The spies who pushed for war

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html

Julian Borger reports on the shadow rightwing intelligence network set up in Washington to second-guess the CIA and deliver a justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force

Thursday July 17, 2003
The Guardian

As the CIA director, George Tenet, arrived at the Senate yesterday to give secret testimony on the Niger uranium affair, it was becoming increasingly clear in Washington that the scandal was only a small, well-documented symptom of a complete breakdown in US intelligence that helped steer America into war.

It represents the Bush administration's second catastrophic intelligence failure. But the CIA and FBI's inability to prevent the September 11 attacks was largely due to internal institutional weaknesses. This time the implications are far more damaging for the White House, which stands accused of politicising and contaminating its own source of intelligence.

According to former Bush officials, all defence and intelligence sources, senior members of the administration created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defence Intelligence Agency. snip

The exchange of information continued a long-standing relationship Mr Feith and other Washington neo-conservatives had with Israel's Likud party.

In 1996, he and Richard Perle - now an influential Pentagon figure - served as advisers to the then Likud leader, Binyamin Netanyahu. In a policy paper they wrote, entitled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, the two advisers said that Saddam would have to be destroyed, and Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iran would have to be overthrown or destabilised, for Israel to be truly safe.

more

[I AM SPARTACUS]

1. the "Shadow Government" has talents about as deep as...a shadow.

Imagine that...!

What great ideas come from this misunderstimadministration...

[indictrichardperle]

2. Holy Shit!!!!!!

The OSP was working with a parallel group ran out of Sharon's office in Israel. Feith would bring the Israelis into the pentagon outside of normal channels.

This is big, Luti was a former Cheney deputy, Scooter Libby and Gingrich .........all pressuring the CIA.....and Hadley and Condi.........

WOW.....this is a must read, read that entire article.......this connects all the dots.

[ward919]

3. What article are you posting about?

eom

[indictrichardperle]

5. the above article, read it

It states that the OSP was working with a sister ad hoc intelligence group in Sharons office, to manipulate intelligence to push for war. It says that the Mossad , much like the CIA, refused to participate.....as they are both professional agencies. The OSP under Rummy and Wolfowitz worked in tandem with another amateur propaganda wing in Sharon's office.

I think thats a pretty BIG story.

[Tinoire]

20. Remember this article re OSP, PNAC & AEI ?

No weapons in Iraq? We'll find them in Iran

By Neil Mackay Sunday Herald

Sunday 01 June 2003

Ironically, it was the ultra-hawkish US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who let the cat out of the bag when he said on Wednesday: 'It is possible Iraqi leaders decided they would destroy (WMDs) prior to the conflict.' If that was true then Saddam had fulfilled the criteria of UN resolution 1441 and there was absolutely no legal right for the US and UK to go to war. Rumsfeld's claim that Iraq might have destroyed its weapons makes a mockery of the way the US treated the UN's chief weapons inspector Dr Hans Blix. The US effectively told him he wasn't up to the job and the Iraqis had fooled him.

<snip>

With September 11 as his ideological backdrop, Rumsfeld decided in autumn 2001 to establish a new intelligence agency, independent of the CIA and the Pentagon, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP). He put his deputy, Wolfowitz, in charge. The pair were dissatisfied with the failure of the CIA among others to provide firm proof of both Saddam's alleged WMD arsenal and links to al-Qaeda.

<snip>

That was the policy blueprint, but to deliver it Rumsfeld turned to the Office of Special Plans. Put simply, the OSP was told to come up with the evidence of WMD to give credence to US military intervention. But what do conventional intelligence experts make of the OSP? Colonel Patrick Lang is a former chief of human intelligence for the Pentagon's Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) in the 1990s. He was also the DIA's chief of Middle East intelligence and was regularly in Iraq. He said of the OSP : 'This office had a great deal of influence in a number of places in Washington in a way that seemed to me to be excessive and rather ill-advised. 'The regular organisations of the intelligence community have very rigorous rules for how you evaluate information and resources, and tend to take a conservative view of analytic positions because they're going to dictate government decisions. 'That wasn't satisfactory in Secretary Rumsfeld's Pentagon so he set up a separate office to review this data, and the people in this office, although they're described as intelligence people, are by and large congressional staffers. They seemed to me not to have deceived intentionally but to have seen in the data what they believe is true. I think it's a very risky thing to do.'

<snip>

In a further curious twist, an intelligence source claimed the real 'over-arching strategic reason' for the war was the road map to peace, designed to settle the running sore of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The source said: 'I believe that Britain and America see the road map as fundamental. They were being told by Ariel Sharon's government that Israel would not play ball until Saddam was out of the picture. That was the condition. So he had to go.'

<snip>

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0601-02.htm

[webtrainer]

63. Article in Forward magazine-read this on OSP

<snip>
"They are running their own intelligence operation, including covert action, and are using contractors outside the government to do some of the leg work," said a former top CIA official. "Their area of work has been concentrated on Iraq, which is why the intelligence on WMD was so bad, but they have a much broader portfolio. The office is undergoing some scrutiny from inside the government given its poor track record and the lack of 'sanity checking' their products with the intelligence community. A lot of material they produce is not shared with CIA, not coordinated, and finds its way into public policy statements by the likes of Rumsfeld and Cheney."
</snip>

more . . .
http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.06.06/news6.html

Also deals with the MEK, a Saddam-aligned terrorist group and how the OSP is seeking to engage their "services" in Iran. Geeze, give up these crazy ideas wouldja?

[Tinoire]

66. the MEK huh?

The guys who provided us with all that amazing information?

This is absolutely unbelievable. We are watching history unfold before our very eyes! If people weren't dying, I'd really be enjoying this show! I'm just so happy some of the skeletons are finally busting out of the closets.

They did this all with such arrogance!

[indictrichardperle]

4. this sounds

illegal and treasonous.

Does congress have the guts to pursue this ?

[ILeft]

6. This helps explain why things just haven't made sense lately

The whole unreal, illogical aspect to the Bush Regime agenda is, in part, explained by the OSP Amateur Hour of power. The Regime's actions don't make sense because those actions are being being driven by dangerous, Right Wing, amateurish kooks. Even Wolfowitz, one of this faction's "experienced" leaders, comes across as incredibly naive if one actually listens to him.

[huckleberry]

7. Newt Gingrich's role explained...

Another frequent visitor was Newt Gingrich, the former Republican party leader who resurfaced after September 11 as a Pentagon "consultant" and a member of its unpaid defence advisory board, with influence far beyond his official title.

An intelligence official confirmed Mr Gingrich made "a couple of visits" but said: "There's nothing at all unusual about people both in and out of government coming here to engage in a dialogue and to exchange views on a range of subjects."

In that guise he visited Langley three times in the run-up to war, and according to accounts, the political veteran sought to browbeat analysts into toughening up their assessments of Saddam's menace.

Mr Gingrich gained access to the CIA headquarters and was listened to because he was seen as a personal emissary of the Pentagon, and in particular, of the OSP.

:grr:

I'm sending this to my "senators" - warner & allen.

[IndianaGreen]

8. It also explains why Newt attacked Powell on several occasions

as being too soft and accommodating to the UN. Newt also said that Powell should be replaced and that several State Department holdovers from the Clinton Administration should be purged.

Powell should have resigned back then, but he chose to remain with his Masters.

[indictrichardperle]

9. Imagine if Gingrich gets subpoena'd ?

:D....he would really bring out the fight in alot of dems, also he is probably the worst face possible to put on this scandal.

I wonder if Haaretz will do a story on this ? Could this have any negative political effect on Sharon ?

[Tinoire]

35. Ha'aretz already talked about this last week

White man's burden - EXCELLENT Ha'aretz article to bookmark

Edited on Wed Jul-09-03 10:29 PM by Tinoire
This excellent analysis is an absolute keeper!
Peace

<snip>

In the course of the past year, a new belief has emerged in the town: the belief in war against Iraq. That ardent faith was disseminated by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams, Charles Krauthammer), people who are mutual friends and cultivate one another and are convinced that political ideas are a major driving force of history. They believe that the right political idea entails a fusion of morality and force, human rights and grit. The philosophical underpinnings of the Washington neoconservatives are the writings of Machiavelli, Hobbes and Edmund Burke. They also admire Winston Churchill and the policy pursued by Ronald Reagan. They tend to read reality in terms of the failure of the 1930s (Munich) versus the success of the 1980s (the fall of the Berlin Wall).

Are they wrong? Have they committed an act of folly in leading Washington to Baghdad? They don't think so. They continue to cling to their belief. They are still pretending that everything is more or less fine. That things will work out. Occasionally, though, they seem to break out in a cold sweat. This is no longer an academic exercise, one of them says, we are responsible for what is happening. The ideas we put forward are now affecting the lives of millions of people. So there are moments when you're scared. You say, Hell, we came to help, but maybe we made a mistake.

<snip>
((William Kristol))

Kristol is pleasant-looking, of average height, in his late forties. In the past 18 months he has used his position as editor of the right-wing Weekly Standard and his status as one of the leaders of the neoconservative circle in Washington to induce the White House to do battle against Saddam Hussein. Because Kristol is believed to exercise considerable influence on the president, Vice President Richard Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he is also perceived as having been instrumental in getting Washington to launch this all-out campaign against Baghdad. Sitting behind the stacks of books that cover his desk at the offices of the Weekly Standard in Northwest Washington, he tries to convince me that he is not worried. It is simply inconceivable to him that America will not win. In that event, the consequences would be catastrophic. No one wants to think seriously about that possibility.

<snip>

((Charles Krauthammer))
And what if the experiment fails? What if America is defeated?

This war will enhance the place of America in the world for the coming generation, Krauthammer says. Its outcome will shape the world for the next 25 years. There are three possibilities. If the United States wins quickly and without a bloodbath, it will be a colossus that will dictate the world order. If the victory is slow and contaminated, it will be impossible to go on to other Arab states after Iraq. It will stop there. But if America is beaten, the consequences will be catastrophic. Its deterrent capability will be weakened, its friends will abandon it and it will become insular. Extreme instability will be engendered in the Middle East.

You don't really want to think about what will happen, Krauthammer says looking me straight in the eye. But just because that's so, I am positive we will not lose. Because the administration understands the implications. The president understands that everything is riding on this. So he will throw everything we've got into this. He will do everything that has to be done. George W. Bush will not let America lose.

<snip>

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=280279&sw=neocon

[ewagner]

10. Holy Shit...seconded.........

This is scary shit!!

Hope Dave Obey doesn't fly home on a small plane.

[dArKeR]

11. What's the conclusion? Shit-For-Brains is unable to manage the Presidency

or Shit-For-Brains ordered them to start an unjust war and kill 40,000 humans and steal their wealth?

http://www.geocities.com/darkerxdarker

[TahitiNut]

14. Smirky Doody* is a fatuous, farcical puppet.

He couldn't manage a 7-11 let alone the Presidency. He's as hollow as a Trojan Horse. Beyond this, and the scripted remarks he parrots with less articulation than an African Grey, Smirky Doody* is fucking irrelevant! For goddess's sake, when will people get a fucking clue?!? :puke:

[rman]

43. Smirks' relevance

he got to pick the vice prez, the vice prez got to pick the hawks.
he supports the hawks.
he's the face of the admin and the nation, plays an essential role in enabling (a phantom of) popular support.
he and BFEE profit from this thing.

[NNN0LHI]

47. The whole Repug arguement TN was that Chimpy was not that smart but...

...he would hire "good" and "intelligent" people to serve in his administration. If I heard that once. I heard it a thousand times over the past few years. This kind of proves that that theory was BS on the face of it. He is not capable enough to hire good and honest people.

Don

[Star]

16. Notice smirky's name is not even mentioned!!

The article is talking about a whole little government of its own, run by the entire PNAC crowd, and Doofus's name doesn't even come up!

He's less than a puppet. He's an empty ghost who's only good for pushing out onto the public stage so he can "charm" everybody and raise money to keep their shell game going.

What was that comment Tenet made when he left the congressional hearing today? It was an uplifting experience. I f**cking bet it was!

[Star]

12. Now add this little snippit

This is from the Yahoo article about the CIA not getting the forged docs until Feb, 2003.

The CIA declined to say how the agency eventually obtained the documents. Officials at several other U.S. agencies, including the State Department, declined to say whether another U.S. government agency possessed or viewed them before Bush's speech last January.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030716/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_uranium

So, the CIA didn't get the forged docs because some "other" government agency was in possession of them? OSP? DIA?

[indictrichardperle]

13. The OSP

is at the heart of all scandal.....

I really think alot of what they did was outside the legal bounds, on alot of counts....not to mention BLATANT fraud.

Rummy, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Condi.....they are all ensnared by the OSP scandal.

Feith's little "outburst" at his hastily called press conference, was revealing.

[TahitiNut]

15. Yup.

Some folks are finally, at long last, catching on. OSP has direct links to the INC. OSP has direct links to Sharon's Likuddite pseudo-Mossad. OSP has direct links to the envoys to the Taliban in early-to-mid-2001 who threatened Afghanistan with a "carpet of bombs". PNAC/OSP is neofascism incarnate.

How long will it take to connect OSP/INC to the Niger 'diplomat' and discover they sponsored (coerced?) his fraud? Italian "intelligence"? Gimme a break! (Did anyone ever consider that perhaps those "documents" were knowingly made specious on their face?)

[Tinoire]

22. And to the DLC. Whole House of Cards Falling Down now!

<snip>

Sources in Washington, briefed on LaRouche's assessment of the role of the Democratic Leadership Council, have confirmed, in detail, that the DLC is stacked with neo-conservative ideologues, who maintain deep personal ties to some of the leading Bush Administration war-mongers. One source singled out the Pentagon's secretive Office of Special Plans (OSP), the disinformation shop headed by Abram Shulsky, as a particular hotbed of collusion with the DLC. Shulsky's team of spinmeisters passed unvetted intelligence, largely received from the discredited Iraqi National Congress and from a parallel Israeli "OSP" inside the office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, to Rumsfeld, who used the disinformation to counter assessments coming from the traditional U.S. intelligence community: CIA, DIA, NSA, and the State Department. In effect, the Shulsky team conducted "information warfare," against President Bush!

EIR can confirm the OSP-DLC links. Abram Shulsky launched his career under the tutelage of Roy Godson, son of a leading AFL-CIO International Department counterinsurgent, Joseph Godson; and he first got into the "intelligence business" as a staffer for DLC poster-boy Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan in the late 1970s, eventually becoming staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and, later, of PFIAB.

But one of the strongest DLC links to the war party inside the Bush Administration, first exposed by EIR, goes directly to the Office of the Vice President, where Cheney's chief of staff and chief national security advisor, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, served for over a dozen years as the attorney for Israeli Mafia boss Marc Rich. DLC founding financier and chairman, hedge fund operator Michael Steinhardt, is a longtime business partner and political ally of Rich, and worked closely, albeit in secret, with Libby, to get Rich pardoned, by a bamboozled President Bill Clinton, from a tax evasion and "Trading With the Enemy" conviction.

<snip>

In diagnosing the DLC-Cheney collusion, LaRouche has traced the past 30 years' problem with both political parties back to Samuel Huntington's book Crisis of Democracy—written for the May 1975 Kyoto meeting of the Trilateral Commission, which launched the "Project Democracy" drive, to capture both the Democratic and Republican parties, from the top down, for Synarchist bankers' fascism. One prominent author, Bertram Gross, described this in his 1980 book Friendly Fascism, as "fascism with a democratic face."

<snip>

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3026dlc_n_cheney.html

From article: LaRouche Targets the DLC: 'Protection Racket for Cheney'

On edit: People who don't like Larouche can do their research from scatch. Larouche's information is always meticolously researched.

[Star]

24. So Hillary's VRWC

Was a hell of a lot vaster than most of us (or at least me) ever realized.

Thanks, Tinoire, for all this. You are a wealth of valuable information. My head is spinning with it all.

Do you see any hope that this evil will be broken?

[Tinoire]

33. Not for a long time- this is the shaping of the New World Order

This all goes back to the CFR, the Illuminati, The Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers. When you keep digging and digging you finally understand that people like Larouche aren't so kooky after all.

I've been convinced for a long time that their is a cabal running the world and I call it the Illuminati. They have ties to everyone and every organization mentioned in this thread and have been working behind the shadows for years and in every "first world" country.

We complain about things like Homeland Security and blame it on Bush yet no one stops to ask why the plans for it were drafted under and signed by Clinton. Same with Clinton signing FEMA. I'm not blaming Clinton and am one of his staunchest supporters but these questions bother me. Who exactly is running this show? How far down does this rabbit hole go? I've looked and am still looking and it goes really, mind-boggingly deep. And when some groups wake up- political and religious- and realize how they've been manipulated, they will be very angry but it will be too late because all hell will have already broken loose.

You used the word evil. If you hadn't used it, I would have. This is going to boil down to a battle between good and evil, between right and wrong. And right MUST win this one out for the sake of humanity because the Illuminati goal of the New World Order first mentioned during the Bush Sr Presidency is horrifying.

[Tinoire]

38. And here's more

Another revealing piece of the puzzle was also recently revealed by Chuck Baldwin, writer. According to Baldwin, former President Bill Clinton was quoted while speaking to a CFR (Council on Foreign Relations) gathering:

Referring to President G. W. Bush's new Homeland Security department, former President Bill Clinton told a gathering of Council on Foreign Relations members last week, "We have been building this for a long time."

http://www.tpromo.com/gk/jun02/062602.htm

---
Homeland Security Act

President Bush signed the Homeland Security bill into law on November 25th, 2002.

The Bush administration has claimed that the Homeland Security department and the Homeland Security Act are reactions to the 9/11 attacks on America. In fact, CNN and other news agencies have repeatedly reported this.

<snip>

However, this is not the case. Plans for the Department of Homeland Security and the Homeland Security Act were underway as early as 1998. In 1998 the United States Commission on National Security/21st Century began working on a report called Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change, which was issued January 31st 2001. This report called for the creation of a National Homeland Security Agency.

The Commission was actually put together by the Clinton administration and supported by Senator Lieberman. The Bush administration was initially against the idea of the Department of Homeland Security because it was part of the Clinton legacy. However, the initial report by the Commission has been significantly changed and added to by the Bush administration since 9/11.

The initial report outlining the National Homeland Security Agency can be found here:

http://www.nssg.gov/phaseIII.pdf


The Commission was strongly influenced by the Council on Foreign Relations; 9 of its 14 members were members of the CFR.

The Council on Foreign Relations is a semi-secret private organization with strict membership standards. The CFR was created in 1921, originally known as the Rockefeller Council on Foreign Relations. In the CFR's own words:

"If the Council as a body has stood for anything these 75 years, it has been for American internationalism based on American interests. If the Council has had influence during this period, it has derived from individual members taking the varied and often conflicting fare of Council meetings and publications to a wider American audience. From Foreign Affairs articles by W.E.B. DuBois and George F. Kennan to books by Henry A. Kissinger and Stanley Hoffmann, the Council's role has been to find the best minds and leaders, bring them together with other Council members, and provide forum and stage."

Most of the previous directors of the CIA have been members of the CFR including Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby, George Bush, William Webster, James Woolsey, John Deutsch, and William Casey.

<snip>

Bush cabinet members Condoleezza Rice, George Shultz, Robert Blackwill, Dick Cheney, Stephen Hadley, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Dov Zakheim, Lewis Libby, and Robert Zoellick are also members of the CFR, as are other members of the Bush cabinet. It should be noted that members of the Clinton administration were also members of the CFR as well; in fact members of the CFR have been part of nearly every administration since WWII.

The CFR has bee accused of being everything from a Nazi organization to a Communist organization, and is typically associated with conspiracy theories about Anglo global domination and the New World Order. The CFR has had a strong influence on American foreign and domestic policy, but its impact on America is typically not exposed in the media, nor is it open to public scrutiny.

The official CFR website:

http://www.cfr.org/


Back to Homeland Security.

When the Homeland Security proposal was first put forward it was a 32 page document, and by the time it was finally signed into law by the President it was a 500 page document that calls for the creation of the largest federal agency in history with 170,000 employees. The proposed budget for the agency for 2003 is $37.45 billion. The agency will bring the tasks of 22 agencies under one umbrella.

The bill was voted on and passed by the House and Senate with little debate and not enough time to actually review the document.

The Homeland Security Act has changed over time, and some of the powers initially included in the Homeland Security bill have been taken out in part due to the protests of citizens and special interests groups such as the ACLU.

Items of interest in the Homeland Security Act:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/deptofhomeland/analysis/

By reporting information to the Department of Homeland Security corporations can have information classified as confidential, no longer accessible to the public
By reporting information to the Department of Homeland Security federal and state agencies can have information classified as confidential, no longer accessible to the public
The exact text of the bill can be found here (below is the analysis of the section):

http://www.whitehouse.gov/deptofhomeland/analysis/title2.html#204

"Section 204. Information voluntarily provided.

This section encourages the sharing of information with the Department of Homeland Security by the private sector, state and local governments, and individuals. It provides that information voluntarily provided by non-federal parties to the Department of Homeland Security that relates to infrastructure vulnerabilities or other vulnerabilities to terrorism is not subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. Also, such information would not lose its protected character if forwarded by the Department of Homeland Security to other federal departments or agencies."

The ACLU's response to the section:

http://www.aclu.org/NationalSecurity/NationalSecurity.cfm?ID=10525&c=111

The Total Information Awareness program, lead by John Poindexter who was found guilty of illegal activity in the Iran/Contra contra hearings, designed to collect and analyze data on all US citizens including purchases, medical data, e-mail, internet activity, academic records, and records from all law enforcement offices. This program is currently on hold for further review. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/01/29/tia_privacy/index_np.html
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/TIA/

The official TIA Office web site:

http://www.darpa.mil/iao/index.htm

Items that have been removed from the act due to public outcry:

The ability for the federal government to mandate vaccinations
Removal of legal responsibility of vaccination companies so that there would be no legal recourse for victims of death and injury resulting from vaccinations
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/vaccination/vaccination-program-qa.asp?type=cat&cat=Smallpox+Program+Implementation&subCat1=Liability+Issues

The TIPS program, which was a program designed to encourage citizens to spy on their neighbors and co-workers
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=11295&c=206


Tons of information available at
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/homeland_security_act.htm

[Stephanie]

56. What was Feith's outburst??? n/t

[ze_dscherman]

17. Link to the Strategy Paper

A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm

http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm

-------

When I first read this paper some weeks ago, I just thought "There is no need for conspiracy theories - it's all in the open!"

Only, I never would have guessed it would hit mainstream media.

[Tinoire]

34. Ah yes Perle's fascinating and evil document

From the report you reference: A Clean Break:
A New Strategy for Securing the Realm ((Such a shame to snip this report!))

Following is a report prepared by The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies’ "Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000." The main substantive ideas in this paper emerge from a discussion in which prominent opinion makers, including Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser participated. The report, entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," is the framework for a series of follow-up reports on strategy.

<snip>

Benjamin Netanyahu’s government comes in with a new set of ideas. While there are those who will counsel continuity, Israel has the opportunity to make a clean break; it can forge a peace process and strategy based on an entirely new intellectual foundation, one that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism, the starting point of which must be economic reform. To secure the nation’s streets and borders in the immediate future, Israel can:

* Work closely with Turkey and Jordan to contain, destabilize, and roll-back some of its most dangerous threats. This implies clean break from the slogan, "comprehensive peace" to a traditional concept of strategy based on balance of power.

* Change the nature of its relations with the Palestinians, including upholding the right of hot pursuit for self defense into all Palestinian areas and nurturing alternatives to Arafat’s exclusive grip on Palestinian society.

((Steps: ))

Securing the Northern Border

<snip>

Moving to a Traditional Balance of Power Strategy

<snip>

Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions. Jordan has challenged Syria's regional ambitions recently by suggesting the restoration of the Hashemites in Iraq. This has triggered a Jordanian-Syrian rivalry to which Asad has responded by stepping up efforts to destabilize the Hashemite Kingdom, including using infiltrations. Syria recently signaled that it and Iran might prefer a weak, but barely surviving Saddam, if only to undermine and humiliate Jordan in its efforts to remove Saddam.

<snip>

Changing the Nature of Relations with the Palestinians

<snip>

Israel has no obligations under the Oslo agreements if the PLO does not fulfill its obligations. If the PLO cannot comply with these minimal standards, then it can be neither a hope for the future nor a proper interlocutor for present. To prepare for this, Israel may want to cultivate alternatives to Arafat’s base of power. Jordan has ideas on this.

<snip>

Forging A New U.S.-Israeli Relationship

Conclusions: Transcending the Arab-Israeli Conflict


Participants in the Study Group on "A New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000:"

Richard Perle, American Enterprise Institute, Study Group Leader

James Colbert, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Johns Hopkins University/SAIS
Douglas Feith, Feith and Zell Associates
Robert Loewenberg, President, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies
Jonathan Torop, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
David Wurmser, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies
Meyrav Wurmser, Johns Hopkins University

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

18. SO let's see..DPB replaces Pentagon, OSP replaces CIA

and Mount Weather replaces the White House, Senate, Congress and the Supreme Court....right?

[Tinoire]

19. In light of this, re-read this thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=7344&mesg_id=7344&page=

[proud patriot]

23. Woa ..I must let all that sink in a bit n/t

[Tinoire]

21. Article: America's Weapons Evidence Flawed, Say Spies

Published on Wednesday, May 7, 2003 in the Times/UK
America's Weapons Evidence Flawed, Say Spies
by Tim Reid in Washington


<snip>

Present and former CIA officials, quoted in The New York Times and The New Yorker magazine, claimed that a small number of powerful neo-conservative ideologues in the Pentagon were so determined to prove the existence of a banned weapons program and links to al-Qaeda that they manipulated intelligence.

According to a report written by Seymour Hersh, the veteran New Yorker investigative reporter, the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans (OSP) relied too heavily on suspect intelligence provided by Iraqi defectors with links to the Iraqi National Congress, an opposition group headed by Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi exile.

<snip>

One former CIA official told Mr Hersh: “One of the reasons I left was my sense that they (OSP) were using the intelligence from the CIA and other agencies only when it fits their agenda. They were so crazed and so far out and so difficult to reason with . . . as if they were on a mission from God. If it doesn’t fit their theory, they don’t want to accept it.”

<snip>

Patrick Lang, a former head of Middle Eastern affairs in the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence agency, told Nicholas Kristof, of The New York Times, that when experts wrote reports skeptical about the existence of weapons of mass destruction “they were encouraged to think it over again”.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0507-09.htm

[Tinoire]

25. The Secret Cabal which Spun for Blair

Published on Sunday, June 8, 2003 by The Sunday Herald
Revealed: The Secret Cabal Which Spun for Blair
by Neil Mackay

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/unmovic/2003/0608secret.htm

Britain ran a covert 'dirty tricks' operation designed specifically to produce misleading intelligence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction to give the UK a justifiable excuse to wage war on Iraq. Operation Rockingham, established by the Defense Intelligence Staff within the Ministry of Defense in 1991, was set up to 'cherry-pick' intelligence proving an active Iraqi WMD program and to ignore and quash intelligence which indicated that Saddam's stockpiles had been destroyed or wound down.

The existence of Operation Rockingham has been confirmed by Scott Ritter, the former UN chief weapons inspector, and a US military intelligence officer. He knew members of the Operation Rockingham team and described the unit as 'dangerous', but insisted they were not 'rogue agents' acting without government backing. 'This policy was coming from the very highest levels,' he added.

<snip>

Sources in both the British and US intelligence community are now equating the JIC with the Office of Special Plans (OSP) in the US Pentagon. The OSP was set up by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to gather intelligence which would prove the case for war. In a staggering attack on the OSP, former CIA officer Larry Johnson told the Sunday Herald the OSP was 'dangerous for US national security and a threat to world peace', adding that it 'lied and manipulated intelligence to further its agenda of removing Saddam'.

He added: 'It's a group of ideologues with pre-determined notions of truth and reality. They take bits of intelligence to support their agenda and ignore anything contrary. They should be eliminated.' Johnson said that to describe Saddam as an 'imminent threat' to the West was 'laughable and idiotic'. He said many CIA officers were in 'great distress' over the way intelligence had been treated. 'We've entered the world of George Orwell,' Johnson added. 'I'm disgusted. The truth has to be told. We can't allow our leaders to use bogus information to justify war.'

<snip>

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/unmovic/2003/0608secret.htm

[Tinoire]

26. America And Impeachment

America And Impeachment

` Kent Southard, Bush Watch

The simple, unadorned facts are these - the only 'intelligence' source that professed unequivocally that Iraq had stockpiles of WMD and an ongoing nuclear weapons program was the Pentagon's Office of Special Programs, established by Donald Rumsfeld and which had no agents in the field, only a half-dozen 'analysts' that were actually Republican congressional staffers. Their reports were contradicted by every other intelligence organization in the world, including our CIA and DIA and Britain's MI6. The only source for OSP's 'intel' was Ahmed Chalabi, a convicted swindler who left Iraq during the Eisenhower administration, and who had been promised by the Bush administration to be the top candidate to rule Iraq should Saddam Hussein be overthrown.

<snip>

This was all obviously known by the Bush administration, and accordingly it is also obvious that the administration lied through its teeth about the reasons for warring on Iraq, lied in every generality and every particular. Virtually every member of this administration that wanted this war is also a signator of the Project for a New American Century, whose plan formulated some years ago calls for domination of the world's oil supply, starting with an invasion of Iraq.

These are the simple, unadorned facts. Either the American people demand an Impeachment of this president and vice-president and they are removed from office; or else the America of the founding fathers is finished, and we might as well admit it. --06.16.03


http://www.bushwatch.com/kent.htm

[proud patriot]

27. That it I'm bookmarking this thread

I have to re-read so much ...

[Tinoire]

29. It's literally dizzying!!!

I've been book-marking them for months and weeks.

Hedda Foil has a ton of excellent bookmarks for articles which go into a lot more detail than the ones I've been keeping.

The shit is about to HIT the fan!

[proud patriot]

30. Thanks for your dilligence Tinoire

and Hedda Foil :hi:

[Tinoire]

28. More Missing Intelligence

Posted June 19, 2003

More Missing Intelligence
by Robert Dreyfuss

<snip>

According to the former official, also feeding information to the Office of Special Plans was a secret, rump unit established last year in the office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel. This unit, which paralleled Shulsky's--and which has not previously been reported--prepared intelligence reports on Iraq in English (not Hebrew) and forwarded them to the Office of Special Plans. It was created in Sharon's office, not inside Israel's Mossad intelligence service, because the Mossad--which prides itself on extreme professionalism--had views closer to the CIA's, not the Pentagon's, on Iraq. This secretive unit, and not the Mossad, may well have been the source of the forged documents purporting to show that Iraq tried to purchase yellowcake uranium for weapons from Niger in West Africa, according to the former official.

<snip>

Astonishingly, the Bush Administration did not even bother to prepare and internally publish an intelligence estimate about postwar Iraq. (An "estimate," in intelligence jargon, is a formal evaluation produced after sifting, sorting and analyzing various bits and pieces of raw intelligence. So-called National Intelligence Estimates are produced by a unit that reports immediately to Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet.) "Back in the old days, there would have been an estimate," says Raymond McGovern, the twenty-seven-year CIA warrior who formed Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity this past January. "In their arrogance, they didn't worry about it."

<snip>

Other sources concur. "There was no intelligence estimate done, and there weren't a lot of questions being asked," says Melvin Goodman, a former CIA analyst with the Center for International Policy. "And I know for a fact that at CIA and NESA , none of them thought that postwar Iraq would be governable." Goodman says that CIA and DIA experts on Iraq were not called in by the Pentagon, and no intelligence roundtables were held to evaluate the situation. Most of the intelligence about how easily the INC and its allies could assume power in Iraq was coming from the INC itself, says a former State Department official. "And I know for a fact that when the subject came up, intelligence officers were extraordinarily skeptical of the exiles' information."

<snip>

On the eve of the invasion, there was something akin to panic at the Norfolk,Virginia-based US Joint Forces Command, which was responsible for supporting the Pentagon's Iraq task force, then headed by retired Gen. Jay Garner. "They were scared shitless," says a former US official who was in close contact with the command. "They were making it up as they went along." He adds, "There was a great deal of ignorance. They didn't know the names of the tribes, much less how they relate to each other. They didn't have the expertise, and they didn't have enough time to assemble the expertise."

<snip>

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030707&s=dreyfuss

[Q]

31. This demonstrates that 2000 was indeed a 'coup'...

...where power was literally taken from the voters and put in the hands of the Neocons by the SC.

- I agree that Bush* is just a puppet...but you can bet that he's at least aware of what's going on in his name.

[Tinoire]

37. A Coup of the most evil sorts but we were going to war regardless

we were given a choice between the DLC and this cabal! but the war-games were pre-determined.

It couldn't be Gore because Gore would have refused to so non-chalantly destroy our economy and would have balked at going to war with their manufactured intelligence. Clinton was supposed to go to war with them also but he refused, agreeing instead to daily, terrorizing bombings of non-military targets and years of OSBCENE sanctions that further weakened and demoralized an innocent people.

Our hands are so bloody I can't even hold mine up to my face to weep.

***
(Excerpt)

Turning now to the actual use of the phrase "the price is worth it," we come to U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's reply to Lesley Stahl's question on "60 Minutes" on May 12, 1996:

Stahl: "We have heard that a half a million children have died . I mean that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And -- you know, is the price worth it?"

Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it."

In this case, however, although the numbers dead are mind- boggling--the ratio of dead Iraqi children to deaths in the WTC/Pentagon bombings was better than 80 to 1, using the now obsolete early 1996 number for Iraqi children--the mainstream media and intellectuals have not found Albright's rationalization of this mass killing of any interest whatsoever. The phrase has been only rarely cited in the mainstream, and there has been no indignation or suggestion that the mass killing of children in order to satisfy some policy end was immoral and outrageous.

http://www.refuseandresist.org/normalcy/111601edherman.html

***

November 1, 1999
Albright's Tiny Coffins
Back in 1996, when the number of Iraqi children killed off by sanctions stood at around half a million, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright made her infamous declaration to Lesley Stahl on CBS that "we think the price is worth it". Given such pride in mass murder at the top, it comes as little surprise to learn that the State Department views the truth about the vicious sanctions policy with the same insouciance as their boss regards the lives of Iraqi children, now dying at the rate of four thousand a month.

"Saddam Hussein's Iraq", released by the State Department on September 13, is an effort to persuade an increasingly disgusted world that any and all human misery in Iraq is the sole fault and responsibility of the Beast of Baghdad. The brazen tone of this sorry piece of propaganda can be assessed from the opening summary: "The international community, not the regime of Saddam Hussein, is working to relieve the impact of sanctions on ordinary Iraqis." An examination of how the sanctions system actually works tells a very different story.

<snip>

There appears little prospect of change in this miserable situation. Last year, Denis Halliday, the UN coordinator for humanitarian relief in Iraq, quit in protest over a policy that causes "four to five thousand children to die unnecessarily every month due to the impact of sanctions". White House officials expressed their delight that this irksome voice of moral outrage had been removed from the scene, but Hans von Sponek, Halliday's successor, is showing signs of treading the same path, publicly appealing for the end of sanctions.

Friends say he is on the verge of quitting. For Albright that will be no less acceptable a price than the thousands of little coffins that will serve as her memorial.
http://www.counterpunch.org/tinycoffins.html
***

And the depleted uranium! Look at these pictures! Look what we did to the children! I can't post the pictures here because they are too gruesome!
----
I have recently received large numbers of photographs of horrendous birth deformities that are being experienced in Iraq. I have not, quite frankly, ever seen anything like them. I urge you to copy this page / these pictures and circulate them as widely as possible.

In an act of stark cruelty, the US dominated Sanctions Committee refuses to permit Iraq to import the clean-up equipment that they desperately need to decontaminate their country of the Depleted Uranium ammunition that the US fired at them. Approximately 315 tons of DU dust was left by the use of this ammunition.The Sanctions Committee also refuses to allow the mass importation of anti-cancer treatments, which contain trace amounts of radio-isotopes, on the grounds that these constitute '...nuclear materials..'

http://www.web-light.nl/VISIE/extremedeformities.html

*** I am sorry Q. I rambled. I agree. Yes there was a coup. Yes Bush was selected but the script was written long ago- before Bush even stepped in. And yes Bush knew but he didn't know what. He knew when though- why else did they have FEMA on the grounds of the WTC on Sept 10- the night BEFORE the attacks?

****

Dan Rather conducted an interview with Tom Kennedy, head of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), who clearly stated that FEMA had arrived on on-scene in NYC on "monday night" and start working "Tuesday morning".

Dan Rather: "Tom Kennedy, a rescue worker with the National Urban Search and Rescue which is part of FEMA..."

Tom Kennedy: "We are currently one of the first teams that was deployed to support the city of New York for this disaster. We arrived on late Monday night and went into action on Tuesday morning. And not until today did we get a full opportunity to work the entire site....."

http://www.thepowerhour.com/postings/fema.htm

[Stephanie]

57. More background on PNAC here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=110&topic_id=80&mesg_id=80&page=">PNAC Links Archive

[Tinoire]

60. Arghh! Link not working! Can you fix?

I think I have this bookmarked in my old DU (where btw the book-marking features are better than here) but can you fix for everyone who doesn't? That's such a terrific resource! Thanks for all your hard work on it!

[Stephanie]

64. Sorry, this one should work

PNAC Links Archive

residing in the Bush/Conservatives Folder.

Thanks Tinoire!

[Tinoire]

67. Thank you Steph! Awesome resource that everyone should book-mark!

You did a kick-ass job with that! Thanks and peace!

[Stephanie]

69. Thanks T.! Kicking this topic. MUST READ. n/t

.

[nolabels]

80. Bookmark my ass, me be thinking emboss on a Cd-r

and hide in bank vault somewhere. It might not be a homogeneus unit, but having a good share of bad apples more than makes up for it. :kick:

[w4rma]

32. "a four-person Pentagon team...self-mockingly called the Cabal"

Bush 'skewed facts to justify attack on Iraq'

A growing number of US national security professionals are accusing the Bush Administration of slanting the facts and hijacking the intelligence apparatus to justify its rush to war in Iraq.

A key target is a four-person Pentagon team that reviewed material gathered by other intelligence outfits for any missed bits that might have tied Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to banned weapons or terror groups.

This team, self-mockingly called the cabal, "cherry-picked the intelligence stream" in a bid to portray Iraq as an imminent threat, said Patrick Lang, a former head of worldwide human intelligence gathering for the Defence Intelligence Agency, which coordinates military intelligence.
...
The INC, which brought together groups opposed to Saddam, worked closely with the Pentagon to build a case against Iraq. "There are current intelligence officials who believe it is a scandal," Mr Cannistraro said.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/31/1054177765483.html

Cheney Investigated Forged Niger Uranuium Document

As though this were normal! I mean the repeated visits Vice President Dick Cheney made to the CIA before the war in Iraq. The visits were, in fact, unprecedented. During my 27-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency, no vice president ever came to us for a working visit.

During the '80s, it was my privilege to brief Vice President George H.W. Bush, and other very senior policy makers every other morning. I went either to the vice president's office or (on weekends) to his home. I am sure it never occurred to him to come to CIA headquarters.

The morning briefings gave us an excellent window on what was uppermost in the minds of those senior officials and helped us refine our tasks of collection and analysis. Thus, there was never any need for policy makers to visit us. And the very thought of a vice president dropping by to help us with our analysis is extraordinary. We preferred to do that work without the pressure that inevitably comes from policy makers at the table.

Cheney got into the operational side of intelligence as well. Reports in late 2001 that Iraq had tried to acquire uranium from Niger stirred such intense interest that his office let it be known he wanted them checked out. So, with the CIA as facilitator, a retired U.S. ambassador was dispatched to Niger in February 2002 to investigate. He found nothing to substantiate the report and lots to call it into question. There the matter rested – until last summer, after the Bush administration made the decision for war in Iraq.
...
http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=6e9d5502599dc6a2
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=5858&mesg_id=5858&page=

Plans For Iraq Attack Began On 9/11

(CBS) CBS News has learned that barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq — even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks.

That's according to notes taken by aides who were with Rumsfeld in the National Military Command Center on Sept. 11 – notes that show exactly where the road toward war with Iraq began, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin.
...
Now, nearly one year later, there is still very little evidence Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But if these notes are accurate, that didn't matter to Rumsfeld.

"Go massive," the notes quote him as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and not." (Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld hours after 9/11 attack)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september11/main520830.shtml
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=53315&mesg_id=53315&page=

A call to maintain CIA independence.

As the White House searches for every possible excuse to go to war with Iraq, pressure has been building on the intelligence agencies to deliberately slant estimates to fit a political agenda. In this case, the agencies are being pressed to find a casus belli for war, whether or not one exists.

"Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements, and there's a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA," Vince Cannistraro, the agency's former head of counterterrorism, told The Guardian, a London newspaper.

This confirms what Knight-Ridder reporters found: "A growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats privately have deep misgivings about the administration's double-time march toward war," the news service reported recently. "They charge that the administration squelches dissenting views and that intelligence analysts are under intense pressure to produce reports supporting the White House's argument that Saddam poses such an immediate threat to the United States that pre-emptive military action is necessary."
...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2002-10-24-oped-bamford_x.htm

U.S. Insiders Say Iraq Intel Deliberately Skewed
...
The DIA was "exploited and abused and bypassed in the process of making the case for war in Iraq based on the presence of WMD," or weapons of mass destruction, he added in a phone interview. He said the CIA had "no guts at all" to resist the allegedly deliberate skewing of intelligence by a Pentagon that he said was now dominating U.S. foreign policy.

Vince Cannistraro, a former chief of Central Intelligence Agency counterterrorist operations, said he knew of serving intelligence officers who blame the Pentagon for playing up "fraudulent" intelligence, "a lot of it sourced from the Iraqi National Congress of Ahmad Chalabi."
...
They believe the administration, before going to war, had a "moral obligation to use the best information available, not just information that fits your preconceived ideas."

CHEMICAL WEAPONS REPORT 'SIMPLY WRONG'

The top Marine Corps officer in Iraq, Lt. Gen. James Conway, said on Friday U.S. intelligence was "simply wrong" in leading military commanders to fear troops were likely to be attacked with chemical weapons in the March invasion of Iraq that ousted Saddam.

Richard Perle, a Chalabi backer and member of the Defense Policy Board that advises Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, defended the four-person unit in a television interview.
...
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=2&u=/nm/20030530/ts_nm/iraq_intelligence_dc

CIA had doubts on Iraq link to al-Qaida

The debunking of the Bush administration's pre-war certainties on Iraq gathered pace yesterday when it emerged that the CIA knew for months that a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida was highly unlikely.

As President George Bush was forced for the second time in days to defend the decision to go to war, a new set of leaks from CIA officials suggested a tendency in the White House to suppress or ignore intelligence findings which did not shore up the case for war.
...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,974182,00.html

Ex-CIA Officers Questioning Iraq Data

A small group composed mostly of retired CIA officers is appealing to colleagues still inside to go public with any evidence the Bush administration is slanting intelligence to support its case for war with Iraq.

Members of the group contend the Bush administration has released information on Iraq that meets only its ends -- while ignoring or withholding contrary reporting.

They also say the administration's public evidence about the immediacy of Iraq's threat to the United States and its alleged ties to al-Qaida is unconvincing, and accuse policy-makers of pushing out some information that does not meet an intelligence professional's standards of proof.

"It's been cooked to a recipe, and the recipe is high policy," said Ray McGovern, a 27-year CIA veteran who briefed top Reagan administration security officials before retiring in 1990. "That's why a lot of my former colleagues are holding their noses these days." ---
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030314/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq_intelligence_4
http://www.democraticunderground.com/duforum/DCForumID61/18413.html

Public was misled, claim ex-CIA men

A GROUP of former US intelligence officials has written to President Bush claiming that the US Congress and the American public were misled about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction before the war.

The group’s members, most of them former CIA analysts, say that they have close contacts withsenior officials working inside the US intelligence agencies, who have told them that intelligence was“cooked” to persuade Congress to authorise the war.

The manipulation of intelligence has, they say, produced “a policy and intelligence fiasco of monumental proportions”. They write in the letter to Mr Bush: “While there have been occasions in the past when intelligence has been deliberately warped for political purposes, never before has such warping been used in such a systematic way to mislead our elected representatives into voting to authorise launching a war.

“You may not realise the extent of the current ferment within the intelligence community and particularly the CIA. In intelligence, there is one unpardonable sin — cooking intelligence to the recipe of high policy. There is ample indication that this has been done in Iraq.”
...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-698028,00.html

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0207-04.htm

U.S. diplomats also tried to stop this invasion:

U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/27/international/27WEB-TNAT.html

Letter of Resignation (Mary Wright)
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/marywright.asp

U.S. Mongolian Diplomat Resigns Over Iraq (Fourth U.S. Diplomat)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=542&e=84&u=/ap/20030327/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/war_diplomat_resigns_2

Third U.S. Diplomat Resigns Over Iraq Policy
http://truthout.org/docs_03/032303G.shtml

Second US Diplomat Resigns in Protest
http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/03.03/0314krieger_diplo_resign.htm
U.S. diplomat resigns over Iraq war plans
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N10105063.htm

Niger-Uranium Timeline
http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=niger_timeline

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND WMDs: THEN AND NOW
http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=bush_wmd_summary

[Tinoire]

39. Thanks W4rma- That's more important information!

It's a relief to finally lay out the puzzle and show everything fitting in.

[DoYouEverWonder]

36. Some of us have been posting about this

for months. I am glad that folks are finally starting to wake up to what's really going on around here. The fact is that Likud spies have been in the Pentagon since Bu$h took office, ie Perle, Feith and Wolfowitz. What these men have done is called treason in my book. If there is a hell, I am sure there is a special place there, just for slimballs like these three.

Invading Iraq had little to do with our security and everything to do with Israel's security. No wonder Sharon is being so nice to the Palestinians lately, he got what he wanted beyond his wildest dreams. Saddam is out of power, the Palestinians have been crushed and that oil pipeline from Iraq will be the next best thing to finding oil in Israel. This is what almost 300 American soldiers gave up there lives for.

Makes you wonder about those 6 Israelis who were jumping for joy in northern NJ, while they watched the WTC fall.

[Tinoire]

40. The whole just goes deeper and deeper: Richard Perle

In 1968 the neocons backed the late Senator Hubert Humphrey from Minnesota for president. In 1972, they mobilized their support behind the late Senator Henry Jackson from Washington. Both Humphrey and Jackson represented staunch anti-Soviet and pro-Israeli positions in the party...Senator Jackson's aides, Richard Perle and Elliott Abrams, who later became major figures in the Reagan foreign policy team, attempted to torpedo any effort by the Nixon and Carter administrations to improve relations with the Soviet Union or to launch peace efforts in the Middle East. From Jackson's office, the two led the campaign to use the issue of Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union to sabotage detente between Washington and Moscow...The neoconservatives formed the Coalition for a Democratic Majority (CDM) in 1973, aimed at rallying anti-Soviet and pro-Israeli Democrats in opposition to the McGovern liberals. That year also saw the beginning of the neoconservative drift toward the Republican Party, whose leaders saw in recruitment of the neocons an opportunity to improve Republican status in the media and in academic circles...It was the Carter administration's foreign policy agenda, including its efforts to improve the relationship with the Soviets and to accommodate the national interests of the Palestinians, that accelerated the political transition of the neocons from the Democratic to the Republican Party. Carter did not bring any members of the CDM into his administration...
The CDM, with the help of neoconservative columnists like Krautharnmer and Safire and of the New Republic, was the driving force behind a coordinated effort to weaken public support for Carter. For example, Michael Ledeen...whose name would surface later as one of the instigators of the IranContra affair (a note here - he was the Mossad-CIA link during the Iran-Contra scandal, and the man who got convicted spy J Pollard his Department of the Navy job) wrote an article in the New Republic which revealed ties between the late Billy Carter, the president's alcoholic brother, and Libyan government officials...At the same time, members of the CDM and other neoconservatives played a leading role in shaping the agenda of the Reagan administration...In addition to Kirkpatrick, who got her job as US representative to the UN after an article she published in Commentary caught Reagan's interest, other neocons occupied top positions in the Reagan foreign policy team. One was Max Kampelman, a former aide to Humphrey who was appointed to the position of director of arms control, and who was later replaced by another neocon, Kenneth Adelman. Richard Perle became the assistant secretary of defense. Richard Pipes, a regular Commentary contributor, joined the National Security Council. Elliot Abrams served as assistant secretary of state for human rights and later as assistant secretary for hemispheric affairs, where he played an active role in the Iran-Contra affair...it was the end of the Cold War that spelled disaster to the neocons, now at risk of being deprived of their favorite enemy...Enter the Middle Eastern bogeyman. - neoconservative intellectuals have focused on the need for the US to confront the new transnational enemy from the East, radical Arab nationalism and Islamic "fundamentalism," or what Krauthammer termed the "global intifada." The operational implication of this type of reasoning is that the original intifada can be forgotten. The neocons' main antagonists in the successful effort to get the United States to start shooting in the campaign to contain Saddam were the so-called "paleoconservatives," such as Pat Buchanan and Joseph Sobran, who since the end of the Cold War had been advocating a less activist American foreign policy...Most US proponents of sanctions, whether liberal or conservative, feared that a war in which thousands of Arabs died at American hands would, in the long run, increasingly isolate Washington in the region. Ironically, the only way to prevent such negative results of the neocon agenda would be decisive efforts by the Bush administration to follow up the rollback of Saddam with an Israeli-Palestinian settlement based upon land for peace. It is just such efforts, however, that the neocons can be counted upon to oppose..."

That was 1991 - the neocons kept on trying, and got their big chance after the G W Bush victory and 9/11.
A few more details about the main characters:

<snipped, you'll have to read the rest here:http://neoconconjob.blogspot.com/>

[WillyT]

41. Must Read Kick !!!

:kick:

Didn't William Casey try to do the same thing with his 'Enterprise' during the Reagan years???

These assholes never learn!!!

:grr::nuke::mad:

[Lost4words]

42. great thread must read, scary to the max! n/t

[Sushi_lover]

44. What a waste of money

That's a whole lot of overhead for an organization with one operative providing intelligence.

<ring!>

"Chalabi speaking"

-- Hi Ahmad. This is Cheney. Can you get us some proof of biological weapons today?

"No problem. I'll have one of my bodyguards call a relative in Baghdad ."

-- Ahmad, don't use the same relative who made up the chemical weapons program, OK? Blix is pressing us for locations and we can't figure a reason for not being able to point him to any.

"No problem. We'll make up a story about Saddam killing the informant right after he provided us the intelligence. Hey, am I still first in line to run Iraq?"

[umcwb]

45. Kick, n/t

[salmonhorse]

46. The Shadow Government

http://www.constitution.org/shad4816.htm

[cprise]

48. Kick

.

[JoFerret]

49. .

.

[Star]

50. Kicking

for posterity.

:kick:

[0007]

51. 'Tis quite obvious now who the thugs have as a partner, 'eh?

If this part of the article doesn't piss one off, I don't know what ever will.

In 1996, Mr. Feith and Richard Perle - now an influential Pentagon
figure - served as advisers to the then Likud leader, Binyamin
Netanyahu. In a policy paper they wrote, entitled A Clean Break:
A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, the two advisers said
that Saddam would have to be destroyed, and Syria, Lebanon,
Saudi Arabia, and Iran would have to be overthrown or
destabilised, for Israel to be truly safe.

This whole mess calls for national attention right now! Head must roll. Starting with junior and his fucking Carlyle boys.

[JohnyCanuck]

52. kick

n/t

[Tinoire]

53. Great anti-DLC rant from another Board (April 2003)

Not to put too fine a point on it, since it distracts from the primary struggle, which is with the "fascisti" in the WH; but a week ago every single Dem in the Senate, and most of those in the House, voted to support Bush "as commander-in-chief" and the troops ("Sorry, but the chick got in the way") as they maraud through the cradle of civilization. And it was Richard Holbrooke, the architect along with Mad "a hard choice, but yes, it's worth it" Albright of the destruction of Yugoslavia and the ethnic cleansing of the Serb population in Kosovo, who boasted a few weeks ago that he and Clinton and Sandy Berger didn't let such niceties as the UN get in the way of their assaults, and that Bush was a weak-kneed pantywaist for seeking a second resolution in the Security Council. "We don' need no stinkin' badges!" I may have missed something, but I don't remember Honest Al resigning over differences with Clinton on that score, or over the terrorist bombing and destruction of the pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan that supplied most of the medications and aspirins to east and north Africa. As a matter of fact, it was Al who was dispatched to South Africa to warn them to stop making generic anti-AIDS drugs available to their HIV-positive population, as it interfered with drug company prerogatives (you know, the copyright they were given free of charge by the government, which used public funds to research the rugs) - the right to profit off people's misery, a sacred right under every president of either party in America. And isn't it Al whose investments in Occidental Petroleum are being protected, in the true spirit of bipartisanship, by the troops we fielded in Colombia?

So, sorry for the rant, but I agree with Roy - the details may differ, and certainly Dubya is far more reckless than anyone outside of John McCain, but the real reason the fascist right carried off their coup was for the loot: the tax cuts, the gigantic contracts, the unlimited fraud, the opportunity to steal on an unimaginable scale, the vast and unprecedented concentration of power and terror. The global imperium, one may safely assume (as the corporate crime lords in the CFR undoubtedly did), would be in good hands whoever won. That's why they fund the Republican wing of *both* parties, the wing which, in the case of the Democrats, nestled within the DLC, chaired for a time by Al Gore.

(Even with regard to Iraq, Clinton never wavered from his position that, contra UN 687, only the exit, graceful or otherwise, of Saddam and his associates would suffice to lift the sanctions, which killed over a million Iraqi civilians, around half of them small children, while he held office. Further, it was during his term that Saddam's son-in-law, the highest-ranking defector ever, revealed to the UN, the CIA and MI6 that he himself had been in charge of the Iraqi weapons program, and had personally overseen the destruction of the bulk of their chemical and biological and all of their nuclear weapons capacity after the first Gulf slaughter. His testimony on the size of the program, which was larger than the west had known, was considered credible enough to trot it out on innumerable occasions for the next eight years under both Clinton and Bush; his testimony that he had overseen the destruction (so that no commander would be tempted to use the weapons, which he and Saddam knew would result in the nuking of Iraq, under Clinton as well as Bush I and II) was fit only for the ears of his interlocutors, and effectively covered up by both presidents. (He was executed when he returned to Iraq the following year.) Finally, it was Clinton who ordered the inspectors out in 1998, after using them as spies to develop target locations for his planned bombing, which commenced immediately afterward. And it was Clinton whose sanctions were described by the head of the UN relief organization, when he resigned in protest, as "genocidal," a judgment concurred in by his successor, who also resigned for the same reason.)

So yeah, Gore or anyone else could hardly be as slimy as Bush, who is truly sui generis, but on the other hand, "good, honest and intelligent" though he may be, the US would most probably still be looking for weak, unprotected and helpless states to make an example of, because... well, because we can. "All for ourselves, and nothing for anybody else," was the way Adam Smith described the "vile maxim of the Masters of Mankind " in his day. Has anything really changed?

http://www.kansasgreens.org/pipermail/kansas-list/2003-April/002013.html

[skip fox]

54. Secret Tenet testimony Revealed!!

to DU's CAPTIONers:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=27585&mesg_id=27585&page=

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=27627&mesg_id=27627&page=

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=27661&mesg_id=27661&page=

[indictrichardperle]

55. Tinoire, have you noticed

Larouche had predicted Cheney would be involved in the Niger forgery many months ago ? He has been extremely prophetic, i would urge people to follow Larouche's website/articles, even if you despise him. Its obvious he is being fed information from the intelligence community. Sy Hersh, is very similar.

[Tinoire]

61. Yes long, long ago.

I was in Intel for 20 years and I assure you Larouche's information is always meticulously researched and trustworthy. He does have some very well-placed contacts and doesn't just spout out from the side of his mouth.

One can disagree with his conclusions but the facts are solid.

Sy Hersch the same and both of them demonized. What else is new? :shrug:

Larouche had talked about everything being revealed this week but because so many decided to believe the demonization partisans, his information was ignored. Well it's ALL coming out now! And notice also, that the same people who demonized him and tin-foil tut, tutted are awfully quiet. The spin machine's fuse seems to have given out.

The truth always comes out. Spinmeisters always lose their credibility. What a week, what a week! And the Klayman papers

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=20394&mesg_id=20394&page=

Dots being connected BIG TIME! The boys went TOO far, too arrogantly and too sloppily!

Peace

[indictrichardperle]

62. its obvious, but

the neo-cons sold their "clean break" theory to Big Oil, thats what put the whole thing in motion.

Kristol, Perle, Wolfowitz have enormous influence in this administration, but if Big Oil said NO.....nothing would be allowed to happen, thats really where Sneering Dick comes in, in my opinion. He is the nexus, or meeting point between Feith, Libby, Wolfowitz..the neo-con idealogues and Big Oil.

Thus we get to see the two scandals, breaking simultaneously, with all the over-lap. It all seems to be falling apart, Big Oil may come to realize this is a major Cluster-Fu*k.....i wouldnt be suprised to see Junior cut his losses, make a deal with the UN, in hopes of holding on to some oil concessions. I think Sneering Dick is going to resign, way too much baggage.

[DemBones DemBones]

68. Ari Fleischer picked a good time to leave his White House post,

didn't he? :tinfoilhat: Who tipped him off?

[Bushknew]

58. Ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon's office in Israel

<<The OSP was an open and largely unfiltered conduit to the White House not only for the Iraqi opposition. It also forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon's office in Israel specifically to bypass Mossad and provide the Bush administration with more alarmist reports on Saddam's Iraq than Mossad was prepared to authorise.>>

Super bump

[inthecorneroverhere]

59. bump (n/t)

bump

[Stephanie]

65. this is bush's downfall

:kick:

[Tinoire]

70. How will this all play out on the Arab Streets? Has anyone

Has anyone seen anything?

[Nottingham]

72. Tinnoire did you see this? Alan Foley Vs Robert Joseph

CIA official: White House aide suggested speech wording

Edited on Fri Jul-18-03 03:18 AM by Nottingham
CIA official: White House aide suggested speech wording
By JAMES RISEN and DAVID E. SANGER
New York Times News Service



WASHINGTON -- A senior CIA officer told Congress that a national security aide at the White House was the official who proposed wording for President Bush's State of the Union address that included a specific reference to Iraq's efforts to acquire uranium from Niger.

Despite doubts at the CIA over the accuracy of the intelligence on the purported uranium deal, the agency dropped its objections to including the allegation in the speech after the White House agreed to make the reference to it more general and attribute it to British intelligence.

This account, according to intelligence officials was given by Alan Foley, a top CIA expert on weapons of mass destruction, during a closed-door hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Wednesday. Foley's account conflicts with the account of how the speech was drafted provided by the White House in recent days.

Foley told the Senate committee that Bob Joseph, a proliferation expert at the National Security Council, sent him the proposed wording that included the reference to Niger a day or two before the president's January address. Foley told lawmakers that he then told Joseph that the CIA wasn't certain about the credibility of the evidence concerning Niger, and recommended that it be taken out of the speech.


more.....

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2000039

[Nottingham]

73. 33rd IFPA-Fletcher Conferene! Look at the insignia Tinnoire

Joseph: ....Last month the President released the first National Security Strategy Document of his administration. It differs substantially from his predecessors in two fundamental ways. First our strategy rejects the long-standing and what I believe to be false dichotomy between power and values. From the very first paragraph the document emphasizes the goals of universal human rights and the President’s personal commitment to promoting political and economic freedom as the appropriate model for national success.

In this context the document acknowledges the unparalleled political and military strength of the United States and emphasizes the need to use this strength, not to create unilateral advantage but to promote a peace and security that can improve the conditions of all societies. But perhaps the greatest difference that this document presents from those of the past is in the description of and the prescription for defending against today’s threats.
Here the impact of the events of September 11th are very clear. The war against terrorism and against terrorists with global reach and, indeed, perhaps weapons of mass destruction is a new type of war that requires us to think differently about or enemies and to harness new tools and methods to defeat them. But the origins of the administration’s strategy for dealing with contemporary threats and especially weapons of mass destruction in the hands of both rogue states and terrorists pre-date September 11th.

more...


http://www.ifpafletcherconference.com/marines2002/joseph.htm


Joseph's title Special Asssitant to the President

When I saw the 33 I went WHOAH! :bounce:

[Tinoire]

75. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency? All coming together so quickly!

organized by
The Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis

The International Security Studies Program of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University


with the cosponsorship of
The United States Marine Corps
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency safeguards America's interests from weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high explosives) by controlling and reducing the threat and providing quality tools and services for the warfighter.
***

Welcome to DTRALink, the official Web site of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. In the post-Cold War environment, a unified, consistent approach to deterring, reducing and countering weapons of mass destruction is essential to maintaining our national security. Under DTRA, Department of Defense resources, expertise and capabilities are combined to ensure the United States remains ready and able to address the present and future WMD threat. We perform four essential functions to accomplish our mission: combat support, technology development, threat control and threat reduction. These functions form the basis for how we are organized and our daily activities. Together, they enable us to reduce the physical and psychological terror of weapons of mass destruction, thereby enhancing the security of the world’s citizens. At the dawn of the 21st century, no other task is as challenging or demanding.

We’ve established this site to provide you with the latest and most accurate information about what we do and why we do it. I hope you’ll make use of this resource and all that it offers.

[Star]

76. What's the significance of the 33?

n/t

[Tinoire]

79. 33rd just means it's the 33rd one but

Just to give you an idea about them- here's the info on their 31st meeting:

The Thirty-first Annual IFPA-Fletcher Conference was held Nov. 14-15 in Washington, D.C., to examine and advance ways to better focus our national power on the full range of security challenges confronting America.

Fletcher Conference participants included, Tom Ridge, Director, Homeland Security; Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, Gen. Richard B. Myers, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Sean O'Keefe, Deputy Director, Office of Management and Budget, as well as current and former national security policy makers, senior military officials, Congressional leaders, internationally recognized security specialists, corporate and industry leaders and representatives from the national news media. With over 400 attendees in attendance, the Fletcher Conference provided a high-level forum for the new Administration to discuss its national security vision with specific focus on more effective use of the diplomatic, economic, and military instruments of national power.

The United States Army is a cosponsor of the Fletcher Conference along with the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, Inc. (IFPA); The International Security Studies Program (ISSP) of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University; and the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Net Assessment.

http://www.army.mil/features/fletcher/default.htm

The 33rd was sponsored by the Marines which is wh Nottingham made that comment. This is major, obscene, over-the-top brain-washing of our military people. Wolfowitz and crew, knowing there was no intel went directly to our military since they knew the Military wouldn't be receiving anything from the NSA or CIA. This is all very, very sick.


The Fletcher conferences are sponsored by these guys:

The Dwight D. Eisenhower National Security Series seeks to explore new ways to employ more effectively our Nation's capabilities to meet the range of security challenges we face in the 21st century.

The Series is a full year of programs and activities that address the critical security issues of our time. The Eisenhower Series is unique. It significantly broadens beyond traditional audiences that dialogue on national security; the media, corporate and economic policy representatives, academia and think tanks, all departments of the U.S. government, non-governmental and international organizations, the diplomatic community, members of Congress and their staffs, foreign officials and specialists are all invited and have the opportunity to contribute. Indeed, to ensure diversity of opinion and balanced inquiry, The Army partners with co-sponsors from each of these sectors in the conceptualization, planning, and execution of each Eisenhower Series event. This approach is a more effective means of exploring the complex security situations of our time.

The Series culminates annually with the Dwight D. Eisenhower National Security Conference in Washington, D.C. At the conference, a distinguished array of national security decision makers assemble for two days to make presentations, participate in panel discussions, and field questions in a setting which promotes extensive discourse-focused by a single unifying theme.

http://www.eisenhowerseries.com/

The 33rd IPFA was the highlight of Dwight D. Eisenhower National Security Conference in Washington mentioned above. It's a joint effort and all our military services attend. Basically just another brain-washing tool.

[Star]

81. Thanks, Tinoire

It'll take me a while to digest this new info.

[Tinoire]

84. Forgot to add

and the isnsignia he's referring to is the Marine insignia... Peace

[Tinoire]

74. Circular Intel!

And the next paragraphs! These guys are so brazen!
Oh no Georgie boy, this scandal is NOT going away!

Peace and thanks!

*****
According to Foley, Joseph then asked him if the speech could instead include a reference to the fact that the British had received reports of Iraq's interest in seeking uranium from Africa. According to intelligence officials, Foley said he told Joseph that the CIA had warned the British that it wasn't sure about the information when the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair included it in an unclassified white paper on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, published last September.

According to Foley's account -- which the White House has said it could not confirm -- when Joseph finally asked him whether it would be accurate to state that the British had reported on the African uranium, Foley agreed.

[BushIsALiar]

71. Cheney Energy Task Force papers from March, 2001 finally released: mapping

Cheney Energy Task Force papers from March, 2001 finally released: mapping out Iraq oilfields



http://www.underreported.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1074&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

[Stephanie]

77. Thank you BushIsALiar!

Everything is tied together very neatly, isn't it?

Welcome to DU!

This story needs to stay front and center.

[BushIsALiar]

78. No Problem

Good to be here. I'm wondering why this story hasn't hit the main media yet? Its a bombshell.

[are_we_united_yet]

82. Wow

intense article!

[julka]

83. sound familiar?

some similar ground covered here, with antecedents in the Rumsfeld Commission (Missile Threat Commission), leading to the OSP:

similarities are eerie, to say the least: they don't get the cooked intel they want, they just make up another body that finds them exactly what they need. and you'll see that, just as with so many of the reprobates, convicted/pardoned criminals currently infesting the exec branch, the players remain remarkably constant, even down to the exceedingly loathsome Gingrich, who seems to wield an inordinate amount of power even today

"You can draw a line from the Pentagon directly to the Missile Threat Commission," said Joseph Cirincione, director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It begins with a mistrust of the intelligence, a belief that we can do it better, and the method of imagining what you would do if you were in the other guy's shoes."

Rumsfeld's top Pentagon aides set up a small office known as the Special Plans Office to digest the raw intelligence reports from human sources, eavesdropping and satellite imagery. The office, critics say, selectively used information to exaggerate the Iraqi threat and ignore evidence to the contrary.

Those concerns, and the failure so far to uncover the promised nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs in Iraq, have led one Senate committee to convene a review of the administration's use of prewar intelligence. House Democrats are calling for an independent commission to examine the matter.

more.......after the pugs didn't get what they wanted from intel sources, look what they did


By late 1997, congressional Republicans who still favored a missile defense system began talking about another commission. This time they appointed Rumsfeld, a former defense secretary and then a corporate leader, as chairman. Republicans appointed six commissioners, and Democrats chose three.

Members included Paul Wolfowitz, now Rumsfeld's deputy secretary of defense, and James Woolsey, a former director of central intelligence under Clinton.

Stephen Cambone, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who has assumed the recently created post of undersecretary of defense for intelligence, was the commission's staff director.

Cambone declined to be interviewed for this story.

"Cambone is the key," said Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment. "He made this commission hum and deftly steered this commission toward what could be, not what is. They created this whole new methodology for how to evaluate the threat."

Political implications

The Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat was told to use all available intelligence to assess the missile threat faced by the U.S. But the commissioners all knew that their report carried a heavy political weight, and that it would eventually be used by one side or the other in the missile defense debate.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/perspective/chi-0307200090jul20,1,4280517.story