Bush Names Iraq Panel | Washington Post

[Ediacara]

Bush Names Iraq Panel
Former Sen. Robb, Retired Judge Silverman, Sen. McCain Among Those Appointed

The Associated Press
Friday, February 6, 2004; 1:50 PM

WASHINGTON -- President Bush named seven people Friday to sit on an independent study commission to look into intelligence failures regarding Iraq's weapons capabilities, choosing former Sen. Charles S. Robb of Virginia and retired judge Laurence Silverman to head the panel.

"We must stay ahead of constantly changing intellignence challenges," Bush said. "The stakes for our country cannot be higher."

Robb was a former U.S. senator and governor of Virginia and son-in-law of the late President Johnson. He is married to Lucy Baines Johnson and has been practicing law since leaving the Senate. Silverman is a conservative who served as deputy attorney general in the Nixon and Ford administrations. He was named to the appeals court by President Reagan in 1985.

More at the Washington Post

[leftynyc]

1. JUDGE SILVERMAN!!!! A right wing hack who was

part of the group of anti-Clinton's. David Brock wrote all about him in his book. I smell a serious white wash. This is sickening.

[dennis4868]

2. Silverman....

pushed for Kenneth Starr to be the one to investigate Clinton's penis....HERE WE GO AGAIN!

[lancdem]

4. I don't think they'll blame this on Clinton

They'll just whitewash it in Bush's favor.

[OutlawCorporatePolls]

23. WMD Intelligence Panel - Individuals Research Links

WMD Intelligence Panel - Individuals Research Links

Laurence Silberman, retired federal judge
http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/july1998/silb-j18.shtml

Charles Robb, Senator - D
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Charles_S._Robb

John McCain, Senator - R
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=John_McCain

Lloyd Cutler, White House counsel to Presidents Carter and Clinton and Yale grad
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Lloyd_N._Cutler

Ret. Adm. Bill Studeman, former CIA deputy director appointed by Bush 41
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=William_O._Studeman

Patricia Weld, Appelate court judge and graduate of Yale
http://www.google.com/search?q=Patricia+Wald+yale&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&start=10&sa=N

Rick Levin, Yale President
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=rick+levin+yale

[July]

24. This is ridiculous. Don't they realize people are starting to notice

the games they're playing?

It's letters to the editor/senators time, isn't it? Public pressure got Kissinger off of the 9/11 panel. Here we've got at least 3 people who are very questionable: McCain (campaigning for Bush and already saying that Bush did not manipulate intelligence); Silverman (Federalist Society, getting rid of Fisk, etc.); and Studeman (appointed by Bush I, worked under Woolsey). And we're still waiting on the "Dems" Bush plans to appoint.

And let's not forget this timetable, giving us the whitewash after the election.

I've written one of my senators asking him to press for an independent counsel. Please think about doing the same.

[Ilsa]

3. CNN has just reported that John McCain has also added

that the "independent" commission will also take a hard look at how the White House handled the intel it got from the CIA, etc. I wonder if Dim Son was expecting that? Or if it matters?

[dennis4868]

5. WHAT ABOUT?

how Bush and Cheney ignored entire agencies intelligence reports, like thw DIA, DOS, AND DOE?

[finecraft]

6. This on Silberman from Buzzflash

http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/02/18.html

(snip) ..."And who was one of the judges that overturned the felony convictions of Admiral Poindexter, Bush appointee to oversee a computerized spying operation on private American citizens? Why, no coincidence here, Laurence Silberman: "Poindexter was convicted by a federal jury for lying and obstruction of justice. Though sentenced to prison, he escaped hard time thanks to conservative appellate judges Laurence Silberman and David Sentelle (later of Lewinsky affair fame), who overturned his conviction; they ruled that independent counsel Lawrence Walsh had relied too much on testimony that the NSC adviser himself gave while under congressional immunity."

..(snip)..."And when a lower court unanimously ruled that Ashcroft had exceeded his authority in assuming broad wire tap powers, who was one of the three judges that said he was acting within his powers? Why, Laurence Silberman. Silberman sits on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, the final court decision making stop in deciding what powers the Bush administration can assume in violating our Constitutional rights. The Washington Post, in an editorial last year noted, "Yesterday the court of review sprang to life, overturning a lower FISA court decision and handing Attorney General John D. Ashcroft a major victory -- one that significantly changes the rules under which sensitive surveillance is conducted in this country." The Post blamed Congress for the problem, even though the lower court had ruled against Ashcroft and had taken the unprecedented step of releasing a dossier of wiretapping abuses by the Justice Department."

[underpants]

7. Chuck Robb, Silberman, McCain,Loyd Cutler, Patricia Wald, and

Bush Names Panel to Study Iraq Intel Woes


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&e=1&u=/ap/20040206/ap_on_go_pr_wh/iraq_intelligence

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) named seven people Friday to sit on an independent study commission to look into intelligence failures on Iraqi weapons, choosing former Democratic Sen. Charles S. Robb and retired judge Laurence Silberman, a Republican, to head the panel.
Bush also picked Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to be a member of the commission.

Bush also named Lloyd Cutler, former White House counsel to Presidents Carter and Clinton; former federal judge Patricia M. Wald; Yale University president Richard C. Levin, and Adm. William O. Studeman, former deputy director of the CIA (

[sallyseven]

8. Lawrence Silberman

must be stopped. Start your e-mails to media and congress.

[colonel odis]

9. w. shouldn't waste our time with a charade like this n/t

[Cory]

10. Amazing. . .

A right leaning dem (Robb), McCain, a nutty Judge, the president of Yale along with two Yale alumnus (Wald and Cutler) and the current VP of Northrup Grumman.

[flamingyouth]

11. Yeah, it's a real independent group all right

:eyes:

[smiley_glad_hands]

13. Robb is not that right leaning--

He lost to George Allen because wouldn't move to the right.

[maryallen]

21. Robb is NOT married to Lucy Baines Johnson;

He is married to Linda Bird Johnson, the older daughter of LBJ.

[mbperrin]

12. They left somebody off! Paging Captain Renault,,,,

we promise that this time there'll be no shocks!

[missile_bender]

14. Here's a rundown on most of the panel from my perspective:

Robb at least voted not guilty in the Clinton impeachment, and voted with the ACLU about 70% of the time. However, he did join the Board of Trustees of Pentagon contractor the Mitre Corp., so he has a stake in the war's continuation. Anyway, look at who he's up against:

Cutler served as chairman of the Reagan-era commission on government salaries that recommended raises of at least 50% for the president, cabinet members, congress and federal judges.

Wald is another pro-business Yalie who questioned the government's case against Microsoft. She also served as a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague, Netherlands, and said credibility would be crucial to any trial of Iraqi leaders. She did not, however, suggest we give Saddam back to the Iraqis.

Levin, Yale president at only 56 years old, was also on the board of directors of Lucent Technologies. Yale never met a Bush whose private parts it didn't lick. And his dealing with the labor crisis shows his union-breaking proclivities. He's the guy who gets a 12 percent salary increase while telling his employees they should be happy to get 4 percent. His pension will be $42,000 a month, while Yale worker pensions average less than $700 per month. In other words, don't trust him.

William O. Studeman was head of the National Security Agency in 1988, and was a former VP at Northrop Grumman. Most importantly, Bush I used Studeman to stonewall an investigation of the gulf war in 1992. At the time, Studeman attacked Rep. Henry Gonzalez (D-Texas) (he was investigating how Washington gave weapons of mass destruction) for releasing classified information, thereby drawing attention away from Bush I's crimes.

Unembedded.com

[BeHereNow]

16. Yup, Yup, and Yup...

NICE summary of the gallery of ROGUES Missile_Bender.
BHN

[DoYouEverWonder]

15. W's got another thing coming

if he thinks this shit is going to fly.

This is not like Watergate or Whitewater, which were scandals contain to people in the WH. This scandal is global. W is delusional if he thinks he can just take control of his own investigation and get away with.

What they don't understand is the power of the Internet. W is being tried in the court of public opinion, right here at DU and other sites, in real time. We don't need no stinking independent commission. With the revelations that are coming out on almost an hourly basis, I give this gang a month or two at the most.

[Occulus]

18. Martial law will begin

within two weeks, a month at the outside, if what I understand about the bird flu is true.

Very soon, none of this will have any importance at all.

[flamingpie2500]

17. What the hell

would the president of Yale University know about CIA intelligence?

[underpants]

19. Wasn't the CIA founded at Yale?

You know SKull and Bones and all that. That is the story I always heard and never refuted.

[underpants]

20. Well that didn't take long McCain has already weighed in

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=350472


"The president of the United States, I believe, did not manipulate any kind of information for political gain or otherwise," the Republican senator told reporters on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich, Germany.

[ahimsa]

22. he knows Cheney did it

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