whom have immigrated from Russia."
...
During his stay, Gov. Bush visited weapons-manufacturing plants, defense facilities, antiballistic missile sites, and industries doing business with Texans.
"I saw democracy firsthand in Israel," said Bush, adding that Israel "is short on natural resources in terms of resources you find in the ground, but it's very long on the most natural resource of all, which is brain power."
...
The United States and Israel have much in common, according to Sharansky. One of the links, he said in a speech at a forum sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, which was the basis for an article in Commentary, the journal of the American Jewish Committee, is the spreading scourge of anti-Semitism.
"Anti-Americanism in the Islamic world and anti-Americanism in Europe are in fact linked," argues Sharansky, because "both bear an uncanny resemblance to anti-Semitism."
There is little doubt that George W. Bush and Natan Sharansky, a Soviet �migr� who is a top political official in Israel, share a similar perspective about international affairs, especially in the Middle East.
Following his inaugural address, the U.S. president said that Sharansky's book The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, published last September, confirmed what he already believed. He added that the Israeli author's thinking was "part of my presidential DNA."
Paralleling Bush's own description of international affairs as a divide between good and evil, and those who are fighting terrorism and those who support it, Sharansky writes in his book that the world is "divided between those who are prepared to confront evil and those who are willing to appease it."
...
The November session between Sharansky and the president was not the first time that Bush had met Sharansky. On an official visit to Israel in 1998, Bush, then governor of Texas, met with then Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Industry Minister Sharansky.
According to Bush, who had dinner with Netanyahu and was personally escorted on a helicopter tour of the occupied territories by Sharon, "Israel has got a tremendous amount of talent – smart folks – many of whom have immigrated from Russia."
...
During his stay, Gov. Bush visited weapons-manufacturing plants, defense facilities, antiballistic missile sites, and industries doing business with Texans.
"I saw democracy firsthand in Israel," said Bush, adding that Israel "is short on natural resources in terms of resources you find in the ground, but it's very long on the most natural resource of all, which is brain power."
...
The United States and Israel have much in common, according to Sharansky. One of the links, he said in a speech at a forum sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, which was the basis for an article in Commentary, the journal of the American Jewish Committee, is the spreading scourge of anti-Semitism.
"Anti-Americanism in the Islamic world and anti-Americanism in Europe are in fact linked," argues Sharansky, because "both bear an uncanny resemblance to anti-Semitism."
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Elliott Abrams -- Iran-Contra Figure [pardonned] promoted to Lead Democracy Efforts Abroad
Iran-Contra Figure to Lead Democracy Efforts Abroad: "From News Services | 02/03/05 'Washington Post' --
Elliott Abrams, who pleaded guilty in 1991 to withholding information from Congress in the Iran-contra affair, was promoted to deputy national security adviser to President Bush.
Abrams, who previously was in charge of Middle East affairs, will be responsible for pushing Bush's strategy for advancing democracy
The White House also announced yesterday that Faryar Shirzad, a deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, will take on added responsibilities for humanitarian affairs, stabilization and reconstruction efforts.
Prior to joining the NSC staff, Shirzad was assistant secretary for import administration at the Commerce Department. Before that, he was the lead coordinator of international trade policy for the Bush-Cheney transition team. "
Elliott Abrams, who pleaded guilty in 1991 to withholding information from Congress in the Iran-contra affair, was promoted to deputy national security adviser to President Bush.
Abrams, who previously was in charge of Middle East affairs, will be responsible for pushing Bush's strategy for advancing democracy
The White House also announced yesterday that Faryar Shirzad, a deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, will take on added responsibilities for humanitarian affairs, stabilization and reconstruction efforts.
Prior to joining the NSC staff, Shirzad was assistant secretary for import administration at the Commerce Department. Before that, he was the lead coordinator of international trade policy for the Bush-Cheney transition team. "
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Project for the New American Century: Letter to Congress on Increasing U.S. Ground Forces
Project for the New American Century: "Letter to Congress on Increasing U.S. Ground Forces | January 28, 2005
Dear Senator Frist, Senator Reid, Speaker Hastert, and Representative Pelosi:
The United States military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume. Those responsibilities are real and important. They are not going away. The United States will not and should not become less engaged in the world in the years to come. But our national security, global peace and stability, and the defense and promotion of freedom in the post-9/11 world require a larger military force than we have today. The administration has unfortunately resisted increasing our ground forces to the size needed to meet today's (and tomorrow's) missions and challenges."
...
In sum: We can afford the military we need. As a nation, we are spending a smaller percentage of our GDP on the military than at any time during the Cold War. ...
Respectfully,
Peter Beinart Jeffrey Bergner Daniel Blumenthal
Max Boot Eliot Cohen Ivo H. Daalder
Thomas Donnelly Michele Flournoy Frank F. Gaffney, Jr.
Reuel Marc Gerecht Lt. Gen. Buster C. Glosson (USAF, retired)
Bruce P. Jackson Frederick Kagan Robert Kagan
Craig Kennedy Paul Kennedy Col. Robert Killebrew (USA, retired)
William Kristol Will Marshall Clifford May
Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey (USA, retired) Daniel McKivergan
Joshua Muravchik Steven J. Nider Michael O'Hanlon
Mackubin Thomas Owens Ralph Peters Danielle Pletka
Stephen P. Rosen Major Gen. Robert H. Scales (USA, retired)
Randy Scheunemann Gary Schmitt
Walter Slocombe James B. Steinberg
Dear Senator Frist, Senator Reid, Speaker Hastert, and Representative Pelosi:
The United States military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume. Those responsibilities are real and important. They are not going away. The United States will not and should not become less engaged in the world in the years to come. But our national security, global peace and stability, and the defense and promotion of freedom in the post-9/11 world require a larger military force than we have today. The administration has unfortunately resisted increasing our ground forces to the size needed to meet today's (and tomorrow's) missions and challenges."
...
In sum: We can afford the military we need. As a nation, we are spending a smaller percentage of our GDP on the military than at any time during the Cold War. ...
Respectfully,
Peter Beinart Jeffrey Bergner Daniel Blumenthal
Max Boot Eliot Cohen Ivo H. Daalder
Thomas Donnelly Michele Flournoy Frank F. Gaffney, Jr.
Reuel Marc Gerecht Lt. Gen. Buster C. Glosson (USAF, retired)
Bruce P. Jackson Frederick Kagan Robert Kagan
Craig Kennedy Paul Kennedy Col. Robert Killebrew (USA, retired)
William Kristol Will Marshall Clifford May
Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey (USA, retired) Daniel McKivergan
Joshua Muravchik Steven J. Nider Michael O'Hanlon
Mackubin Thomas Owens Ralph Peters Danielle Pletka
Stephen P. Rosen Major Gen. Robert H. Scales (USA, retired)
Randy Scheunemann Gary Schmitt
Walter Slocombe James B. Steinberg