Bush Slashed Hurricane Funding For New Orleans
Bush Slashed Hurricane Funding For New Orleans
Yesterday, President Bush said “I want to thank all the folks at the federal level and the state level and the local level who have taken this storm seriously.” He’s not one of them. Bush has sought to slash funds that would help New Orleans prepare for a major hurricane. From the 6/6/05 New Orleans CityBusiness:
In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding…The cuts mean major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now.
[snip]
Landrieu said the Bush administration is not making Corps of Engineers funding a priority. “I think it’s extremely shortsighted,” Landrieu said. “When the Corps of Engineers’ budget is cut, Louisiana bleeds. These projects are literally life-and-death projects to the people of south Louisiana.”
(HT: CactusPat)
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Amazing where the administration’s priorities are. The list is so long that we lose track and focus on the most recent outrage.
August 29th, 2005 at 2:21 pmPLEASE blame this on Bush. Your statement from Landrieu means nothing - she is on record lying twice already.
Landrieu claimed in 2002 that Bush would start exporting sugar production to Mexico to win a unusually close re-election race. That has been proben an outright LIE. Also, Landrieu claimed in a tv ad to support Miguel Estrada only to go back on her word three months later and join Democrats in a filibuster.
Conservatives can only hope that Landrieu goes on the attack against Bush and tries to politicize this tragedy. We can use that against her when Bobby Jindal runs against her in 2008 and likely knocks her off adding to the GOP majority. Please Mary, cause a scene.
August 29th, 2005 at 2:24 pmIt's sad that over two thirds of the article is dedicated to his sell-job of the Iraqi constitution when a large scale disaster is occurring only a few hundred miles from Crawford.
August 29th, 2005 at 2:25 pmThe sheer fact that Judd would quote Landrieu shows what a bunch of amateurs you people are.
August 29th, 2005 at 2:25 pmSave bandwidth, don't feed the trolls
August 29th, 2005 at 2:27 pmAfterthought - why not debate what I am saying?
Mary Landrieu has a habit of lying about Bush to score cheap political points. This is known to people who follow politics unlike you morons who just hate Bush on a daily basis.
August 29th, 2005 at 2:29 pmNED, here's a novel thought: Instead of attacking people, debate the idea.
Tell us, "Bush did not cut this funding!"
August 29th, 2005 at 2:31 pmRemember boy and girls, trolls may seem reasonable
at first, but you can't trust them:
"...unlike you morons who just hate Bush on a daily basis."
August 29th, 2005 at 2:31 pmNED
For once comment on what is in the thread, Bush cut funding for the Army Corp. of Engineers in Louisiana. When faced with facts you cry your girlboy shrill, god you are such a pussy.
August 29th, 2005 at 2:31 pmNED, I don't think that the point of the post was to blame Bush for a natural disaster nor the mitigation of the impact. Fiscal year 2006 funding would have done nothing to help the victime of todays storm. Realistically, any project derived from FY'06 funding would take years to materialize. Don't be stupid.
August 29th, 2005 at 2:33 pmUh, last time I checked Mary Landrieu is a United States Senator. I think on the scale of credibility, United States Senator is probably slightly above unsourced allegations by anonymous blog poster.
Also, I'm not sure what Mary Landrieu's character has to do with Bush slashing hurricane funding for New Orleans. Did Bush actually increase funding? Help me understand the lie.
August 29th, 2005 at 2:34 pmI think on the scale of credibility, United States Senator is probably slightly above unsourced allegations by anonymous blog poster.
But remember NED's motto:
"I am clearly the most informed person on this blog."
August 29th, 2005 at 2:37 pmMuch of the Louisiana National Guard equipment is in Iraq right now. So much for Homeland Security.
August 29th, 2005 at 2:39 pmNED is simply delivering the rove reaction of the minute. Their tactic is simple, confuse the issue by name calling, in-your-face smears and misdirection. NED is a classic example of a good and trusted bu$hco soldier. NED, if you want to defend freedom, Iraq is calling you name.
The problem you have NED is that regular Joe six pack is just now starting to realize the impact on their life of the antics of this president. After all the flag waving and screaming at the "liberals" has played out, this mis-administration has nothing to offer Americans who just want to have a good life and job.
August 29th, 2005 at 2:47 pmStupid is as stupid does. Louisiana was firmly in the Red column last November. Wake UP Cajuns! Look closely for the nose on your face!
August 29th, 2005 at 2:47 pm#11 -- Good one, Judd. Pretty snarky attitude for a 12 year old.
August 29th, 2005 at 2:52 pmGOOD LUCK ON THIS ONE! I'm done for the day - can't deal with Bush haters trying to pin more tragedy. It's sick and disgusting and will backfire in conservative LA!
August 29th, 2005 at 2:53 pmMonkeyboys (ie. trolls)
Go fly to your witch Anne, she needs you!
August 29th, 2005 at 2:54 pm#17, Which post tried to pin the tragedy on Bush?
August 29th, 2005 at 2:55 pmMikey
I think it is the ultimate tragedy of dear leader being "misunderstooded" on all things great and small.
August 29th, 2005 at 2:58 pmOf course he slashed hurricane funding for New Orleans next year.
August 29th, 2005 at 3:00 pmHalliburton is expanding.
I wanna privatize flood potection projects. Big business and profit are the Merican way.
August 29th, 2005 at 3:10 pmBush is asking for prayers for NO. And what the hell is Homeland Security doing there? What is their job, exactly?
August 29th, 2005 at 3:11 pmNED makes up for his lack of education with a thorough examination of election politics. That will only get you so far, punk. It's very Rovian. NED, did your parents hate you too?
Now the NED is finally gone....
Not only has Bush proven that he doesnt give a rats tail about the common good, and only supports major business', but lets take a look at his overall resume:
George W. Bush (Dubya)
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Past Work Experience
* Ran for congress and lost.
* Produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
* Bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas; company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
* Bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money. Biggest move: Traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox.
* With father's help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas.
Accomplishments in Previous Positions
* Changed pollution laws for power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the Union.
* Replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog-ridden city in America. Cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
* Set record for most executions by any governor in American history.
* Became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of my father's appointments to the Supreme Court.
Accomplishments As President
* Attacked and took over two countries.
* Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
* Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.
* Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
* Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
* First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
* First president in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.
* First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in U.S. history.
* After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.
* Set the record for most campaign fundraising trips than any other president in U.S. history.
* In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.
* Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in U.S. history.
* Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
* Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in U.S. history.
* Set the record for the least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.
* Signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any president in U.S. history.
* Presided over the biggest energy crises in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
* Presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.
* Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.
* Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
* Dissolved more international treaties than any president in U.S. history.
* My presidency is the most secretive and unaccountable of any in U.S. history.
* Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history (the 'poorest' multimillionaire, Condoleezza Rice, has an Exxon oil tanker named after her).
* First president in U.S. history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.
* Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.
* First president in U.S. history to order a U.S. attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation.
* Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
* Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in U.S. history.
* First president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the human rights commission.
* First president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the elections monitoring board.
* Removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in U.S. history.
* Rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
* Withdrew from the World Court of Law.
* Refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
* First president in U.S. history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. elections).
* All-time U.S. (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
* My biggest lifetime campaign contributor presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
* Spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in U.S. history.
* First president in U.S. history to unilaterally attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
* First president to run and hide when the U.S. came under attack (and then lied saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1)
* First U.S. president to establish a secret shadow government.
* Took the biggest world sympathy for the U.S. after 9/11, and in less than a year made the U.S. the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in U.S. and world history).
* With a policy of 'disengagement' created the most hostile Israeli-Palestine relations in at least 30 years.
* Fist U.S. president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
* First U.S. president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the U.S. than their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
* Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
* Set all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated U.S. law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
* Failed to fulfill my pledge to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive.'
* Failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capital building. After 18 months I have no leads and zero suspects.
* In the 18 months following the 9/11 attacks I have successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.
* Removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in U.S. history.
* In a little over two years created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided the U.S. has ever been since the Civil War.
* Entered office with the strongest economy in U.S. history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.
Records and References
* At least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available)
* AWOL from National Guard and deserted the military during a time of war.
* Refuse to take drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.
* All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father's library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
* All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
* All minutes of meetings for any public corporation I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
* Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.
* For personal references please speak to my daddy or uncle James Baker (they can be reached at their offices of the Carlyle Group for war-profiteering.)
Source: http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushresume.htm
August 29th, 2005 at 3:43 pmThe Holloway story is out of control. I couldn’t even watch Hannity for weeks because of it. It’s plain nonsense if you ask me.
Comment by The Northeast Dilemma
August 29th, 2005 at 3:49 pmcome on NED, whos your daddy?????
Its looks like no issue is too small to lie about: Landrieu and Sugar? Landrieu, as is typical of most politicians stuck up for an industry important to both business and labor in her state.At the time of the CAFTA vote, Louisiana was home to 27,000 sugar industry jobs, 15 sugar mills, two sugar refineries and more than 580,000 acres of sugar cane in 24 parishes. The state produced 20 percent of the nation's sugar in a $2 billion-a-year industry. Landrieu most probably saw studies that said the first year of CAFTA was expected to result in 109,000 tons of sugar being imported to the United States, depressing prices by about 3 percent. Other industry groups anxious for cheap sugar said that it would be good for consumers and drive down the price of consumer goods. That sure did not happen. Everything that has sugar in it cost the same or more then it did two years ago.David Vitter, R-La also voted against CAFTA. Sugar and free trade are complex issues and a certain right-of-center poster seems to want to shake off those complexities in favor of over simplification.
August 29th, 2005 at 4:04 pmAs to the completely unqualified Miguel Estrada. Many of the kool-aid drinkers have accused her of flip-flopping. Yet nothing of the kind happened. She said she supported his right to be nominated, at no time did she say she would vote to confirm him if elected. She hadn't , at the time even had time to question him and if she had Mr. Estrada would have evaded direct questions as is his habit. Landrieu "I have supported all but one of President Bush's judicial nominees, however, Mr. Estrada has refused to answer even the most basic legal questions put before him by the Judiciary Committee and I cannot at this time vote for him and set a precedent that it is OK to refuse to answer questions." Hurray for Mary!.........Pierre LaRamee, then acting president of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, said of Estrada, "This could be an attorney getting this stealth appointment to the Second Circuit and ending on the Supreme Court without ever having been a judge," says LaRamee. "The most prominent legal civil rights advocacy organizations for Latinos in the country oppose him because we understand the legal implications and the importance of this appointment and we're really looking at it from that point of view -- it is not about the ethnic political dimension. There are lots of Latinos out there who are far more qualified who would be terrific judges."
You even have to make up something to whine about.... Get a life.
August 29th, 2005 at 4:06 pm#26 - nice try, on Estrada. You bascially helped disprove your entire post by that little lie. Don't worry - once we beat Landrieu in 2008, you won't have to lie to defend her.
Brian - did your parents want to abort you?
August 29th, 2005 at 4:46 pmNice going, George!
August 29th, 2005 at 4:58 pmPeople in those gulf states don't need federal help -- we will just be sure that the energy companies continue their windfall profits. As for the population, well the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, can help them -- people will donate -- leaving GW off the hook.
Why doesn't everyone see his plan -- decrease gradually toward eliminating all federal spending no matter what the cause -- and privatize everything. The haves will control and the have nots will suck it up, or die. That's the way it should be. Just ask George.
NED, if you can't contribute without blasting the rest of us, just shut up. Poor baby! Do you suffer from ADD -- you can't seem to stay on message?
August 29th, 2005 at 5:00 pmNice post, Elvis. Worth printing out, and saving for reference when a loud-mouth, scornful Right wingnut takes the floor at a party.
August 29th, 2005 at 5:04 pmGreat post Elvis, it's getting harder to find our left blogs that keep to the cause and message, instead we get the right wing paid by the word from bush bunch. Trouble is these guys on here bashing us and each other sound just like G.W. Must be spikie brain waves from all the booz. Why are all of them so hateful. Fear of the truth maybe.? Demening others to prove their man hood doesn't do much. How about a little respect to show your age and improve your case guy's. Thank's again Elvis.....Blessings
August 29th, 2005 at 6:27 pmOf Course. New Orleans is not in Florida - home of good brother Jeb. No surprise.
August 29th, 2005 at 6:54 pmThis is 2005. The Corps is going to see reduced funding in 2006? How is 2006 funding going to help a 2005 event? Where's the logic? Oh, of course. This is thinkparanoid.org.
August 29th, 2005 at 7:06 pmSharon,
If I had to take a guess as to "why are all of them so hateful," this would be it (based on my knowledge today, ask me tomorrow, you might get a different answer):
Its ignorance and it’s mainly “their†pride that gets in “their†way. Self-delusion breed’s pride, pride breed’s the inability to learn. “They†are products of the mind games and brainwashing that this society revolves around. The herofication that children learn at an early age of common people through history makes them feel like they are better people then all others simply by being born in this country.
If more people were to open their minds and read authors like Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Bertrand Russell, or other authors you can find at sites like http://www.commoncouragepress.com/ there would be less hate amongst the people, less pride getting in the way of learning and the government would reflect the true wishes of the people. There would be a huge reduction of the gaps between the classes, there would be little to no war, and poverty and starvation would be unheard-of everywhere.
Chomsky writes: “States are not moral agents.â€
August 29th, 2005 at 7:07 pmCreamy Goodness,
What I got from the article was not that "if Bush had approved proper funding things wouldn’t be so bad with THIS hurricane." I got that Bush doesn’t care about the common good of the people and he doesn’t properly prepare for the future. That Bush is again being hypocritical when he states; “I want to thank all the folks at the federal level and the state level and the local level who have taken this storm seriously†and behind the scenes is trying to cut the funding that would help in these situations.
Judd DID NOT say: "Bush has sought to slash funds that would help New Orleans prepare for THIS major hurricane."
Judd DID say: "Bush has sought to slash funds that would help New Orleans prepare for A major hurricane."
Judd is pointing out his hypocrisy.
August 29th, 2005 at 7:17 pmHowever, Sharon, if I had to say "why most of the people in the government and major corporations are so hateful" I would say that its simply greed.
August 29th, 2005 at 7:19 pm"Bush SLASHED Hurricane Funding for New Orleans". That is the title for this thread. Is that misleading? A lie?
August 29th, 2005 at 7:29 pmAnd citizen80203 just repeats the lie.
August 29th, 2005 at 7:31 pm"For once comment on what is in the thread, Bush cut funding for the Army Corp. of Engineers in Louisiana. When faced with facts you cry your girlboy shrill, god you are such a pussy."
shrub won't help this time because there is no election to steal.
I expect chimpy to try to run for pres again stating that he NOW admits he was NEVER ELECTED.
good spin!
August 29th, 2005 at 7:58 pm#34 - I guess you got a message that no one else did -- there will be no hurricanes in 2006.
August 29th, 2005 at 8:00 pmRe #36, - See that Creamy, even someone who died 20 years ago can see that Bush is a hypocritical idiot. Thank you Elvis.
August 29th, 2005 at 8:06 pmMarie-bopeep,
August 29th, 2005 at 8:06 pmWhere did you get the message the Bush SLASHED funding??
Mikey,
August 29th, 2005 at 8:09 pmWhat does the title of this thread say?
Creamy Goodness,
Are seriously foolish enough to allow your literal misinterpretation of the title of the article to get in your way of reading what it has to say and learning from it?
August 29th, 2005 at 8:21 pmI sse, you're saying that thinkparanoid didn't make that conclusion and post it as a title to this thread? Citizen80203 did and repeated it. I read the article and nowhere does it say Bush slashed funding. I'll remember this. You are calling a lie a "literal misinterpretation". I can't wait to use that one. Let's see if you accept it when you call Bush a liar.
August 29th, 2005 at 8:29 pmWell Creamy, if I wanted to be literal to the extreme, I would have thought it said that Bush was cutting hurricane funding. I didn't know hurricanes needed funding. What will the lowly hurricane do without money? Maybe the hurricane will have to take the bus next time.
Don't be so literal and read the whole article, then do some of your own investigation. The funding for the Corps. was cut, thereby cutting protection projects that would help in case of a hurricane. New Orleans has many areas below sea level that are protected by levees that are old and barely hanging on.
August 29th, 2005 at 8:32 pmMainstream Media actually reported this. I was quite surprised.
How much money did we give to Tsunami relief? Obviously, too much.
The nice thing here is that Bushie once again has burned his supporters. He just guaranteed a democrat controlled Louisiana. Thanks dumbass.
August 29th, 2005 at 8:42 pmTo Elvis, I love the outline of Bushie failures. He has definately failed more than all previous presidents put together.
votetoimpeach.org
August 29th, 2005 at 8:44 pmCreamy Goodness,
Okay Creamy Goodness, I'll play along.
The article clearly states: "In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding"
If Bush didn’t slash the Army Corps funding, who did? And what was their reasoning for doing so?
August 29th, 2005 at 9:57 pm[...] In 2001, FEMA ranked the potential damage to New Orleans as “among the three likeliest, most castastrophic disasters facing this country.” Bush slashed hurricane funding anyway. 10:19 pm | Comment (0) [...]
August 29th, 2005 at 10:20 pmNOWHERE does it say that Bush HAS SLASHED funding.
August 29th, 2005 at 10:38 pmReasons for reduced budget?
"Construction generally has been on the decline for several years and focus has been on other projects in the Corps."
"Bob Livingston (R-Metairie) was chairman of the Appropriations Committee, we didn't have a monetary problem. Our problem was how do we spend all the money we were getting.
It's not a done deal. Funding has not been slashed.
"The Appropriations Committee in Congress will ultimately decide how much the New Orleans district will receive, he said."
Creamy Goodness,
You are partly right. It’s not a done deal. However:
"The cuts mean major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now."
"Money is so tight the New Orleans district, which employs 1,300 people, instituted a hiring freeze last month on all positions. The freeze is the first of its kind in about 10 years"
Bush wanted to take it from about $327 million to $290 million, then the house took it further to $272 million. (my figures may be a bit off, but you get the picture)
The point, which I got from the article, again, is: "that Bush doesn’t care about the common good of the people and he doesn’t properly prepare for the future. That Bush is again being hypocritical when he states; “I want to thank all the folks at the federal level and the state level and the local level who have taken this storm seriously†and behind the scenes is trying to cut the funding that would help in these situations."
He probably wont get away with it now, since this current issue will raise the awareness. But how many people had to suffer to bring the point home? How much could have been prevented if the hiring freeze was not in place? $190 BILLION (so far) for a war over a lie, and they get that money, partly, by slashing things at home that we need for the common good.
August 29th, 2005 at 11:30 pmElvis,
How much you wanna bet that Haliburton gets a no bid contract to help with the relief in LA? Sad part is that I wouldn't be shocked, only outraged again.
August 29th, 2005 at 11:54 pmHow many of you guys wanna bet that dumbya says the people of LA died for a 'NOBLE CAUSE'and the hurricane was related to 9/11 and Iran? That would be the best way to put the monkey's handlers in good shape to drop the bomb on Iran.
This sounds like their logic, 9/11, Osama, ....9/11 Afganistan.... 9/11 Iraq..... 9/11 LA.... 9/11 LA Iran.....Osama whooo?
August 30th, 2005 at 1:42 amAND YOU THOUGHT AN ELEPHANT NEVER FORGETS....
August 30th, 2005 at 1:42 amThank's Elvis for the info. Zinn, Chomsky and others including Amy Goodman have written some great works.It takes me awhile to get through Zinns info compared to others though because it is so indepth .At my age it's possible to nod off before the next chapter. But I do try. Thank you again for your insight and text. You do a very good job pointing out to the un informed the mis deeds of our administration.Is it possible some of these right wingers only read their own words.? ..Blessings.
August 30th, 2005 at 2:22 amUmmmmm......from what I've seen on TV, So Louisiana will serious need Hurricane protection and Flood protection dollars.....money for the work the Army Corps does. That money was cut. Now the money will come from FEMA.....its is a budgetary shell game that Bush learned to do his whole life (one set of Dad's friends bails him out so another set can invest in his next project plus he was not known as a tax cutter as Gov of TX but as a tax switcher i.e. cut one tax and raise another). Its blithering incompetence but since its been sold thrice (1994, 1998, and 2004) and 9/11 blinded America top how badly the 2000 election was stolen, my guess is we're headed for more of the same
August 30th, 2005 at 8:28 amThe Holloway story is out of control. I couldn’t even watch Hannity for weeks because of it. It’s plain nonsense if you ask me.
Comment by The Northeast Dilemma
August 30th, 2005 at 9:37 amcome on NED, whos your daddy??????
#58, Bait and Switch - dumbya's stock in trade.
slash funding, fema - hike this tax, cut that tax
9/11, Iraq - 9/11, IRAN!
Exactly how long do monkeys live?
August 30th, 2005 at 11:58 amBush was wrong on Katrina, too
As the news on the calamity known as hurricane Katrina comes in, let's see how the Bush Administration ties into it...
August 30th, 2005 at 2:25 pmI love Dick, Cheney and President Bush
August 30th, 2005 at 5:41 pmThe reason NED left the blog for today is because he realized he has lost the argument for this issue. He is most likely on some other blog or chat service apologizing for Bush & Company until his shift is over. Tomorrow he will start again his work shift and start with another issue he thinks he can win.
August 30th, 2005 at 8:52 pmBy the way, this NED guy is most likely the Jeff Gannon clone who is plaguing the blogs and chats in the net. He goes by several names changing it several times. One name he used years ago was Trent. Although that is not his real name. He simply impersonated a guy he read from the gay magazine "The Advocate". The Trent guy can be found in all kinds of blogs and chats apologizing for Bush and his cronies.
August 30th, 2005 at 8:57 pm[...] (via thinkprogress.org) [...]
August 30th, 2005 at 9:34 pmWow... read every post here, and it re-enforces my core belief:
August 30th, 2005 at 10:46 pm1. Democrats need to keep telling the truth and fight when others twist facts and quotes.
2. Republicans are mentally handicapped, and we should be kind to them. Calling them names makes them even crazier, so go out and kiss a nut-case.
Hey and the Bushies should be proud that their new "Bankruptcy Reform Act" will also make the poor victim's of the storm even more miserable. If the Republicans had any class they would repeal the bill tomorrow.
August 30th, 2005 at 11:11 pm[...] Source [...]
August 31st, 2005 at 1:43 amI just think you should thank Hitler.
August 31st, 2005 at 7:31 amThank you.
Believe me, NED is fully aware that he is a Pussy...
August 31st, 2005 at 2:32 pm"First president in U.S. history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt."
Umm, when did this happen, exactly?
August 31st, 2005 at 4:32 pmThe last 10 years.
August 31st, 2005 at 9:18 pm[...] Where’s W during all this? Why, he’s promoting his war and doing a fly-by on his way home after a month-long vacation. And apparently worried about his dog. Obviously W can’t prevent a natural disaster, but you’d think he’d at least land the plane somewhere around there and get out and talk to some people or something. But our government has its priorities, too. After all, even though this disaster is going to cost more than $25 billion when all is said and done, we’ve already spent close to eight times that much money on this folly in Iraq, and all we’ve gotten for our money there is more disaster. How are we paying for that mess, you ask? Well, among other things, the Bush administration apparently cut funds to NOLA to prevent hurricanes. Oops. [...]
August 31st, 2005 at 10:22 pmIt is sick how the extreme right is demonizing people who are merely reporting the facts on how the Bush regime cut flood control funding for New Orleans. I don't know how I will be able to trust ANY Republican until Republicans start speaking out against this and the heinous crimes committed against America by the Bush regime.
August 31st, 2005 at 10:47 pmBush and the reps party have raped this land. They are liars, crooks and greedy bottom feeders.
They did not prepare fo 9-11 and they ignored the coastal problems, and they are just worthless. The US has declined in so many ways since they engineer a government takeover. I hope they burn in hell.
Let the women take over this country, HILLARY CLINTON 2008; (IF THE VOTING MACHINES ARE NOT FIXED?)
September 1st, 2005 at 7:49 amAnother Bush-related disaster which MAY have been averted. The first was 9/11. Which may have been thwarted given proper focus & attention. Secondly,the Iraqi invasion/occupation, which was TOTALLY unneccessary. Thirdly, a natural conflagration, which may have been softened given the proper funding. My wish is that an investigation is done and the facts will once again point to hopeless ineptness and world-class incompetence.
September 1st, 2005 at 8:03 amA Bush resignation is not enough. The WHOLE administration must go!
Okay...to all...please stop name calling and do something about it. Instead of spending all of your time coming up with ways to bash Bush, it might be more productive to come up with a plan. If your plan is better, people will vote accordingly. As I tell my 3-yr old...people can't stand whiners (btw this is the reason that Bush is in the White House in the first place)...
September 1st, 2005 at 2:48 pmOne other thing...why weren't the levees improved prior to this??...they had plenty of money, why hadn't there been any action?? just curious??
September 1st, 2005 at 2:51 pmone last thing...to Bill Hughes.
woulda, shoulda, coulda...you're the kind of person that blames the weather man for the rain.
September 1st, 2005 at 2:52 pmSo who you all agree that it would be prudent for G.W. to order the evacuation of San Francisco?
I ask this, because a major earthquake in San Fran is another one of those 3 likeliest disasters. No doubt if he doesn't order the evacuation, you would blame the disaster on him. And if he did order the evac, and people got hurt or lost jobs or there wasn't an earthquake...you'd blame him for that too.
As for this proported funding cut...NOTHING has been cut yet. It was simply a proposal based on the fact that they have not used the previous funding to fix the problem. Of course Laundry complained about it...it's pork barrel spending...evidenced by the fact that her complaint is about local contractors. The job could be done better and cheaper by outside contractors...but that would stop the waste, and that waste lines the pockets of her friends.
Sorry about interupting your Bush Bash-fest with facts. Carry on.
September 1st, 2005 at 3:14 pmThe problem is this. President Bush's cut of funding had nothing to do with this particular disaster. It seems to me that not the article, but the people commenting on it, are the ones blaming him for the catastrophe. To me, Bush isn't a conservative, but he isn't to blame for a natural disaster. You may bash him, that's fine. You can't fit him in the same catagory as Conservatives, and sadly, it seems many in the Republican party have to follow him. Very few are standing against some of his policies. Conservatives don't cut taxes, and at the same time, set records for Government spending. Conservatives don't disregard the problem we have with our Southern border. Conservatives don't create the amount of governmental bloat that Bush has.
The funniest part about some of these posts is the name calling. In one breath, I see a comment about one side doing nothing but calling the other side names. In the folowing breath, they're doing exactly what they're admonishing the other side for. I find it hilarious.
Put the blame on a man who is really a Democrat disguised as a Republican.
September 1st, 2005 at 4:44 pmIf you post some article post the whole article, not just the part you want read. The place where you put the [snip] I'll continue here:
Congress is setting the Corps budget.
The House of Representatives wants to cut the New Orleans district budget 21 percent to $272.4 million in 2006, down from $343.5 million in 2005. The House figure is about $20 million lower than the president's suggested $290.7 million budget.
It's now up to the Senate. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-New Orleans, is making no promises.
Last time I checked President Bush was NOT a member of congress. He is in the Executive Branch. He gets to submit a suggested budget. The Congress controls the budget. Read all the facts you people.
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:02 amTo Bill Hughes..you are correct, 9/11 could have been avoided. If Clinton had taken Bin Laden when he was offered to him. If the Clinton administration had listened to Able Danger, instead of ignoring their report. That is how 9/11 may have been avoided. That terrorist act was planned long before it was carried out. It was planned on Slick Willie's watch. It was then carried out only 9 months after Bush got sworn in, after a contested election, when he didn't get all his cabinet in until June. You want to blame someone other than Al Queda for 9/11 then blame Clinton.
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:17 amAMEN Jacque! If people here want to operate on hindsight, how about THAT beautiful peice of information? All I've heard so far are a bunch of IF IF IF's. The bottom line is, our country has suffered two of the worst disasters in history, and all people want to do is politicize it. Freakin hunker down and do something about it, instaead of crying! Geeze....you guys make me feel so proud to be American.
September 2nd, 2005 at 10:42 amDo you really need a reason to hate this president?
September 2nd, 2005 at 11:00 amHere is some information from that Bush bashing paper: the Wall Street Journal (**).
"In New Orleans, a case in point is the so-called eastern New Orleans back levee, a barrier designed to stop a tidal surge blowing off a hurricane approaching from the east, as Katrina did. Both local and Army Corps officials have long known the levee was three feet too short and incapable of stopping more than a modest storm surge. Since 2001, Louisiana's congressional delegation, with the Corps' support, pushed for the estimated $5 million project. But the Bush administration never earmarked enough money to start the project."
Corps of Engineers Takes Heat on Levee, Sept 2 2004, Page B2
In 2002 the Army Corps' chief resigned, under threat of being fired, after he criticized the administration's proposed cuts in the corps' budget, including flood-control spending.
This is the typical response of this administration to criticism within their own administration, dump the guy with the bad news. Pres. Bush really hates being confronted with reality and those who do criticize him pay the price.
** This is an example of Irony, for those who are irony impared.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:25 pmJack..in 2005 New Orleans district Army Corp of Engineers had a budget of $343.5 million, what did they do with that money? If it cost $5 million to fix that levee, why didn't they fix it? And the budget was cut because they didn't spend all of the money they had in their budget. "In 2001, the New Orleans district spent $147 million on construction projects. When fiscal year 2005 wraps up Sept. 30, the Corps expects to have spent $82 million, a 44.2 percent reduction from 2001 expenditures."
I think we need to see what the Army Corps of Engineers did with all the money. I worked for a state funded agencies and watched money being wasted. They had too many employees, printed too many documents, and made sure that if there was money in the budget near the end of the fiscal year that it got spent, whether they needed something or not. The Army Corp of Engineers have been spending $300+ million
per year on what? Studies to show what they need to do for one. Come on, a $5 million project can't be funded when they are budgeted $343.5 million? Sounds like irresponsible spending to me. Read the article about the budget cuts here: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4200/is_20050606/ai_n14657367
There are two pages, read them both.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4200/is_20050207/ai_n10176537
Also two pages to this one.
Get the facts. Stop spewing Michael Moore's retoric. Educate yourself.
September 3rd, 2005 at 10:30 amJust one more thing, in case you have missed it. Those budget cuts you all keep talking about, aren't effective until the start of fiscal year 2006. If I'm not mistaken that is in October of 2005.
Also, to Creamy Goddess, Elvis and Mikey, the article that started this thread is here: http://www.findarticles.com/ p/ articles/ mi_qn4200/ is_20050606/ ai_n14657367
Read the whole thing, its two pages long. Creamy Goddess, you are right. Elvis and Mikey, stand corrected. Read my post #82. Then read the Constitution and learn who does what job in the government.
September 3rd, 2005 at 10:50 amHave you ever worked for The Army Corp of Engineers? Do you know how or even whether the money was budgeted/wasted? The Army Corp of Engineers serves a military function and a public one. Many of the duties they perform for the public include:
Navigation
Flood Damage Reduction
Environmental Missions:
Ecosystem Restoration
Environmental Stewardship
Radioactive site cleanup
Wetlands and Waterways Regulation & Permitting
Recreation
Emergency Response
Real Estate
Research and Development
Support to Other Agencies
Hydroelectric Power
Shore protection
Dam safety
Water supply
plus they have to pay employee salaries.
They have to build and maintain these things for the public good. So a budget of $343.5 million suddenly isn't so big in the face of having to spend funds for all of these projects and pay employees. Likely if their funds were cut further by the federal government they did not have the money to fund the levee project or prepare for such a large natural disaster. Just because it looks like they had a large sum of money earmarked for various projects doesn't mean it was actually enough. By the way, Jack........
I think your comment is right on target.
September 3rd, 2005 at 5:02 pmComplaints, complaints, complaints. How about a solution, my leftist friends?
Choice 1) Billions of dollars for "hurricane defense"
Choice 2) Billions of dollars for Welfare for the 30% of people in Louisiana below the poverty line.
You can only have one! That's how those pesky budgets work. Should the government spend our tax money on perpetuating poverty, or building levies for a city that was founded in an area 20 feet below sea level (by the French, no less)?
Either way, they're just going to waste our money. Sink or swim, that's the American way. You say he "slashed" the budget, but if he had signed the check, you'd be up in arms about how he "slashed" the welfare rolls.
Nothing is good enough for you people. You want to be humanitarian, send a money order and leave my taxes out of this. They belong to the boys in uniform who are busy killing Muslims. Or should we divert funds from that and spend it on "terrorist defense walls" here in America? Our Constitution says that our government is responsible for protecting our soil from foreign enemies, not low-pressure systems.
If a hundred thousand poverty-stricken looters die in New Orleans, that's $1.77 more in my paycheck each month. That'll buy me a half a tank of Premium for my two and a half-ton SUV. I need a truck that big so that when I drive directly through anti-war protests, I have the ground clearance necessary not to get my front axle hung up those posterboards and acoustic guitars you hippies always seem to have lying around.
By the way, Jacque, you're a true thinker. Despite the French name :)
September 4th, 2005 at 3:00 amWell Valannin,
I do appreciate the compliment, and wish to inform you that my name is not french. I so agree and wonder how many of those that didn't evacuate did so because they were waiting for the government to come and get them. Its the taxpayers fault for that. We give them welfare for generations and so why should we expect them to do for themselves. Just yesterday on the news they interviewed a lady that said she couldn't afford to evacuate, yet she managed to get to Houston AFTER the hurricane. I wonder, did she find some money or steal some gas to get there? Of all the people I've seen interviewed, I've only seen 1 say that they want to thank everyone for their help. I've heard many complain about having to wait for so long, not getting a hot meal (we had some crackers and water, nothing hot) and having to be in such a crowded situation. If my mayor or governor said you need to evacuate immediately, I would find a way to get gone. Of course, I've worked my whole life and own my own vehicle because I paid it off. I wouldn't wait on someone to come and take care of me.
Victoria, no I have never worked for the Army Corp of Engineers, have you? As for government waste, that is a well known fact proven long ago. With any government agency, if you don't use your entire budget that was budgeted for you in one year, you will get a budget cut the next year. Therefore many government agencies will make sure that all their money gets spent.
As for all the things the Army Corp of Engineers supplies, they also, in addition to their federal budget, get extra money for specific programs. I do believe there is a need to look into how they have spent the money over the years. Since 1965, they have known about this flooding problem. They have conducted many studies about it, but have done nothing about it. I think in 30 years they should have been able to take care of such a dire problem. Maybe some of their "recreation" programs could have waited.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:53 amFunny... None of you BUSH bashers mentioned that CLINTON cut millions through the 90's for the levees... He vetoed a $870 million bill(Bush cut $40 million) because it didn't raise the MISSOURI RIVER TO protect 3 species of birds...
But I guess like all the rest of the BUSH BASHERS.. You guys feel CAT4 or CAT5 hurricanes only started happening once GW took office right? Since he didn't sign Kyoto maybe?
Again like it was said before BILLIONS spent on WELFARE(I wonder what those people are going to do now that their checks won't be coming anytime soon)or BILLIONS spent on LEVEE's to potentially save a city that is 10 feet below SEA LEVEL already...(sorry if they rebuild this city again sometime in the future it will be taken out by a hurricane.)
But it's BUSH's fault, It's GW's fault when it rains too much and it's GW's fault when it's sunny for too long... and it's GW's fault when it snows in the winter and it's his fault when it doesn't snow as much...
I belive it must also be his fault for my homemade beer to smell bad... ('I'm sure one you BUSH-HATERS can confirm that for me.)
September 5th, 2005 at 2:08 amNothing changes the fact that money that should have gone to the Army Corp of Engineers and much needed help (National Guardsmen and women)that should have been in place went instead down the drain into an unnecessary war. But I suppose it's always better to help American interests in foreign countries than it is to attend to the country's domestic issues. After all, it's only poor people down there suffering, right? Poor people who are sucking up billions of dollars on welfare as Random NY so eloquently put it in his/her little strawman argument. Let them die I suppose, huh?
And by the way, it seems to escape the notice of too many people that those who stayed there had no way or means to GET OUT! Many tourists (people who had the money to leave) were also stranded there without a way to leave. When you have no way out you simply have no way out. Those that were able to leave left, those that weren't suffered.
September 5th, 2005 at 3:11 amWhat do you guys think of this link which says Bush's levee funding cuts were a non-issue?
http://jcb.pentex-net.com/archives/2005/09/hurricane_katri_7.html
"The Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for the levees and floodwalls in and around New Orleans. They were designed to protect against a weak category 3 hurricane. There were no plans to upgrade that protection to category 4 or 5. Originally the plan was to have category 5 protection; however, environmentalists sued the district and stopped it. It would have taken 25 years (if it worked) to get the upgrades in to make the levees and walls protect against a category 5. (Source: Riverside magazine by the Army Corps of Engineers).
There was funding cuts to upgrades they were trying to do, but those upgrades would have been irrelevant. 15 foot walls don't contain 22 foot surges which is what they were facing. As a matter of fact, the portions of the wall that failed were the portions that have received the greatest effort with what the Corps did do. Those were recently upgraded walls."
September 6th, 2005 at 6:38 pmVictoria..as I said, maybe the Army Corps of Engineers wasn't spending its money properly. Read this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR2005090702462.html
September 9th, 2005 at 8:29 amThis is what I found out: the Republican Research Committee said it will pay for Katrina by taking money out of federal employees' health benefits and retirement benefits! There's a good one! Brilliant idea, boys!!!! I couldn't have come up with something like that....instead of cutting tax breaks for the wealthy, why don't we steal from the middle class?!?!?!?
September 24th, 2005 at 1:41 pmits all bushes fault!!!!!!!!
September 28th, 2005 at 2:36 pmKathleen Blanco: I Should Have Called the Military
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco's abrupt decision Wednesday night to take responsibility for her state's inadequate response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster followed an inadvertent confession that was caught on camera where Blanco admitted she blew it.
"I really should have called for the military," Blanco said, while chatting with her press secretary in between TV interviews. "I really should have started that in the first call."
Unbeknownst to Blanco, her bombshell acknowledgment was recorded on a network satellite feed, and by Tuesday the clip was getting wide exposure in Louisiana news broadcasts.
In the early days of the Katrina crisis, disaster management experts repeatedly blamed the failure to send in the National Guard for the city's descent into chaos.
Most observers blamed the White House for the blunder - a misconception that was thoroughly dispelled by the governor's inadvertent confession.
Some say Blanco's blooper was responsible for the abrupt change of tone in her speech Wednesday night to the Louisiana legislature.
Where earlier she and her aides had openly blamed the Bush administration for bungling Katrina rescue efforts, Blanco announced: "The buck stops here, and as your governor, I take full responsibility."
Just as surprising were Blanco's words of praise for the White House: "I want the people of Louisiana to know that we have a friend and a partner in President George W. Bush. I thank you, Mr. President."
For all of you who keep blaming Bush and trying to protect Blanco, I'm afraid I have some bad news for you. Blanco got caught on tape by CNN admitting she did not ask for Federal Troops. When she didn't think the cameras were live, she made the startling admission to her press secretary.
AND that's not even the worst of it....
Why didn't she ask for federal troops? As Blanco explained to her press secretary as she wiped away tears, if troops came in, they would "put good people in jail."
She was more worried about the "poor looters" than she was the victims. This is outrageous.
SHE WEEPS AT THE THOUGHT TO THROWING LOOTERS IN JAIL!
Then she tells her press secretary, "I really need to call for the military, I mean, I really should have started that in the first call." BUSTED!
When Miles O'Brien asks her what day it was she asked for Federal troops, she tried desperately to stammer her way thru the answer like a 9th grade foreign language student trying to mumble their way the the oral part of a final exam. When pressed for an answer, Governor Blanco breaks down and has an Admiral Stockdale moment, replying:
"I don't even know what day it is."
Thank goodness The Political Teen got the damning video, which is available in the extended entry of this post.
While she was sheading tears over the poor looters going to jail, they were destroying not only the city itself but its reputation worldwide. Incompetent does not even begin to describe this woman. I truly hope this woman runs for reelection... I'll personally buy the air time to play this video. If you ever doubt the importance of your vote, watch this video.
October 4th, 2005 at 10:30 amHot Air Problem: Too Many Pundits, Too Little Knowledge
Posted by David Horowitz @ Saturday 3 September 2005, 10:29 pm
Here’s a piece by Duane Freese from Tech Central Station that’s worth reading:
The news and opinion spin cycle is moving faster than the winds of a category 4 hurricane. Barely have we had the opportunity to feel denial about the terrible tragedy, feel sympathy for victims and begin lending our support than we’ve leapt to the stage of recrimination: Who’s to blame?
And the rush to judgment is running ahead of appropriate investigation and facts.
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, raised the question "Did the New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?" He quoted Louisiana officials and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the New Orleans area in old Tiimes-Picayune’s stories complaining about cuts by the Bush administration in federal funding for levees and flood protection, particularly ACE’s Alfred Naomi, stating in June 2004:
"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don’t get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can’t stay ahead of the settlement. The problem that we have isn’t that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can’t raise them."
The New York Times, in its lead editorial Thursday titled "Waiting for a Leader," churlishly went after President Bush for his first speech which it called terrible. It went on to pretend it knew what New Orleans’ problem was — a lack of federal funding. Specifically it called for the House to restore $70 million in funds for the levees next year.
The Washington Post, in an editorial that talked about not casting blame now, nonetheless couldn’t resist casting some, saying the "president’s most recent budgets have actually proposed reducing funding for flood prevention in the New Orleans area, and the administration has long ignored Louisiana politicians’ request for more help in protecting their fragile coast."
USA Today did a better job in a pair of edits — one on the disaster response and one on the energy supply — by recognizing that the state and local government had a roll in building Louisiana’s infrastructure. On energy, it even went so far as to say some things some anti-oil groups hate to hear — how obstructionists to development of new refineries, offshore and Alaskan energy supplies share the blame for the nation’s reliance on Gulf Coast supplies.
But it, too, got caught up in the drumbeat about the levees, arguing: "[P]eople living along the Gulf Coast have grown up hearing about what could happen if the ‘big one’ hit the region. Yet the levees weren’t raised or strengthened sufficiently to prevent flooding. Initial plans for evacuating the city and ensuring civil order were haphazard at best."
Indeed, if editorial writers had a comment to make it was to say something about the levees.
And why not? The levees broke, didn’t they? That’s what helped mess up the rescue effort, didn’t it? And there were cuts in federal help, weren’t there?
The answers to all these questions are yes. But, the fact is, they miss an important point, which The New York Times editorialists might have discovered had they read their own news story by Andrew Revkin and Christopher Drew. The reporters quoted Shea Penland, director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of New Orleans, about how surprising it was that the break in the levee was "a section that was just upgraded."
"It did not have an earthen levee," he told them. "It had a vertical concrete wall several feet thick."
Worse for the editorial writers were statements by the chief engineer of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Lt. Gen Carl Strock: "I don’t see that the level of funding was really a contributing factor in this case. Had this project been fully complete, it is my opinion that based on the intensity of this storm that the flooding of the business district and the French Quarter would have still taken place."
The reason: the funding would only have completed an upgrade of the levees to a protect against a level 3 hurricane. Katrina was a level 4 plus.
And the reasons for this goes back decades.
Since the 1930s, when levee building began in earnest, Louisiana has lost a million acres of its coastal wetlands, and faces the loss of another 640,000 additional acres — an area the size of Rhode Island — by 2050.
A new study based on satellite measurement released in May found that the wetlands area was sinking at a half-inch to two-inches a year as of 1995, or up to more than a 1.5 feet a decade.
"If subsidence continues and/or sea level rises and human action fails to take place, the entire coast will be inundated," Roy Dokka of the Louisiana Spatial Reference Center at Louisiana State University and an author of the study noted in July.
And he went on in a Times-Picayune piece that columnist Bunch apparently failed to examine:
"The current plans to save the coast are focused on fixing wetlands, which is incredibly important, but the problem is that subsidence is affecting the entire coast. We need to combine those plans with regional hurricane levees and sand shoals. We have to find some way to protect the people and valuable infrastructure we have on the coast."
This echoes a point that was raised by the White House Office of Management and Budget in a review of the Corps of Engineers levee and flood work back in 2003. It noted that while the Corps managed projects that reduced flood damage to specific areas, annual flood damages to the nation were increasing. As such, it wanted the Corps — though well-managed — to broaden its approach by coordinating with federal flood mitigation efforts — to be "more pro-active in preventing flood risks rather than reacting to them."
The regional Corps head so often quoted by the media himself said in 2003 that a project to protect the city from a category 4 or 5 storm would take 30 years to complete, with the feasibility study alone costing $8 million and taking six years to complete. At the time he opined, "Hopefully we won’t have a major storm before then."
As for the $14 billion plan called Coastal 2050 for wetlands restoration that Louisiana politicians have been pushing for the last two years for the federal government to provide a stream of funds — up to 65% of the cost — some experts say it was only a stop-gap.
"We are not going to stop marsh loss. Subsidence is too dominant," James Coleman, a professor of coastal studies at Louisiana State University, told the Times Picayune a few years ago. Coastal restoration "is a temporary fix in terms of geological time. You will see results of massive coastal restorations in our lifetime, but in the long run they are also going to go."
Indeed, those interested in getting a taste of the complexity of New Orleans situation, a good place to start is to read "The Creeping Storm" by Greg Brouer in the June 2003 Civil Engineering Magazine:
"During the past 40 years, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has spent hundreds of millions of dollars constructing a barrier around the low-lying city of New Orleans to protect it from hurricanes. But is the system high enough? And can any defense ultimately protect a city that is perpetually sinking — in some areas at a rate of half an inch (editor’s note: Or up to 2 inches) per year?"
We know the answer to the first question now — obviously not. The answer to the second question will require more investigation. It would be nice if some editorial writers would perform a little more. Snap judgments in this situation are worse than no judgment at all.
October 4th, 2005 at 10:32 amFEMA is not a first responder
Don't be so quick to pillory the federal response in New Orleans. Immediate emergency management is primarily a local and state responsibility
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
As one who has received training by FEMA in emergency management and also training by the Department of Defense in consequence management, I believe that the federal response in New Orleans needs clarification.
Craig Martelle, retired as a major in the U.S. Marine Corps, lives in North Huntingdon. He recently launched the Strategic Outlook Institute, a public-policy organization.
The key to emergency management starts at the local level and expands to the state level. Emergency planning generally does not include any federal guarantees, as there can only be limited ones from the federal level for any local plan. FEMA provides free training, education, assistance and respond in case of an emergency, but the local and state officials run their own emergency management program.
Prior development of an emergency plan, addressing all foreseeable contingencies, is the absolute requirement of the local government --and then they share that plan with the state emergency managers to ensure that the state authorities can provide necessary assets not available at the local level. Additionally, good planning will include applicable elements of the federal government (those located in the local area). These processes are well established, but are contingent upon the personal drive of both hired and elected officials at the local level.
I've reviewed the New Orleans emergency management plan. Here is an important section in the first paragraph.
"We coordinate all city departments and allied state and federal agencies which respond to citywide disasters and emergencies through the development and constant updating of an integrated multi-hazard plan. All requests for federal disaster assistance and federal funding subsequent to disaster declarations are also made through this office. Our authority is defined by the Louisiana Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act of 1993, Chapter 6 Section 709, Paragraph B, 'Each parish shall maintain a Disaster Agency which, except as otherwise provided under this act, has jurisdiction over and serves the entire parish.' "
Phil Coale, Associated Press
Flooded school buses in a lot, New Orleans, Sept. 1.
Click photo for larger image.
Check the plan -- the "we" in this case is the office of the mayor, Ray Nagin who was very quick and vocal about blaming everyone but his own office. A telling picture, at left, taken by The Associated Press on Sept. 1 and widely circulated on the Internet shows a school bus park, apparently filled to capacity with buses, under about four feet of water. If a mandatory evacuation was ordered, why weren't all the taxpayer-purchased buses used in the effort?
Who could have predicted the anarchy resulting as a consequence? The individuals who devolved into lawless animals embarrass the entirety of America. (I worked in a U.S. Embassy overseas for a couple years and I can imagine what foreign diplomats are thinking.) What societal factors would ever lead people to believe that this behavior was even remotely acceptable?
The folks in New Orleans who are perpetrating the violence and lawlessness are not that way because of low income or of race, but because they personally do not have any honor or commitment to higher ideals. The civil-rights leaders should be ashamed at playing the blame game.
The blame is on the individuals. The blame is on the society that allowed these individuals to develop the ideal that the individual is greater than the national pride he is destroying. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was very clear in her comments that she was offended at those who suggested the suffering in New Orleans was prolonged because of race.
As a retired Marine, I hang my head in shame to see my fellow Americans degenerate so far. I spent so many years in the Corps helping the citizens of other countries rise to a higher level of personal responsibility to ensure that in case of emergency, anarchy did not necessarily follow. When people are held to a higher standard of personal responsibility and they accept that, then they will do the right thing when the time comes.
It seems that the mayor of New Orleans is leading the effort in not taking responsibility for his actions. The emergency managers for the state of Louisiana do not have much to say either. The failure in the first 48 hours to provide direction for survivors is theirs to live with. When FEMA was able to take over, it started out behind and had to develop its plan on the fly. Now the federal government has established priorities -- rescue the stranded, evacuate the city, flow in resources and fix the levee. It appears that now there is a plan and it is being systematically executed.
Hurricane Katrina was a national tragedy -- not just in the number of lives lost or the amount of physical damage, but also in the failure of people to do what is right when no one is looking.
http://www.postgazette.com/pg/05249/566101.stm
October 4th, 2005 at 10:32 amCelsius 41.11 - The Temperature At Which The Brain Begins To Die -
http://www.celsius4111.com/
‘Celsius 41.11’ Challenges ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’
Citizens United
September 16, 2004
CITIZENS UNITED TO PREMIERE ‘CELSIUS 41.11 – THE TEMPERATURE AT WHICH THE BRAIN BEGINS TO DIE’ Documentary Challenges Lies in ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’; Deconstructs John Kerry WASHINGTON - Citizens United announced today it has produced the feature length documentary CELSIUS 41.11 – THE TEMPERATURE AT WHICH THE BRAIN BEGINS TO DIE, to refute the lies and propaganda in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. Celsius 41.11 - The Temperature at Which the Brain Begins to Die, is scheduled to begin running theatrically in a number of markets later this month. Citizens United hired Hollywood heavyweights Lionel Chetwynd, Ted Steinberg and Kevin Knoblock to write, produce and direct the film. Featuring former Senator and star of Law & Order, Fred Thompson, Charles Krauthammer, Fred Barnes, Michael Medved, Michael Barone and Bill Sammon among other Washington veterans, the film counters the lies and deceptions of Fahrenheit 9/11 and provides a full deconstruction of Senator John Kerry, the Democrat presidential nominee. “After seeing the impact of Fahrenheit 9/11, we decided that there must be a response to correct the record,†said David Bossie, president of Citizens United and Executive Producer of Celsius 41.11. “When lies are repeated often enough, they become the truth. That is what we are fighting today, groups like MoveOn.org, The Media Fund, and other left wing organizations spending over one hundred million dollars spreading lies in order to discredit President Bush.†“Michael Moore, MoveOn.org., and their ilk have built up so much heat, through hatred, anger and rage, that they’re not thinking rationally, which led us to the movie’s title, Celsius 41.11: The Temperature at which the Brain Begins to Die,†added Bossie. Celsius 41.11 is not a point-by-point refutation of Fahrenheit, but corrects the record on the important misleading themes in Moore’s movie, including the 2000 Florida presidential vote, weapons of mass destruction, intelligence failures and the war on terror. In addition, the film documents Democrat presidential nominee John Kerry’s 20-year Senate record, from his flip-flopping on important issues to his intent on reducing funding for America’s military and intelligence community, even after the first terrorist attack on American soil. The film also covers the first term of President Bush, his record as a leader in the war on terror, and the stark contrasts between the President and Senator Kerry. “We’re hopeful that open-minded people will watch this movie and come away better prepared to cast their vote in November,†said Bossie. “It is a factual account of issues that voters need to consider about before accepting the lies and propaganda from zealots like Michael Moore.†Celsius 41.11 takes it roots from Bossie’s most recent books, The Many Faces of John Kerry, for which Bossie and a team of researchers and lawyers spent months researching John Kerry, and Intelligence Failure: How Clinton’s National Security Policy Set the Stage for 9/11. Bossie is the former Chief Investigator for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, where he led investigations into Chinese espionage and campaign finance scandals during President Clinton’s term. . He previously served in the United States Senate as an investigator on the Special Committee to investigate the Whitewater land deal. Celsius 41.11 - The Temperature at Which the Brain Begins to Die is an Adams County Production of a Citizens United film, executive produced by David Bossie and Craig Haffner, written and produced by the team of Lionel Chetwynd & Ted Steinberg and directed by Kevin Knoblock. For more information about Citizens United, visit http://www.citizensunited.org
October 4th, 2005 at 10:44 am‘Fahrenhype’ Shreds Moore’s ‘Fahrenheit’
Jon E. Dougherty
Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2004
“There is no terrorist threat.â€
Those are the words of uber-liberal filmmaker and author Michael Moore, whose controversial film “Fahrenheit 9/11,†which essentially blamed President Bush for the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, has sparked a number of counter-films.
One of them, “Fahrenhype 9/11,†by Alan Peterson, features interviews with a number of today’s most influential decision-makers, analysts and pundits.
Narrated by actor Ron Silver — an admitted two-time Bill Clinton supporter who is highly critical of Moore — the film dissects Moore’s work point by point, even featuring a number of people who appeared in the liberal icon’s original film.
‘Fahrenhype’ opens with an interview of the Sarasota, Fla. grade school principal, Tose Rigell, who was hosting President Bush when he was told a pair of airliners had crashed into the World Trade Center, leading his advisors to inform him, “America is under attack.â€
Moore asserted Bush was to slow to react, but Peterson’s film shows that not only did the president react calmly and correctly, but did so in a timely fashion.
Says Rigell in the film, “I thought Bush reacted well.â€
At another point in Peterson’s film, Ed Koch, former Democratic mayor of New York City, is incredulous over Moore’s assertion that terrorists do not threaten the U.S.
“I said, ‘Three thousand people were killed! How can you say that?’†Koch said during his interview.
Dick Morris, a co-writer of the film, was also interviewed extensively.
Morris notes how Moore offered no criticism of Bill Clinton, though the Sept. 11 attacks had been plotted largely during the Clinton presidency.
Morris says although Clinton is a very intelligent person, he was not really aware of the severity of the terrorist threat facing the country, despite eight years’ worth of examples, beginning with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
He also said Clinton’s national security team pooh-poohed an opportunity in the mid-1990s to get al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. He said the country of Sudan offered him up, but the Clinton White House refused to take the offer seriously.
By the time bin Laden became a wanted man, he was “tucked away†in Afghanistan, being protected by the al Qaida-friendly Taliban regime, and was out of reach, Morris said.
Morris also said an aviation security panel chaired by then-Vice President Al Gore actually came up with some very good ideas, but they were never implemented by the White House.
“I hold Clinton very responsible for the failure of aviation security,†Morris says in “Fahrenhype.â€
Michael Moore made numerous charges against Bush, including a conspiracy led by Bush and Dick Cheney that was concocted to help their business supporters build an oil pipeline through Afghanistan, which is why, Moore charges, they wanted to invade that country.
Interviewees of Peterson refuted such charges, however, and showed how Moore was trying to make points based not on fact but on innuendo and insinuation.
“I had the distinct privilege of being interviewed for this film,†says Mike Cawley, of Roy, Utah. “My brother was killed in Iraq March 29, 2003. The level of disgust I feel toward Michael Moore and his type is beyond words…â€
Frank Gaffney, who heads up the Center for Security Policy and was President Reagan’s assistant secretary of defense, appeared in the film to help refute Moore’s assertion there is no terrorist threat to the U.S.
In particular, Gaffney was among the first analysts to note “the international situation bequeathed by Bill Clinton to George Bush was considerably more threatening than was widely perceived at the time.â€
Also featured in ‘Fahrenhype’: David Hardy and Jason Clarke, authors of “Michael Moore is a Big, Fat Stupid White Man; Bill Sammon, best-selling author and senior White House correspondent for the Washington Times who was with President Bush at the Sarasota school on 9/11; U.S. Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention; best-selling author, syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor Ann Coulter; best-selling author of “American Jihad†and noted terrorist investigator Steven Emerson; Dave Kopel, an editor of National Review and someone who has repeatedly documented ways Moore has twisted facts; David Frum, a former speechwriter for President Bush and best-selling author of “The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush;†and U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., member of the homeland security committee who lost hundreds of constituents on 9/11.
October 4th, 2005 at 10:44 amThere is no proof the government was wrong to award Iraq contracts to Halliburton without competitive bidding, or that Cheney helped his former employer.â€
In fact, if you look at most stories about Cheney and Halliburton, the facts — well, no one has actually proven that Cheney’s done something illegal or explicitly wrong — are buried at the bottom, while the shocking and scandalous allegations from Democratic officials are the lead.
After telling you what they want you to walk away with, Reuters notes:
Several documents have emerged indicating Cheney’s office was aware Halliburton would get business in Iraq before it was announced, but no “smoking guns†have been found showing any impropriety or direct meddling by the vice president.
Do you love the scare quotes around “smoking gun� “We haven’t found any “facts†to “prove†that Cheney is the “epitome of all evil,†but questions remain. Wink-wink. Nudge-nudge.
From the Dallas Morning News:
Cheney has released documents showing that most of his deferred salary was paid after he resigned to run in 2000 but before he took office in January 2001. He has also arranged for his stock options to be sold without his input and all proceeds to be donated to charity. Democrats say Cheney nonetheless retains a financial interest in Halliburton’s success.
GovExec.com notes that:
Halliburton’s work in Iraq includes a wide-ranging contract, called a LogCAP, that it won through competitive bidding in 2001 to provide food, fuel, and other logistical services to troops worldwide. That contract — most of which is for services in the Middle East — and the oil infrastructure contract are estimated to be worth a total of $11 billion. Most of that work has gone to KBR, Halliburton’s construction and engineering unit.
Recently the Defense Contract Management Agency issued an approval letter that called KBR’s policies and practices “effective and efficient.â€
A probe was launched to investigate reports that Halliburton had overcharged the government $61 million on its gasoline imports into Iraq. But as Byron York pointed out, Halliburton purchased the gas in Kuwait, where it was more expensive, instead of Turkey, because it was needed quickly in Basra, in southern Iraq, to prevent imminent civil unrest. Not only was it closer, but the supply routes from Kuwait were safer than the ones from Turkey. Once the supply routes were stabilized, gas was purchased from both sources.
And FactCheck.org points out, (futilely, apparently) that Kerry’s latest ad about Halliburton gets the facts wrong:
A Kerry ad implies Cheney has a financial interest in Halliburton and is profiting from the company’s contracts in Iraq. The fact is, Cheney doesn’t gain a penny from Halliburton’s contracts, and almost certainly won’t lose even if Halliburton goes bankrupt.
The ad claims Cheney got $2 million from Halliburton “as vice president,†which is false. Actually, nearly $1.6 million of that was paid before Cheney took office. More importantly, all of it was earned before he was a candidate, when he was the company’s chief executive.
Now — there were cases where Halliburton employees have broken the law. Halliburton employees allegedly took $6 million in kickbacks from a Kuwaiti subcontractor, getting them fired. Pentagon auditors in August reported that the company hasn’t provided enough details to substantiate $1.8 billion of its work in Iraq and Kuwait.
All of these investigations, fines, and prosecutions are cited as evidence by Cheney’s foes that Halliburton is getting away with...away with...well, something bad.
Observation one: Perhaps this is the greatest diversionary tactic in history, where a corporation endures lawsuits, investigations, fines, a shattered public image and plummeting profit margins to hide really secret gains elsewhere.
Observation two: If Halliburton is somehow providing money or favors or something to Cheney in exchange for favors… isn’t the vice president doing an awful lousy job? Just what is he getting all that money from the contractor for?
Wouldn’t Halliburton have been better off if their previous CEO was some no-name corporate type instead of the next vice president of the United States?
Never mind. Logic is no adversary for the magic, powerful epithet of “Halliburton.â€
Expect for John Edwards to use Terry McAuliffe’s one-word response a lot tonight.
October 4th, 2005 at 10:45 amABC’s About Face on the Saddam-Osama Connection
By Michael Reagan
If you believe what John Kerry and his stooges in the media say, there was never any connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and his terrorist al-Qaeda organization.
During the debate between Vice President Cheney and John Edwards the other night, Edwards attacked Cheney for maintaining that there was a real connection between the two, and the media rushed to claim that there is no evidence of any such connection.
Among them was ABC News, which either has a very short memory or is willing to cover up what they know about the connection. And they know plenty – they just won’t talk about it. The fact is, ABC interviewed bin Laden and had disclosed the ties that existed between Baghdad and the master terrorist as far back as 1999 when Bill Clinton was president.
Here’s what ABC News reported on January 14, 1999: Citing an alleged key military adviser and a man believed to be “privy to bin Laden’s most secret projects†who had been apprehended, ABC News said: “The U.S. government alleges he was under secret orders to procure enriched uranium for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons. These are allegations bin Laden does not now deny. ‘It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons,’ bin Laden told ABC. ‘But how we could use these weapons if we possessed them is up to us.’â€
Commented ABC: “With an American price on his head there weren’t many places bin Laden could go unless he teamed up with another international pariah, one also with an interest in weapons of mass destruction. ‘Osama believed in the enemy of my enemy is my friend and is someone I should cooperate with. That’s certainly the current case with Iraq,’ “ an ABC reporter involved with the bin Laden interview said.
And the ABC narrator added, “Saddam Hussein has a long history of harboring terrorists, Carlos the Jackal, Abu Nidal, Abu Abas – the most notorious terrorists of their era all found shelter and support at one time in Baghdad.
“Intelligence sources say bin Laden’s long relationship with the Iraqis began as he helped Sudan’s fundamentalist government in their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Three weeks after (Clinton’s bombing of a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory) on August 31st, bin Laden reaches out to his friends in Iraq and Sudan. Iraq’s Vice President arrives in Khartoum to show his support for the Sudanese after the U.S. attack.
“ABC News has learned that during these meetings senior Sudanese officials acting on behalf of bin Laden asked if Saddam Hussein would grant him asylum. Iraq was indeed interested. ABC News has learned that in December an Iraqi intelligence chief … (who in 1999 was Iraq’s ambassador to Turkey) made a secret trip to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden.†During the meeting, ABC says their sources reported that “bin Laden was told be would be welcome in Baghdad.â€
ABC News was not alone in revealing this trip. In 1999, The Guardian, a British newspaper, reported that Farouk Hijazi, a senior officer in Iraq’s mukhabarat (Iraq’s intelligence service), had journeyed deep into the icy mountains near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1998 to meet with al-Qaeda men. Mr. Hijazi is “thought to have offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq,†The Guardian reported.
ABC News continued: “Intelligence sources say they can only speculate on the purpose of an (Iraqi-bin Laden) alliance. What could bin Laden offer Saddam? Only days after he meets Iraqi officials, bin Laden tells ABC that his network is wide and there are people prepared to commit terror in his name that he does not even control.â€
Here’s what bin Laden told ABC News: “It is our job to incite and to instigate. By the grace of God we did that.â€
Do you hear ABC telling that story today?
Mike Reagan, the eldest son of President Ronald Reagan, is heard on more than 200 talk radio stations nationally as part of the Radio America Network.
October 4th, 2005 at 10:45 amWW II Flashback: ‘Terrorists’ Kill 1,000 Americans in Postwar Germany
The president declared victory over a year ago, but terrorists continue to pick off U.S. troops and even American civilians at the rate of three per day.
The maniacal dictator may be long gone, but his hard-core followers continue to wreak havoc across the land, with the interim government seemingly powerless to stop the mayhem. Back home, the press takes an increasingly pessimistic tone, with some of the most prominent news organs pronouncing the U.S.’s postwar strategy an abject failure.Iraq 2004? Not exactly.Try Germany 1946, in the first year after World War II.To hear the liberals tell the story, once the Allies conquered the Nazis, they stayed conquered - with American forces treated like the liberators they were.But according to Fox News Channel war historian Oliver North, not every conquered German welcomed the American occupation with open arms.On Monday North detailed the little-known truth about the post-World War II U.S. experience to ABC radio host Sean Hannity:"From May 8, 1945 until June 1946, over a thousand Americans and their dependents were killed by German terrorists,†he explained, while discussing his new book, “War Stories II: Heroism in the Pacific."So, how did the U.S. eventually quell the violence?"General Eisenhower went to [interim German leader] Konrad Adenauer, the guy we hand-picked to run the new government,†said North. “And he told him, ‘You either stop this or we’ll get a new guy to run this country.’"Adenauer prompty contacted the Wermacht and told them to take care of the problem at all costs, using former SS troops if necessary."It wasn’t pretty,†said North. “There were no trials - nobody was brought before tribunals or anything like that. The German army just went out and took care of it. And the killing stopped."Added North, “I think that’s probably what’s going to happen in Iraq.â€
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/11/16/201258.shtml
Probe: Iraq U.N. Cash Sent to Bombers’ Kin
By DESMOND BUTLER, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) diverted money from the U.N. oil-for-food program to pay millions of dollars to families of Palestinian suicide bombers who carried out attacks on Israel, say congressional investigators who uncovered evidence of the money trail.
bank accounts in Jordan — where he collected bribes from foreign companies and individuals doing illicit business under the humanitarian program — to reward the families up to $25,000 each, investigators told The Associated Press.
Documents prepared for a Wednesday hearing by the House International Relations Committee outline the new findings about how Saddam funneled money to the Palestinian families.
Investigators examining the oil-for-food program felt it was “important for us to determine whether the profits from his corruption were put toward terrorist purposes,†committee chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., said of Saddam’s well-known financial support of suicide bombers.
Wednesday’s hearing, however, will focus on a French bank that handled most of the money for the program. An audit by a U.S. regulatory agency of a small sample of transactions out of the $60 billion U.N. escrow account managed by BNP-Paribas has raised serious questions concerning the bank’s compliance with U.S. money laundering laws, the investigators said.
“There are indications that the bank may have been noncompliant in administering the oil-for-food program,†Hyde said in his statement to AP. “If, true these possible banking lapses may have facilitated Saddam Hussein’s manipulation and corruption of the program.â€
While acknowledging that U.S. regulators have raised routine issues with BNP on compliance with banking laws, a lawyer for BNP said Hyde’s statement was unfair to the bank.
“No departure from any standard caused or contributed in any way to the abuse at the oil-for-food program,†the bank’s lead council Robert S. Bennett said. “There are simply no connections.â€
The humanitarian program that let Iraq (news - web sites) trade oil for goods was set up in 1996 to help Iraqis get food, medicine and other items that had been scarce under strict U.N. economic sanctions imposed after the Gulf War (news - web sites). But investigators say Saddam made more than $21.3 billion in illegal revenue under the program as well as by evading the sanctions for more than a decade.
Iraq had thousands of secret bank accounts throughout the world, including over 1,500 in Jordan. Money from kickbacks on oil-for-food deals, illegal oil payments from the Jordanian government and other illicit funds were paid into accounts held by a Jordanian branch of the Iraqi government owned Rafidain Bank, investigators said.
According to employees of the Iraqi Central Bank and the Rafidain Bank, the former Iraqi ambassador to Jordan, Sabah Yassen, personally withdrew money from the accounts to make payments ranging from $15,000 to $25,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, Hyde said.
Palestinians had perceived Saddam as one of their staunchest supporters. Palestinians have said before that Saddam gave payments of more than $35 million to families of Palestinians killed or wounded in the conflict with Israel that began in September 2000. During the four-year conflict, Palestinians have carried out 117 suicide bombings, killing 494 Israelis and others.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Hyde’s panel will question two BNP executives. The panel also plans to transfer documents for a possible investigation to the House Committee on Financial Services.
BNP held the sole escrow account through which all of the more than $60 billion of Iraqi oil revenues generated through the program flowed while the program was in place from 1996 to 2003.
BNP also wrote letters of credit for deals for the import of humanitarian goods which were approved by the United Nations (news - web sites) and paid for out of the escrow account.
The investigators said that evidence from documents subpoenaed from BNP in July and received from U.S. regulatory agencies suggests that the French bank — which has New York offices — failed to comply with anti-money laundering laws passed under the U.S. Patriot Act in 2001.
“Evidence seems to indicate that in some cases, payments in the oil-for-food program were made by BNP at times with a lack of full proof of delivery for goods and other necessary documents contracted for in the oil-for-food program,†Hyde said.
Investigators also said that they had evidence that BNP illegally allowed letters of credit, or payments for import deals to be transferred to third parties.
BNP denied the allegations.
October 4th, 2005 at 10:48 amSaddam Hussein has offered asylum to Bin Laden, is reported in an AP news article that is on the CNN website.
February 13, 1999
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9902/13/afghan.binladen/index.html
Saddam Hussein offered asylum
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against the Western powers.
October 4th, 2005 at 10:48 amWhen confronted with a lefty that likes to assume that we are losing the war in Iraq and we should pull out, I like to retort by saying we should pull out of the war on poverty since we have been in this war for almost 30 years, and there are still poor people. They really don’t like it when you throw their ideas back in their faces! LOL
October 4th, 2005 at 10:49 amDrafter of intel statute:
Rove accusers ignorant
Lawyer who wrote law to protect agents says Plame charge doesn’t meet standard
Posted: July 14, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Art Moore
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
Valerie Plame appeared in Vanity Fair magazine with her husband Joseph Wilson in January 2004
Democrat leaders and editorialists accusing Karl Rove of treason for referring to CIA agent Valerie Plame in an off-the-record interview are ignorant of the law, according to the Washington attorney who spearheaded the legislation at the center of the controversy.
Plame’s circumstances don’t meet several of the criteria spelled out in a 1982 law designed not only to protect the identity of intelligence agents but to maintain the media’s ability to hold government accountable, Victoria Toensing told WorldNetDaily.
Toensing – who drafted the legislation in her role as chief counsel for the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence – says the Beltway frenzy surrounding Plame’s alleged “outing†as a covert agent is a story arising out of the capital’s “silly season.â€
“The hurricane season started early and so did the August silly stories,†Toensing said. “What is it that qualifies as a story here?â€
Democrat leaders are accusing Rove of exposing Plame’s identity as an act of retribution against her husband Joe Wilson, who returned from a CIA assignment to Niger with a report disputing the administration’s suspicion that Iraq wanted to acquire uranium from the African nation.
Toensing, now a private attorney in Washington, says Plame most likely was not a covert agent when Rove referred to her in a 2003 interview with Time magazine’s Matt Cooper.
The federal code says the agent must have operated outside the United States within the previous five years. But Plame gave up her role as a covert agent nine years before the Rove interview, according to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.
Kristof said the CIA brought Plame back to Washington in 1994 because the agency suspected her undercover security had been compromised by turncoat spy Aldrich Ames.
Moreover, asserts Toensing, for the law to be violated, Rove would have had to intentionally reveal Plame’s identity with the knowledge that he was disclosing a covert agent.
Toensing believes Rove’s waiver allowing reporters called before the independent counsel to reveal him as a source shows the Bush strategist did not believe he was violating the law.
Rove, according to Cooper’s notes, apparently was trying to warn the reporter not to give credence to Wilson’s investigation, because, he had no expertise in nuclear weapons and was sent to Africa at the suggestion of his wife. Wilson had claimed he was sent by Vice President Cheney.
Another element necessary for applying the law is that the government had to be taking affirmative measures to conceal the agent’s identity.
Toensing says that on the contrary, the CIA gave Plame a desk job in which she publicly went to and from work, allowed her spouse to do a mission in Africa without signing a confidentiality agreement and didn’t object to his writing an op-ed piece in the New York Times about his trip.
Columnist Robert Novak, who first published Plame’s name, also apparently didn’t think it was a big deal, Toensing said, or he would have put it in the first paragraph.
Novak’s aim was to expose the incompetence of the CIA, she argued.
“These are the kinds of stories we wanted to still be put out there when we passed the law,†she said. “We only wanted to stop the methodical exposing of CIA personnel for the purpose of assassination.â€
Art Moore is a news editor with WorldNetDaily.com.
October 4th, 2005 at 10:49 amIt’s Not About Oil
The Financial Times recently debunked the “It’s all about oil†myth
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1042491848625&p=1012571727126
One of those great ideological divides that seem to withstand all reasoned argument is the view that America’s determination to oust Saddam Hussein is born of the desire to gain control of Iraqi oil. This view is prevalent in much of Europe and is shared in other parts of the world, especially in the Middle East. Even the wise Nelson Mandela believes it. The view is not, however, dominant, or even much discussed, in the US. Despite the chasm, the implausibility of this view warrants at least one more effort to dispel the myth.
And so they make the effort.
But they do not address another issue: what accounts for the tenacity with which this view is held – and will continue to be held – despite its “implausibility†and despite the efforts of the FT and all others who examine the question rationally?
October 4th, 2005 at 10:52 amHow the Left Betrayed My Country - Iraq
By Naseer Flayih Hasan
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 3, 2005
Before the last war, we Iraqis spent decades cut off from the outside world. Not only did the Baathist regime prevent us from traveling during the Iran-Iraq conflict and the period of the sanctions, but they punished anyone possessing satellite television. And of course, internet access was strictly limited. Because of our isolation, most of us had little idea or sense about life beyond our borders.
We did believe, however, that democracy and human rights were important factors in Western civilization. So it came as a shock to us when millions of people began demonstrating across the world against America’s build-up to the invasion of our country. We supposed the protests were by people who had no idea about the terrible atrocities that the regime had inflicted upon us for decades. We assumed that once they learned what had happened in Iraq, they would change their minds, or modify their opposition to the war.
My first clue that this would not happen was a few weeks after Baghdad fell. I had befriended a French reporter who had begun to realize that the situation in Iraq was not how the international media or the so-called “peace camp†described it. I noticed, however, that whenever he tried to voice his doubts to colleagues, they argued that he was wrong. Soon afterwards, I met a Dutch woman on Mutinabi Street, where booksellers lay out their wares on Friday morning. I asked her how long she’d been in Iraq and, through a translator, she answered, “Three months.â€
“So you were here during the war?â€
“Yes!†she said. “To see the crimes of the Americans!â€
I was stunned. After a moment, I replied, “What about the crimes of the regime? It killed millions of Iraqis. Do you know that if the regime was still in power, the conversation we’re having now would result in our torture or death?â€
Her face turned red and she angrily responded, “Soon will come the day that the Americans will do worse.†She then went on to accuse me of not knowing what the true facts were in Iraq—and that she could see the situation better than me!
She was not the only “humanitarian†who expressed such outrageous opinions. One afternoon, I was speaking to some members of the American anti-war group “Voices in the Wilderness.†One of the group’s members declared that the Iraqi Governing Council (then in power at the time) were “traitors.†I was shocked. Most of the Council were people whom we Iraqis knew had suffered and sacrificed in a long struggle against the regime. Some represented opposition parties who had lost ten of thousand of members in that struggle. Others came from families who had lost up to 30 loved ones to the Baathists.
After those, and many other, experiences, we finally comprehended how little we had in common with these “peace activists†who constantly decried American crimes, and hated to listen to us talk about the terrible long nightmare that ended with the collapse of the regime. We came to understand how these “humanitarians†experienced a sort of pleasure when terrorists or former remnants of the regime created destruction in Iraq—just so they could feel that they were right, and the Americans wrong!
Worse, we realized it was hopeless to make them grasp our feelings. We believed—and still believe--that America’s removal of the regime opened a new way for democracy. At the same time, we have no illusions that the U.S. came to Iraq on a white horse to save our people. We understand this war is all about national interests, and that America’s interests are mainly about defeating terrorism. At this moment, though, U.S. interests are doing more to bring about democracy and freedom in Iraq than, say, the policies of France and Russia—countries which also care little for the Iraqi people and, worse, did their best to save Saddam from destruction until the last moment.
It’s worth noting, as well, that the general attitude of peace activists I met was tension and anger. They were impossible to reason with. This was because, on one hand, the sometimes considerable risks they took to oppose the war made them unable to accept the fact that their cause was not as noble as they believed. Then, too, their dogmatic anti-American attitudes naturally drew them to guides, translators, drivers and Iraqi acquaintances who were themselves supporters of the regime. These Iraqis, in turn, affected the peace activists until they came to share almost the same judgments and opinions as the terrorists and defenders of Saddam.
This was very disappointing for someone like me, who thought for decades that the Left was generally the progressive power in the world. You can imagine how aghast I was when my French reporter friend told me that the Communist Party in his country actually considers the “insurgents†to be the equivalent of the French Gaullists! Or how troubling it is to hear Jacques Chirac take satisfaction from the violence wreaked by the terrorists—those bloody monsters that we Iraqis know so well—because they justify France’s original opposition to the war.
And so I have become disillusioned, at least with the Leftists I met in Iraq. So noble in their rhetoric, they looked to the stars, yet ignored what was happening around them, caring only about what was inside their minds. So glorious in their ideals, their thoughts were inflexible and their deeds unnecessary, even harmful. In the end, they proved to me how dogma and fanaticism had transform peace activists into—lifeless peace “statues.â€
October 4th, 2005 at 10:53 amBush Bashing Fizzles
This summer, one big story is replaced by another--the London bombings July 7, the speculation that Karl Rove illegally named a covert CIA agent, the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, more London bombings last week. But beneath the hubbub, we can see the playing out of another, less reported story: the collapse of the attempts by liberal Democrats and their sympathizers in the mainstream media--the New York Times, etc., etc.--to delegitimize yet another Republican administration.
This project has been ongoing for more than 30 years. Richard Nixon, by obstructing investigation of the Watergate burglary, unwittingly colluded in the successful attempt to besmirch his administration. Less than two years after carrying 49 states, he was compelled to resign. The attempt to delegitimize the Reagan administration seemed at the time reasonably successful. Reagan was widely dismissed as a lightweight ideologue, and the rejection of his nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987 contributed to the impression that his years in office were, to take the title of a book by a first-rate journalist, “the Reagan detour.†As time went on, as the Berlin Wall fell and Bill Clinton proclaimed that the era of big government was over, it became clear that Reagan was a successful transformational president--something the mainstream media grudgingly admitted when he died in 2004 after a decade out of public view.
You think they’d learn. But for the past five years, the same folks have been trying to undermine the presidency of George W. Bush. The Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore was denounced as an outrage, and Democrats noted, accurately, that Bush did not win a plurality of the popular vote in 2000. The nation rallied to his support after September 11, but Democrats held up his judicial and other nominations even if they had to violate Senate tradition to do so. Coverage of Bush during the 2004 campaign was heavily negative; for months the mainstream media mostly ignored the swift boat vets’ charges against John Kerry and broadcast accusations against Bush based on forged documents eight weeks before the election. News of economic recovery in 2003 and 2004 was pitched far more negatively than it had been when Bill Clinton was president in 1995 and 1996.
Now the unsupported charges that “Bush lied†about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have been rekindled via criticism of Karl Rove. A key witness for the Democrats and mainstream media was former diplomat Joseph Wilson. Unfortunately for his advocates, he turned out to be a liar. A year after his famous article appeared in the New York Times in July 2003 accusing Bush of “twisting†intelligence, the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a bipartisan report, concluded that Wilson lied when he said his wife had nothing to do with his dispatch to Niger and Chairman Pat Roberts said that his report bolstered rather than refuted the case that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq sought to buy uranium in Africa. So despite the continuing credulousness of much of the press, it appears inconceivable at this point that Karl Rove will be charged with violating the law prohibiting disclosure of the names of undercover agents. The case against Rove--ballyhooed by recent Time and Newsweek cover stories that paid little heed to the discrediting of Wilson--seems likely to end not with a bang but a whimper.
Court intrigue. So, too, with the political left’s determination to defeat Bush’s first nominee to the Supreme Court. Democrats, with much help from the press, argued successfully in 1987 that Robert Bork was out of the mainstream and in 1991 brought up spectacular charges that cast a pall on Justice Clarence Thomas. They seem almost certain not to have such success against the obviously highly qualified John Roberts. They may try to argue that Roberts is “out of the mainstream.†But the vote on Roberts’s nomination to the appeals court was 14 to 3 in the judiciary committee. Who is in the mainstream now?
The bombings and attempted bombings in London have brought home to the American public that we face implacable enemies unwilling to be appeased by even the most emollient diplomacy. Yet, mainstream media coverage of Iraq has been mostly negative. But mainstream media no longer have a monopoly; Americans have other sources in talk radio, Fox News, and the blogosphere. Bush’s presidency is still regarded as illegitimate by perhaps 20 percent of the electorate. But among the rest, the attempt to delegitimize him seems to be collapsing.
By Michael Barone
October 4th, 2005 at 10:54 amMoore claims that the Saddam regime “never threatened to attack the United States.†In fact, in 1997 the regime publicly ordered: “American and British interests, embassies, and naval ships in the Arab region should be the targets of military operations and commando attacks by Arab political forces.†On the first anniversary of September 11, Saddam’s regime called for suicide attacks on Americans.
October 4th, 2005 at 10:54 amThe left and hysteria
Dennis Prager (archive)
September 27, 2005
If you want to understand the Left, the best place to start is with an understanding of hysteria. Leading leftists either use hysteria as a political tactic or are actually hysterics.
Take almost any subject the Left discusses and you will find hysteria.
The Patriot Act: According to leftist spokesmen and groups, the Patriot Act is a grave threat to liberty and democracy. It is frequently likened to the tactics of a fascist state. This is pure hysteria. The Los Angeles Times recently published statistics concerning the use of the Act. Through 2004, of the 7,136 complaints to the Justice Department’s inspector general, one was related to the Patriot Act. The number of “sneak and peek†warrants, allowing searches without telling a subject, totaled 155. The number of roving wiretaps was 49, and the number of personal records seizures under Section 215 of the Act was 35.
The war in Iraq: It is not enough for leftist opponents of the war to argue that the war is a mistake, was initiated due to faulty intelligence, or is being poorly prosecuted. Rather they charge that President Bush lied, that the war was waged for Halliburton, and that America is engaged in a criminal and imperialist enterprise. Each charge is a form of hysteria.
Risks to health: Not everyone who believes the hysterical claims of danger made about secondhand smoke, baby formula, dodgeball or Bextra is on the Left. But the Left leads the country in hysteria over dangers to health. That is why leftist organizations are generally incapable of merely saying that something is unhealthy. The danger must be described as the killer of hundreds of thousands and often be ascribed to some murderous corporate conspiracy.
Environment: More people may be attacked by aardvarks in any given year than visit the remote and frozen region of Alaska known as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). It is the home, however, of vast oil reserves and many caribou. Good people can differ on whether or not to drill for oil there. But the rhetoric of the Left is hysterical. Listening to leftist organizations one would think that drilling would bring no benefit to America and would render the caribou virtually extinct. None of this is true. It is all drama.
Likewise there is largely hysteria over global warming and the charge that man—especially Homo Americanus—is the cause of it. The great number of scientists who claim that we are in a normal warming period or in no major weather change at all are ignored. Only the most hysterical scenarios are offered by the Left. Witness the reasons given for Hurricane Katrina. Yet even The New York Times reported that scientists are virtually unanimous in denying that the hurricane has anything to do with global warming.
Animal rights: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the living embodiment of hysteria. Take their program “Holocaust on your plate,†which equates barbecuing chickens with the cremating of the Jews in the Holocaust. It is one thing to be concerned about chickens’ welfare, but only hysterics compare eating them with the slaughter of a people.
Racism: There is no worse charge than racism. Acting hatefully toward people because of their skin color is among the most vile acts a person can engage in. Yet the Left throws that charge around as if it were the essence of the American people (which, come to think of it, is what many on the Left believe). Most of the time, however, the charge of racism—such as when it is directed at opponents of race-based affirmative action—is just another example of hysteria.
Christianity: Most on the Left really believe that this country is on the verge of a theocracy because George W. Bush is an evangelical Christian, because the words “under God†are still in the Pledge of Allegiance, and because most Americans don’t think marriage ought to be redefined.
Other examples abound. America neglects its poor, beats up its gays, oppresses its women, fouls its environment, ignores its children’s educations, denies blacks their votes, and invades other countries for corporate profits: These are common accusations of the Left.
No event is free of leftist hysteria. On the third day after Katrina, civil rights activist Randall Robinson reported that blacks in New Orleans were resorting to cannibalism. Indeed, most of the news media coverage bordered on the hysterical. Not to mention the hysterical predictions of 10,000-plus dead in New Orleans.
None of this is to deny that the Right also gets hysterical. Some right-wing reactions to immigration and Terry Schiavo provide such examples.
But the irony in all of this is that the Left sees itself as the side that thinks intellectually and non-emotionally. And that is hysterical.
Posted by The left and hysteria
Tuesday, September 27 at 10:43 AM
Democrats Convicted in Vote Fraud
Democrats love to soothe their 2004 election despair by presuading themselves that, despite garnering over 3,000,000 fewer votes than George W. Bush, John Kerry actually won the election. Naturally, they were forced to turn to conspiracy theories about fraud.
A federal jury has determined that there was indeed fraud in the last election, and that it was committed by Democrats.
The chairman of the city’s Democratic Party and four others were convicted Wednesday of scheming to buy votes with cash, cigarettes and liquor last November.
Charles Powell Jr., 61, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit vote fraud, along with the city’s former director of regulatory affairs and three Democratic precinct committee members.
Prosecutors relied largely on secretly recorded audiotapes in which they say the accused could be heard talking about paying $5 per vote to get key Democrats elected.
State records showed that tens of thousands of dollars were transferred from the St. Clair County Democratic party to committee members in East St. Louis days before the Nov. 2 election. Party leaders said it was for legitimate expenses, including rides to the polls for people without cars.
Democrats are making all the noise about vote fraud, but between Illinois and Washington it seems that Democrats are the ones committing it.
October 4th, 2005 at 10:56 am9/11 Commission Covered Up Gorelick Warning
A 1995 memo from a top terrorism prosecutor warning that a directive by Clinton administration Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick “could cost lives†is being concealed by the 9/11 Commission.
Compounding the cover-up, Gorelick herself was a prominent member of the Commission and refused to recuse herself from parts of the 9/11 investigation that covered the now notorious “wall†she erected that prevented intelligence and law enforcement agencies from cooperating in the war on terror.
In June 1995, U.S. Attorney for New York’s Southern District Mary Jo White warned the Justice Department that Gorelick’s prohibition against intelligence sharing would hamper U.S. counterterrorism efforts.
“It is hard to be totally comfortable with instructions to the FBI prohibiting contact with the United States Attorney’s Offices when such prohibitions are not legally required,†White wrote on June 13, 1995, in a memo reported Friday by the New York Post’s Deborah Orin.
“The most effective way to combat terrorism is with as few labels and walls as possible so that wherever permissible, the right and left hands are communicating,†advised White, who was then in the midst of prosecuting the 1993 World Trade Center bombers.
According to Orin, however, “White was so upset that she bitterly protested with another memo - a scathing one†- blasting Gorelick’s wall of separation.
While the former Clinton official and her fellow 9/11 commissioners have so far declined to make the second memo public, the Post reports that White used it to warn that Gorelick’s wall “hindered law enforcement and could cost lives.â€
The 9/11 Commission omitted any mention of White’s scathing second warning to Gorelick from its final report.
“Nor does the report include the transcript of its staff interview with White,†the Post said.
The revelation that the 9/11 Commission covered up White’s full account comes on the heels of news that Gorelick’s wall may have prevented the FBI from learning that lead 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi had entered the U.S. and had been identified by military intelligence as terrorist threats a year before the attacks.
On Wednesday, Rep. Curt Weldon, who uncovered the Atta-al-Shehhi revelation, complained: “There was no reason not to share this information with the FBI, except that the firewalls that existed back then were so severe that they wouldn’t let these agencies talk to one another.â€
October 4th, 2005 at 10:58 amLast Economic Recession Began Under Clinton, Despite Rewrites By The Left
by Don Luskin (May 17, 2004)
Summary: The great thing about economics, though, is that reality speaks louder than the words from the left. Sixty-two percent of the American public knows that the recession began under Clinton -- they were there and they experienced it. Now, with GDP growth running stronger than in any twelve-month period under Clinton, the American public knows that an expansion is well underway.
[www.CapMag.com] Media Matters for America is a new website (mediamatters.org) "dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation." It's been developed with the zillions of tax-deductible dollars that George Soros and others contributed to the leftist Center for American Progress. It's run by a confessed liar, former conservative author David Brock, who has admitted that he knowingly lied in his book about Anita Hill, and has apologized for his reporting on Bill Clinton's sexual misadventures.
So far the work from Media Matters isn't very impressive. But what should we expect when the Left is put in charge of a quest for truth?
The first major article posted on the Media Matters website is an attempted exposé of the often-heard conservative claim that the last economic recession began during the Clinton administration — or, in other words, that it was already underway when George W. Bush took office in 2001. The article painstakingly traces the history of this claim through numerous statements by Bush administration officials and conservative commentators, presenting all this as a "successful three-and-a-half year media campaign" that has led to polling results showing "62% of Americans think the recession began under Clinton."
The claim that the last recession started under Clinton is absolutely true. To deny this is not only to blame Bush for a problem he didn't cause, but to deprive him of the credit for fixing it with effective policies — which is exactly why the Left is so eager in this case. Here, however, are the facts:
The unemployment rate bottomed at 3.8 percent in April 2000, and started deteriorating steadily from there (during the Clinton administration).
The fed funds rate — the overnight interest rate administered by Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve — peaked at 6.5 percent in 2000, and had to be lowered in an emergency move on January 3, 2001, "in light of further weakening of sales and production" (during the Clinton administration).
As the chart below shows, GDP growth fell off a cliff in the third quarter of 2000 (during the Clinton administration). Despite the shock of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, growth started to revive in the fourth quarter of 2001 (during the Bush administration).
The one and only piece of evidence offered by Media Matters that's to the contrary is that fact that the National Bureau of Economic Research set the beginning of the last recession at March 2001 -- two months into the Bush administration. Check that date on the chart above: This well-respected economic research group set the beginning of the recession after GDP growth had already crashed from almost 5 percent to near zero. But according to Media Matters, this single authority determines truth, and everyone else is a liar. The article declares that "if NBER says the recession began in March 2001, the recession began in March 2001."
The reality is that the National Bureau of Economic Research is just like any other group of economists, struggling with partial and imperfect information to characterize phenomena that don't have any hard-and-fast definitions. Since NBER set the March 2001 recession start date in November 2001, there have been important negative revisions to key data. Most important, back then GDP growth for the third quarter of 2000 was reported at 1.3 percent — but now it's been revised all the way down to a negative 0.5 percent. NBER had no way of knowing that then.
In fact, NBER has been on the verge of changing the recession's start date for this very reason. According to the Washington Post earlier this year,
NBER President Martin Feldstein said, "It is clear that the revised data have made our original March date for the start of the recession much too late," but he did not offer a different date. "We are still waiting for additional monthly data before making a final judgment," said Feldstein, a Harvard University economist. "Until we have the additional data, we cannot make a decision."
Media Matters chooses not to mention this fact.
Liberals have never felt constrained by NBER's "official" dates. For example, last year in a New York Times Magazine article, ultra-leftist economist Paul Krugman cited dates for the economic expansion during the Reagan administration that not only didn't correspond to NBER's dates, but didn't even correspond to Ronald Reagan's years in the White House! The only virtue of Krugman's unofficial dates is that they made Reagan's economic performance look worse (natch).
Of course, liberals are not at all happy with NBER's judgment that the recession that began in March 2001 ended only eight months later, in November 2001. Krugman called it "a controversial decision," and has since stated that the economy is, in fact, "still depressed."
John Kerry can't even bring himself to admit that the recession has ended, even though Media Matters might lecture him that "if NBER says the recession ended in November 2001, the recession ended in November 2001." Instead, Kerry refers in speeches to November 2001 as the date when "the recession supposedly ended."
The great thing about economics, though, is that reality speaks louder than the words from the left. Sixty-two percent of the American public knows that the recession began under Clinton -- they were there and they experienced it. Now, with GDP growth running stronger than in any twelve-month period under Clinton, the American public knows that an expansion is well underway.
Against that, nothing that Media Matters for America says matters.
About the Author: Don Luskin is Chief Investment Officer for Trend Macrolytics, an economics research and consulting service providing exclusive market-focused, real-time analysis to the institutional investment community. You can visit the weblog of his forthcoming book ‘The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid’ at http://www.poorandstupid.com. He is also a contributing writer to SmartMoney.com.
October 4th, 2005 at 10:59 am"Weapons of Mass Destruction" (WMD) Hypocrisy
The following quotes highlight the recent WMD hypocrisy propagated by the "Leftist Media" and/or the Democrats who now say President Bush lied, that there never were any weapons of mass destruction, and that he took us to war for his oil buddies:
(And don't miss the May 2004, and Aug. 2005 articles!)
"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998
"Look, we have exhausted virtually all our diplomatic effort to get the Iraqis to comply with their own agreements and with international law. Given that, what other option is there but to force them to do so?" Tom Daschle, Feb. 11, 1998
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face." Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998
"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998
"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov.10, 1999
"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of an elicit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, Dec, 5, 2001
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them." Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002
"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-if necessary-to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002
"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002
"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do" Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members .. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002
"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002
"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..." Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003
Bush Haters Slander My Dead Comrades
Every time a Bush hater attacks his military service record, they are slandering my dead comrades, people who died in military aviation serving their country. They are slandering me, my brother and my friends, and slandering the men and women currently in the National Guard and Reserves. There is always the implication that somehow Bush’s service was "the easy way out". WRONG! The easy way out was to avoid service, as most of my current friends did, rather than piloting a flying coffin, the F-102! And most people of my generation did avoid service, which was also not dishonorable. Bush could have totally avoided military service also had he desired.
They say that Bush "took the easy way out" by "using his connections" to fly in the Texas Air National Guard. My childhood best friend, John Robert Kelley also took this "easy way out." They had his memorial service in Albuquerque in July 1972 after he died in a training accident, flying a fighter jet in the New Mexico Air National Guard (the "Tacos"). Yep, that was the easy way out! John loved life. He was a fun guy, always with a prank or two, athletic and very intelligent. The last time I saw him, he was scheming how to get me a ride in his jet. Oh, and John didn't use any connections to get into the ANG, because it wasn't necessary. Every time I hear Bush slandered, I sadly remember this loss, and wonder at the lack of respect for the military so common on the left.
I took a similar route. I joined the Naval Air Reserve in 1966 (2 year active duty commitment, just like a draftee, and 3 year active reserve requirement) I was going to join the army, but the allure of airplanes changed my mind (to the relief of my parents). I didn't need any connections either. My friend Joe and I just drove to the Naval Air Station, walked in to the recruiting office, and enlisted!
When you join the military, you roll the dice. What you end up doing, whether you end up in danger, whether you end up in discomfort, or whether you end up in some paradise is largely a matter of luck. Of course, during the Vietnam years, the odds were decent that you would end up over there. The only thing joining the Naval Air Reserve guaranteed was that you would be involved with Naval Aviation, and that in normal times, you would have two years of active duty, but you could be instantly called up over a period of six years. National Guard folks had no more guarantee that we did.
Joe ended up in the Tonkin Gulf, fueling aircraft on the dangerous and hot deck of an aircraft carrier. He got double hazardous duty pay. He is a Vietnam Veteran. I ended up flying in a P-3 Orion. The P-3 is a combat aircraft, with lots of sensors and lots of weapons. Its primary mission is submarine hunting and surface surveillance, although it was used in the Afghan war (35 years after my time) as combat air support for the SEALs. It was used in Vietnam (Operation Market Time) for surface interdiction.
With a little luck, and my already existing electronics skills, I was able to land a job as an aircrew member – radio operator and on-board technician. I only got regular hazardous duty pay, so I guess I too took the easy way out. I am a Vietnam Veteran. By the way, flying jobs were all voluntary in those days (except perhaps in the Army).
But the message the Democrats are sending is that Joe and I and John took "the easy way out."
Tell that to the families of my squadron mates who were killed in training crashes.
Tell that to the survivors of the person to first take me up in a P-3, a fine petty officer with a wife and several kids.
Tell that to the Air National Guard members and Naval Air Reservists who were sent to fight in Vietnam.
Tell that to the Guard and Reserve members during the cold war who were on 24 hour call to defend their country anywhere in the world.
Tell that to the National Guard and Reserve folks in Iraq.
Tell that to me (Naval Air Reserve) or my brother (National Guard).
Tell that to John Kelley’s family!
Of course, we also hear the Bush “went AWOL†or, to hear Michael Moore put it, was a “deserter.†These are slanderous lies, as anyone who has been in the military and knows the rules understands. If Bush had gone AWOL, he would have been prosecuted. He clearly wasn’t a deserter. Check here for all the evidence you need! Bush served honorably, flew more hours than was required, and was a good pilot according to his commander.
They say Bush didn’t serve his entire “required time†and that makes him somehow AWOL or a deserter. I didn’t serve my full 3 years of Reserve duty either, because I wasn’t required to and there weren’t any P-3’s around where I lived (I now regret this, btw). I simply asked to be let off early because I had 2 jobs and was going to college, they had me fill out a form, and that was it.
Part of the slander against Bush is that not all records exist for a period of his service. Once again, my experience parallels his. I ordered my military records recently, and there is NO evidence that I ever served in my second reserve squadron. When I joined the squadron, they couldn’t find my records, and I never, ever got paid for service in that unit. I guess I'm AWOL too!
Finally, many who criticize Bush hold up John Kerry as a contrast. See here for information about Kerry's immediate post-war activities.
Here a National Guard pilot, Larry Murphy, PA National Guard is taking the "easy way out" in Afghanistan. That's a Vietnam era aircraft he is flying! Do you suppose the Bush Haters have the courage to do this?
October 4th, 2005 at 11:05 amA Gathering Storm for the Media
Misreporting on hurricane further eroding public's trust of media
By Jon Ham
September 06, 2005
RALEIGH — There is a fetid stink in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and it’s not coming just from the fouled waters flooding New Orleans. It also wafts from the putrid reporting of the disaster by the mainstream media.
From the moment Katrina made landfall the media focused on anything that could redound to the detriment of President Bush or inflame race and class tensions. Reporters and commentators ignored the dismal performance of New Orleans’ Democratic mayor and Louisiana’s Democratic governor, blaming every problem that arose on the Bush administration.
Racial demagogues accused Bush and his administration of reacting slowly because most of the victims were black. Environmental activists said Bush’s refusal to sign the Kyoto Treaty caused Katrina’s severity. Democratic operatives said the administration’s decision to cut funding for a long-term study of flood control caused the levees to breach.
All of this is stuff and nonsense. The tragedy is that the media know it too, but they still printed it.
The media know that the first response to natural disasters is always from the local and state governments. They’ve covered enough hurricanes to understand that. They know, or should know, that the response from the federal government, especially the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is always in the second phase of recovery, not the first. They know, or should know, that a state’s National Guard is commanded by the governor, not the president. They know, or should know, that active-duty U.S. military personnel cannot act as law enforcement. But none of this was reported.
As for a president’s role, it has traditionally been in declaring disaster areas so that the victims can get grants and low-interest loans to rebuild, and ordering FEMA into the area. His role also traditionally includes a visit to the stricken area. That’s pretty much it, unless you’re George W. Bush; then that’s not enough. Not reported was that it was Bush himself who, before the storm hit, pleaded with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco to order a mandatory evacuation.
The misreporting of the tragedy, and the false impression it has left with some, is even being used now for other political advantage. On Monday, NBC’s Matt Lauer interviewed “Meet the Press†anchor Tim Russert about Bush’s Supreme Court appointments. Russert said “there was a perception created of incompetence, some even said callousness and he needs to replace it with compassion†by appointing a moderate, a liberal or even a minority to the high court.
At least Russert was correct on one point. There was a “perception created.†The incessant drone of the media story line that Bush was to blame is what created that impression, and one that is entirely false. As with the run-up to the military operation in Afghanistan and Iraq, the media display a convenient amnesia about what they wrote in the past.
The story line today is that things were self-evidently so catastrophic as Katrina made landfall that everyone knew that drastic measures were called for. But was that the case? Here’s what The News & Observer of Raleigh’s public editor, Ted Vaden, wrote on Sunday:
“The N&O, like many other papers, was slow to wake up to the dimensions of the crisis but gradually ramped up the coverage in terms of space and reporters committed to the story,†he wrote. “The media were fooled the first day of the hurricane, when Katrina didn’t make a direct hit on New Orleans as expected. ‘I think that everybody got a head fake from this thing,’ said Dan Barkin, deputy managing editor. ‘I think we were kind of lulled.’â€
Vaden pointed out that “the follow-up coverage on Wednesday likewise was restrained.†This candid assessment pretty much reflects the way most of the media covered the storm at the beginning. It was only after the incompetence of the mayor of New Orleans and the state’s governor in not forcing a pre-storm evacuation that the extent of the human tragedy unfolded. But instead of reporting this truth, it became a Bush bash fest.
And it continues. An Associated Press report from this morning was headlined: “Bush finally spending time on hurricane relief.†Finally. That’s the template word now. I saw that one coming Friday afternoon when I heard it used at least 10 times on National Public Radio to describe Bush’s actions regarding the hurricane.
Polls show that, unlike the media, the public does not blame Bush for the hurricane, the rioting, the looting, the stranded pets, the drowning deaths or the levee breaks. That means that the public doesn’t believe what the media are reporting. That’s the real gathering storm.
Jon Ham is vice president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of its newspaper, Carolina Journal.
http://carolinajournal.com/mediamangle/display_story.html?id=2753
Hot Air Problem: Too Many Pundits, Too Little Knowledge
Posted by David Horowitz @ Saturday 3 September 2005, 10:29 pm
Here’s a piece by Duane Freese from Tech Central Station that’s worth reading:
The news and opinion spin cycle is moving faster than the winds of a category 4 hurricane. Barely have we had the opportunity to feel denial about the terrible tragedy, feel sympathy for victims and begin lending our support than we’ve leapt to the stage of recrimination: Who’s to blame?
And the rush to judgment is running ahead of appropriate investigation and facts.
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, raised the question "Did the New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?" He quoted Louisiana officials and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the New Orleans area in old Tiimes-Picayune’s stories complaining about cuts by the Bush administration in federal funding for levees and flood protection, particularly ACE’s Alfred Naomi, stating in June 2004:
"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don’t get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can’t stay ahead of the settlement. The problem that we have isn’t that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can’t raise them."
The New York Times, in its lead editorial Thursday titled "Waiting for a Leader," churlishly went after President Bush for his first speech which it called terrible. It went on to pretend it knew what New Orleans’ problem was — a lack of federal funding. Specifically it called for the House to restore $70 million in funds for the levees next year.
The Washington Post, in an editorial that talked about not casting blame now, nonetheless couldn’t resist casting some, saying the "president’s most recent budgets have actually proposed reducing funding for flood prevention in the New Orleans area, and the administration has long ignored Louisiana politicians’ request for more help in protecting their fragile coast."
USA Today did a better job in a pair of edits — one on the disaster response and one on the energy supply — by recognizing that the state and local government had a roll in building Louisiana’s infrastructure. On energy, it even went so far as to say some things some anti-oil groups hate to hear — how obstructionists to development of new refineries, offshore and Alaskan energy supplies share the blame for the nation’s reliance on Gulf Coast supplies.
But it, too, got caught up in the drumbeat about the levees, arguing: "[P]eople living along the Gulf Coast have grown up hearing about what could happen if the ‘big one’ hit the region. Yet the levees weren’t raised or strengthened sufficiently to prevent flooding. Initial plans for evacuating the city and ensuring civil order were haphazard at best."
Indeed, if editorial writers had a comment to make it was to say something about the levees.
And why not? The levees broke, didn’t they? That’s what helped mess up the rescue effort, didn’t it? And there were cuts in federal help, weren’t there?
The answers to all these questions are yes. But, the fact is, they miss an important point, which The New York Times editorialists might have discovered had they read their own news story by Andrew Revkin and Christopher Drew. The reporters quoted Shea Penland, director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of New Orleans, about how surprising it was that the break in the levee was "a section that was just upgraded."
"It did not have an earthen levee," he told them. "It had a vertical concrete wall several feet thick."
Worse for the editorial writers were statements by the chief engineer of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Lt. Gen Carl Strock: "I don’t see that the level of funding was really a contributing factor in this case. Had this project been fully complete, it is my opinion that based on the intensity of this storm that the flooding of the business district and the French Quarter would have still taken place."
The reason: the funding would only have completed an upgrade of the levees to a protect against a level 3 hurricane. Katrina was a level 4 plus.
And the reasons for this goes back decades.
Since the 1930s, when levee building began in earnest, Louisiana has lost a million acres of its coastal wetlands, and faces the loss of another 640,000 additional acres — an area the size of Rhode Island — by 2050.
A new study based on satellite measurement released in May found that the wetlands area was sinking at a half-inch to two-inches a year as of 1995, or up to more than a 1.5 feet a decade.
"If subsidence continues and/or sea level rises and human action fails to take place, the entire coast will be inundated," Roy Dokka of the Louisiana Spatial Reference Center at Louisiana State University and an author of the study noted in July.
And he went on in a Times-Picayune piece that columnist Bunch apparently failed to examine:
"The current plans to save the coast are focused on fixing wetlands, which is incredibly important, but the problem is that subsidence is affecting the entire coast. We need to combine those plans with regional hurricane levees and sand shoals. We have to find some way to protect the people and valuable infrastructure we have on the coast."
This echoes a point that was raised by the White House Office of Management and Budget in a review of the Corps of Engineers levee and flood work back in 2003. It noted that while the Corps managed projects that reduced flood damage to specific areas, annual flood damages to the nation were increasing. As such, it wanted the Corps — though well-managed — to broaden its approach by coordinating with federal flood mitigation efforts — to be "more pro-active in preventing flood risks rather than reacting to them."
The regional Corps head so often quoted by the media himself said in 2003 that a project to protect the city from a category 4 or 5 storm would take 30 years to complete, with the feasibility study alone costing $8 million and taking six years to complete. At the time he opined, "Hopefully we won’t have a major storm before then."
As for the $14 billion plan called Coastal 2050 for wetlands restoration that Louisiana politicians have been pushing for the last two years for the federal government to provide a stream of funds — up to 65% of the cost — some experts say it was only a stop-gap.
"We are not going to stop marsh loss. Subsidence is too dominant," James Coleman, a professor of coastal studies at Louisiana State University, told the Times Picayune a few years ago. Coastal restoration "is a temporary fix in terms of geological time. You will see results of massive coastal restorations in our lifetime, but in the long run they are also going to go."
Indeed, those interested in getting a taste of the complexity of New Orleans situation, a good place to start is to read "The Creeping Storm" by Greg Brouer in the June 2003 Civil Engineering Magazine:
"During the past 40 years, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has spent hundreds of millions of dollars constructing a barrier around the low-lying city of New Orleans to protect it from hurricanes. But is the system high enough? And can any defense ultimately protect a city that is perpetually sinking — in some areas at a rate of half an inch (editor’s note: Or up to 2 inches) per year?"
We know the answer to the first question now — obviously not. The answer to the second question will require more investigation. It would be nice if some editorial writers would perform a little more. Snap judgments in this situation are worse than no judgment at all.
Craig Martelle: FEMA is not a first responder
Don't be so quick to pillory the federal response in New Orleans. Immediate emergency management is primarily a local and state responsibility
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
As one who has received training by FEMA in emergency management and also training by the Department of Defense in consequence management, I believe that the federal response in New Orleans needs clarification.
Craig Martelle, retired as a major in the U.S. Marine Corps, lives in North Huntingdon. He recently launched the Strategic Outlook Institute, a public-policy organization.
The key to emergency management starts at the local level and expands to the state level. Emergency planning generally does not include any federal guarantees, as there can only be limited ones from the federal level for any local plan. FEMA provides free training, education, assistance and respond in case of an emergency, but the local and state officials run their own emergency management program.
Prior development of an emergency plan, addressing all foreseeable contingencies, is the absolute requirement of the local government --and then they share that plan with the state emergency managers to ensure that the state authorities can provide necessary assets not available at the local level. Additionally, good planning will include applicable elements of the federal government (those located in the local area). These processes are well established, but are contingent upon the personal drive of both hired and elected officials at the local level.
I've reviewed the New Orleans emergency management plan. Here is an important section in the first paragraph.
"We coordinate all city departments and allied state and federal agencies which respond to citywide disasters and emergencies through the development and constant updating of an integrated multi-hazard plan. All requests for federal disaster assistance and federal funding subsequent to disaster declarations are also made through this office. Our authority is defined by the Louisiana Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act of 1993, Chapter 6 Section 709, Paragraph B, 'Each parish shall maintain a Disaster Agency which, except as otherwise provided under this act, has jurisdiction over and serves the entire parish.' "
Phil Coale, Associated Press
Flooded school buses in a lot, New Orleans, Sept. 1.
Click photo for larger image.
Check the plan -- the "we" in this case is the office of the mayor, Ray Nagin who was very quick and vocal about blaming everyone but his own office. A telling picture, at left, taken by The Associated Press on Sept. 1 and widely circulated on the Internet shows a school bus park, apparently filled to capacity with buses, under about four feet of water. If a mandatory evacuation was ordered, why weren't all the taxpayer-purchased buses used in the effort?
Who could have predicted the anarchy resulting as a consequence? The individuals who devolved into lawless animals embarrass the entirety of America. (I worked in a U.S. Embassy overseas for a couple years and I can imagine what foreign diplomats are thinking.) What societal factors would ever lead people to believe that this behavior was even remotely acceptable?
The folks in New Orleans who are perpetrating the violence and lawlessness are not that way because of low income or of race, but because they personally do not have any honor or commitment to higher ideals. The civil-rights leaders should be ashamed at playing the blame game.
The blame is on the individuals. The blame is on the society that allowed these individuals to develop the ideal that the individual is greater than the national pride he is destroying. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was very clear in her comments that she was offended at those who suggested the suffering in New Orleans was prolonged because of race.
As a retired Marine, I hang my head in shame to see my fellow Americans degenerate so far. I spent so many years in the Corps helping the citizens of other countries rise to a higher level of personal responsibility to ensure that in case of emergency, anarchy did not necessarily follow. When people are held to a higher standard of personal responsibility and they accept that, then they will do the right thing when the time comes.
It seems that the mayor of New Orleans is leading the effort in not taking responsibility for his actions. The emergency managers for the state of Louisiana do not have much to say either. The failure in the first 48 hours to provide direction for survivors is theirs to live with. When FEMA was able to take over, it started out behind and had to develop its plan on the fly. Now the federal government has established priorities -- rescue the stranded, evacuate the city, flow in resources and fix the levee. It appears that now there is a plan and it is being systematically executed.
Hurricane Katrina was a national tragedy -- not just in the number of lives lost or the amount of physical damage, but also in the failure of people to do what is right when no one is looking.
http://www.postgazette.com/pg/05249/566101.stm
THE SEVEN LIES OF KATRINAGATE
Debunked by Richard Baehr of The American Thinker
Posted by Richard Poe @ Tuesday 6 September 2005, 11:32 am
The BBC has optimistically floated the term "Katrinagate," in an effort to promote its view that the media-generated scandals surrounding Hurricane Katrina may ultimately succeed in doing to George W. Bush what Watergate did to Richard Nixon (hat tip, Andrew Walden). Inconveniently for the BBC and its soulmates in US media, their case against Bush rests exclusively on lies — seven lies, to be exact.
Richard Baehr debunks all seven in, "New Orleans Myths: The Numbers Tell a Different Story," an article appearing in this morning’s The American Thinker.
New Orleans myths: The numbers tell a different story
September 6th, 2005
There will be plenty of time to argue about who was responsible for the slow response in New Orleans this week in dealing with those who did not choose to leave, or were unable to leave the city before the hurricane hit. The catastrophe that followed, when the levees gave way, and 80% of the city, and many of the surrounding suburbs flooded, was far worse than the hurricane itself. Already many seem to have forgotten that New Orleans officials thought they had escaped Katina’s wrath as the storm moved north from the Gulf on Monday, prior to the levees giving way.
The nation will have to deal with an extraordinary human tragedy now, with well over a million people displaced, hundreds of thousands of jobs lost on the Gulf Coast, and a cleanup and recovery process that will take many months in New Orleans and Mississippi. This of course has not prevented major broadcast media, from Brian Williams to Bob Schieffer to Tim Russert, from angrily demanding answers for why the show of federal force came 48 hours later in New Orleans than it might have.
Almost everybody now agrees that things changed dramatically on the ground over the weekend. Almost all people in the two big holding centers of the Super Dome and Convention Center have been evacuated, and the lawlessness on the streets has ebbed a bit. Some estimates are that New Orleans is now a ghost town, with fewer than 1,000 residents left of its nearly half million population.
Certainly the human tragedy in the city is and has been gruesome - in the Super Dome alone there were at least 6 murders, and 12 rapes among the enclosed evacuees, and bodies have been seen floating in the flooded streets of the city. The death toll is unknown, possibly in the thousands, and illness afflicting some of those who survived, but were living in or around stagnant and polluted waters will take a further toll over time.
But in retrospect, while those 48 lost hours provided the world and nation some awful pictures, clearly there was a media obsession of sorts in choosing to focus on the Super Dome and the Convention Center, when the havoc caused by the hurricane and the flooding was much more widespread, and encompassed several states. And this obsession fed into some of the quickly emerging story lines - that blacks and the poor were left behind, that the federal government did not care, that Bush did nothing until too late, and so on. Not unexpectedly, the media has been much harder on Bush, a Republican, than it has been on the Governor of Louisiana or the Mayor of New Orleans, (both Democrats) who have been treated as victims of federal mismanagement of the crisis, rather than participants and agents in whatever bureaucratic or administrative errors or failures occurred.
But the real human story of this tragedy will play out in the months ahead: the huge effort to deal with so many displaced persons (many far from their original homes), and so many people out of work, is just beginning. This is a much larger story and much more significant than the 48 lost hours in evacuating the Super Dome, where perhaps 3% of those affected by the storm and its aftermath were temporarily housed. But the pictures and stories of the work ahead will not be as dramatic as those of this past week. Cleanup and rebuilding never is. The highest network and cable TV ratings have already occurred for this story. And the future story does not offer the media as much low hanging fruit in their systematic effort to turn this into their conventional story line – that Bush is at fault.
Some of the coverage and the charges that have been made this week are flat out wrong, or grossly misleading, and deserve attention.
Reality #1: A very high percentage of the population of New Orleans and surrounding low lying areas were successfully evacuated before the hurricane hit. An article in 2002 in the New Orleans Times-Picayune explored the hurricane-induced flooding scenario and estimated that 200,000 residents of the city would be stranded by such an event. A Houston Chronicle article from 2001 estimated that 250,000 residents would be stranded. That is over 40% of the population of the city, which stood at 484,000 in 2000.
A recent poll of New Orleans residents revealed that an even higher percentage, 60%, would remain in the city even if ordered to evacuate with a major storm on the way. The Mayor New Orleans, Ray Nagin, estimated that at least 80% of his city's residents were out before the hurricane hit Monday. In retrospect, this must be considered a major positive achievement. How did it happen? Though you won't hear this on NBC, CBS or CNN, the National Hurricane Center urged President Bush to request that the Governor of Louisiana and Mayor of New Orleans order a complete evacuation of New Orleans. Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin agreed, and this order was given over the weekend, two days before the hurricane hit. All day Saturday and Sunday, as the TV news networks were in the midst of their all Katrina, all the time coverage, the pictures were of bumper to bumper traffic heading out of town in all directions.
If 80% of New Orleans got out before disaster hit, instead of 40% or 60%, that is an additional 100,000 to 200,000 residents who were spared the worst of this week's trauma. For this the President deserves credit, which he will not receive. Remember that the focus all week has been on the slow response to assist the 20% who did not get out. There is plenty to criticize in what happened this week for the 20% left behind, but it does not diminish the achievement in getting 80% of the residents of the city to safety before the storm hit.
Reality #2: The basic major media premise all week has been that the 20% who were left behind were all black, and poor and the rich got out of town. This is simply put, nonsense – and racist. New Orleans is a poor city (more than twice the national poverty rate). Most of those who got out of town were not rich, and were not driving SUVs, as Tim Russert sneered on the air Sunday (in a disgracefully-conducted interview with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff).
A little elementary math will address this canard. According to the 2000 census, New Orleans' population of 484,000 included approximately 136,000 whites, and 326,000 blacks. The white figure includes 7,000 Hispanics who classify themselves as white on the census forms. If 80% of New Orleans residents got out early – and this is the Mayor's number – then only about 97,000 residents remained. Assume all of them were black, (which of course they were not). That would mean that 229,000 blacks got out early, and 136,000 whites along with them. In other words, the successful mass evacuation substantially benefited black residents of the city.
At least 70% of black residents of New Orleans got out of the city before the storm (assuming 100% of those left behind were black), and undoubtedly more than that (since all those left behind were not black). It is almost certainly the case that the great majority of those who were left behind were black. There are obvious reasons for this, including the fact that New Orleans is overwhelmingly a black city to begin with.
Another factor is that 35% of black residents of New Orleans do not own automobiles, while 15% of white residents do not. So to the extent that getting oneself to the highway was the best method to get out of out of town, blacks were disadvantaged. That is where local officials failed. With many hundreds of school buses available, the city chose to provide safe shelter for those who did not or could not leave town in the Super Dome. Close to 30,000 people moved there.
These people would have been much safer, and had a much better week, had they been bused out of town. But for this one, you can't blame FEMA, or Homeland Security or George Bush. So too, why move 30,000 people to an enclosed space and not provide enough water, and food for them for a few days?
Louisiana has one advantage over every other state for this kind of catastrophe. A higher percentage of Louisiana residents were born in their state than is true in any other state (79.2%). So many of those who left the city or could have been bused out may have had relatives living elsewhere in the state. This obviously enabled some to get out of town without the financial worry of having to pay for hotels, restaurants, etc. Many in New Orleans may have stayed on because their monthly government check, whether social security or welfare, would come at the start of the month. While this concern would be very real for those living check to check, getting people to safety and housing them in shelters, and having the Red Cross to feed them and provide medicine, would have been a lot better for the residents than staying behind. In this case, the evacuation message was incomplete. Putting the city buses on the road and taking people to specific destinations where help was available, was not communicated as a viable option, and would have been better than taking people to the Super Dome.
As of today, almost 300,000 people are now in shelters in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee, just to name five states. Many of these people drove out, not knowing what would await them where they went. So the insecurity about what comes next was still there for many of those who left by car. As to the charge that Bush and his administration did not do enough because they do not care about blacks, as charged by an angry, and obtuse rapper Kanye West on an NBC benefit show, one should not have to dignify the charge with a response, though both Bob Schieffer and Tim Russert felt obligated to repeat this slander on the air while interviewing Secretary Chertoff Sunday.
Reality #3: The destruction from the storm affected far more whites than blacks. This is the ultimate answer to the racism charge that Bush did not do enough because the victims were black. If more whites than blacks were storm and flood victims, and the federal response was slow, than I guess by this logic, the response was insufficient because Bush is a racist towards whites. As James Taranto pointed out Friday, in his opinionjournal.com column, the three Mississippi counties that were hardest hit - Hancock (home to Pass Christian), Harrison (home to Biloxi and Gulfport), and Jackson (home to Pascagoula and Ocean Springs) are among the whitest counties in Mississippi, the state with the highest African American percentage of the population in the country (36.3% in 2003). But in these three counties, the white population in 2003 was estimated at 280,311, and the black population was 71,070, a white to black ratio of 4 to 1, much higher than the overall ratio in the state of about 5 to 3.
Similarly, Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana acknowledged, as did Congressman William Jefferson, who represents much of New Orleans, that the storm, and the flooding did not choose victims by race. Four of the five parishes worst hit in the New Orleans area flooding, Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. Bernard and St. Tammany, are majority white (ranging from 67% to 88%). Only Orleans Parish (New Orleans) is majority black (67%).
One can be unhappy with the federal response (and with the local and state response, though if one is in the same political party as the state and local officials, one tends to be quieter about it), and not assume that racism is at the bottom of what did or did not happen. That demagogic route, is always the option of a Jesse Jackson or an Al Sharpton, but this week that view was shamefully echoed by major media voices, who should have known better. For Brian Williams and comrades, the only victims this week were the blacks in the Super Dome and Convention Center, who were forced to wait an extra few days to get out due to bureaucratic incompetence, or worse, an uncaring attitude by the federal government. When a storm like this hits, it will always hit harder those with less mobility: the elderly, the infirm, the poor. These people are more vulnerable, and need help. They do not need the race card.
Reality #4: There were many victims of the storm this week that the media largely ignored. On the Mississippi coast, the hurricane caused damage we expect to see from a big storm, but far worse than last year’s Florida hurricanes. Buildings, both commercial and residential, cars, boats, and roads were leveled or destroyed by the powerful 145 mile per hour winds. Many areas of the Gulf Coast have been unreachable, even without the major flooding that occurred in the New Orleans area. In low lying areas of Louisiana near the coast, there are also communities that have not been reached yet, where many likely died.
New Orleans got almost all of the attention this week, in part because it is a major media market, and all the broadcast news reporters were there to report the coming storm. Another reason might be that Mississippi has a Republican Governor Haley Barbour, who could not be relied on for the desired interview sound bytes trashing President Bush. The media went for the easy story, those left behind in New Orleans, and shifted to the “Bush is to blame†game.
The Tim Russert interview of Michael Chertoff on Meet the Press was all blame game. Chertoff wanted to talk about the immense challenges ahead. Russert wanted to know who would be fired for the 48 hour delay. Chertoff explained that when Bush said the levees bursting was a surprise, he meant that the surprise was that the levees burst after the storm appeared to have passed the city, and spared it, not that the levees could never break down and flood the city under any circumstance. Russert went out of his way to ignore Chertoff’s explanation, and instead mock Bush’s statement at every opportunity.
This is a guy who some think is a respected journalist? Laughable. None of this is to excuse mistakes that may have occurred at all governmental levels this week. But this catastrophe was on a scale not before seen in our history in terms of population displacement. And there is little chance of the displaced returning to their homes or cities any time soon. A disaster of this magnitude is an enormous and very sad story and a huge challenge for government, businesses, and the citizenry at all levels. This is not the same as relocating lawyers driven from the World Trade Center to new offices in Midtown, some of whom were billing again within days. The people at the Super Dome had a miserable week. So did many others you did not hear about or see.
Reality #5: The lawlessness in New Orleans was more of the same for a city that has always had a very high crime rate. Start with the widespread looting, which the media tended to ignore or apologize for as acts of desperation. This was not entirely simply desperation. Desperation may lead people to steal milk, water, diapers, and medicines. Under similar circumstances as occurred this week, many of us might steal the things needed to feed and care for our families and ourselves. But Nikes, flat screen TVs, and guns are bit different. Both the perpetrators and victims of the violent crime wave in New Orleans this week were overwhelmingly African-Americans.
New Orleans is always at or near the top in the national ranking for murder rate. The rate of murders per thousand residents there has been ten times the national average in recent years. This high murder rate cannot be explained by poverty, and demographics. New Orleans’ murder rate is also ten times as high as New York City’s, a city once thought ungovernable, which also has a large majority of non-white residents. But New York Citt has managed to reduce its murder rate by 75% in 12 years, and now has overall crime rates much lower than most European cities (where sophisticates spent the week sneering at America’s incompetence and racism).
New Orleans has a small police force, only 1,400, and they were unable or unwilling to deal with the outbreak of looting, shootings, and rape, while at the same time trying to help with rescue operations and move people to safety. But the city, in which corruption and crime has always been rampant, was unusually ill equipped to deal with the kind of catastrophe.
Reality #6: There were enough National Guard forces in the region and nation when the hurricane and flood hit, and our commitment in Iraq did not prevent an adequate response by the Guard. This was the first phony charge made by the left when the crisis hit: that Iraq was damaging the Guard’s ability to respond. There are over 30,000 National Guard forces plus federal troops in the region at the moment. Somehow the Guard could be found (and did not need to bee sent home from the Middle East), and they are making a huge difference.
Again, James Taranto has laid out the numbers, but in brief, Louisiana had twice as many Guard forces in the state than were committed overseas. The same is true for Mississippi. Louisiana Governor Blanco fumbled the ball by not quickly securing National Guard reinforcements from other states (which were offered), given a governor's role in administering the paperwork required to get other National Guard units from other states to her state’s rescue. The New York Times reported on Monday that Governor Blanco has still not signed the paperwork to give federal authorities administrative control of the recovery effort, despite their large presence in the state since Saturday. It will not and should not only be FEMA’s head Michael Brown who needs to answer tough questions about what may have gone wrong this week in the first few days after the flooding occurred.
Reality #7: While the news media have focused on a few modest appropriation cuts for New Orleans levees and water control, they have largely ignored the fact that the major reconstruction project that would provide more than a temporary fix to the city’s sinking condition, has been stalled for years. The big problem, as even the New York Times admits, is that the Louisiana coast is disappearing . Almost 2 million acres have disappeared in 75 years (the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined). And this has not been caused by global warming, or greenhouse gases, just as the number and severity of hurricanes are not related to these two twin towers of evil either. Each year, an area the size of Manhattan disappears. As the Times explains:
The problem, in a nutshell, is this: the Louisiana coast, its protective fringe of barrier islands and coastal marshlands, is disappearing. Over the last 75 years, 1.9 million acres have vanished. Every year, another 25 square miles, an area roughly the size of Manhattan, sinks quietly beneath the waves. In some places, the coastline has receded 15 miles from where it was in the 1920's.
The soil in the delta compacts and sinks naturally. Historically, however, the Mississippi replenished the loss with sediment gathered from its many tributaries and then deposited like clockwork in the delta with the spring floods. Or so it did until 1927, when Congress ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to find ways to control the floods so as to make the river safe for farming, homes and commerce.
As it would later do in the Everglades (with equally disastrous results for the Florida ecosystem), the Corps then proceeded to construct a network of dams, levees and canals throughout the river basin. The upstream dams reduced the river's sediment load well below historical levels; the sediment that remained, while considerable, was then routed away from the Louisiana coast by a system of levees and navigation channels. The effect of all these engineering changes was to hurry the river along and, at its mouth, propel its contents deep into the Gulf of Mexico, as if shot from a cannon, bypassing the coastal marshes and barrier islands that most needed its nourishment.
Add to all this the demands of a growing population, plus thousands of miles of pipes and canals dug through the marsh for a booming oil and gas industry, and the result was inevitable: a shrunken, degraded and essentially defenseless landscape.
Congress has a $14 billion proposal designed to reverse this process, to restore the wetlands that provide buffers against storms. This would also help keep the city of New Orleans from continually sinking further below sea level. But Congress has chosen other big projects as worthier of its attention. The Big Dig, a $15 billion project to bury two miles of a highway in central Boston was the favored public works project that President Clinton awarded Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. The Everglades has a $7 billion project to accomplish some of what needs to be done in the Mississippi River basin.
It makes little sense to rebuild New Orleans and have it remain as vulnerable as it has been. Chicago learned from its great fire of 1871, and San Francisco built new structures differently after its earthquake in 1906. To solve New Orleans’ real issues will takes many billions and a lot less corruption than normal in the state. Quibbling over small budget changes has been another opportunity for some to accuse the Bush Administration of causing this disaster, as is now the comically-predictable standard operating procedure in the MSM. For the record, the levees which broke had recently been reinforced and repaired.
The mythology on Katrina is now out there: only blacks were victims, Bush ignored the city because of this, the levees broke because of Bush budget cuts, the response was inadequate because the National Guard was in Iraq. In all case, these are new urban legends.
For some, what happened this week is a big plus. It has weakened the President politically, and that is all that matters. The President and his team are certainly not blame-free. But if some people think that dealing with what happened this week could have been straightforward, clear, clean and quick, they are divorced from reality. America has never lost a major city before.
If all of New Orleans had been evacuated before the storm hit, there would still be horrendous human suffering. The city is now one of ghosts, but many hundreds of thousands need help in temporary homes and shelters around the country, getting their lives back in order, dealing with the interregnum until they can decide whether to return to the home region and start life anew, assuming the city and surrounding areas are safe and open to them sometime in the future. Federal, state, and local regulations will require extensive and expensive clean-up of what now amounts to a massive toxic waste site in the flooded areas of New Orleans. Let the talking heads discuss how to deal with this reality.
Richard Baehr is the chief political correspondent of The American Thinker.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 6th, 2005 at 11:32 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
2 Responses to “THE SEVEN LIES OF KATRINAGATE
Debunked by Richard Baehr of The American Thinkerâ€
Jason P Says:
September 6th, 2005 at 12:54 pm
Baehr does a great job.
Now I have some facts to present those who have been susceptible to the media’s bias. Of course, the media knows that first impressions are the lasting ones for most people. My only hope is that the media went so overboard by playing the race card that it will have discredited itself. I hope people will search elsewhere for the truth.
orangeducks Says:
September 6th, 2005 at 1:16 pm
It’s a pity we have to wade through several days of MSM BS before all the REAL facts can come to the surface and be assembled and presented.
This was an excellent, unbiased analysis of the short term efforts regarding Katrina.
The Mayor Who Failed His City
By Ben Johnson
Ray Nagin shouted obscenities while New Orleans washed away. More>
The Mayor Who Failed His City
By Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 6, 2005
IT’S OFFICIAL: THE AMERICAN LEFT NOW BELIEVES GEORGE W. BUSH IS GOD. Bellowing leftists such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cindy Sheehan have blamed Hurricane Katrina – something insurance companies classify as an act of God – on President Bush’s “killing policies†(and, in RFK Jr.’s case, those of Mississippi’s Republican governor, Haley Barbour). Former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal also penned an article in The Guardian chalking up the flood to the Bush administration’s having cut one item in the Army Corps of Engineers’ annual budget. (Desperate to build a presidential legacy, even ex post facto, ex-President Bill Clinton has intimated his administration did more to keep New Orleans safe than Bush's.) Meanwhile, DNC Chair Howard Dean weighed in by demeaning Bush’s trip to the disaster area, calling it “just another callous political move crafted by Karl Rove.â€
In addition to claiming Bush somehow fed the phantom of “global warming†to rain death upon his own citizens, the Left has alleged “racism†in his handling of this disaster. Jesse Jackson quipped post-Hurricane New Orleans looks like “the hull of a slave ship.†Director Michael Moore played the race card in an open letter to Bush on his website. They found an echo in the “Reverend†Al Sharpton, who told MSNBC’s abysmal Keith Olbermann, “I feel that, if it was in another area, with another economic strata and racial makeup, that President Bush would have run out of Crawford a lot quicker and FEMA would have found its way in a lot sooner.†Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-MD, a member in good standing of the Congressional Black Caucus, played both the race and the God card, thundering:
We cannot allow it to be said that the difference between those who lived and those who died in this great storm and flood of 2005 was nothing more than poverty, age or skin color…To the president of the United States, I simply say that God cannot be pleased with our response.
And they say all the religious nutjobs are on the Right.
The Democrats’ avenging angel has come in the form of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, who has proposed a 9/11-style commission to probe the feds’ response to Hurricane Katrina. (After all, the original 9/11 Commission proved so exemplary.) Despite these transparent attempts to claw political advantage from the suffering of the downtrodden – after the National Guard forgeries, Plamegate, and conspiratorial ravings about the Federalist Society won them no traction – a Washington Post poll revealed 55 percent of Americans do not blame President Bush for the debacle in the Big Easy.
Perhaps that is because the American people intuit it is not the federal response that should be monitored but that of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, a Democrat and, coincidentally, a black man.
In accordance with the “City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan†– a blueprint drawn up to deal with emergencies like this one – all “Authority to issue evacuations of elements of the population is vested in the Mayor.†The document specifically states, “The person responsible for recognition of hurricane related preparation needs and for the issuance of an evacuation order is the Mayor of the City of New Orleans.†This outline does not mention any specific federal government’s role in disaster relief, instead carving out roles for state and municipal governments. In fact, as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld noted this holiday weekend, posse commitatus statutes bar federal officers from working as law enforcement officials.
Charged with so heavy a responsibility, Mayor Nagin punted, then passed the buck. The National Hurricane Center called Nagin Saturday night asking him to evacuate New Orleans, and President Bush also begged him to get his people to safety. As mayor, the final decision was Nagin's. He was expected to issue such an order 48 hours before the storm made landfall; however, the storm touched down and the levees gave way less than 48 hours after his proclamation.
Moreover, he is to see that “Special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific life saving assistance.†Yet some 205 buses, and perhaps a greater number of large transit vehicles, were left stranded in a flooded parking lot. University of New Orleans professor Shirley Laksa had calculated some 125,000 residents do not have private transportation. As a result of Nagin’s inaction, Katrina’s victims are twice as likely to be poor than the average American. These are the people who had no recourse but to wait for the local government to rescue them; these are the people municipal malfeasance and nonfeasance abandoned to an ill-equipped Superdome.
Despite these critical lapses in judgment, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-LA, pressured her commander-in-chief to withhold all criticism of the local response (President Bush had not made any, justified though it might be), threatening that, if he didn’t, “I might likely have to punch him. Literally.†Although Washington was abuzz when Rep. Dan Burton called Bill Clinton a “scumbag,†no censure has been forthcoming for Landrieu.
The Left has not idled down its criticisms of Bush, blaming him for global warming and poor planning. The facts tell another tale. The infrastructure the Left criticizes Bush of withholding, planned by the Army Corps of Engineers, would have only defended the city from a level three storm; Katrina’s level five winds would have overwhelmed the project, even if it had been completed. Former Louisiana Democratic Senator John Breaux said the funds leftists blame Bush for cutting have been diverted by presidents since the 1970s. With the Left sniping at him over high deficits incurred by fighting a war in two nations, President Bush has had to trim non-essential spending, and no one considered it a vital priority to fund a system designed to guard against what Sen. Breaux called a “once every hundred years†storm. The experts several steps removed from the president – and on both sides of the aisle – simply bet a storm of this magnitude would not occur. The Army Corps of Engineers commander Lt. Gen. Carl Strock spelled out these sentiments: “We had an assurance that 99.5 percent this would be OK. We, unfortunately, have had that .5 percent activity here.†Strock also denied needed monies were diverted to Iraq.
However, this storm didn’t catch everyone by surprise. Scientists have known since the 1980s that the city’s levees would fail in a storm of Katrina’s magnitude.
The federal government’s response has been laudable. FEMA Director Mike Brown began moving federal resources into New Orleans two days before the storm hit. Currently, some 8,500 active duty troops are serving in New Orleans. The chaotic situation created by Mayor Nagin’s herding people into the Superdome, without adequate provisions for the long haul, with the resultant murder, rape, and looting a byproduct of poor, or non-existent, planning. Governor Blanco also deserves blame for not calling in the National Guard to get the situation in hand earlier. Now, 38,000 National Guardsmen are aiding the wider disaster area, including undertaking the police functions within New Orleans that Mayor Nagin could not or would not furnish.
With all these efforts going on, Jesse Jackson threw himself before the cameras yet again last week, claiming, “The president has not put together a federal program or a coordinated effort to address this massive crisis.â€
Just prior to Jackson’s statement, Mayor Ray Nagin coped with the high pressure of the situation he created by launching into a profanity-laden radio interview with WWL-AM. He ranted that federal relief workers needed to “get off your asses.†(This at a time when helicopters bearing federal relief were being shot at by New Orleanians Nagin could not control.)
These are the same murderous looters the Democratic Party’s blog referred to as “the victims.†The only New Orleans residents not intimidated by the rampaging gangs of hoodlums have relied upon the only freedom that keeps law-abiding men safe: the right to privately own firearms.
The New Orleans debacle has demonstrated a few discomforting truths: there is apparently no national suffering so moving that the Left will not exploit it for crass political advantage. The nation should have learned this when Bill Clinton blamed the Oklahoma City Bombing on Rush Limbaugh and Republican “anti-government rhetoric.†More importantly, significant holes remain in our national infrastructure, which an enterprising terrorist cell could exploit. We can no longer turn a blind eye to the national security implications of mayoral elections in this nation’s vital cities. Their governance, so long dominated by corrupt and ineffectual leftists, has led to disaster on a massive scale. In the case of New Orleans, a plan had even been drawn up to fend off the worst…the mayor simply demurred from filling in its blanks. The tragedy filling our television screens for the last week is its result. Next time, the mourning could be caused by an act of war. At least one Bush critic, Rep. Bobby Jindahl, R-LA, is right: “After 9/11, this never should have happened.â€
Katrina and Disgusting Exploitation
By James K. Glassman Published 08/31/2005
A profound tragedy is unfolding in New Orleans, the most beautiful city in America, with the richest cultural history and the most wonderful style of living. I lived in New Orleans for seven years. I was married there. My children were born there. I have many friends there.
My daughter, her husband and their little baby managed to get out of the city ahead of the flood on Sunday, driving 14 hours into Texas with the few belongings they could stuff into their car. They have no idea what has become of their house and their possessions, not to mention their friends, their pets, their jobs, their way of life.
Tragedies happen, and my daughter and her family are happy just to be alive. Their losses and those of hundreds of thousands of other innocents deserve mourning, prayer and respect.
That is why the response of environmental extremists fills me with what only can be called disgust. They have decided to exploit the death and devastation to win support for the failed Kyoto Protocol, which requires massive cutbacks in energy use to reduce, by a few tenths of a degree, surface warming projected 100 years from now.
Katrina has nothing to do with global warming. Nothing. It has everything to do with the immense forces of nature that have been unleashed many, many times before and the inability of humans, even the most brilliant engineers, to tame these forces.
Giant hurricanes are rare, but they are not new. And they are not increasing. To the contrary. Just go to the website of the National Hurricane Center and check out a table that lists hurricanes by category and decade. The peak for major hurricanes (categories 3,4,5) came in the decades of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, when such storms averaged 9 per decade. In the 1960s, there were 6 such storms; in the 1970s, 4; in the 1980s, 5; in the 1990s, 5; and for 2001-04, there were 3. Category 4 and 5 storms were also more prevalent in the past than they are now. As for Category 5 storms, there have been only three since the 1850s: in the decades of the 1930s, 1960s and 1990s.
But that doesn't stop an enviro-predator like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from writing on the Huffingtonpost website: "Now we are all learning what it's like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged. Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and - now -- Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children."
Or consider Jurgen Tritten, Germany's environmental minister, in an op-ed in the Frankfurter Rundschau. He wrote (according to a translation prepared for me): "By neglecting environmental protection, America's president shuts his eyes to the economic and human damage that natural catastrophes like Katrina inflect on his country and the world's economy."
The bright side of Katrina, concludes Tritten, is that it will force President Bush to face facts. "When reason finally pays a visit to climate-polluter headquarters, the international community has to be prepared to hand America a worked-out proposal for the future of international climate protection."
He goes on, "There is only one possible route of action. Greenhouse gases have to be radically reduced, and it has to happen worldwide." In other words, thanks to Katrina, we'll finally get Kyoto enforced. (He might start at home, by the way. Europe is not anywhere close to reducing CO2 to Kyoto standards. In fact, the U.S. is doing much better than many Kyoto ratifiers.)
Ross Gelbspan, in a particularly egregious, almost giddy piece in the Boston Globe that was reprinted in the International Herald Tribune, wrote that the hurricane was "nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service Katrina, [but] its real name was global warming." He also finds global warming responsible for droughts in the Midwest, strong winds in Scandinavia and heavy rain in Dubai. The reason for all this devastation, of course, is that the Bush Administration is controlled by coal and oil interests.
And the Independent, a widely read British newspaper, reported today that "Sir David King, the British Government's chief scientific adviser, has warned that global warming may be responsible for the devastation reaped by Hurricane Katrina." King contended that "the increased intensity of hurricanes is associated with global warming."
The Kyoto advocates point to warmer ocean temperatures, but they ought to read their own favorite newspaper, The New York Times, which reported yesterday:
"Because hurricanes form over warm ocean water, it is easy to assume that the recent rise in their number and ferocity is because of global warming. But that is not the case, scientists say. Instead, the severity of hurricane seasons changes with cycles of temperatures of several decades in the Atlantic Ocean. The recent onslaught 'is very much natural,' said William M. Gray, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University who issues forecasts for the hurricane season.'"
An article on TCS quoted Gray last year as saying that, while some groups and individuals say that hurricane activity lately "may be in some way related to the effects of increased man-made greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide,…there is no reasonable scientific way that such an interpretation…can be made."
Indeed, there is no evidence that hurricanes are intensifying anyway. For the North Atlantic as a whole, according to the United Nations Environment Programme of the World Meteorological Organization: "Reliable data…since the 1940s indicate that the peak strength of the strongest hurricanes has not changed, and the mean maximum intensity of all hurricanes has decreased."
Yes, decreased.
Not only has the intensity of hurricanes fallen, but, as George H. Taylor, the state climatologist of Oregon has pointed out, so has the frequency of hailstorms in the U.S. (see Changnon and Changnon) and cyclones throughout the world (Gulev, et al.).
But environmental extremists do not want to be bothered with the facts. Nor do they wish to mourn the destruction and death wreaked on a glorious city. To their everlasting shame, they would rather distort and exploit.
If you are a producer or reporter who is interested in receiving more information about this article or the author, please email your request to interview@techcentralstation.com.
Sun to Blame for Global Warming
by John Carlisle
Those looking for the culprit responsible for global warming have missed the obvious choice - the sun. While it may come as a newsflash to some, scientific evidence conclusively shows that the sun plays a far more important role in causing global warming and global cooling than any other factor, natural or man-made. In fact, what may very well be the ultimate ironic twist in the global warming controversy is that the same solar forces that caused 150 years of warming are on the verge of producing a prolonged period of cooling.
The evidence for future cooling is supported by considerable scientific research that has only recently begun to come to light. It wasn't until 1980, with the aid of NASA satellites, that scientists definitively proved that the sun's brightness - or radiance - varies in intensity, and that these variations occur in predictable cyclical patterns. This was a crucial discovery because the climate models used by greenhouse theory proponents always assumed that the sun's radiance was constant. With that assumption in hand, they could ignore solar influences and focus on other influences, including human.
That turned out to be a reckless assumption. Further investigation revealed that there is a strong correlation between the variations in solar irradiance and fluctuations in the Earth's temperature. When the sun gets dimmer, the Earth gets cooler; when the sun gets brighter, the Earth gets hotter. So important is the sun in climate change that half of the 1.5° F temperature increase since 1850 is directly attributable to changes in the sun. According to NASA scientists David Lind and Judith Lean, only one-quarter of a degree can be ascribed to other causes, such as greenhouse gases, through which human activities can theoretically exert some influence.
The correlation between major changes in the Earth's temperature and changes in solar radiance is quite compelling. A perfect example is the Little Ice Age that lasted from 1650 to 1850. Temperatures in this era fell to as much as 2° F below today's temperature, causing the glaciers to advance, the canals in Venice to freeze and major crop failures. Interestingly, this dramatic cooling happened in a period when the sun's radiance had fallen to exceptionally low levels. Between 1645 and 1715, the sun was in a stage that scientists refer to as the Maunder Minimum. In this minimum, the sun has few sunspots and low magnetism which automatically indicates a lower radiance level. When the sun began to emerge from the minimum, radiance increased and by 1850 the temperature had warmed up enough for the Little Ice Age to end.
The Maunder Minimum is not an isolated event: it is a cyclical phenomenon that typically appears for 70 years following 200-300 years of warming. With only a few exceptions, whenever there is a solar minimum, the Earth gets colder. For example, Europe in the 13th and 15th Centuries experienced significantly lower temperatures and in both cases the cold spells coincided with a minimum. Similar correlations were found in the 9th Century and again in the 7th Century. Since 8700 B.C., there have been at least ten major cold periods similar to the Little Ice Age. Nine of those ten cold spells coincided with Maunder Minima.
There is no reason to believe that this 10,000-year-old cycle of solar-induced warming and cooling will change. Dr. Sallie Baliunas, an astrophysicist with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and one of the nation's leading experts on global climate change, believes that we may be nearing the end of a solar warming cycle. Since the last minimum ended in 1715, Baliunas says there is a strong possibility that the Earth will start cooling off in the early part of the 21st Century.
Indeed, it could already be happening. Of the 1.5° F in warming the planet experienced over the last 150 years, two-thirds of that increase, or one degree, occurred between 1850 and 1940. In the last 50 years, the planetary temperature increased at a significantly slower rate of 0.5° F - precisely when dramatically increasing amounts of man-made carbon dioxide emissions should have been accelerating warming. Further buttressing the arguments for future cooling is the evidence from NASA satellites that the global temperature has actually fallen 0.04° F since 1979.
Of course, it is impossible to precisely predict when solar radiance will drop and global temperatures will begin falling. But one thing is certain: There is little evidence that mankind is responsible for global warming. There is considerable evidence that the sun causes warming and will most likely stimulate cooling in the not so distant future.
John K. Carlisle is the Director of The National Center for Public Policy Research's Environmental Policy Task Force. Comments may be sent to JCarlisle@nationalcenter.org.
FEMA Pilot: Rescue Began Just Hours After Flood
Helicopters from the Federal Emergency Management Agency were conducting rescue operations in New Orleans less than a day after breaks in local levees began flooding the city.
But the lightning-quick fly-out mission had to be abandoned that same night because local marauders were shooting at the FEMA choppers.
"We first got in on Tuesday night," a FEMA pilot, who identified himself only as "Randy," told Fox News Radio's Tony Snow this morning.
The 17th Street levee had begun to give way late in the evening Monday. Well into Tuesday, city officials were celebrating reports that the brunt of Hurricane Kartrina had missed the Big Easy.
By the time the scope of the impending tragedy became known, however, FEMA rescue operations were already well underway.
"We were one of two helicopters with night vision goggles," Snow's caller explained. "They wanted to start evacuating Tulane Hospital, which is right next to Charity [Hospital]."
Shortly thereafter, however, the mission ground to a halt. "We were being shot at by various snipers around the city," chopper pilot Randy said. "So the military, Eagles Nest 1, basically called all helicopters out about 10 o'clock that night."
Within hours, however, reinforcements had arrived
October 4th, 2005 at 11:06 am--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The 3 I`s of liberalism
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Posted: May 31, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Vox Day
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© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Some of you may be aware that I am a member of the SFWA, a poorly constructed acronym for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. As such, I tend to find the occasional foray into the mentality of the American liberal to be a fascinating exercise in alien thought.
It is truly interesting to swim in the deep morass of a complete absence of logic, historical knowledge and consistency. Some might consider this to be an unfair overstatement, but it's pretty easy to prove that this is anything but the case.
Take, for example, the notion of the Iraqi war and occupation. At the onset of war, the left-liberal's protests revolved around the "No blood for oil" cry. This one idiotic phrase manages the trifecta – and please bear in mind, I have been calling for an end to the occupation for some time now.
We'll start with logic. The notion that the president ordered the invasion of Iraq to take control of its oil supplies does not make sense on two counts. First, we pay for oil in dollars, which except for the cost of inflation, are essentially free to the U.S. government. But since Alan Greenspan was preaching we were teetering on the brink of a deflationary precipice, even that minor cost was no constraint in 2002. It's not necessary to invade if you can simply run the printing press at will. Second, the price of oil, at $41 per barrel, is $16 higher than it was prior to the invasion, which completely defeats the postulated purpose of invading to ensure cheap oil supplies.
History, too, was ignored. America already held the oil fields of Kuwait and Iraq in its grasp in 1991. There was nothing to prevent the U.S. military from retaining its control over the oil fields – the fact that it readily relinquished what was already in its possession strongly indicated that Americans have no need to take what it can buy, especially if it can buy it in paper dollars created out of debt.
Finally, the lack of consistency demonstrated in the "no blood for oil" cry is illuminated by left-liberal opposition to drilling in Alaska. Oil pumped from there would cost no blood, and, according to the theory postulated by liberals, the increased supply would thereby relieve America of any need to go to war. Thus, deceit is revealed along with the illogic, ignorance and inconsistency, as "no oil, period" would be a more honest battle cry.
In the context of the three I's, John Kerry is the perfect standard bearer for American liberalism. He is supremely illogical, calling for the United Nations to manage a situation that is far more potentially explosive than the many tamer situations in which it has completely failed in the past. Indeed, the despicable depths to which the United Nations sank in its Iraqi oil-for-food scandal is exceeded only by its sex-for-food scandal in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
John Kerry also has ignorance down pat. No one of any political stripe who condemns tax cuts during a time of potential recession can claim to have even a glimmering of an economic clue, as this is straight out of the Keynesian textbook – if you're easing the money supply, you should also be cutting taxes and increasing spending – and, of course, we Austrians always favor more money in private hands.
And as for inconsistency, anyone with a lifetime ADA rating of 93 who tries to claim that he is not a liberal well deserves the title of Monsieur Flip-Flop. This is in addition to his much-chronicled flip-flops on the Iraqi war, the marriage penalty, the Patriot Act, homogamy, the death penalty, affirmative action, gasoline taxes, abortion, election reform and NAFTA.
George Bush does not deserve re-election. I'd much rather see a man of confirmed principle such as Michael Peroutka of the Constitution Party or Aaron Russo of the Libertarian party in the White House. But as the great work of the public schools remains incomplete, the president is fortunate that only those handicapable individuals possessed of the Three I's of Liberalism will be supporting his main rival.
Vox Day is a novelist and Christian libertarian. He is a member of the SFWA, Mensa and the Southern Baptist church, and has been down with Madden since 1992. Visit his Web log, Vox Popoli, for daily commentary and responses to reader email.
Vanity Fair Credits NewsMax for Clinton's bin Laden Woes
The June edition of Vanity Fair is hitting newsstands and it credits NewsMax.com for most of Clinton's post-9/11 woes.
While ex-President Clinton has managed to rise above most of the scandals that characterized his White House years, Vanity Fair magazine says that the episode that continues to damage his legacy most is a recording by NewsMax.com of Clinton's admission that he turned down a deal for Osama bin Laden's arrest in 1996.
"The hardest charge to dismiss is the most devastating," reports Vanity Fair in its June issue. "Five years before 9/11, it was said, Osama bin Laden had been presented to Bill Clinton on a silver platter, and he refused to take him."
Before NewsMax released its smoking-gun tape, Vanity Fair says, Clinton officials such as former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger denied up and down that Sudan had any intention of extraditing bin Laden.
Others, such as U.S. Ambassador to Sudan Tim Carney, however, claimed otherwise.
"Who was right hadn't been resolved when Clinton addressed a businessman's group on Long Island on February 15, 2002," the magazine said. "A tape recording obtained by the right wing Web site NewsMax.com captured Clinton saying the following:
"'Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991, then he went to Sudan. And we'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start meeting with them again.
"'They released him. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America, so I did not bring him here, because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America.
"'So I pleaded with the Saudis to take take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato.'"
Though there was ample intelligence and evidence that bin Laden indeed had been behind attacks against Americans, contradicting Clinton's claim, Vanity Fair noted, "Although the [Clinton] admission passed without notice in most of the mainstream media, the damage was done.
"According to a January 2002 USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll, the percentage of Americans who thought history would rate Clinton's presidency as 'poor' was more than half again what it had been the year before."
Two years later, the infamous tape continues to haunt the Democratic Party's most popular figure.
Vanity Fair notes that when Clinton was grilled about his bin Laden admission by the 9/11 Commission last month, he called it "a misquote," apparently hoping the commissioners didn't know it was on tape.
As NewsMax noted at the time, after 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey compared Clinton's testimony to his February 2002 remarks, he told a radio interviewer, "[This is] much different from what we heard."
Kudos to Vanity Fair for covering the bombshell the mainstream press has tried to bury for more than two years.
We think it's an important part of the historical backdrop to America's darkest day ever - and we trust Vanity Fair's readers will think so too.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/4/9/165600.shtml
October 4th, 2005 at 12:49 pmLet the Sunshine In
The same old myths live on about Florida, Nov. 2000.
By John R. Lott Jr.
Headlines this weekend recited the old line "Dems accuse Bush of stealing the 2000 election." Former U.S. Representative Carrie Meek received a wildly enthusiastic response from delegates to the Florida Democratic convention with calls that "We should be ready for revenge!" Retired General Wesley Clark told delegates he fought for democracy and free elections in Vietnam and Europe only to see "the taking" of the presidency by Republicans in 2000. Senator John Edwards said, "We had more votes; we won!" Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts said: "None of us are going to forget." More vaguely, Senator Joe Lieberman claimed that Bush "stretched the truth" to get his way in 2000. Of course, Terry McAuliffe was beating the same old drum. They should all get over it.
The stolen election supposedly incorporated many wrongs, but foremost was discrimination against Democratic African-American voters: Faulty voting machines were said to have thrown out their votes at higher rates. Also included are claims that the voters' intent wasn't properly divined, that Republicans on the Supreme Court felt compelled to covertly snatch the election, and that African-Americans were intimidated into not voting or were erroneously placed on the ineligible list at higher rates than other racial groups.
These charges have been rebutted before, but with so much misinformation and people's short memories simply accepting the charges, many risk believing that they are true. There has also been new research — of which most people may not be aware — which helps replace myth with reality.
1. THE MYTH OF THE FLAWED VOTING MACHINES & DEMOCRATIC DISENFRANCHISEMENT
Suppose spoiled or non-voted ballots really did indicate disenfranchisement, rather than voter preferences. Then, according to the precinct-level vote data compiled by USA Todayand other newspapers, the group most victimized in the Florida voting was African-American Republicans, and by a dramatic margin, too.
Earlier this year I published an article in the Journal of Legal Studies analyzing the USA Today data, and it shows that African-American Republicans who voted were 54 to 66 times more likely than the average African American to cast a non-voted ballot (either by not marking that race or voting for too many candidates). To put it another way: For every two additional black Republicans in the average precinct, there was one additional non-voted ballot. By comparison, it took an additional 125 African Americans (of any party affiliation) in the average precinct to produce the same result.
Some readers may be surprised that black Republicans even exist in Florida, but, in fact, there are 22,270 such registered voters — or about one for every 20 registered black Democrats. This is a large number when you consider that the election in the state was decided by fewer than 1,000 votes. Since these Republicans were more than 50 times more likely to suffer non-voted ballots than other African Americans, the reasonable conclusion is that George W. Bush was penalized more by the losses of African-American votes than Al Gore.
Democrats have also claimed that low-income voters suffered non-voted ballots disproportionately. Yet, the data decisively reject this conclusion. For example, the poorest voters, those in households making less than $15,000 a year, had non-voted ballots at less than one-fifteenth the rate of voters in families making over $500,000.
It is difficult to believe that wealthy people were more confused by the ballot than poor people. Perhaps the rich or black Republicans simply did not like the choices for president and so did not vote on that part of the ballot. Perhaps there was tampering, but it is difficult to see how it could have been carried out and covered up. We may never know, but, clearly, the figures show that income and race were only one-third as important in explaining non-voted ballots as the methods and machines used in voting. For example, setting up the names in a straight line appears to produce many fewer problems than listing names on different pages or in separate columns.
2. THE MYTH THAT AFRICAN AMERICANS WERE INCORRECTLY PLACED ON THE CONVICTED-FELONS LIST AT A HIGHER RATE THAN OTHER GROUPS
The evidence on convicted felons comes from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission's Majority Report, which states: "The chance of being placed on this list [the exclusion list] in error is greater if the voter is African-American." The evidence they provide indicates that African-Americans had a greater share of successful appeals. However, since African-Americans also constituted an even greater share of the list to begin with, whites were actually the most likely to be erroneously on the list (a 9.9-percent error rate for whites versus only a 5.1-percent error rate for blacks). The rate for Hispanics (8.7 percent) is also higher than for blacks. The Commission's own table thus proves the opposite of what they claim. A greater percentage of whites and Hispanics who were placed on the disqualifying list were originally placed there in error.
In any case, this evidence has nothing to do with whether people were in the end improperly prevented from voting, and there are no data presented on that point. The Majority Report's evidence only examines those who successfully appealed and says nothing about how many of those who didn't appeal could have successfully done so.
3. THE MYTH THAT GORE WOULD HAVE WON IF RECOUNT HAD ONLY BEEN ALLOWED
There were two news consortiums conducting massive recounts of Florida's ballots. One group was headed by USA Today and the Miami Herald. The other one was headed by eight newsgroups including the Washington Post, New York Times, L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune, the Associated Press, and CNN. Surprisingly, the two groups came to very similar conclusions. To quote from the USA Today group's findings (May 11, 2001) on different recounts:
Who would have won if Al Gore had gotten the manual counts he requested in four counties? Answer: George W. Bush.
Who would have won if the U.S. Supreme Court had not stopped the hand recount of undervotes, which are ballots that registered no machine-readable vote for president? Answer: Bush, under three of four standards.
Who would have won if all disputed ballots — including those rejected by machines because they had more than one vote for president — had been recounted by hand? Answer: Bush, under the two most widely used standards; Gore, under the two least used.
Of course, Florida law provided no mechanism to ask for a statewide recount a la the last option, only county-by-county recounts. And of course neither Gore's campaign nor the Florida Supreme Court ever asked for such a recount.
4. DON'T FORGET THE EARLY MEDIA CALL
Florida polls were open until 8 P.M. on election night. The problem was that Florida's ten heavily Republican western-panhandle counties are on Central, not Eastern, time. When polls closed at 8 P.M. EST in most of the state, the western-panhandle polling places were still open for another hour. Yet, at 8 Eastern, all the networks (ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, and NBC) incorrectly announced many times over the next hour that the polls were closed in the entire state. CBS national news made 18 direct statements that the polls had closed.
Polling conducted after the election indicates that the media had an impact on voter behavior, and that the perception of Democratic wins discouraged Republican voters. Democratic strategist Bob Beckel concluded Mr. Bush suffered a net loss of up to 8,000 votes in the panhandle after Florida was called early for Gore. Another survey of western-panhandle voters conducted by John McLaughlin & Associates, a Republican polling company, immediately after the election estimated that the early call cost Bush approximately 10,000 votes.
Using voting data for presidential elections from 1976 to 2000, my own own empirical estimates that attempted to control for a variety of factors affecting turnout imply that Bush received as many as 7,500 to 10,000 fewer votes than he would normally have expected. Little change appears to have occurred in the rate that non-Republicans voted.
Terry McAuliffe clearly stated his strategy "to use the anger and resentment that will come out of that 2000 election, put it in a positive way to energize the Democratic base." Democrats have used the notion that Bush is an illegitimate president to justify everything from their harsh campaign rhetoric to their filibusters against his judicial appointments.
More could be said about these myths, but most of them hardly merit discussion. Unfortunately, as Terry McAuliffe implies, these falsehoods will continue to be trumpeted frequently over the next year; thankfully, a few facts can help dispel them.
John Lott is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
October 4th, 2005 at 12:50 pmThe Economy -
GW's 1st three years versus Clinton's 1st three years:
Unemployment Rate -
Jan 2004: 5.6% (After GWBush's 1st three years)
Change in rate from prior year (Jan '03-'04): 0.3%, Decrease
Jan 1996: 5.6% (After Bill Clinton's 1st three years)
Change in rate from prior year (Jan '95-'96): 0.0%, No change
* The Unemployement Rate is the same after GWBush's 1st three years as it was after Bill Clinton's 1st three years.
* The Unemployment rate steadily declined in the third year with GWBush while it remained unchanged in Bill Clinton's third year.
Poverty Rate For Families (Two-Year Average) -
2001-2002: 9.40% (GWBush's 1st two years)
1993-1994: 12.95% (Clinton's 1st two years)
1993-2000: 10.50% (Average for Clinton's full eight years)
* The % of families living in poverty is lower after two years under GWBush than after two years under Bill Clinton - even lower than 7 out of 8 of Clinton's years in office.
Percent of People Below 50 Percent of Poverty Level (Two-Year Average) -
2001-2002: 4.95% (GWBush's 1st two years)
1993-1994: 6.05% (Clinton's 1st two years)
1993-2000: 5.31% (Average for Clinton's full eight years)
* The % of people living in deep poverty is lower after two years under GWBush than after two years under Bill Clinton - even lower than the average across Clinton's entire TWO terms of office... AND lower than ANY of Clinton's 1st six years in office.
Homeownership Rate -
GWBush's 1st three years:
4th Quarter 2000: 67.5% (before GWBush)
4th Quarter 2003: 68.6% (after 3 years of GWBush)
Difference: +1.1%
Bill Clinton's 1st three years:
4th Quarter 1992: 64.4% (before Clinton)
4th Quarter 1995: 65.1% (after 3 years of Clinton)
Difference: +0.7%
* The Homeownership Rate is higher under GWBush's 1st three years than under Bill Clinton's 1st three years.
* The Homeownership Rate grew MORE in the 1st three years with GWBush than in the 1st three years with Bill Clinton.
Inflation Rate -
GWBush's 1st three years:
Jan 2001: 3.73% (before GWBush)
Jan 2004: 1.93% (after 3 years of GWBush)
Difference: 1.8% Decrease
Bill Clinton's 1st three years:
Jan 1993: 3.26% (before Clinton)
Jan 1996: 2.73% (after 3 years of Clinton)
Difference: 0.53% Decrease
* The Inflation Rate is lower after three years of GWBush than it was after Bill Clinton's first three years.
* The Inflation Rate declined over three times greater under GWBush than under Bill Clinton.
A few more tidbits:
* "2004 Will Be the U.S.'s Best Year Economically in Last 20 Years" ~ The Conference Board's revised forecast, December 2003.
* Manufacturing is at 20-year record highs.
* GDP for the second-half of 2003 grew an incredible 6 percent while inflation was held under 1 percent.
* Real private-sector GDP has expanded at a 5.3 percent annual rate since the Bush tax cuts were passed while in the prior six quarters private-sector GDP averaged only 2.5 percent.
* Foreign exports have been increasing and have actually doubled since six months ago.
* The Federal deficit is estimated to be $477 billion in 2004 but then drop to $362 billion for 2005. The current 2004 deficit is 4.2% of the GDP which makes it smaller, compared to the GDP, than what it was in the late '80s and early '90s.
* The stock markets (i.e. your pensions, IRAs, 401(k)s and college saving plans) have rebounded solidly and are approaching three-year highs.
Economically, things are looking good and getting better.
And so even though GWBush "wrecked" the economy, caused a long and deep recession and threw 4 gabzillion people out of work - in just two years GWBush was still able to keep the poverty rate LOWER than what Clinton had done in almost EIGHT years?
* And all of this IN SPITE OF 9-11, which annhialated one of America's most important financial centers.
* AND in spite of waging two major overseas wars to overthrow two terrorist regimes.
* AND in spite of completely revamping and reconstructing our national security and intelligence agencies to defend against constant domestic terrorist threats.
* And yet we STILL have (as the numbers show) a far BETTER economy after three years of GWBush than when he first took office.
* And, as shown above, GWBush has had a GREATER positive impact on the economy than what Clinton was able to accomplish in his first three years.
Now I bet you'll never hear ANY of this by listening to CNN/NBC/CBS/ABC/MSNBC/NPR or by reading USATODAY/NYTimes/WashPost/LATimes.
October 4th, 2005 at 12:51 pmMemos show Gorelick involvement in 'wall'
Back to the Clinton Criminal Page
Back to the Clinton/9-11 Page
The Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com
By Charles Hurt and Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published April 29, 2004
Newly released Justice Department memos show that September 11 panel commissioner Jamie S. Gorelick was more intimately involved than previously thought with hampering communications between U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement agencies fighting terrorism.
October 4th, 2005 at 12:53 pmAs the No. 2 person in the Clinton Justice Department, Ms. Gorelick rejected advice from the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who warned against placing more limits on communications between law-enforcement officials and prosecutors pursuing counterterrorism cases, according to several internal documents written in summer 1995.
"It is hard to be totally comfortable with instructions to the FBI prohibiting contact with the United States Attorney's Offices when such prohibitions are not legally required," U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White wrote Ms. Gorelick six years before the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon.
"Our experience has been that the FBI labels of an investigation as intelligence or law enforcement can be quite arbitrary, depending upon the personnel involved and that the most effective way to combat terrorism is with as few labels and walls as possible so that wherever permissible, the right and left hands are communicating," she wrote.
The documents -- released yesterday by the Justice Department at the request of two Senate Republicans -- drew renewed calls for Ms. Gorelick to testify publicly before the September 11 commission about the so-called "wall" between law enforcement and intelligence agencies that many have blamed for allowing the 2001 terrorist attacks to occur.
Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, said yesterday that Ms. Gorelick's policies regarding the wall contributed to "blinding America to this terrible threat."
Also, he said, the newly released memos raised apparent conflicts with statements Ms. Gorelick has made recently defending herself and her role in the Clinton Justice Department.
"These documents show what we've said all along: Commissioner Gorelick has special knowledge of the facts and circumstances leading up to the erection and buttressing of 'that wall' that, before the enactment of the Patriot Act, was the primary obstacle to the sharing of communications between law enforcement and intelligence agencies," Mr. Cornyn said.
In a June 19, 1995, memo, Ms. White recommended a series of changes to a Gorelick policy that went beyond legal requirements in separating law- enforcement and intelligence agencies.
For instance, Ms. White said the local U.S. Attorney should be notified as soon as "criminal law enforcement concerns exist" while investigating terror suspects.
Deputy Director Michael Vatis rejected her recommendation.
"Notifying the [U.S. Attorney] as soon as law enforcement concerns exist -- but before [the criminal division] thinks that the investigation should 'go criminal' -- is simply too early," wrote Mr. Vatis, who was concerned that Ms. White's proposal could result in "prejudicing a possible criminal prosecution."
In a handwritten note to Attorney General Janet Reno, Ms. Gorelick wrote, "I have reviewed and concur in the Vatis/Garland recommendations for the reasons set forth in the Vatis memo."
The extent of Ms. Gorelick's involvement, spelled out in these memos, in buttressing the law enforcement-intelligence wall also raises questions about statements she has made recently defending herself and distancing herself from the decisions about the wall.
Asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer earlier this month about whether she had written a memo helping establish the wall, she replied: "No, and again, I would refer you back to what others on the commission have said. The wall was a creature of statute. It's existed since the mid 1980s. And while it's too lengthy to go into, basically the policy that was put out in the mid-'90s, which I didn't sign, wasn't my policy by the way, it was the attorney general's policy, was ratified by Attorney General Ashcroft's deputy as well in August of 2001."
Also yesterday, another group of Republican senators pressed their case for Ms. Gorelick to testify publicly and poked a hole in the reason the commission has given for not calling her.
Last week the commission's leaders received a letter from 11 Republican senators, led by Sen. Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, calling on Ms. Gorelick to testify in public.
The panel refused, saying that commissioners have only called former and current attorneys general and FBI directors to talk about the intelligence-law enforcement division, not their deputies.
They specifically listed four Justice Department deputies they did not call to testify, including Larry D. Thompson, a onetime deputy to Mr. Ashcroft.
But in a letter back to the commission yesterday Mr. Bond and his colleagues said Mr. Thompson, who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, did in fact publicly testify about his time as deputy, and commission records include a transcript and video archive of his testimony.
"Even before the horrific events of September 11, I witnessed firsthand, as the deputy attorney general, some of the problems that we in the department had with sharing information," said Mr. Thompson, who appeared before the panel on Dec. 8.
Mr. Bond and his colleagues said Ms. Gorelick has critical information she can provide about the same topic, and said her private interview with the commission is not enough.
"We believe, as was the case of [National Security Adviser Condoleezza] Rice, that public testimony by the decision-makers best serves the commission, the public, and ultimately Congress," the senators said, pointing to similar sentiments Ms. Gorelick herself expressed during the debate over Miss Rice's testimony.
"Unless Ms. Gorelick provides public testimony, like other key officials have done, there will be a significant gap of knowledge as far as what the public will know about its government prior to 9/11," they wrote.
Bush's business and oil dealings?
The Harken-Bahrain Deal: A Baseless Suspicion
Ever since little Harken Energy won an exclusive offshore oil-drilling contract in 1990 with the tiny Persian Gulf emirate of Bahrain, George W. Bush has been accused of having had something, somehow, to do with it.
He didn't. But suspicions linger, mostly by virtue of repetition.
Bush was on Harken's board of directors in the late 1980s when officials in Bahrain decided to look for more oil in their waters. To widespread surprise, Harken, which had never drilled a well offshore or overseas, wound up with the concession. The award, in January 1990, stirred talk in the oil industry that the Bahrainis might be trying to win an entree to the Bush White House.
There is, however, no evidence that Bush had any role in negotiating the deal and those familiar with it confirm that he actively opposed Harken's entering into it. In addition, the Bahraini official at the center of the negotiations, Yousuf Shirawi, already had a link to the administration, dating to the days when George Bush was vice president.
Asked how Harken was chosen, Shirawi, then Bahrain's minister of development and industry, said in an interview that seismic surveys were promising, but the "big boys" in the oil industry weren't interested. Shirawi said he decided to go shopping for a small American company and found Harken through a Houston oil consultant and longtime friend, Michael Ameen.
Shirawi said he was "not aware that George [W.] Bush was a member of the board" at the time the deal with Harken was made. He said he did learn this somewhat later, but whenever it was, he said: "I will swear one thing: that that information was of no significance. Because we wanted them to drill a hole."
When the multimillion-dollar project came up for discussion at Harken board meetings, Bush warned against it, saying it would cost more than Harken could afford to spend and emphasizing the fact that it had never drilled a single well overseas or in water.
"The guy who didn't want into Bahrain was George W. Bush," Ameen said. "He said, 'I don't think we have the expertise, we've never been overseas, and we don't have the money.' "
In fact, the project proved a huge disappointment. Harken found no oil.
Source: By George Lardner Jr. - Washington Post Staff Writer - Friday, July 30, 1999; Page A20
Did Bush know of the impending losses when he sold his stock in 1990?
The old Petroleum Building in Midland, where George W. Bush had his oil company offices.
1) "I wouldn't have sold if I had," Bush said. "I got clearance by the lawyer [Harken general counsel Larry E. Cummings] to sell this stock. I was mindful that this transaction would be completely scrutinized. I knew the law and I sold at a time that I was cleared to sell." Bush said he didn't seek a buyer, but was approached by a Los Angeles broker, Ralph D. Smith. Now retired, Smith said he had an institutional client who wanted a large bloc of Harken stock. Smith said he called other Harken officials before calling Bush on June 9, 1990. "I had no takers until I got to him," Smith said. "It was just like a shot out of the blue."
2) Bush's lawyer, Robert Jordan, who also represented Harken in the SEC inquiry, said Bush and other board members were not informed until July 13, 1990, in a communication from Harken president Mikel Faulkner that "operating losses were incurred in the second quarter, which will be further quantified and explained." Even then, Jordan said, Faulkner did not provide details. Many companies project and announce expected profits and losses before the end of a quarter, but Jordan said this was not done at Harken. Asked for a copy of the July 13 communique, or permission to inspect it, Jordan checked with company officials and said they would not allow it. He said Harken has "a policy of keeping internal documents private."
3) Before Bush's stock sale, Harken's audit committee Bush, Watson and another Harken director, Talat Othman met on June 11 with Faulkner and auditors from Arthur Andersen & Co., Harken's accountants. Jordan, however, said the committee "did not discuss operating losses that might be coming up, because that would be in the realm of conjecture and speculation." The minutes of the meeting, Jordan said, "show that."
4) Before giving Bush clearance to sell his stock, Jordan said that company counsel Cummings "checked with Mr. Faulkner at least and maybe others" to see if there was "any material, undisclosed information out there that would prevent the sale." The answer was no, Jordan said.
5) The SEC investigation was launched in April 1991 when it found that Bush apparently failed to submit notice of actual sale of the stock (as distinct from the separate "notice of proposed sale") until eight months after the deadline. Bush said he is sure he did, but the filing couldn't be found.
6) Bush was prepared, having obtained a letter from a top SEC official, associate director for enforcement Bruce A. Hiler, a year earlier. Dated Oct. 18, 1993, three weeks before Bush announced his candidacy for governor, the carefully worded letter was addressed to Jordan and said that "the investigation has been terminated as to the conduct of Mr. Bush, and that, at this time, no enforcement action is contemplated with respect to him."
7) Bush took that as vindication. "The SEC fully investigated the stock deal," he said in October 1994. "I was exonerated." Supporting Bush, the head of the SEC's enforcement division, William McLucas, went beyond the letter and stated publicly that "there was no case there."
8) Jordan said Harken provided investigators with "thousands of pages" of documents, including the June 11 minutes and Faulkner's July 13 communique. Investigators interviewed Cummings, stockbroker Smith and a member of the Arthur Andersen auditing team, but they did not talk to Faulkner or any other officers or directors of Harken.
Source: The Washington Post
A Quick Listing of Bush's Business Workings
In 1972, Bush entered Harvard Business School, earning his M.B.A. in 1975. Bush decided to try his hand in the oil business. He returned to Midland and formed an independent oil and gas exploration company that he called Arbusto (the Spanish word for bush).
The declining oil prices of the early 1980s took their toll on his company (by now renamed Bush Exploration), Bush accepted an offer to merge with an oil-investing fund called Spectrum 7, and became a chairman of the resulting corporation.
In 1986, after a sudden collapse in the price of oil, Bush arranged for Spectrum to be sold to Harken Energy for a bargain price. He later sold his original stock shares and made a considerable profit.
After the 1988 election Bush organized a group of wealthy investors (including himself) and arranged the purchase of the Texas Rangers professional baseball team. As the team's managing partner, Bush became a fixture in the stands at the Rangers' home games and earned a name for himself in Texas aside from his family's impressive legacy. (He also earned a good deal of moneyafter an initial outlay of only $606,000, Bush walked away with nearly $15 million when the team was sold in 1998.)
Biography.com
A Straight-Shooter Who Made Contacts
Despite frequent disappointments, Bush gained a reputation for straight-dealing, dogged effort and unshakable good humor. "There are people who live in $4 million homes, and have a yacht and then drill dry wells. That wasn't the case with George," said Kass, who visited Bush in Midland. "If you saw how George lived in Midland, no one could think he was living off their money."
Bush would hit the local bars and country clubs at night, but colleagues say his having fun was good business too. In Midland back then, "a lot of people liked to go out and play," said Mark Owen, a geologist who worked for Bush from 1980 to 1984 as vice president in charge of exploration. "That's how you make contacts. That's one of the reasons George got to know everybody in town."
Bush has acknowledged he drank too much in those days, but people who worked for him say that it didn't keep him from showing up at the office each morning at 8 and staying till 5 p.m. or often later.
Even though he wasn't a geologist, Bush "had a pretty good intuitive sense about the business," Owen said. "He had a real good feel for it. And he was great at raising money, putting deals together." Bush would travel around the country, sometimes with Owen, sometimes by himself, looking for partners. "That, in my mind, was George's strength," Owen said. "He knew a lot of people."
James McAninch, who joined Arbusto in 1982 to take charge of production, said Bush at that point was operating about 15 wells in the Midland area in which he had a majority interest.
"George was a good operator very honest and straightforward," McAninch said. "He hired you for what you were qualified to do. He didn't interfere. He turned you loose. He'd say, 'Man, it's your responsibility. You do your job, no problem.' ... He could make quick decisions too. ... He had enough savvy to ask almost all the right questions. And [months later] he'd remember what the answers were. He was very savvy about the oil fields."
Source: The Washington Post
A Few Quotes
1) "I was unencumbered in the sense of I was single and didn't have any possessions," recalled Bush, "and I wasn't tied to any plan that somebody had outlined for me. I got out there and it was clear this is the place I wanted to go." -Bush recalled after finishing Harvard Business School
2) "Geologists decide where to buy the leases," Rea said. "Landmen deal with people. George was ideal for that." -Paul Rea
3) "George was an easy sale," says Jonathan Bush. "I mean, the people that met him would say, right away, 'I'd like to drill with this guy.' ... He had run for Congress. He was an upstanding guy. They figured he knew what he was doing, but mostly they figured they'd get a fair shake with him. There were a lot of people bilking investors in the oil business in those days." -Jonathan Bush
4) "The only people who go into it are people that aren't going to miss the money," -Jonathan Bush
5) "I thought he was one of the most attractive people I'd ever met very classy, very smart," -Reynolds said after Bush stopped by Reynolds's Park Avenue office.
6) "I [was] slowly but surely building a solid, small producing company and I thought we'd developed a reputation as honest operators who worked hard [and], who gave people a fair shake. ... I'm not going to pretend it was any huge success at the time," Bush said. But "the story not told [by the balance sheets] is what prospects were being developed or what potential we had. ... I had some good leases in our inventory." -George W. Bush
7) "There are people who live in $4 million homes, and have a yacht and then drill dry wells. That wasn't the case with George," -said Kass
8) "We wanted [Bush's] leadership abilities, and his operational ability which we didn't have," DeWitt said. "And he actually operated wells. We took parts of wells, we never operated wells." -DeWitt
9) "There was obviously some notoriety because of who [Bush] was, but it didn't open any doors for us," DeWitt said. "I mean our doors were already opened."
Al Gore and "Big Oil"
Al Gore: "It takes somebody who is independent from Big Oil to take on Big Oil, and Im independent from them. . . ." (Al Gore on June 28, 2000 as quoted in Bill Sammon, "Gore Resists Calls To Halt Oil Drilling In Colombia," The Washington Times, June 30, 2000)
THE TRUTH
Occidentals chief Armand Hammer "was as cozy with Gore Jr. as he was with Gore Sr." (Ken Silverstein, "Gores Oil Money; Occidental Petroleum And United States Foreign Policy In Colombia," The Nation, May 22, 2000)
"Occidental is the political patron of Al Gore [Jr.]. . ." (Steve Kretzmann of Amazon Watch, a San Francisco-based member of the Uwa Defense Working Group quoted in Sam Loewenberg, "Big Guns Back Aid To Colombia," Legal Times, February 21, 2000)
A New York Times Columnist On The Sale Of The Elk Hills Reserve To Occidental: "[T]he interests of democracy would have been better served if it had been widely known that Occidental Petroleum has for years been a major benefactor of Mr. Gores family." (Bob Herbert, "In America; Webs of Influence," The New York Times, February 3, 2000) (emphasis added)
"Al Gore has had a long-standing personal and financial relationship with Occidental Petroleum, the people who brought us Love Canal in the 1970s via Hooker Chemical." (Charles Lewis, founder and executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, interviewed in "The Buying of the President: An Interview With Charles Lewis," Multinational Monitor, March 1, 2000) (emphasis added)
"Vice President Al Gore has many ties to Occidental Petroleum." (Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), Press Release, "No More Blood For Oil. Says McKinney," February 22, 2000)
GORE AND THE DESTRUCTION OF INDIANS' LAND AND CULTURE
In 2000, Gore Has Been Deafeningly Silent On Occidental Oil Company's Destruction Of The Indigenous U'was' Tribal Lands And Culture:
Gore Spokesman Doug Hattaway. "He doesnt own stock in that company, and he doesnt have any connection to that issue in Colombia." (Holly Ramer, The Associated Press, January 26, 2000) (emphasis added)
Gore Spokeswoman Laura Quinn. "Its a matter that involves the internal policies of another country. . ." (Ken Silverstein, "Gores Oil Money; Occidental Petroleum And United States Foreign Policy In Colombia," The Nation, May 22, 2000)
Gore Spokesman James Kennedy. It "is an internal domestic matter and the United States does not have the unilateral authority to intervene in it. Asked why the vice president doesnt use his bully pulpit as a presidential candidate to articulate a moral stance on the controversy, Mr. Kennedy said: Ill just leave it at that." (Bill Sammon, "Gore Resists Calls To Halt Oil Drilling In Colombia," The Washington Times, June 30, 2000)(emphasis added)
Gore Spokesman Mark Fabiani On "Fox News Sunday:"
Snow: ". . . A number of environmentalists in this country want [Gore] to encourage Occidental Petroleum, with which his family has old ties, to cease a drilling project in Columbia which environmentalists say will despoil earth and kill off an Indian tribe. Why wont he at least speak out on that?"
Fabiani: "Im not familiar with the Occidental issue. But I can tell you that these are the issues dealing with private companies or private organizations that are occurring in foreign countries. We just dont have any control over what the entities are trying to do in other countries. . . . " (Fox News "Fox News Sunday," July 2, 2000) (emphasis added)
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) Says "No More Blood For Oil" And Accuses Gore Of "Remain[ing] Silent." "I am concerned that the operations of oil companies, and in particular Occidental Petroleum, are exacerbating an already explosive situation, with disastrous consequences for the local indigenous [Uwa Indians]. . . I am contacting you because you have remained silent on this issue despite your strong financial interests and family ties with Occidental." (Ken Silverstein, "Gores Oil Money; Occidental Petroleum and United States Foreign Policy in Colombia," The Nation, May 22, 2000) (emphasis added) "The location of the drill site represents a serious disregard for the spiritual and cultural heritage of the Uwa people. . . . Oil drilling on Uwa land will result in considerable environmental damage and social conflict which will lead to greater militarization of the region as well as an increase in violence. The only way to avoid this tragedy is through respect for the rights of the Uwa under Colombian and international law. Sadly, both the Colombian government and Occidental Petroleum have disregarded these rights. If Occidental Petroleum begins drilling, which they say they could do at any time, it will be [sic] catastrophe. Respect for democracy, human and environmental rights are much more important than cash for capitalistic corporations, stated McKinney." (Rainforest Action Network: Uwa Campaign, "Suspend Occidental Petroleums Drilling Says Congresswoman McKinney," February 22, 2000; Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), Press Release, "No More Blood For Oil. Says McKinney," February 22, 2000) (emphasis added) "Today, hope for the Uwa and other victims of human rights abuses in Colombia lies in your hands." (Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), Press Release, "No More Blood For Oil. Says McKinney," February 22, 2000)
Occidental Petroleums Expansion Into Colombia Has Threatened The Land Of The Uwa, A Local Indigenous Tribe. In 1992, Occidental Petroleum signed an agreement with the Colombian government to develop the Samore Block region of Colombia, which is thought to contain around 1.4 billion barrels of oil. (Danielle Knight, "Colombia: U.S. Aid Challenged After Police Clash with Uwa," Inter Press Service, February 16, 2000) Since then, Occidentals first drill site on this project has been embroiled in a conflict with a local indigenous tribe called the Uwa involving boundary disputes, ancestral land claims, and cultural preservation. In 1995 the conflict began in earnest when Occidental began to exercise its development rights and "conduct preliminary tests in the [Samore Block] area." (Steven Dudley, "In Colombia, a Dispute Fueled by Oil; Uwa Indians Appear to Be Losing Battle Against Government-Backed Drilling Project," The Washington Post, February 20, 2000)
Tribal Leaders Speak Out Against Occidental. Robert Perez, president of the Traditional Authority of the Uwa People, says "[t]he Occidental project is an affront to our livelihood, our lives and our culture." (Ken Silverstein, "Gores Oil Money; Occidental Petroleum And United States Foreign Policy In Colombia," The Nation, May 22, 2000) "Tribal leaders say the Uwas will commit collective suicide if Occidental is allowed to drill on their land." (Ken Silverstein, "Gores Oil Money; Occidental Petroleum And United States Foreign Policy In Colombia," The Nation, May 22, 2000)
Gore Has Stood Silent While Pollution From Occidentals Oil Operations Destroy The Uwas Native Lands. Occidentals Cano Limon pipeline "has spilled an estimated 1,700,000 barrels of crude oil, contaminating surrounding land, lakes and rivers." ("Al Gore And Big Oil Genocide," Earth Island Journal, June 22, 2000)
Occidental Has Benefited From Recent Human Rights Violations Committed Against The Uwa And Their Advocates. Recently, Colombian authorities have increased the pressure on the Uwa and their advocates in order to force them to allow Occidental oil exploration on their tribal land. In February of 2000, three Uwa children died during a peaceful, civil rights protest against Occidental and the Colombian government when they and their mothers were forcibly removed from a road leading to the Occidental drill site. The same police and military forces the Clinton/Gore Administration wants to support with increased military aid are the ones who used tear gas on the protesting Uwa, and, in an episode as recent as January 25, 2000, abused ten Uwa who were physically evicted from land they owned in order to allow Occidental access to the lands oil and natural resources. (Steven Dudley, "In Colombia, a Dispute Fueled by Oil; Uwa Indians Appear to Be Losing Battle Against Government-Backed Drilling Project," The Washington Post, February 20, 2000) In addition to the recent abuses committed by Colombian authorities, the chaos engulfing the Uwa people has also drawn in FARC, Colombias leftist guerilla insurgency, which murdered three Americans, Ingrid Washinawatok, Laheenae Gay, and Terence Freitas, founder of the California-based human rights group called Uwa Defense Working Group, in late 1999. (Danielle Knight, "Environment-Rights: U.S. Groups Pledge to Continue Defense of Uwa," Inter Press Service, March 8, 1999)
Al Gore Has Refused To Take Any Action To Help Relieve The Uwas Suffering. Despite the human rights violations against the Uwa, Gore has refused to take action. Uwa activists in the U.S. tried to force this issue to Gores attention through protests at his New Hampshire Presidential Campaign Headquarters in January and attempts to question him at the Democratic Presidential Debate in Harlem, New York on February 21, 2000, all to no avail. (Kathryn Marchocki, "Gore Headquarters Sit-In Site For Anti-Oil-Drilling Activists. Gore Talks To Factory Workers; Bradley Visits With Preschoolers," Manchester Union Leader, January 27, 2000; "Campaign 2000 II: Gore, Bradley Discuss Enviro Justice In," Greenwire, February 22, 2000)
Leading Liberals, Environmentalists, and Journalists Have Called On Gore To End His Silence On This Issue:
Carl Pope, The Executive Director of the Sierra Club. The executive director of the Sierra Club, Carl Pope, told Gore that "hope for the Uwa and other victims of rights abuses in Colombia lies in your hands." (Rainforest Action Network, Urgent Action Alert, January 2000)
Journalist Terry Moran. Journalist Terry Moran criticized Gores silence: "Vice President Gore refused several requests to speak with ABC News about the Uwa, and his familys holdings in Occidental. . . Gores public silence on the issue leaves him open [to] the charge that for all his speech-making on the environment, he wont put his money where his mouth is." (ABCs "World News Tonight," March 6, 2000)
Stephen Kretzmann of Amazon Watch. "There has been a lot of back-room negotiations between the Clinton administration and the Colombian government on behalf of Occidental. . . . Occidental is a favorite of the Clinton-Gore administration, particularly Gore. . . . You have an imminent, unfolding, tragic situation in Colombia being perpetrated by a corporation with direct ties to the vice president and he wont do a . . . thing. . . . He has remained silent, and he hasnt pulled his money out." (Stephen Kretzmann of Amazon Watch quoted in Bill Sammon, "Gore Resists Calls To Halt Oil Drilling In Colombia," The Washington Times, June 30, 2000)
Sharon Wright of the Rainforest Action Network. "Mr. Gore cannot pretend to be any better than Bush when his hands have the blood of the Uwa on them." (Sharon Wright of the Rainforest Action Network as quoted in Bill Sammon, "Gore Resists Calls To Halt Oil Drilling In Colombia," The Washington Times, June 30, 2000)
Gore Supporters, Occidental Lobbyists, And Democratic Fundraisers Have Been Working Hard To Promote Occidentals Interests At The Uwas Expense. Gore supporters both inside and outside the Administration have lobbied hard for Occidentals drilling project in the Uwas territory. Occidental hired former Democratic National Committee Treasurer Scott Pastrick in 1997 to promote this project; Pastrick prepared "call sheets" for Gores use during the Vice Presidents 1996 fundraising solicitations. More recently in 1999, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, a prominent Gore supporter within the Administration, hired lobbyist Theresa Fariello, who had previously pressured the Energy Department to back Occidentals drilling in Colombia. (Bill Sammon, "Gore Resists Calls To Halt Oil Drilling In Colombia," The Washington Times, June 30, 2000)
Occidental Says The Administrations Aid Package To Colombia Will Protect Its Interests. The Clinton/Gore Administration is promoting a Colombian aid package that Occidental says will protect its oil interests. This aid package consists of over $1 billion dollars, part of which will go to fight FARC, Colombias left-wing insurgency. FARCs frequent attacks on Occidentals pipelines have done serious damage and spilled more crude oil than the Exxon Valdez. (Bill Sammon, "Gore Resists Calls To Halt Oil Drilling In Colombia," The Washington Times, June 30, 2000)
Gore Hypocrisy...Harshly Criticized Other Corporations For Their Destruction Of Indigenous Culture In Malaysia, Papua New Guinea And Around The World
Gore Spokespersons Stated Reasons For Gores Silence On The Uwas Are Contradicted By Gores Previous Actions On Behalf Of Other Indigenous Tribes Around The World.
Doug Hattaway: Gore "Doesnt Own Stock In That Company, And He Doesnt Have Any Connection To That Issue In Colombia." (Holly Ramer, The Associated Press, January 26, 2000) (emphasis added) Gore did not own stock in any of the logging companies that he criticized for destroying the land and culture of the Penans in Malaysia or Indians in Papua New Guinea. Gores "connection" to the issues in Malaysia and Papua New Guinea was far more attenuated than his "connection" with the Uwas and Occidental.
Laura Quinn: "Its A Matter That Involves The Internal Policies Of Another Country. . ." (Ken Silverstein, "Gores Oil Money; Occidental Petroleum And United States Foreign Policy In Colombia," The Nation, May 22, 2000) The destruction of the rain forests in Malaysia and Papua New Guinea involved "the internal policies of another country," but that did not stop Gore from calling on the Japanese government to investigate the timber companies in two separate Senate resolutions.
James Kennedy: It "Is An Internal Domestic Matter And The United States Does Not Have The Unilateral Authority To Intervene In It." (Bill Sammon, "Gore Resists Calls To Halt Oil Drilling In Colombia," The Washington Times, June 30, 2000) The destruction of the rain forests in Malaysia and Papua New Guinea involved "internal domestic matter[s]," but that did not stop Gore from calling on the Japanese government to investigate the timber companies in two separate Senate resolutions. Gores lack of "unilateral authority to intervene" did not stop him from speaking out in the Senate and introducing two Senate resolutions calling on the Japanese government to investigate timber companies.
Mark Fabiani: "We Just Dont Have Any Control Over What The Entities Are Trying To Do In Other Countries. . . ." (Fox News "Fox News Sunday," July 2, 2000) The destruction of the rain forests in Malaysia and Papua New Guinea involved "what the entities are trying to do in other countries," but that did not stop Gore from calling on the Japanese government to investigate the timber companies in two separate Senate resolutions.
Al Gore Is Silent On The Uwas, But In 1992 Introduced A Senate Resolution And Spoke Out On The Penans! In response to the destructive effects of logging on the Penan Indians of the East Malaysian State of Sarawak, Al Gore sponsored Senate Resolution 280 which called upon Malaysia to formally recognize and uphold the "customary land rights and the internationally established human rights of all indigenous peoples," and upon Japan to "investigate the activities of certain private companies of Japan in contributing to the destruction of. . . the culture of the indigenous people of Sarawak." (S. Res. 280, Referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, April 2, 1992)
Al Gore Is Silent On The Uwas, But In 1992 Gore Criticized Timber Companies For Destroying The Indigenous Penans Tribal Lands And Culture: In his remarks in support of the resolution, Gore decried the destruction of indigenous peoples and cultures. In particular, he urged the world to "speak out" against the loss of native peoples and cultures: "The Penan Indians are desperately trying to save their homes and their culture from the incessant onslaught of bulldozers and chainsaws of timber companies. . . . The impact of this logging on the natives and their land is catastrophic. . . . Sadly, the struggle of the Penan is not an isolated event. All around the world, cultures that have developed and thrived over the millennia are being destroyed by timber, mining, and commercial agricultural interests. Their loss is a tragedy to us all, and I believe that we must speak out against the human rights and environmental abuses they endure. The resolution I submit today calls upon the Government of Malaysia to preserve the tropical rain forests and the indigenous tribal culture of Sarawak." (Al Gore, Congressional Record, April 2, 1992) (emphasis added)
In Earth In The Balance, Gore In An Emotional Plea For People To "Speak Up," Compared The Plight Of The Penans To Those Of The Jews In Nazi Germany:
"The weak and powerless are the early victims, but the relentless and insatiable drive to exploit and plunder the earth will soon awaken the conscience of others who are only now beginning to interpret the alarms and muffled cries for help. In the famous words of Pastor Martin Niemoller, about how the Nazis were able to take over an entire society: In Germany the Nazis came first for the Communists, and I didnt speak up because I wasnt a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didnt speak up because I wasnt a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didnt speak up because I wasnt a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didnt speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak for me."
(Al Gore, Earth In The Balance, 2000, p. 285)
Al Gore Is Silent On The Uwas, But In 1991 Introduced A Senate Resolution And Spoke Out On The Indigenous Peoples Of Papua New Guinea! In response to the destructive effects of logging on the Indians of Papua New Guinea, Al Gore sponsored Senate Resolution 101 which called upon Japan "to investigate the activities of these large [timber] companies and bring an end to their abuses." (Al Gore, Congressional Record, March 21, 1991) (emphasis added)
Al Gore Is Silent On The Uwas, But In 1991 Gore Criticized Timber Companies For Destroying The Indigenous Tribal Lands And Culture Of Papua New Guinea: In his remarks in support of the resolution, Gore decried the destruction of indigenous peoples and cultures. In particular, he urged the world to "speak out" against the loss of native peoples and cultures:
The [timber] companies would not tolerate would not tolerate resistance to their presence in the rain forest and harassed these indigenous lands into submission. . . . These large Japanese companies are inflicting incredible harm on the indigenous peoples of the forest and on the living species that are being destroyed as the forests are torn down and burned. . . . We have seen in several different locations of the tropics particular areas of rain forests that are singled out for intensive logging. Sarawak has been talked about quite a bit. The Amazon, of course, is probably the most famous example. Now Papua New Guinea has been singled out. The ferocity of this onslaught is just devastating. The harm done, as I have tried to note in these remarks, is so great that the world as a whole must speak out in an effort to stop this. (Al Gore, Congressional Record, March 21, 1991) (emphasis added)
Al Gore Has Spoken Out In Defense Of At Least Nine Tribes Of Indigenous Peoples. . . Except For The Uwas! Gore is aware of the threats facing indigenous peoples and has spoken out on behalf of the following: Iban, Inuit, Kayan, Kayapao, Kelabit, Kenyah, Lun Bawang, Penan and Yanomami. The Uwas are noticeably absent. (Al Gore, Earth In The Balance, 1993 edition, p. xiii; 2000 edition, pp. 283-285)
Gore Spokesman Mark Fabiani Denies That The Gore Familys Occidental Stock Affects His Policy Views.
Snow: Does that mean if Al Gore gets a chance, hell have his family divest all the Occidental stock?
Fabiani: Again, those stocks are in a trust. They dont have any affect on the vice presidents day-to-day activities. They dont have any affect on his policy views . . . (Fox News "Fox News Sunday," July 2, 2000)
AL GORE HAS ALWAYS BEEN OCCIDENTAL'S VERY OWN "PETROLEUM POLITICIAN"
In 1997, Occidental Petroleum Tripled Its Oil Reserves By Acquiring Elk Hills In The "Largest Privatization Of Federal Property In U.S. History." As part of his Reinventing Government (REGO) initiative in 1995, Gore advocated the privatization of the Naval Petroleum Reserves located at Elk Hills oil field near Bakersfield, California. (Al Gore, Common Sense Government: Works Better and Costs Less, 1995, p. 221) Occidentals purchase of the 47,000 acre property, as one of twenty-two bids submitted by fifteen interested parties, allowed it to pick up a "crucial source of light crude [oil] in California" and triple its U.S. oil reserves overnight. Furthermore, acquisition of the field also allowed Occidental to triple the amount of natural gas extracted from the field. (Aliza Fan, "Administrations DOE Cuts Include Plan to Privatize Naval Petroleum Reserve; Department of Energy," The Oil Daily, December 19, 1994; Charles Lewis, The Buying of the President 2000, p. 143; "DOE to Sell Elk Hills for $3.65 Billion," Environmental News Network, October 9, 1997)
Al Gores Energy Department Did Not Conduct The Required Environmental Impact Assessment Itself, Instead Delegating The Task To ICF Kaiser International, Inc., Where Former Gore Campaign Chair Tony Coelho And Former Energy Secretary Hazel OLeary Were On The Board. "Although, the Energy Department was required to assess the likely environmental consequences of the proposed sale [to Occidental], it didnt. Instead it hired a private company, ICF Kaiser International, Inc., to complete the assessment." (Charles Lewis, The Buying of the President 2000, p. 143) Interestingly, two of the more prominent members of the board of directors of Kaiser were Gores future presidential campaign chairman Tony Coelho and former Energy Secretary Hazel OLeary. (Charles Lewis, The Buying of the President 2000, p. 143; "Briefs: ICF Kaiser Appoints OLeary To Board," Journal of Commerce, March 12, 1997)
Al Gore Hypocritically Denounced Global Warming On The Same Day The Elk Hills Sale Was Announced. On the day of the announcement of the Elk Hills sale, Gore delivered a speech at the White House Conference on Climate Change at Georgetown University. While there, he denounced global warming and its alleged effects on the Earths atmosphere: "If we ignore the scientific warnings and continue stubbornly on our current course, wed better begin to prepare what we would like to say to our children and grandchildren, because if they encounter the terrible consequences the scientific community is saying now come as a result of global climate disruption, and then look back at the evidence which was clearly laid out for us in our generation, they might fairly ask, If you knew all that, why didnt you do something about it?" (Vice President Al Gore, "Remarks By President Clinton And Vice President Al Gore At White House Conference On Climate Change Georgetown University, Washington, DC," Federal News Service, October 6, 1997) (emphasis added)
AL GORE'S ALLIANCE WITH OCCIDENTAL HAS BEEN LONG STANDING AND MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL
Al Gore, Sr. Had A Long And Profitable Relationship With Occidental. "The elder Gore was such a loyal political ally that Occidentals founder and longtime CEO, Armand Hammer, liked to say that he had Gore in my back pocket." In fact, when Al Gore, Sr., left the Senate in 1970, Armand Hammer gave him "a $500,000-a-year job at an Occidental subsidiary and a seat on the companys board of directors." (Ken Silverstein, "Gores Oil Money; Occidental Petroleum and United States Foreign Policy In Colombia," The Nation, May 22, 2000)
Vice President Al Gores Alliance With Occidental Petroleum Has Also Been Very Profitable. In 1973, Occidental sold Al Gore, Sr., 88 acres of pastureland and a 2,100-square foot house in Carthage, Tennessee for $80,000, and, in a separate transaction, the mineral rights to that land for $80,000. The elder Gore then subsequently leased the mineral rights back to Occidental for "$20,000 in the first year, $10,000 annually for the next three years, and $20,000 for each year after that." The elder Gore then kept Occidentals first payment of $20,000 and sold the property to his son for $140,000, $60,000 of which was for the mineral rights lease and $80,000 of which was for the house and land, which remains the Vice Presidents legal residence. (Bill Turque, Inventing Al Gore, 2000, p. 105-106) Occidentals payments to Al Gore eventually totaled $190,000 by the time it sold its mineral rights lease in the 1980s. Occidentals successors have continued to pay Gore $20,000 per year since the sale. (Micah Morrison, "Vetting the Frontrunners II: Albert Gore Jr. Occidental and Oriental Connections," The Wall Street Journal, September 29, 1999) "In total, Mr. Gore has earned $500,000 from zinc royalties.". (Micah Morrison, "Al Gore, Environmentalist and Zinc Miner," The Wall Street Journal, June 29, 2000) In addition, the younger Gore is the executor of a trust fund for his mother, Pauline, that contains Occidental stock valued at between $500,001 and $1,000,000. Gore stands to inherit this stock upon his mothers death. (Al Gores Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report, May 25, 1999, p. 6)
Despite Gores Statements Indicating That He Has No Control Over His Mothers Occidental Stock, Activists Dont Buy His Argument. "The activists reject Mr. Gores argument that he cant unload the stock because it belongs to his mother. This is rubbish in my mind, says Steve Kretzmann, a consultant with Amazon Watch who has been in a talks with Mr. Gore and his representatives. Hes the executor of the estate." (Helene Cooper, "Gore Faces Embarrassing Protests About Familys Occidental Shares," Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2000)
The Activists Are Right, Gore Had Sole And Unfettered Control Over The Assets Of His Fathers Estate For 16 Months. Gores father died on December 5, 1998. Under the terms of his fathers will, Gore was appointed executor of his fathers estate. On December 9, 1998, Gore filed his oath as executor. In a subsequent court filing, Gore "admitted that as of February 14, 2000, the trust for mothers benefit had not been funded. On March 9, 2000, the Court appointed his brother-in-law, Frank Hunger to serve as "alternate trustee." So for a period of 16 consecutive months (December 9, 1998 through March 9, 2000), Gore had sole and unfettered control over the assets of his fathers estate (which included the Oxy stock and the dividends paid thereon)." (Estate of Albert Gore, Sr., Smith County Probate Court, Case No. P-867)
Gores Claim That He Does Not "Control" The Occidental Stock Rings Hollow. In response to an on-line question about the Occidental stock, Gore denied that he could do anything with the holding:
Vice President Gore: "Actually, I don't own any stock in Occidental. Nor do I control any stock. When my father died 18 months ago, I was named executor of his estate -- a position which has one and only one duty: to see that the terms of the will are abided by. In discharging that responsibility I saw to it that the stock he left for the benefit of my mother was transferred to a Trust that is supposed to provide for her and her care. The trustee has the responsibility of managing the assets of the trust (which is about $500,000). I do not." (Gore On-Line Forum with The Washington Post, July 10, 2000)
Frank Hunger, Gore's brother-in-law, was appointed trustee over Pauline Gore's trust, which "controls" all the Oxy stock. Surely Gore cannot claim with a straight face that he can't sell the Oxy stock when Hunger, "has become a virtual brother to Gore since Gore's sister died," is a member of his closest political advisors known as Gores "kitchen cabinet" and participated in all of the final meetings regarding Gores selection of a vice presidential running mate. (Laurence McQuillan and Susan Page, "Gore Family, Aides Assist Decision," USA Today, August 8, 2000)
Occidentals Chief Armand Hammer "Was As Cozy With Gore Jr. As He Was With Gore Sr." "According to Neil Lyndon, who worked on Hammers personal staff and ghosted his memoirs, Witness to History, the Occidental chieftain was as cozy with Gore Jr. as he was with Gore Sr. When he came to Washington, Hammer regularly met Gore [Jr.] for lunch or dinner. They would often eat together in the company of Occidentals Washington lobbyists and fixers who, on Hammers behest, hosed tens of millions of dollars in bribes and favours into the political world, Lyndon writes." (Ken Silverstein, "Gores Oil Money; Occidental Petroleum and United States Foreign Policy in Colombia," The Nation, May 22, 2000)
Occidental Was One Of Gores Earliest Backers. Occidental Petroleum President William McSweeney was one of Gores earliest campaign contributors, dating back as far as Gores first congressional race. (Bill Turque, Inventing Al Gore, 2000, p. 124)
Occidental Has Continued To Fund Gore And The Democratic Party. Occidental has continued to be one of Al Gores major financial backers. Occidental loaned $100,000 to the 1992 Presidential Inaugural Committee while Gore was Vice President-elect. Furthermore, Occidental contributed $50,000 to the Democratic Party in response to a Gore fundraising phone call and $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee two days after Occidental Chairman Ray Irani spent the night in the Lincoln Bedroom. According to the Center for Public Integritys book, The Buying of the President, Occidental has contributed "more than $470,000 in soft money to various Democratic committees and causes" since 1992. (Charles Lewis, The Buying of the President 2000, pp. 151-152)
Throughout His Career, Gore Has Secured Special Access And Privileges To Occidental, His Major Financial Backer. Gores political offices allowed him to secure special favors for his Occidental backers, including Occidentals late Chairman Armand Hammer and Ray Irani, its current Chairman. Among the benefits conferred on Armand Hammer were prestigious invitations to the inaugurations of Ronald Reagan in 1985 and George Bush in 1989. After Hammers death in 1990, Gore continued his relationship with Occidental through Ray Irani. Not only did Gore have Irani invited to the second official state dinner held in honor of President Boris Yeltsin in 1994, he also placed Irani as part of a trade mission to Russia with Commerce Secretary Ron Brown in the spring of 1994. (Charles Lewis, The Buying of the President 2000, pp. 151-152)
GORE CHOSE THE CONCERNS OF OCCIDENTAL PETROLEUM OVER THE PUBLIC INTEREST
Gore Chose To Protect Occidentals Interest In Synthetic Fuels Despite The Warnings Of Environmentalists. Occidental Petroleum, along with the oil company Tenneco, controls "over 5,000 acres of prime oil shale land in western Colorados Piceance Basin, which contains the worlds largest known reserves of oil shale." (Ellen Haddow, "Occidental Delays Shale Oil Project," The Associated Press, December 21, 1981) Oil shale is a prime component in the production of synthetic fuels, which environmentalists, such as the Sierra Club, have decried as "environmentally extremely dangerous, economically unsupportable, [and]. . . greatly disrupt[ive] [of] our economy." (Sierra Club Website, "Oil Shale and Synthetic Fuels Policy," adopted July 21, 1979) On four key votes, the League of Conservation Voters determined that Gore sided with the interests of synthetic fuel supporters, such as Occidental, against the concerns of environmentalists:
Gore voted against an amendment that "would have prevented the federal government from promoting massive synthetic fuel development for commercial use." (CQ Vote #258: Rejected 69-351: R 45-108; D 24-243, June 26, 1979; "How Congress Voted on Energy and the Environment," League of Conservation Voters, 1979)
Gore voted to authorize $20 billion to encourage development of synthetic fuels. (CQ Vote #336: Adopted 317-93: R 85-65; D 232-28, June 26, 1980)
Gore voted to rescind $5 billion from the U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corporation to prevent the adoption of an amendment that would have rescinded $10 billion. (CQ Vote #308: Adopted 236-177: R 67-94; D 169-83, August 2, 1984)
Gore voted to table (kill) an amendment that would have rescinded all but $500,000,001 in unobligated funds from the U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corporation, excluding $500 million that would have been transferred to the Clean Coal Technology Reserve. (CQ Vote #270: Motion Rejected 41-58: R 22-31; D 19-27, October 31, 1985)
The Administration Chose To Protect Occidentals Interests In Sudan Instead Of National Security. Sudan is clearly a state that is an enemy of the United States. Not only has Sudan frequently been on the State Departments list of terrorist-supporting states, but the Administration also actively supports rebel groups attempting to overthrow its government. ("Oil Deals and Arms Sales," The New York Times, January 28, 1997) Despite this, within months of signing the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, the Administration granted Occidental a waiver to the prohibitions on financial transactions with rogue states that sponsor terrorism. (David B. Ottaway, "GOP Targets Sudan Loophole Administration Approval of Transactions with Khartoum Prompts Scrutiny," The Washington Post, February 7, 1997) This waiver allowed Occidental Petroleum to explore several potential oil deposits in Sudan. ("Oil Deals and Arms Sales," The New York Times, January 28, 1997)
Gore's Big Oil Contributions From PACs And Individuals, Including $4,000 From Occidental Chief Armand Hammer.
PAC Year Amount
Occidental Petroleum 1990- $550
Burlington Resources 1990- $250
Burlington Resources 1986- $500
Burlington Resources 1984- $750
USX Corporation PAC 1984- $500
PAC Total $2,550
Individual Profession:
Kreidler, David Michael
Occidental Oil and Gas Corp.
June 16, 2000 $1,000
Janssen, Judith M. Ms.
Exxon Mobile Corp./Attorney
June 7, 2000 $ 250
Hayden, Ludwick Mr. Jr.
Chevron
June 30, 1999 $1,000
Duck, William G.
Chevron Corp.
May 21, 1999 $1,000
Irani, Ray R.
Occidental Petroleum/CEO
April 6, 1999 $1,000
Irani, Ray R.
Occidental Petroleum/CEO
March 31, 1999 $1,000
McGee, Robert
Occidental Intl. Corp./Busin
March 31, 1999 $1,000
Laurance, Dale R.
Occidental Petroleum Corp./Pres.
March 31, 1999 $1,000
Chazen, Stephen
Occidental Petroleum Corp./Exec.
March 31, 1999 $1,000
Ahnell, Arden
BP Amoco/Manager
March 23, 1999 $1,000
Fagre, Nathan
Occidental Oil and Gas Corp.
March 17, 1999 $1,000
Hammer, Armand Dr.
Occidental Petroleum Corp.
Aug. 30, 1990 $1,000
Irani, Ray R.
Occidental Petroleum Corp.
Aug. 20, 1990 $ 500
Stern, Alfred
Occidental Petroleum
Aug. 20, 1990 $ 500
Total For Individuals $24,750
Date Amount:
Stern, Gerald M.
Occidental Petroleum Corp.
Aug. 20, 1990 $1,000
Hammer, Armand Dr.
Occidental Petroleum Corp.
June 26, 1989 $1,000
Wood, Robert L. Jr. Mr.
Occidental Oil and Gas Corp. J
uly 29, 1988 $1,000
Irani, Ray Dr.
Occidental Petroleum Corp.
July 19, 1988 $1,000
McSweeny, William F. Mr.
Occidental Intl. Corp.
Feb. 23, 1988 $ 500
Ajamian, Florence Ms.
Occidental Petroleum Corp.
June 18, 1987 $ 500
Hammer, Armand Dr.
Occidental Petroleum
June 18, 1987 $1,000
Hammer, Michael Armand
Occidental Petroleum Corp.
June 18, 1987 $1,000
Irani, Ray R. Mr.
Occidental Petroleum Corp.
June 18, 1987 $1,000
Jacobs, Richard Mr.
Occidental Petroleum Corp.
June 18, 1987 $1,000
Patrick, William N. Mr.
Occidental Petroleum Corp.
June 18, 1987 $1,000
Stern, Gerald M. Mr.
Occidental Petroleum Corp.
June 18, 1987 $1,000
Stern, Gerald
Occidental Petroleum.
April 24, 1984 $1,000
Tomich, Rosemary E.
Occidental Petroleum
Feb. 6, 1984 $ 500
Hammer, Armand
Occidental Petroleum
March 16, 1983 $1,000
Grand Total $27,300
GORE CONTINUES TO SUPPORT BIG OIL THROUGH HIS SILENCE ON OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING
Once Again, Gore Is Promising To Ban Offshore Oil Drilling. In a television political ad on ocean drilling aired in November of 1999, Gore promised: "Ill not only continue the moratorium on new ocean drilling off Californias coast and Floridas, but Ill move to stop drilling in those areas already leased by previous administrations." ("Presidential Candidates Air Campaign Ads In New Hampshire, Iowa And South Carolina, Federal News Service, November 29, 2000) This was not a new Gore promise. In 1992, Gore made a similar promise: "I think that a ban on offshore drilling ought to be extended on the [sic] to all of the coastal waters of the United States." (Timothy Noah, "Campaign 92: Gore Treads Softly as Environmental Point Man, Fearing GOP Efforts to Label Him an Extremist," The Wall Street Journal, September 16, 1992)
Despite Gores Promises, He Has Refused To Get Involved In A Pending Offshore Drilling Case Involving Chevron. According to his staff, Vice President Gore cannot get involved in a pending decision that would allow Chevron to drill Floridas first producing offshore wells, maintaining that the decision is Commerce Secretary William Daleys. According to Eliot Diringer of the White House Council on Environmental Equality, "it wouldnt be appropriate for the White House to be weighing in. The Secretary has to base his opinion on the record before him." (Craig Pittman, "Chevron One Nod From Gulf Drilling," St. Petersburg Times, September 26, 1999) The St. Petersberg Times expressed the outrage of many Floridians: "Now Gore gives signs of trying to back out of his own promise. . . [o]pposing offshore drilling may have been a cheap campaign promise for Gore, but millions of Floridians take the issue very seriously and have long memories." (Editorial, "Gores Promise," St. Petersburg Times, September 29, 1999) (emphasis added)
Chevron Is A Key Gore Financial Backer. Chevron has contributed large amounts of soft money to Gore and his party. According to records on file with the Federal Election Commission, Chevron Corporation has given in excess of $346,000 in soft money donations to the Democrats from 1997 to the present. (FEC Info Website, http://www.tray.com, June 27, 2000) In addition, in 1999 Gore accepted $1,000 contributions for his presidential bid from two Chevron officials, Ludwick Hayden and William Duck. (FEC Info Website, http://www.tray.com, June 27, 2000)
Gore Has Refused To Oppose New Oil Leases. Just weeks after Gore pledged to ban all drilling off the coasts of Florida and California, Clinton/Gore Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt made a decision that would give oil companies more time to work on exploration and development plans. Gore sat by quietly while Babbitt extended 36 undeveloped oil leases. (Lynda Gledhill, "California Sues U.S. Government Over Offshore Oil," San Francisco Chronicle, November 17, 1999) That action prompted the Governor of California to sue the Clinton/Gore Administration in federal court for preliminary and permanent injunctions against the Interior Departments actions pending a review by the California Coastal Commission (CCC). (Lynda Gledhill, "California Sues U.S. Government Over Offshore Oil," San Francisco Chronicle, November 17, 1999)
Bradley Calls Gores Offshore Bluff. Gores campaign promises simply dont match the Clinton/Gore Administrations record on offshore drilling. Bill Bradley pointed out this fact during a campaign appearance in California. The former senator said that Gore "should have done more. . ." (Tessie Borden, "Bradley Criticizes Gore for not Pushing Ban in New Offshore Oil Drilling," The Associated Press, November 19, 1999) Bradley disagreed with Secretary Babbitts decision noting that "it came while Gore is in office" and "just weeks after Gore pledged to ban all drilling off the coasts of California and Florida if elected." (Tessie Borden, "Bradley Criticizes Gore For Not Pushing Ban In New Offshore Oil Drilling," The Associated Press, November 19, 1999) Bradley said that it showed that Gore is either "inefficient or. . . not really against it." (Tessie Borden, "Bradley Criticizes Gore For Not Pushing Ban In New Offshore Oil Drilling," The Associated Press, November 19, 1999)
October 4th, 2005 at 12:55 pmWhat is Bush's real military record?
Bush Service Time Line
May 28, 1968: Bush enlists as an Airman Basic in the 147th Fighter-Interceptor Group, Ellington Air Force Base, Houston, and is selected to attend pilot training.
July 12, 1968: A three-member board of officers decides that Bush should get a direct commission as a second lieutenant after competing airman's basic training.
July 14 to Aug. 25, 1968: Bush attends six weeks of basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.
Sept. 4, 1968: Bush is commissioned a second lieutenant and takes an 8-week leave to work on a Senate campaign in Florida.
Nov. 25, 1968 to Nov. 28, 1969: Bush attends and graduates from flight school at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia. (UTP Course #P-V4A-A Moody AFB, Ga. 53 weeks November 1969)
January 1,1970 147th changes from doing Alerts to training F-102 pilots.
December 1969 to June 27, 1970: Bush trains full-time to be an F-102 pilot at Ellington Air Force Base.
Febuary 1970 Bush attends Preint Pilot Training (T-33 ANG112501 5 weeks )
June 1970 his records are not clear his computer records show RGRAD NAV TNG but his discharge shows F102 Intcp Pilot Training (F102 ANG1125D 16 weeks).
His Military Biography shows: Professional Military Education: Basic Military Training, Undergraduate Pilot Training and nothing else.
July 1970 to April 16, 1972: Bush, as a certified fighter pilot, attends frequent drills and alerts at Ellington.
Computer records show last Physical as May 1971. Which also shows him as CR MEM ON FS (crew member on flight service) not PILOT.
During his fifth year as a guardsman, Bush's records show no sign he appeared for duty.
May 24, 1972: Bush, who has moved to Alabama to work on a US Senate race, gets permission to serve with a reserve unit in Alabama. But headquarters decided Bush must serve with a more active unit.
Sept. 5, 1972: Bush is granted permission to do his Guard duty at the 187th Tactical Recon Group in Montgomery. But Bush's record shows no evidence he did the duty, and the unit commander says he never showed up.
November 1972 to April 30, 1973: Bush returns to Houston, but apparently not to his Air Force unit.
May 2, 1973: The two lieutenant colonels in charge of Bush's unit in Houston cannot rate him for the prior 12 months, saying he has not been at the unit in that period.
May to July 1973: Bush, after special orders are issued for him to report for duty, logs 36 days of duty.
July 30, 1973: His last day in uniform, according to his records.
Oct. 1, 1973: A month after Bush starts at Harvard Business School, he is formally discharged from the Texas Air National Guard -- eight months before his six-year term expires.
The Real Military Record of George W. Bush: Not AWOL
For more than a year, controversy about George W. Bush's Air National Guard record has bubbled through the press. Interest in the topic has spiked in recent days, as at least two websites have launched stories essentially calling Bush AWOL in 1972 and 1973.
For example, in "Finally, the Truth about Bush's Military Record" on TomPaine.com, Marty Heldt writes, "Bush's long absence from the records comes to an end one week after he failed to comply with an order to attend 'Annual Active Duty Training' starting at the end of May 1973... Nothing indicates in the records that he ever made up the time he missed."
And in Bush's Military Record Reveals Grounding and Absence for Two Full Years" on Democrats.com, Robert A. Rogers states: "Bush never actually reported in person for the last two years of his service - in direct violation of two separate written orders."
Neither is correct.
It's time to set the record straight. The following analysis, which relies on National Guard documents, extensive interviews with military officials and previously unpublished evidence of Bush's whereabouts in the summer and fall of 1972, is the first full chronology of Bush's military record. Its basic conclusions: Bush may have received favorable treatment to get into the Guard, served irregularly after the spring of 1972 and got an expedited discharge, but he did accumulate the days of service required of him for his ultimate honorable discharge.
At the Republican convention in Philadelphia, George W. Bush declared: "Our military is low on parts, pay and morale. If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report, 'Not ready for duty, sir.'" Bush says he is the candidate who can "rebuild our military and prepare our armed forces for the future." On what direct military experience does he make such claims?
George W. Bush applied to join the Texas Air National Guard on May 27, 1968, less than two weeks before he graduated from Yale University. The country was at war in Vietnam, and at that time, just months after the bloody Tet Offensive, an estimated 100,000 Americans were on waiting lists to join Guard units across the country. Bush was sworn in on the day he applied.
Ben Barnes, former speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, stated in September 1999 that in late 1967 or early 1968, he asked a senior official in the Texas Air National Guard to help Bush get into the Guard as a pilot. Barnes said he did so at the behest of Sidney Adger, a Houston businessman and friend of former President George H. W. Bush, then a Texas congressman.
Despite Barnes's admission, former President Bush has denied pulling strings for his son, and retired Colonel Walter Staudt, George W. Bush's first commander, insists: "There was no special treatment."
The younger Bush fulfilled two years of active duty and completed pilot training in June 1970. During that time and in the two years that followed, Bush flew the F-102, an interceptor jet equipped with heat-seeking missiles that could shoot down enemy planes.
His commanding officers and peers regarded Bush as a competent pilot and enthusiastic Guard member. In March 1970, the Texas Air National Guard issued a press release trumpeting his performance: "Lt. Bush recently became the first Houston pilot to be trained by the 147th [Fighter Group] and to solo in the F-102... Lt. Bush said his father was just as excited and enthusiastic about his solo flight as he was."
In Bush's evaluation for the period May 1, 1971 through April 30, 1972, then-Colonel Bobby Hodges, his commanding officer, stated, "I have personally observed his participation, and without exception, his performance has been noteworthy."
In the spring of 1972, however, National Guard records show a sudden dropoff in Bush's military activity. Though trained as a pilot at considerable government expense, Bush stopped flying in April 1972 and never flew for the Guard again.
Around that time, Bush decided to go to work for Winton "Red" Blount, a Republican running for the U.S. Senate, in Alabama. Documents from Ellington Air Force Base in Houston state that Bush "cleared this base on 15 May." Shortly afterward, he applied for assignment to the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron in Montgomery, Ala., a unit that required minimal duty and offered no pay.
Although that unit's commander was willing to welcome him, on May 31 higher-ups at the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver rejected Bush's request to serve at the 9921st, because it did not offer duty equivalent to his service in Texas. "[A]n obligated Reservist [in this case, Bush] can be assigned to a specific Ready Reserve position only," noted the disapproval memo, a copy of which was sent to Bush. "Therefore, he is ineligible for assignment to an Air Reserve Squadron."
Despite the military's decision, Bush moved to Alabama. Records obtained by Georegemag.com show that the Blount Senate campaign paid Bush about $900 a month from mid-May through mid-November to do advance work and organize events.
Neither Bush's annual evaluation nor the Air National Guard's overall chronological listing of his service contain any evidence that he performed Guard duties during that summer.
On or around his 27th birthday, July 6, 1972, Bush did not take his required annual medical exam at his Texas unit. As a consequence, he was suspended from flying military jets.
Bush spokesperson Dan Bartlett told Georgemag.com: "You take that exam because you are flying, and he was not flying. The paperwork uses the phrase 'suspended from flying,' but he had no intention of flying at that time."
Some media reports have speculated that Bush took and failed his physical, or that he was grounded as a result of substance abuse. Bush's vagueness on the subject of his past drug use has only abetted such rumors. Bush's commanding officer in Texas, however, denies the charges.
"His flying status was suspended because he didn't take the exam,not because he couldn't pass," says Hodges. Asked whether Bush was ever disciplined for using alcohol or illicit drugs, Hodges replied: "No."
On September 5, Bush wrote to then-Colonel Jerry Killian at his original unit in Texas, requesting permission to serve with the 187th Tactical Reconnaisance Group, another Alabama-based unit. "This duty would be for the months of September, October, and November," wrote Bush.
This time his request was approved: 10 days later, the Alabama Guard ordered Bush to report to then-Lieutenant Colonel William Turnipseed at Dannelly Air Force Base in Montgomery on October 7th and 8th. The memo noted that "Lieutenant Bush will not be able to satisfy his flight requirements with our group," since the 187th did not fly F-102s.
The question of whether Bush ever actually served in Alabama has become an issue in the 2000 campaign-the Air Force Times recently reported that "the GOP is trying to locate people who served with Bush in late 1972 ... to see if they can confirm that Bush briefly served with the Alabama Air National Guard."
Bush's records contain no evidence that he reported to Dannelly in October. And in telephone interviews with Georgemag.com, neither Turnipseed, Bush's commanding officer, nor Kenneth Lott, then chief personnel officer of the 187th, remembered Bush serving with their unit. "I don't think he showed up," Turnipseed said.
Bush maintains he did serve in Alabama. "Governor Bush specifically remembers pulling duty in Montgomery and respectfully disagrees with the Colonel," says Bartlett. "There's no question it wasn't memorable, because he wasn't flying."
In July, the Decatur Daily reported that two former Blount campaign workers recall Bush serving in the Alabama Air National Guard in the fall of 1972. "I remember he actually came back to Alabama for about a week to 10 days several weeks after the campaign was over to complete his Guard duty in the state," stated Emily Martin, a former Alabama resident who said she dated Bush during the time he spent in that state.
After the 1972 election, which Blount lost, Bush moved back to Houston and subsequently began working at P.U.L.L., a community service center for disadvantaged youths. This period of time has also become a matter of controversy, because even though Bush's original unit had been placed on alert duty in October 1972, his superiors in Texas lost track of his whereabouts.
On May 2, 1973, Bush's squadron leader in the 147th, Lieutenant Colonel William Harris, Jr. wrote: "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit" for the past year.
Harris incorrectly assumed that Bush had been reporting for duty in Alabama all along. He wrote that Bush "has been performing equivalent training in a non-flying status with the 187 Tac Recon Gp, Dannelly ANG Base, Alabama." Base commander Hodges says of Bush's return to Texas: "All I remember is someone saying he came back and made up his days."
Two documents obtained by Georgemag.com indicate that Bush did make up the time he missed during the summer and autumn of 1972.
One is an April 23, 1973 order for Bush to report to annual active duty training the following month; the other is an Air National Guard statement of days served by Bush that is torn and undated but contains entries that correspond to the first. Taken together, they appear to establish that Bush reported for duty on nine occasions between November 29, 1972-when he could have been in Alabama-and May 24, 1973.
Bush still wasn't flying, but over this span, he did earn nine points of National Guard service from days of active duty and 32 from inactive duty. When added to the 15 so-called "gratuitous" points that every member of the Guard got per year, Bush accumulated 56 points, more than the 50 that he needed by the end of May 1973 to maintain his standing as a Guardsman.
On May 1, Bush was ordered to report for further active duty training, and documents show that he proceeded to cram in another 10 sessions over the next two months.
Ultimately, he racked up 19 active duty points of service and 16 inactive duty points by July 30-which, added to his 15 gratuitous points, achieved the requisite total of 50 for the year ending in May 1974.
On October 1, 1973, First Lieutenant George W. Bush received an early honorable discharge so that he could attend Harvard Business School. He was credited with five years, four months and five days of service toward his six-year service obligation.
Source: George Magazine
Bush on Bush
C-SPAN: How long did you spend in the service?
GOV. BUSH: Six years total. Active duty as a-I flew F-102 fighters out of Ellington Air Force Base. I was in the Texas Air National Guard. The 102 is a Delta wing air-to-air interceptor. And I went to basic flight school at Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Georgia, came back, spent another six months or so on active duty learning how to fly the 102, transitioning from what was then-the last plane I flew was the T-38.
C-SPAN: What years?
GOV. BUSH: Nineteen sixty-eight, when I got out of college. I started pilot training in November of '68 and got out in November of '69.
C-SPAN: Why didn't you go on full active duty?
GOV. BUSH: Because I was interested in becoming a pilot, and it became the first slot open and I took it.
C-SPAN: Did you ever become a pilot?
GOV. BUSH: Yeah.
C-SPAN: I mean, a commercial pilot, beyond-
GOV. BUSH: Oh, no, no, no, not at all. Just an old jet jockey.
C-SPAN: What'd you learn about anything from the service?
GOV. BUSH: I learned that there's a way to train a person who knew nothing about flying into being a good pilot. The service did a wonderful job of training. And I'm most impressed about how they drew a rote exercise into one's daily schedule until you got it right. And that's particularly important when you fly.
I'll never forget getting in the airplane and the guy said, "Okay, now do a 30-degree bank and do the turn at 60 degrees." And I did a 28-degree bank and turned 50 degrees, and he bangs his hand on the dashboard there and says, "I said a 30-degree bank at 60 degrees, and that's exactly what we mean." And from that point forward, I got my banks right and the degrees right. And it came in handy in the long run, because there's not much margin for error when you're flying jets.
1) The Dallas Morning News reported Records provided to The News by Tom Hail, a historian for the Texas Air National Guard, show that the unit Mr. Bush signed up for was not filled. In mid-1968, the 147th Fighter Interceptor Group, based in Houston, had 156 openings among its authorized staff of 925 military personnel. Of those, 26 openings were for officer slots, such as that filled by Mr. Bush, and 130 were for enlisted men and women. Also, several former Air Force pilots who served in the unit said that they were recruited from elsewhere to fly for the Texas Guard.
2) The Dallas Morning News also reported Officers who supervised Mr. Bush and approved his admission to the Guard said they were never contacted by anyone on Mr. Bush's behalf. "He didn't have any strings pulled, because there weren't any strings to pull," said Leroy Thompson of Brownwood, who commanded the squadron that kept the waiting list for the guard at Ellington Air Force Base. "Our practices were under incredible scrutiny then. It was a very ticklish time."
3) The Dallas Morning News, which also looked into Bush's military record, reported that while Bush's unit in Texas had a waiting list for many spots, he was accepted because he was one of a handful of applicants willing and qualified to spend more than a year in active training flying F-102 jets.
4) In its report, the Los Angeles Times said it found no evidence that either Bush or his father, former President George Bush, had personally tried to influence or pressure anyone to get the younger Bush a place in the Texas Guard. Bush's father was a congressman from Houston at the time.
5) Responding to the Globe's report that his Alabama base commander had no recollection of Bush ever showing for drills, the governor said "I pulled duty in Alabama and I read the comments and the guy said he didn't remember me. That's 27 years ago, but I remember being there." "I spent my time and I went to the Guard. It's just not true. I did the duty necessary...any allegations other than that are simply not true," Bush said. Asked about his Air National Guard attendance record, Bush told reporters it was "spotty attendance but I did the duty necessary... I did the time that was required in the Guard."
6) It was noted that there was a shortage of 800 nationally, and NO actual waiting list, but 500 positions available in TANG. Bush incurred a 6-year obligation on joining the NG.
7) He served 2 years ACTIVE DUTY. This (by the way) is longer active duty service than Al Gore completed. He served 2 years with an NG unit. (Standard practice.) He served 2 years using the "point system." By this method, each "good" year is the equivalent of 50 points. Points are earned by attending various trainings, programs, meetings, etc. Bush earned his points. He finished his time. The earlier poster is correct: the military would prosecute someone who is AWOL. THEY determined that GW completed his time. Therefore, he completed his time. Just because some Globe reporter can't connect the dots for the whole 6 years doesn't mean anything except that the reporter is stupid, biased, and incompetent.
8) Former Guard officials and members of Mr. Bush's unit said that release, seven months early, was not unusual for the Guard. Mr. Bush's unit was changing airplanes at the time, from the single-seat F-102 to the dual-seat F-101. They said it made little sense to retrain him for just a few months' service, and letting him go freed spots for the Guard to recruit F-101 pilots from the Air Force and elsewhere."
9) "You take that exam because you are flying, and he was not flying. The paperwork uses the phrase 'suspended from flying,' but he had no intention of flying at that time." " You CAN take yourself off of flight status at anytime, and not end up in the brig. Regardless of whether it's personal reasons, proficiency, or just plain old fear, the military would much rather have you on the ground so that you don't plant one of their expensive jets in a smoking hole.
10) Bush served into the Guard, served irregularly after the spring of 1972 and got an expedited discharge, but he did accumulate the days of service required of him for his ultimate honorable discharge.
11) In July, the Decatur Daily reported that two former Blount campaign workers recall Bush serving in the Alabama Air National Guard in the fall of 1972. "I remember he actually came back to Alabama for about a week to 10 days several weeks after the campaign was over to complete his Guard duty in the state," stated Emily Martin, a former Alabama resident who said she dated Bush during the time he spent in that state.
12) Being a fighter pilot -- for that matter, simply taking off in a single-engine jet fighter of the Century series, such as an F-102, or any of the military's other marvelous bricks with fins on them -- presented a man, on a perfectly sunny day, with more ways to get himself killed than his wife and children could imagine in their wildest fears. --- Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff.
13) Bush returned to his unit at Ellington in November 1972, but did not fly again because his long layoff meant he would have had to spend weeks or months retraining in the F-102, said Lloyd, the former personnel director. Besides, the Guard was phasing out the F-102, which first flew in 1953, said Lloyd. He said it would have been a waste of time and money to train Bush to fly a newer jet when he had declared his intention to the leave the Guard in May 1974 when his commitment was over. ``When you stop to think about it, why expend dollars on somebody who you are not going to keep?'' Lloyd said.
14) Bush aides provided a payroll document they said indicated Bush served nine days of active duty in Alabama.
15) The Dallas Morning News reported, there were several tests that Bush had to take, including a test on his leadership potential. He scored quite high on that test. Given this rather egregious error, which can only be an intentional misrepresentation by Borger or his source, I rather doubt the 25% score on the aptitude test. I haven't seen it reported before, in any medium. But I have seen reports from Air Guard officers, purportedly in a position to know, that Bush scored highly on the test. If I remember correctly, Bush scored in the top 25 percent on his aptitude test. This score met all qualifications for pilots in the Texas Air National Guard. Bush scored 95% on the officer quality test.
16) From what I have been told GW Bush wanted to join the US Air force and fly jets. There were no slots available so he joined the Texas Air Guard and passed all the qualifications to fly, which he did and never had a guarantee he wouldn't see combat. The Texas Guard is not a stigma for someone to be ashamed of or for someone to ridicule. Their history proves they have seen combat and are always on alert to be called up at any time.
17) "If somebody like that came along, you'd snatch them up," said the former commander, who retired as a general. "He took no advantage. It wouldn't have made any difference whether his daddy was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff." -Gen. Staudt surviving member of the military panel that reviewed and approved Mr. Bush's officer commission.
18) Bobby Hodges, the group's operations officer, and others familiar with Guard rules said Mr. Bush made it to the top of the short list of candidates who could pass both the written officer test and a rigorous flight physical to qualify for the three to four annual pilot training "quotas" allotted to the unit.
19) "Thank you for your candor and for killing the rumor about you and Dad ever discussing my status. Like you, he never remembers any conversation," Mr. Bush wrote in the memo to Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, dated Sept. 9, 1998.
20) "I applied, and I wanted to fly jets, and I did," the Texas governor told reporters while on a July Fourth campaign swing in New Hampshire. "I was proud of my service. Had my unit been called up, I would have gone overseas. "I would have gone had I been called. I can assure you of that," Bush said, noting that his commander told the Times "there was no preferential treatment given."
21) Bush, a Yale University graduate, has said he joined the Air National Guard rather than volunteer for Army combat duty because he wanted to learn how to fly jet fighters like his father, who was a fighter pilot in World War II. "He said he wanted to fly just like his daddy," Bush's commander, Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt, told the Times. "Nobody did anything for him. There was no ... influence on his behalf."
22) The Times reported that many of Bush's former colleagues and superiors in the Guard remember him as a bright young leader who worked hard. "He did the work. His daddy didn't do it for him," said retired Maj. Willie J. Hooper.
23) November-May (1973): Record of Bush service: 56 points.
24) In Bush's evaluation for the period May 1, 1971 through April 30, 1972, then-Colonel Bobby Hodges, his commanding officer, stated, "I have personally observed his participation, and without exception, his performance has been noteworthy."
25) May to July 1973: Bush, after special orders are issued for him to report for duty, logs 36 days of duty.
Lt. George W. Bush's Instructor Pilot Speaks Out -- Sets the Record Straight Subject: A Personal Letter of Observation of Lt. George W. Bush by his former Instructor Pilot Colonel Thomas G. Lockhart, USAF (Ret) Fellow Veterans:
I have heard about all I can stand of the military careers of the two presidential candidates. It's like two combatants arguing about who's Purple Heart carries the most weight. I have seen e-mails "splitting hairs" and making unsubstantiated claims against both candidates. I will not engage in this type of childish name-calling. The official records indicate that both individuals completed their military service obligations and received honorable discharges.
I can, however, give you some personal observations upon which I base my opinion of Governor Bush. George W. Bush arrived at Moody AFB, Georgia, for undergraduate pilot training (UPT) in 1968 as a member of the Texas Air National Guard. I was assigned as one of his Instructor Pilots. The atmosphere at this training base was somber and dead serious, as the student pilots were all either going to Vietnam or subject to being called up for combat duty as members of a Guard or Reserve unit.
George W. Bush put himself totally into the task of becoming the best aviator in the class. His unit flew Century Series jet fighters, which required the best pilots. There was no room for error, as these airplanes were unforgiving, and the price for a mistake was often the pilot's life. George W. Bush appeared to have that "fighter pilot attitude" from our first meeting. This attitude can best be described as: "I can handle the situation--regardless of the odds." He was extremely competitive and eager to learn every thing about his machine and the enemy's tactics. He was quick to pick up the flying skills necessary to maneuver an aircraft into a position to shoot down an enemy aircraft.
Being a fighter pilot is truly like being a modern day gladiator. When two jet fighters meet in combat, there is usually only one survivor. It is the ultimate test of your skills, and you must hone these skills until you have complete confidence that you will be victorious--that in the air you are invincible. Cocky? You bet!!! That was the attitude that saved England during the Battle of Britain, when a small cadre of British fighter pilots turned back the German onslaught. "Never have so many owed so much to so few," were Winston Churchill's words describing the RAF victory. This standard is part of the heritage of every fighter pilot.
The traits which, I believe, made George W. Bush a good fighter pilot and would also make him a good president are: a.. Leadership -- a "take charge" attitude. b.. Stamina -- when the going gets tough, the tough get going. c.. Sincerity -- a love of country and care for your fellowman. d.. Integrity -- knowledge of and willingness to act upon honest principles.
My personal bottom line used to be, "Would you follow this person into combat?" Well, I'm a bit old now for combat, but I respect George W. Bush's leadership abilities, and I would follow him anywhere!
Bill Clinton's Draft Letter
Bill Clinton's Christmas Letter to COL Engene Holmes, Professor of Military Science University of Arkansas. (Spelling and grammatical errors were in the original letter.)
Dear Col. Holmes,
I am sorry to be so long in writing. I know I promised to let you hear from me at least once a month, and from now on you will, but I have had to have some time to think about this first letter. Almost daily since my return to England I have thought about writing, about what I want to and ought to say.
First, I want to thank you, not just for saving me from the draft, but for being so kind and decent to me last summer, when I was as low as I have ever been. One thing which made the bond we struck in good faith somewhat palatable to me was my high regard for you personally. In retrospect, it seems that the admiration might not have been mutual had you known a little more about me, about my political beliefs and activities. At least you might have thought me more fit for the draft than for ROTC.
Let me try to explain. As you know, I worked for two years in a very minor position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.I did it for the experience and the salary but also for the lopportunity, however small, of working every day against a war I opposed and despised with a depth of feeling I had reserved soley for racism in America before Vietnam. I did not take the matter lightly but studied it carefully, and there was a time when not many people had more information about Vietnam at hand than I did.
I have written and spoken and marched against the war. One of the national organizers of the VIetnam Moratorium is a closefriend of mine. After I left Arkansas last summer, I went to Washington to work in the national headquarters of the Moratorium, then to England to organize the Americans for the demonstrations Oct. 15 and Nov. 16.
Interlocked with the war is the draft issue, which I did not begin to consider separately until early 1968. For a law seminar at Georgetown I wrote a paper on the legal arguments
The decision not to be a resister and the related subsequent decisions were the most difficult of my life. I decided to accept the draft in spite of my belefs for one reason: to maintain my political viability within the system. For years I have worked to prepare myself for a political life characterized by both practical political ability and concern for rapid social progress. It is a life I still feel compelled to try to lead. I do not think our system of government is by definition corrupt, however dangerous and inadequate it has been in recent years. (The society may be corrupt but that is not the same thing, and if that is true we are all finished anyway.)
When the draft came, despite political convictions, I was having a hard time facing the prospect of fighting a war I had been fighting against, and that is why I contacted you. ROTC was the one way left in which I could possibly, but not positively, avoid both Vietnam and resistance. Going on with my education, even coming back to England, played no part in my decision to join ROTC. I am back here, and would have been at Arkansas Law School because there is nothing else I can do. In fact, I would like to have been able to take a year out perhaps to teach in a small college or work on some community action project and in the process to decide whether to attend law school or graduate school and how to begin putting what I have learned to use.
But the particulars of my personal life are not nearly as important to me as the principles involved. After I signed the ROTC letter of intent I began to wonder whether the compromise I had made with myself was not more objectionable than the draft would have been, because I had no interest in the ROTC program itself and all I seemed to have done was to protect myself from physical harm. Also, I began to think I had deceived you, not by lies because there were none but by failing to tell you all the things I'm writing now. I doubt that I had the mental coherence to articulate them then.
At the time, after we had made our agreement and you had sent my l-D deferment to my draft board, the anguish and loss of my self- regard and self-confidence really set in. I hardly slept for weeks and kept going by eating compulsively and reading until exhaustion brought sleep. Finally, on Sept. 12 I stayed up all night writing a letter to the chairman of my draft board, saying basically what is in the preceding paragraph, thanking him for trying to help in a case where he really couldn't, and stating that I couldn't do the ROTC after all and would he please draft me a soon as possible.
I never mailed the letter, but I did carry it on me every day until I got on the plane to return to England. I didn't mail the letter because I didn't see, in the end, how my going in the army and maybe going to Vietnam would achieve anything except a feeling that I had punished myself and gotten what I deserved. So I came back to England to try to make something of this second year of my Rhodes scholarship.
And that is where I am now, writing to you because you have been good to me and have a right to know what I think and feel. I am writing too in the hope that my telling this one story will help you to understand more clearly how so many fine people have come to find themselves still loving their country but loathing the military, to which you and other good men have devoted years, lifetimes, of the best service you could give. To many of us, it is no longer clear what is service and what is disservice, or if it is clear, the conclusion is likely to be illegal.
Forgive the length of this letter. There was much to say. There is still a lot to be said, but it can wait. Please say hello to Col.Jones for me. Merry Christmas.
Sincerely,
Bill Clinton
Source: PBS
| - Clinton's Military Record: Clinton organized anti-America rallies in London during the Vietnam war. Clinton's hostess in Prague was the wife of the chief of the communist party. Comrade Clinton spent four weeks in Moscow without any visible means of support, but prying into the business of other Americans. The Intourist Hotel, where he stayed, charged up-front at least $60 a night - money Clinton didn't have. For details of Clinton's spying see FIRST IN HIS CLASS by David Maranis. - |
The Gore Lie
"And I was shot at. . . . I spent most of my time in the field." (Al Gore, The Washington Post, 2/3/88)
"I carried an M-16 . . . I pulled my turn on the perimeter at night and walked through the elephant grass, and I was fired upon." (Al Gore, Los Angeles Times, 10/15/99)
The Truth:
Gore No Longer Mentions Combat Duty on the Campaign Trail.
"On the campaign trail today, while he suggests no combat heroics, he nonetheless mentions his service in Vietnam proudly." (Los Angeles Times, 10/15/99)
"Gore Had Bodyguards Assigned to Keep Him Out of Harms Way in Vietnam. In Vietnam, Alan Leo, a photographer in the press brigade office where Gore worked as a reporter, said he was summoned by Brig. Gen. K.B. Cooper, the 20th Engineer Brigades Commander, and told Leo that he, Cooper, had a great amount of respect for the senator. He asked Leo, the most experienced member of the press unit, to make sure that nothing happened to Gore. He requested that Gore not get into situations that were dangerous, said Leo, who did what he could to carry out Coopers directive. He described his half-dozen or so trips into the field with Gore as situations where I could have worn a tuxedo." (Newsweek, 12/6/99)
While in the Army, Al Gore wrote his parents that the U.S. Army was a "Fascist organization."
Gore got out of Vietnam after 4 1/2 months of a twelve month tour of duty and out of the Army early on the excuse he was going to go to Divinity School. In a couple months he flunked out but did not return to fulfill his Army obligations.
Gore Considered Fleeing to Canada to Avoid Vietnam
NEWSMAX.COM - Before he enlisted in the Army in 1969, Vice President Al Gore considered dodging the draft and fleeing his country.
According to a 1992 wire report reviewed by NewsMax.com: "Gore had just graduated from Harvard and shared an opposition to the war with much of his generation.
According to many accounts, Gore carefully weighed his options, and even briefly considered fleeing to Canada, as many did to avoid the draft." (Associated Press, July 29, 1992)
Rumors that Gore considered the Canada option have swirled since last Thursday, when a C-SPAN caller who identified himself only as a former Gore aide claimed to know the behind-the-scenes story of why the vice president changed his mind and decided to enlist.
According to the caller's account, Gore's father advised him that seeking asylum in Canada would destroy his political viability and promised that if he enlisted no harm would come to him.
Before President Carter granted amnesty to Vietnam draft-dodgers in 1978, those who fled the country were not allowed to return.
In a report that lends some credibility to another aspect of the caller's account, several of Gore's Vietnam colleagues told the Los Angeles Times last month that they were assigned to act as his "bodyguards." If true, the vice president's physical risk while in Vietnam was indeed minimized, just as his father had allegedly promised.
"It blew me away," H. Alan Leo told the Times. "I was to make sure he didn't get into a situation he could not get out of. They didn't want him to get into trouble. So we went into the field after the fact {after combat actions), and that limited his exposure to any hazards. (See: Al Gore Had Bodyguards Protecting Him in Vietnam -- NewsMax.com, Nov. 13)
Vietnam had an impact on political viability for both father and son.
At the time of Gore's enlistment, his father was in the fight of his political life. Sen. Gore had opposed the war early on, which had made him increasingly unpopular in conservative Tennessee. In an apparent attempt to compensate for his own antiwar position, the senator had his son appear in campaign ads wearing military fatigues after young Gore had enlisted.
His family has always insisted that Gore's decision to volunteer for the Army had nothing to do with political considerations.
Still, young Albert was scheduled to ship out by Election Day, which couldn't hurt with voters who viewed Vietnam service as the ultimate patriotic act.
But Gore's orders were delayed. In a 1988 Washington Post interview, Gore family members said they suspected that President Nixon had delayed a 1969 Vietnam call-up solely to deny Gore's father any benefit at the polls from having a son at the battlefront.
Gore himself told the Post, "All I know is I was not allowed to go until the first departure date after the November election." Gore's father lost the election.
Source: Newsmax.com
Gore Got VIP Treatment in Vietnam, Army Buddy Tells NewsMax.com
NEWSMAX.COM - Al Gore's Vietnam tour of duty was cut in half because he was the son of a powerful U.S. senator, according to a Vietnam veteran who served with him.
In an exclusive interview with NewsMax.com Friday, Henry Alan Leo also claimed that he acted as Gore's "security escort" on the battlefield, but took issue with a Los Angeles Times characterization of him as Gore's Vietnam "bodyguard."
Still, even with that clarification, Gore's onetime army buddy left little doubt that the Washington VIP's son received special treatment while "in country" and challenged assertions that Gore was sent home early merely because his unit had been deactivated.
Gore served in Vietnam as a reporter with the 20th Engineers Brigade from Jan. 8 to May 24, 1971, when he was honorably discharged. His unit, headquartered in Bien Hoa, some 20 miles northeast of Saigon, was deactivated in April 1971 -- a development Vice President Gore's defenders have cited to justify his early departure.
The normal Army tour of duty in Vietnam was 12 months.
Henry Alan Leo was attached to the 20th Engineers as a photographer and, having been in country since October 1969, was one of the more senior members of the brigade when Gore arrived. When asked to explain how Gore got out more than six months early, Leo told NewsMax.com, "If your dad is a senator, you can do anything."
What about Gore's unit being deactivated?
"He could have come right back down and gone to Engineer Command Headquarters, which was the next command up," Leo said. "That's what the rest of us in the 20th Engineers did.
"He got out 'cause of his dad," the Vietnam veteran repeated without equivocation. Al Gore Sr. was U.S. senator from Tennessee at the time.
Leo said he was dismayed by the special handling Gore received in Vietnam, treatment that included a general's request that Leo look after Gore because he was the son of a powerful politician. "I was shocked that someone would get that kind of treatment over in a combat zone.
I thought we were all, you know, under the same flag. In my opinion, I thought nobody should be getting that kind of treatment." Leo said that he was never specifically assigned to be Gore's "bodyguard," as the Los Angeles Times had reported on Oct. 15. "I was never ordered to be a bodyguard. As far as I know, Gore never had any bodyguards," Leo told NewsMax.com.
"I was asked to be, more or less, a security escort, because I had a lot more time in country and I already had multiple tours over there."
The Times reported that at least one other soldier besides Leo was warned that a senator's son, whose safety would be a priority, was joining the 20th Engineers. Last week, NewsMax.com asked Michael O'Hara, described in press accounts as Gore's best friend in the unit, about reports that Gore had bodyguards while in Vietnam. O'Hara refused to confirm or deny the allegation.
Leo told NewsMax.com that O'Hara and Gore were fast friends but wasn't sure whether he was the other brigade member who was told to watch out for the senator's son.
Brig. Gen. Kenneth B. Cooper personally requested that Leo take precautions to see that no harm came to Gore during a one-on-one meeting.
"It was natural for Gen. Cooper to make the request. Once again, it was never a direct order, for me to keep an eye out for Al Gore -- just to make sure that he did not get into any situations that we might have difficulty extracting ourselves from."
Leo took pains to not to exaggerate his role. "I wasn't like a bodyguard where I was going to take a bullet for the guy. I wouldn't do that for anybody. But it was just a matter of not letting Gore get caught out there in a situation where something might happen."
Gen. Cooper's request that Leo protect Gore was an honor in Leo's view:
"Wow, I thought. Here the general thinks I have a good reputation. I lived on the edge. I liked being out in the field, but I used a lot of common sense. And I learned a lot while I was out there. So I was a natural survivor. And I believe that to be the real reason for my being asked to keep an eye out on Gore."
Leo said he was also the natural choice to be Gore's security escort because, as the unit photographer, he would have accompanied Gore on field interviews anyway. As it happened, they never found themselves in any close-call situations. "I'd say that most of the areas we went into were relatively secure already," Leo told NewsMax.com.
For Leo, Gore's special treatment was merely another example of Washington business as usual. "As a general rule, the military jumps when Congress requires it to do so. So it doesn't surprise me that a senator had enough power to pull strings to ease his son's way anywhere."
Still, the Vietnam veteran bears Gore no ill will today. Leo said that after he got to know him, the future vice president seemed like "just one of the guys." After a while, it became "second nature" for him to see that Gore was kept in "an OK situation."
Should the revelation that Gore got kid-gloves care in Vietnam while others had to take their chances be an issue in the upcoming presidential campaign? Leo doesn't think so.
"Yes, I think it was unfair that he got special treatment. But it wasn't like I was told to guard this guy with my life. It was a simple matter of wanting us to take special caution to make sure that Gore didn't get into situations that may require a combat effort."
Now, Henry Alan Leo looks back on the entire episode with a jaundiced view. "That was 30 years ago. It's not important to me now. I'm a native Washingtonian. Politics has always been a dirty word to me regardless of who the politicians are."
October 4th, 2005 at 12:59 pmhttp://www.factcheck.org/article349.html
Anti-war Ad Says Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld & Rice "Lied" About Iraq
We find some subtle word-twisting, and place the claims in context.
September 26, 2005
Modified: September 26, 2005
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Summary
An anti-war coalition of mostly liberal groups ran a newspaper ad quoting six alleged lies about Iraq by President Bush and others.
But, like movie blurbs, the quotes sometimes look different when read in full context.
And while much of what the ad calls lies was indeed wrong, there's evidence that the President and his advisers believed the falsehoods at the time.
Analysis
The ad carried a bold-faced headline saying "They Lied," and six brief quotes from Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Rice (now Secretary of State). It also carried a list of American military personnel killed in Iraq, along with the words "They Died."
The ad appeared Sept. 22 in USA Today and more than a dozen other newspapers. The sponsor, "Win Without Wars," is a coalition made up of groups including MoveOn.org Political Action, and using Fenton Communications, the same media consultant used by MoveOn.org.
The brief quotes all seem starkly false in hindsight. But some are a bit too stark – they look a bit different when read in full context. Furthermore, calling them lies suggests Bush and his advisers knew they were wrong at the time. And a bipartisan commission concluded earlier this year that what the Bush administration told the world about Iraqi weapons – while tragically mistaken – was based on faulty intelligence.
"We found the weapons"
Bush is quoted as saying “We found the weapons of mass destruction,†but that's not all he said. The quote is from an interview with Polish television given May 29, 2003 – weeks after the fall of Baghdad, as Bush was starting to face questions about why no Iraqi stores of such weapons had been found.
Reading all of what Bush said makes clear he was referring both to "weapons" and to "manufacturing facilities" and was still clinging to what intelligence officials had told him about Iraqi mobile laboratories that supposedly were used for manufacturing biological weapons.
The full quote:
Q: Weapons of mass destruction haven't been found. So what argument will you use now to justify this war?
Bush, May 29, 2003: We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.
In the end, neither weapons nor manufacturing facilities were found. Bush was wrong about the mobile laboratories, of course. He was repeating a claim transmitted to him by the CIA, which based its intelligence reports on an Iraqi source, code-named "Curveball," whom it later determined to be a fabricator. But the CIA didn't formally recall Curveball's reporting until May 2004, according to the report of the bipartisan Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. That CIA reversal came roughly a year after Bush's interview with Polish television.
The intelligence commission, though appointed by Bush, included several Democrats including co-chair Charles Robb, a former senator and governor from Virginia. Lloyd Cutler, former White House counsel to Democratic Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, was "of counsel" to the commission. One of the Republican commissioners was Sen. John McCain, Bush's opponent in the 2000 Republican presidential primaries.
"Saddam Hussein had al-Qaeda ties."
The ad quotes Bush as saying, "There's no question Saddam Hussein had al-Qaeda ties." Bush said that September 17, 2003, after months of fruitless searching for evidence of WMD's in Iraq.
However, the full quote shows Bush also made clear that he was not claiming that Saddam had any connection to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In fact, he was knocking down a suggestion made four days earlier by Vice President Cheney, who said on NBC's Meet The Press that it is "not surprising that people make that connection" when asked why so many Americans believed Saddam was involved in the attacks.
Bush, Sept. 17, 2003: We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th . What the Vice President said was, is that he has been involved with al Qaeda. And al Sarawak, al Qaeda operative, was in Baghdad. He's the guy that ordered the killing of a U.S. diplomat. He's a man who is still running loose, involved with the poisons network, involved with Ansar al-Islam. There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties.
Since the word "ties" can cover any connection, however weak, Bush was in fact stating the truth. The bipartisan 9/11 Commission later cited reports of several "friendly contacts" between Saddam and Osama bin Laden over the years, and cited one report that in 1999 Iraqi officials offered bin Laden a "safe haven," which bin Laden refused, preferring to remain in Afghanistan. But nothing substantial came of the contacts. The commission said: "The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides' hatred of the United States. But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship."
"We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators"
Cheney is quoted as saying, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, "We will in fact, be greeted as liberators... I think it will go relatively quickly... [in] weeks rather than months."
Those quotes are actually from two separate interviews, and they do give a rosy prediction that failed to include the bloody insurrection and resistance that continues to this day.
The first Cheney quote comes from an NBC Meet the Press interview March 16, 2003. The full quote makes clear – as the ad's blurb does not – that Cheney is stating his own "belief." Thus, the statement would be true if that's what Cheney actually believed at the time.
Cheney, March 16, 2003: Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. . . .
Q: If your analysis is not correct, and we're not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?
Cheney: Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. . . . The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to the get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.
The second quoted fragment is from another interview the same day on CBS's Face The Nation . The full quote shows Cheney qualified his prediction of quick victory, by saying the "really challenging part" may come in the "aftermath" of a quick military victory. That turned out to be quite accurate.
Cheney, March 16, 2003: I'm confident that our troops will be successful, and I think it'll go relatively quickly, but we can't...
Q: Weeks?
Cheney: ...we can't count on that.
Q: Months?
Cheney: Weeks rather than months. There's always the possibility of--of complications that you can't anticipate, but I'm--I have great confidence in our troops. The men and women who serve in our military today are superb. Our capabilities as a force are the finest the world has ever known. They're very ably led by General Tommy Franks and Secretary Rumsfeld. And so I have great confidence in the conduct of the military campaign. The really challenging part of it to some extent may come in the--in the aftermath once the military segment is over and we move to try and stand up a new government and--and turn over to the Iraqi people the responsibilities to their nation.
US, British and other coalition forces invaded Iraq March 20, and on May 1 the US declared an end to "major combat operations." At that time 139 US armed forces personnel had been killed. But 1773 more died after that, plus five civilian employees of the Defense Department, according to official Pentagon figures as of Sept. 26, 2005. By that measure the "aftermath" has been more than a dozen times deadlier to the US military than the initial combat phase.
"We know where [the WMDs] are."
The ad quotes Defense Secretary Rumsfeld as saying "We know where [the WMDs] are" on March 30, 2003 – at a time when US forces were within 65 miles of Baghdad.
This quote doesn't look much different even in full context. Rumsfeld was reacting to a question about why no weapons of mass destruction had been found, and he said US and coalition forces didn't yet control the areas where weapons "were dispersed."
Q: And is it curious to you that given how much control U.S. and coalition forces now have in the country, they haven't found any weapons of mass destruction?
Rumsfeld, May 30, 2003: Not at all. If you think -- let me take that, both pieces -- the area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.
Subsequent events have proved Rumsfeld wrong. Whether his statement was a lie or a mistake depends on whether or not he knew at the time that the weapons weren't there.
"[Saddam] is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon."
This quote is from Condoleezza Rice on September 8, 2002, months before the war began, in an interview with CNN. Rice was then Bush's National Security Adviser and later became Secretary of State.
Q: Based on what you know right now, how close is Saddam Hussein's government -- how close is that government to developing a nuclear capability?
Rice, September 8, 2002: You will get different estimates about precisely how close he is. We do know that he is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. We do know that there have been shipments going into Iran, for instance -- into Iraq, for instance, of aluminum tubes that really are only suited to -- high-quality aluminum tools that are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs.
We know that he has the infrastructure, nuclear scientists to make a nuclear weapon. And we know that when the inspectors assessed this after the Gulf War, he was far, far closer to a crude nuclear device than anybody thought, maybe six months from a crude nuclear device.
The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.
What Rice said then is an accurate summation of what the US Intelligence community was saying at the time. Here's what the bipartisan Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction said last March, after a year-long study:
Commission on Intelligence Capabilities, March 31, 2005: On the brink of war, and in front of the whole world, the United States government asserted that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear weapons program, had biological weapons and mobile biological weapon production facilities, and had stockpiled and was producing chemical weapons. All of this was based on the assessments of the U.S. Intelligence Community. And not one bit of it could be confirmed when the war was over.
Looking back, it is now clear that much of what is quoted in this ad was, even in context, false or misleading. To say Bush and the others "lied," however, requires evidence that they knew the intelligence they were getting was wrong. The unanimous finding of the Intelligence Commission argues against that idea.
Sources
Interview of the President by TVP, Poland, Office of the White House Press Secretary, 29 May 2003.
Report to the President , Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, 31 March 2005.
Remarks by the President after meeting with Members of the Congressional Conference Committee on Energy Legislation, Office of the White House Press, Secretary 17 Sep 2003.
The 9/11 Commission Report, Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, 22 July 2004.
"Interview with Vice President Cheney," Meet the Press, NBC, 13 Mar 2003.
"OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF) U.S. CASUALTY STATUS"
AS OF: Sep 26, 2005, 1000 a.m. EDT, US Department of Defense, 26 Sep 2005.
“Donald Rumsfeld†This Week with George Stephanopoulos, ABC (Transcript) 30 Mar 2003.
"Interview with Condoleezza Rice," CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, 8 Sep 2002.
http://www.factcheck.org/article222.html
Bush's "16 Words" on Iraq & Uranium: He May Have Been Wrong But He Wasn't Lying
Two intelligence investigations show Bush had plenty of reason to believe what he said in his 2003 State of the Union Address.
http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Butler%20Report.pdf
http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/US%20Report.pdf
Summary
The famous “16 words†in President Bush’s Jan. 28, 2003 State of the Union address turn out to have a basis in fact after all, according to two recently released investigations in the US and Britain.
Bush said then, “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .†Some of his critics called that a lie, but the new evidence shows Bush had reason to say what he did.
A British intelligence review released July 14 calls Bush’s 16 words “well founded.â€
A separate report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee said July 7 that the US also had similar information from “a number of intelligence reports,†a fact that was classified at the time Bush spoke.
Ironically, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who later called Bush’s 16 words a “lieâ€, supplied information that the Central Intelligence Agency took as confirmation that Iraq may indeed have been seeking uranium from Niger .
Both the US and British investigations make clear that some forged Italian documents, exposed as fakes soon after Bush spoke, were not the basis for the British intelligence Bush cited, or the CIA's conclusion that Iraq was trying to get uranium.
None of the new information suggests Iraq ever nailed down a deal to buy uranium, and the Senate report makes clear that US intelligence analysts have come to doubt whether Iraq was even trying to buy the stuff. In fact, both the White House and the CIA long ago conceded that the 16 words shouldn’t have been part of Bush’s speech.
But what he said – that Iraq sought uranium – is just what both British and US intelligence were telling him at the time. So Bush may indeed have been misinformed, but that's not the same as lying.
Analysis
The "16 words" in Bush's State of the Union Address on Jan. 28, 2003 have been offered as evidence that the President led the US into war using false information intentionally. The new reports show Bush accurately stated what British intelligence was saying, and that CIA analysts believed the same thing.
The "16 Words"
During the State the Union Address on January 28, 2003, President Bush said:
Bush: The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
The Butler Report
After nearly a six-month investigation, a special panel reported to the British Parliament July 14 that British intelligence had indeed concluded back in 2002 that Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy uranium. The review panel was headed by Lord Butler of Brockwell, who had been a cabinet secretary under five different Prime Ministers and who is currently master of University College, Oxford.
The Butler report said British intelligence had "credible" information -- from several sources -- that a 1999 visit by Iraqi officials to Niger was for the purpose of buying uranium:
Butler Report: It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.
The Butler Report affirmed what the British government had said about the Niger uranium story back in 2003, and specifically endorsed what Bush said as well.
Butler Report: By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa†was well-founded.
The Senate Intelligence Committee Report
The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reported July 7, 2004 that the CIA had received reports from a foreign government (not named, but probably Britain) that Iraq had actually concluded a deal with Niger to supply 500 tons a year of partially processed uranium ore, or "yellowcake." That is potentially enough to produce 50 nuclear warheads.
Wilson: Bush's Words "The Lie"
(From a web chat sponsored by Kerry for President Oct. 29, 2003)
*** Joe Wilson (Oct 29, 2003 11:24:53 AM)
I would remind you that had Mr.. Cheney taken into consideration my report as well as 2 others submitted on this subject, rather than the forgeries
*** Joe Wilson (Oct 29, 2003 11:25:06 AM)
the lie would never have been in President Bush's State of the Union address
*** Joe Wilson (Oct 29, 2003 11:25:14 AM)
so when they ask, "Who betrayed the President?"
*** Joe Wilson (Oct 29, 2003 11:25:30 AM)
They need to point the finger at the person who inserted the 16 words, not at the person who found the truth of the matter
The Senate report said the CIA then asked a "former ambassador" to go to Niger and report. That is a reference to Joseph Wilson -- who later became a vocal critic of the President's 16 words. The Senate report said Wilson brought back denials of any Niger-Iraq uranium sale, and argued that such a sale wasn't likely to happen. But the Intelligence Committee report also reveals that Wilson brought back something else as well -- evidence that Iraq may well have wanted to buy uranium.
Wilson reported that he had met with Niger's former Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki, who said that in June 1999 he was asked to meet with a delegation from Iraq to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between the two countries.
Based on what Wilson told them, CIA analysts wrote an intelligence report saying former Prime Minister Mayki "interpreted 'expanding commercial relations' to mean that the (Iraqi) delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales." In fact, the Intelligence Committee report said that "for most analysts" Wilson's trip to Niger "lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal."
The subject of uranium sales never actually came up in the meeting, according to what Wilson later told the Senate Intelligence Committee staff. He quoted Mayaki as saying that when he met with the Iraqis he was wary of discussing any trade issues at all because Iraq remained under United Nations sanctions. According to Wilson, Mayaki steered the conversation away from any discussion of trade.
For that reason, Wilson himself has publicly dismissed the significance of the 1999 meeting. He said on NBC’s Meet the Press May 2, 2004:
Wilson: …At that meeting, uranium was not discussed. It would be a tragedy to think that we went to war over a conversation in which uranium was not discussed because the Niger official was sufficiently sophisticated to think that perhaps he might have wanted to discuss uranium at some later date.
But that's not the way the CIA saw it at the time. In the CIA's view, Wilson's report bolstered suspicions that Iraq was indeed seeking uranium in Africa. The Senate report cited an intelligence officer who reviewed Wilson’s report upon his return from Niger:
Committee Report: He (the intelligence officer) said he judged that the most important fact in the report was that the Nigerian officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Nigerian Prime Minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium, because this provided some confirmation of foreign government service reporting.
"Reasonable to Assess"
At this point the CIA also had received "several intelligence reports" alleging that Iraq wanted to buy uranium from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and from Somalia, as well as from Niger. The Intelligence Committee concluded that "it was reasonable for analysts to assess that Iraq may have been seeking uranium from Africa based on Central Intelligence Agency reporting and other available intelligence."
Reasonable, that is, until documents from an Italian magazine journalist showed up that seemed to prove an Iraq-Niger deal had actually been signed. The Intelligence Committee said the CIA should have been quicker to investigate the authenticity of those documents, which had "obvious problems" and were soon exposed as fakes by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"We No Longer Believe"
Both the Butler report and the Senate Intelligence Committee report make clear that Bush's 16 words weren't based on the fake documents. The British didn't even see them until after issuing the reports -- based on other sources -- that Bush quoted in his 16 words. But discovery of the Italian fraud did trigger a belated reassessment of the Iraq/Niger story by the CIA.
Once the CIA was certain that the Italian documents were forgeries, it said in an internal memorandum that "we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad." But that wasn't until June 17, 2003 -- nearly five months after Bush's 16 words.
Soon after, on July 6, 2003, former ambassador Wilson went public in a New York Times opinion piece with his rebuttal of Bush's 16 words, saying that if the President was referring to Niger "his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them," and that "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." Wilson has since used much stronger language, calling Bush's 16 words a "lie" in an Internet chat sponsored by the Kerry campaign.
On July 7, the day after Wilson's original Times article, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer took back the 16 words, calling them "incorrect:"
Fleischer: Now, we've long acknowledged -- and this is old news, we've said this repeatedly -- that the information on yellow cake did, indeed, turn out to be incorrect.
And soon after, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice acknowledged that the 16 words were, in retrospect, a mistake. She said during a July 11, 2003 White House press briefing :
Rice: What we've said subsequently is, knowing what we now know, that some of the Niger documents were apparently forged, we wouldn't have put this in the President's speech -- but that's knowing what we know now.
That same day, CIA Director George Tenet took personal responsibility for the appearance of the 16 words in Bush's speech:
Tenet: These 16 words should never have been included in the text written
for the President.
Tenet said the CIA had viewed the original British intelligence reports as "inconclusive," and had "expressed reservations" to the British.
The Senate report doesn't make clear why discovery of the forged documents changed the CIA's thinking. Logically, that discovery should have made little difference since the documents weren't the basis for the CIA's original belief that Saddam was seeking uranium. However, the Senate report did note that even within the CIA the comments and assessments were "inconsistent and at times contradictory" on the Niger story.
Even after Tenet tried to take the blame, Bush's critics persisted in saying he lied with his 16 words -- for example, in an opinion column July 16, 2003 by Michael Kinsley in the Washington Post :
Kinsley: Who was the arch-fiend who told a lie in President Bush's State of the Union speech? . . .Linguists note that the question "Who lied in George Bush's State of the Union speech" bears a certain resemblance to the famous conundrum "Who is buried in Grant's Tomb?"
However, the Senate report confirmed that the CIA had reviewed Bush's State of the Union address, and -- whatever doubts it may have harbored -- cleared it for him.
Senate Report: When coordinating the State of the Union, no Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysts or officials told the National Security Council (NSC) to remove the "16 words" or that there were concerns about the credibility of the Iraq-Niger uranium reporting.
The final word on the 16 words may have to await history's judgment. The Butler report's conclusion that British intelligence was "credible" clearly doesn't square with what US intelligence now believes. But these new reports show Bush had plenty of reason to believe what he said, even if British intelligence is eventually shown to be mistaken.
Sources
President George W. Bush, “ State of the Union ,†28 January 2003.
Chairman Lord Butler of Brockwell, “Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction,†14 July 2004.
“Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq,†Select Committee on Intelligence United States Senate, 7 July 2004.
Walter Pincus, “ CIA Did Not Share Doubt on Iraq Data; Bush Used Report Of Uranium Bid ,†Washington Post, 12 June 2003.
Mohamed ElBaradei, “ The Status of Nuclear Inspections in Iraq: An Update ,†Statement to the United Nations Security Council by International Atomic Energy Agency Director General, 7 March 2003.
Joseph Wilson, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,†New York Times, 6 July 2003.
Joseph Wilson,The Official Kerry-Edwards BLOG: "Transcript of Chat with Ambassador Joe Wilson," 29 Oct 2003.
Michael Kinsley, "...Or More Lies From The Usual Suspects?," Washington Post, 16 July 2003: A23.
Ari Fleischer, “ Press Gaggle ,†7 July 2003.
Ari Fleischer and Dr. Condoleeza Rice, “ Press Gaggle ,†11 July 2003.
George Tenet, "Statement by George J. Tenet Director of Central Intelligence," Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 11 July 2003.
October 4th, 2005 at 1:03 pmhttp://www.factcheck.org/article144.html
Funding for Veterans up 27%, But Democrats Call It A Cut
Money for Veterans goes up faster under Bush than under Clinton, yet Kerry accuses Bush of an unpatriotic breach of faith.
February 18, 2004
Modified: February 18, 2004
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Summary
In the Feb. 15 Democratic debate, Kerry suggested that Bush was being unpatriotic: “He’s cut the VA (Veterans Administration) budget and not kept faith with veterans across this country. And one of the first definitions of patriotism is keeping faith with those who wore the uniform of our country.â€
It is true that Bush is not seeking as big an increase for next year as the Secretary of Veterans Affairs wanted. It is also true that the administration has tried to slow the growth of spending for veterans by not giving new benefits to some middle-income vets.
Yet even so, funding for veterans is going up twice as fast under Bush as it did under Clinton. And the number of veterans getting health benefits is going up 25% under Bush's budgets. That's hardly a cut.
Analysis
Funding for veterans benefits has accelerated in the Bush administration, as seen in the following table.
Fiscal years ending Sept. 30
Source: US Budget: Table 5.2 - Budget Authority by Agency
In Bush’s first three years funding for the Veterans Administration increased 27%. And if Bush's 2005 budget is approved, funding for his full four-year term will amount to an increase of 37.6%.
In the eight years of the Clinton administration the increase was 31.7%
Those figures include mandatory spending for such things as payments to veterans for service-connected disabilities, over which Congress and presidents have little control. But Bush has increased the discretionary portion of veterans funding even more than the mandatory portion has increased. Discretionary funding under Bush is up 30.2%.
By any measure, veterans funding is going up faster under Bush than under Clinton.
One reason: the number of veterans getting benefits is increasing rapidly as middle-income veterans turn for health care to the expanding network of VA clinics and its generous prescription drug benefit.
According to the VA, the number of veterans signed up to get health benefits increased by 1.1 million, or 18%, during the first two fiscal years for which Bush signed the VA appropriations bills. And the numbers continue to grow. By the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30, the VA estimates that the total increase under Bush's budgets will reach nearly 1.6 million veterans, an increase of 25.6 percent.
And according to the VA, the number of community health clinics has increased 40% during Bush's three years, with accompanying increases in the numbers of outpatient visits (to 51 million last year) and prescriptions filled (to 108 million).
But They Keep Repeating: "It's a Cut"
That's just the opposite of the impression one might get from listening to Democratic presidential candidates debate each other over the past several months. One thing they seem to agree on is the false idea that Bush is cutting funding for veterans.
Examples:
Oct 9, 2003:
Sharpton: As this president waved the flag, he cut the budget for veterans, which dishonored people that had given their lives to this country, while he sent people like you to war.
October 27:
Dean: I've made it very clear that we need to support our troops . . . unlike President Bush who tried to cut -- who successfully cut 164,000 veterans off their health-care benefits.
Jan 4, 2004:
Kucinich: Look what's happened with this budget the administration has just submitted. They're cutting funds for job programs, for veterans . . .
Jan 22, 2004 :
Kerry: And while we're at it, this president is breaking faith with veterans all across the country. They've cut the VA budget by $1.8 billion.
Feb 15, 2004 :
Kerry: And most importantly, I think he's cut the VA budget and not kept faith with veterans across this country. And one of the first definitions of patriotism is keeping faith with those who wore the uniform of our country.
And even the Democratic National Committee website proclaims, "Bush Cuts Funds for Veterans' Health Care," despite what the numbers show.
Veterans Groups Want More
While it's false to say the veterans budget has been cut, and false to say that any veteran getting benefits has been cut off, it is true that funding is not growing as rapidly as demand for benefits, or as rapidly as veterans groups would like.
Veterans groups are unanimous in calling for more money than the administration or Congress have provided. Four groups -- AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States -- have joined to ask for $3.7 billion more than the administration is requesting for next year.
Even Bush's own Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi -- in a rare break with administration protocol -- told a House committee Feb. 4 that had asked for more money than Bush was willing to seek from Congress. "I asked OMB for $1.2 billion more than I received," he said, referring to the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Some Denied Benefits; A Cut Proposed
In January, 2003 the Veterans Administration announced that -- because the increase in funds couldn't meet the rising demand -- it would start turning away many middle-income applicants applying for new medical benefits.
That led to accusations that Bush was denying benefits to veterans. " We have 400,000 veterans in this country who have been denied access in a whole category to the VA," Kerry declared during a debate Oct. 9, 2003. The VA's estimates of the number who might be denied benefits is much lower, and in fact nobody can say with certainty how many middle-income veterans might have signed up for medical benefits if they had been allowed.
Meanwhile the VA continues to add hundreds of thousands of disabled and lower-income veterans to those already receiving benefits, and has kept paying benefits to all veterans who were already receiving them.
The middle-income veterans who currently aren't being allowed to sign up are those generally with incomes above 80% of the mid-point for their locality. The means test cut-off for benefits ranges up to $40,000 a year in many cities. And any veteran with income less than $25,162 still qualifies no matter where they live. Those figures are for single veterans. The income cut-off is higher for those with a spouse or children.
Veterans groups have called for "mandatory funding" of medical benefits, which would automatically appropriate whatever funds are required to meet demand. Kerry has endorsed mandatory funding, which would allow middle-income veterans with no service-connected disability to resume signing up.
The administration also has proposed to make the VA's prescription drug benefit less generous. Currently many veterans pay $7 for each one-month supply of medication. The administration proposes to increase that to $15, and require a $250 annual fee as well. Congress rejected a similar proposal last year. The proposal wouldn't affect those -- such as veterans with a disability rated at 50% or more -- who currently aren't required to make any co-payments.
And it should be noted that the administration is proposing to increase some benefits, including ending pharmacy co-payments for some very low-income veterans, and paying for emergency-room care for veterans in non-VA hospitals.
All this means Bush can fairly be accused of trying to hold down the rapid growth in spending for veterans benefits -- particularly those sought by middle-income vets with no service-connected disability. But saying he cut the budget is contrary to fact.
(Note: FactCheck.org twice contacted the Kerry campaign asking how he justified his claim that the VA budget is being cut, but we've received no response.)
Sources
Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2005 "Table 5.2 -- Budget Authority by Agency" (Washington, Government Printing Office) 3 Feb 2004.
US House of Representatives, Committee on Veterans Affairs, “ Statement of Anthony J. Principi , Secretary Of Veterans Affairs†4 Feb 2004.
US House of Representqatives, Committee on Veterans Affairs, “ Statement of Peter S. Gaytan, Principal Deputy Director, Veterans Affairs And Rehabilitation Division, The American Legion†4 Feb 2004.
US House of Representqatives, Committee on Veterans Affairs “ Statement Of Joseph A. Violante , National Legislative Director, The Disabled American Veterans†4 Feb. 2004.
US House of Representatives, Committee on Veterans Affairs “ Statement of Vietnam Veterans of America , Presented by Richard F. Weidman, Director, Government Relations†4 Feb 2004.
Press Release , Rep. Lane Evans (D IL)"Bush administration ’05 VA budget reflects misplaced priorities, places greater burden on some veterans" 2 Feb. 2004.
Suzanne Bamboa, “Principi Wanted $1.2B More for VA Budget,†Associated Press 4 Feb. 2004.
October 4th, 2005 at 1:05 pmPallywood
Pallywood, "According to Palestinian Sources..." a film by Richard Landes. International news media extract a few convincing instants of staged scenes - sight-bytes, and present them as news...
Streaming video: pallywood.wmv
http://seconddraft.org./streaming/pallywood.wmv
October 4th, 2005 at 1:11 pmDemocrats on Personal Accounts
Back in an era where Senators and Representatives listened to proposals before opposing them, these Democrats endorsed the idea of personal accounts. Here are their own words.
Senators:
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV): “[M]ost Of Us Have No Problem With Taking A Small Amount Of The Social Security Proceeds And Putting It Into The Private Sector.†(Fox’s “Fox News Sunday,†2/14/99)
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) Press Release: “Durbin Said Due To The Increasing Number Of ‘Baby Boomers’ Reaching Retirement Age, Social Security Will Be Unable To Pay Out Full Benefits … But The Sooner Congress Acts To Avert This Crisis The Easier And Less Painful It Will Be.†(Sen. Dick Durbin, “Reforming Social Security,†Press Release, 9/15/98)
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND): “Fixing Social Security Is An Urgent Priority. It Ought To Be At The Top Of Both Parties’ Agendas.†(Sen. Byron Dorgan, “Fixing Social Security Must Top Both Parties’ Agendas,†Roll Call, 12/6/99)
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND): “The Potential [Social Security] Crisis Should Be Viewed As An Enormous Success, Because It Means That We Are Living Longer And Healthier Lives.†(Betty Mills, Op-Ed, “What Would You Do About Social Security?†Bismarck Tribune, 8/5/98)
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND): “I Was At The Social Security Summit At The White House, Along With 40 Of My Colleagues, Republicans And Democrats. And There Was Virtual Unanimity Of Opinion That We Simply Have To Get A Higher Return From The Social Security Investments.†(Fox News’ “Special Report,†1/20/99)
House Members:
Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI): “People Can See, I Think, A [Social Security] Crisis Where There Immediate Family Is Affected Even If Not Immediately … This Is Something That Affects Almost Everybody’s Immediate Family.†(Richard A. Ryan, “Social Security Reform Stalls,†The Detroit News, 2/2/02)
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY): “I Am One Democrat That Truly Believes That Democrats Will Not Benefit By Doing Nothing On Social Security.†(Rep. Charles Rangel, Press Conference, 1/21/99)
Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA): “I Am An Advocate For Investing A Portion Of The Surplus In The Private Sector …†(Rep. Edward J. Markey, Committee On Commerce, U.S. House Of Representatives, Testimony, 2/25/99)
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY): “[I]t’s A Way Of Getting More Money – A Higher Return On The Trust Fund, And Is A Prudent And Good Thing To Do.†(Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Press Conference, 1/21/99)
Former Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-MO): “Why Should Social Security Recipients Be Disadvantaged By Not Getting To Be Able To Have Higher Returns Out Of The Stock Market?†(Rep. Dick Gephardt, Press Conference, 1/21/99)
Clinton:
President Clinton: “[Investing] Will Earn A Higher Return And Keep Social Security Sound For 55 Years.†(President Bill
Clinton, State Of The Union, 1/19/99)
President Clinton: “[W]hat I Believe We Should Do Is To Invest A Modest Amount Of This In The Private Sector, The Way Every Other Retirement Plan Does. The Arizona State Retirement Plan Does; Every Municipal Retirement Plan Does; Every Private Plan Does.†(President Bill Clinton, Remarks To The Citizens Of Tucson On Medicare And Social Security, Tucson, AZ, 2/25/99)
President Clinton: “[E]ven After You Take Account Of The Stock Market Going Down And Maybe Staying Down For A Few Years, Shouldn’t We Consider Investing Some Of This Money, Because, Otherwise, We’ll Have To Either Cut Benefits Or Raise Taxes To Cover Them, If We Can’t Raise The Rate Of Return.†(President Bill Clinton, Remarks Via Satellite To The Regional Congressional Social Security Forums, Albuquerque, NM, 7/27/98)
October 4th, 2005 at 1:30 pmhttp://www.snopes.com/politics/war/wmdquotes.asp
Claim: Quotes reproduce statements made by Democratic leaders about Saddam Hussein's acquisition or possession of weapons of mass destruction.
Status: True.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2003]
"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998.
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998.
"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998.
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998
"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998.
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998.
"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999.
"There is no doubt that . Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."
Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, Dec, 5, 2001.
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."
Sen. Carl Levin (d, MI), Sept. 19, 2002.
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.
"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seing and developing weapons of mass destruction."
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002.
"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."
Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002.
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force — if necessary — to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002.
"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years . We also should remember we have alway s underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."
Sen. Jay Rockerfeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002,
"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do."
Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002.
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002
"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction. "[W]ithout question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. And now he has continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real ...
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003.
NOW THE DEMOCRATS SAY PRESIDENT BUSH LIED, THAT THERE NEVER WERE ANY WMD'S AND HE TOOK US TO WAR FOR HIS OIL BUDDIES??? Right!!!
Origins: All
of the quotes listed above are substantially correct reproductions of statements made by various Democratic leaders regarding Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's acquisition or possession of weapons of mass destruction. However, some of the quotes are truncated, and context is provided for none of them — several of these quotes were offered in the course of statements that clearly indicated the speaker was decidedly against unilateral military intervention in Iraq by the U.S. Moreover, several of the quotes offered antedate the four nights of airstrikes unleashed against Iraq by U.S. and British forces during Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, after which Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen and Gen. Henry H. Shelton (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) announced the action had been successful in "degrad[ing] Saddam Hussein's ability to deliver chemical, biological and nuclear weapons."
In the section below where we highlight these quotes, we've tried to provide sufficient surrounding material to make clear the context in which the quotes were offered as well as include links to the full text from which they were derived wherever possible.
In February 1998, politicians debated the Clinton administration's plans to launch air attacks against Iraq in an effort to coerce Saddam Hussein into cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors. As the Washington Post noted at the time:
Foreign leaders and diplomats may be urging restraint on the Clinton administration in the showdown with Iraq, but a growing chorus at home is calling for stronger measures than the air attacks currently being planned, with the objective of bringing down President Saddam Hussein.
Prominent members of the foreign policy establishment and some leading members of Congress say they are convinced that air attacks aimed at coercing the Iraqis into cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors would not succeed, and would result in too narrow a victory even if they did.
Instead, they argue, the United States should go beyond the objective of curtailing Iraqi weapons programs and adopt a far-reaching strategy aimed at replacing the Baghdad regime. Although they are far from consensus on what that strategy should be, a few openly advocate the possible use of U.S. ground forces, a much greater commitment than the options being pursued by the administration.
Many supporters of a more forceful strategy are conservative Republicans and longtime defense hard-liners, such as Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and former Pentagon official Richard L. Armitage. But they also include former representative Stephen J. Solarz (N.Y.), a liberal Democrat who with former Pentagon official Richard Perle is circulating a letter in Congress and foreign policy circles seeking bipartisan support for a more ambitious policy.
In addition to a crushing bombing campaign or the possibility of ground troops, some advocates of tougher measures are suggesting seeking Iraq's expulsion from the United Nations, indicting Saddam Hussein as a war criminal, or blockading the port of Basra to halt illicit oil exports — an action that would infuriate Iran, which shares the Shatt al Arab waterway with Iraq.
Such moves, if made unilaterally, would almost certainly draw the ire of most of the United States's U.N. partners and frame the crisis even more starkly as a conflict between Washington and Baghdad. But public opinion polls may indicate support for such a route. A Los Angeles Times poll published on Monday showed that by 68 percent to 24 percent, Americans favor airstrikes provided they are designed to remove Saddam Hussein from power, not just force him to accept the commands of the U.N. Security Council.1
That same article also reported a statement made by President Clinton the previous day (4 February 1998):
Yesterday, Clinton reiterated that he would prefer a "diplomatic solution" to the standoff with Iraq but added, "One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." Clinton met with Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, just back from a trip to Europe and several Arab countries to outline the U.S. position, and is to discuss Iraq with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who arrived in Washington yesterday.1
On 17 February 1998, President Clinton delivered a speech at the Pentagon. Excerpts from that speech include the following comments:
The UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons.
Now, against that background, let us remember the past here. It is against that background that we have repeatedly and unambiguously made clear our preference for a diplomatic solution . . .
But to be a genuine solution, and not simply one that glosses over the remaining problem, a diplomatic solution must include or meet a clear, immutable, reasonable, simple standard.
Iraq must agree and soon, to free, full, unfettered access to these sites anywhere in the country. There can be no dilution or diminishment of the integrity of the inspection system that UNSCOM has put in place.
Now those terms are nothing more or less than the essence of what he agreed to at the end of the Gulf War. The Security Council, many times since, has reiterated this standard. If he accepts them, force will not be necessary. If he refuses or continues to evade his obligations through more tactics of delay and deception, he and he alone will be to blame for the consequences.
Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction.
And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal. And I think every one of you who's really worked on this for any length of time believes that, too. . . .
If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. We want to seriously reduce his capacity to threaten his neighbors.
I am quite confident, from the briefing I have just received from our military leaders, that we can achieve the objective and secure our vital strategic interests.2
On 18 February 1998, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright appeared along with Defense Secretary William Cohen and White House National Security Adviser Sandy Berger at an internationally televised "town meeting" at Ohio State University. Protesters shouted from the stands throughout the meeting, and Secretary Albright attempted to quiet them by inviting some of them down to the floor to pose questions to her directly. As the Columbus Dispatch reported:
Few actually got the opportunity, but one — Jon Strange, a substitute teacher in Columbus — eventually took the microphone.
He repeatedly challenged Albright on whether Clinton policy is consistent or fair — attacking Saddam while acting favorably to American allies charged with atrocities against their own people, such as Indonesia and Turkey.
Albright said the United States had expressed its concerns in all of the occasions Strange mentioned. "What we ought to be thinking about is how to deal with Saddam Hussein," she added.
"You're not answering my question, Madam Albright!" Strange shouted, causing the secretary to momentarily back from the lectern.
At that point, Woodruff followed his question by asking why Iraq was branded an outlaw nation for manufacturing chemical and biological weapons that other nations also possess.
"It is a question of whether there is a proclivity to use them," Albright said. "Saddam Hussein is a repeat offender."
Many who attended yesterday's town meeting, while supportive of the nation's position on Iraq, said they are uncertain whether a military attack is the proper response.
Before the forum, Rob Aiken, a North Side resident and student at Ohio State, said he wanted to know what other options had been considered.
"I don't think killing a lot of folks will change a regime," he said.
Leandra Kennedy, a political science major from Philadelphia, said her biggest concern is that an attack has not received congressional approval.
"Saddam needs to comply," she said. "But I'm not sure about the way we're going about it, not taking into consideration how it will affect the international community in the long run."
Calling Saddam a bully who has terrorized his Middle East neighbors and tortured his own people, the officials said the administration's aim is to reduce his capacity to manufacture and deliver weapons of mass destruction.
"I am absolutely convinced that we could accomplish our mission," Berger said.
"The risks that the leader of a rogue state can use biological or chemical weapons on us or our allies is the greatest security risk we face," Albright said.3
During that same meeting National Security Adviser Sandy Berger also spoke about how to make Saddam Hussein comply with United Nations weapons inspectors:
Berger won strong applause when he insisted Washington is still hoping for a peaceful way to persuade Saddam to give United Nations inspectors free access to suspected weapons sites. But Berger re-used a warning delivered Tuesday by President Bill Clinton: "The only answer to aggression and outlaw behaviour is firmness. . . He (Saddam) will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and some day, some way, I am certain he will use that arsenal again, as he has 10 times since 1983."4
On 6 October 1998, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, addressed that committee at a hearing on the subject of worldwide threats facing the U.S. His comments on Iraq included mention of a letter to President Clinton which he and other senators were circulating:
As the Chairman has indicated, the situation in Iraq also poses a threat to international peace and security. Once again, Saddam Hussein has halted cooperation with the United Nations Special Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Without intrusive inspections, we will not be able to ensure that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs are destroyed in accordance with U.N. Security Council resolutions. Without those inspections, the Iraqi people will continue to suffer as a result of international economic sanctions.
And that is why, along with Senators McCain, Lieberman, and Hutchison, I am circulating among our Senate colleagues a letter to President Clinton, urging him, in consultation with Congress, consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take effective actions, including if appropriate, the use of air strikes, to respond to the Iraqi threat.
(President Clinton did undertake the action urged in this statement a few months later by ordering the aforementioned Operation Desert Fox airstrikes.)
On 16 December 1998, Nancy Pelosi, a Congressional representative from California and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, issued a statement concerning a U.S.-led military strike against Iraq:
As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.
The responsibility of the United States in this conflict is to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, to minimize the danger to our troops and to diminish the suffering of the Iraqi people. The citizens of Iraq have suffered the most for Saddam Hussein's activities; sadly, those same citizens now stand to suffer more. I have supported efforts to ease the humanitarian situation in Iraq and my thoughts and prayers are with the innocent Iraqi civilians, as well as with the families of U.S. troops participating in the current action.
I believe in negotiated solutions to international conflict. This is, unfortunately, not going to be the case in this situation where Saddam Hussein has been a repeat offender, ignoring the international community's requirement that he come clean with his weapons program. While I support the President, I hope and pray that this conflict can be resolved quickly and that the international community can find a lasting solution through diplomatic means.
(In this statement Rep. Pelosi was not urging that action be taken against Iraq in order to destroy its WMD technology; she was expressing support for attacks that had already begun with that purpose as their stated objective.)
On 10 November 1999, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright addressed another open meeting, this one held at the Chicago Hilton and Towers. Challenged to defend the Clinton administration's support of an economic and trade embargo against Iraq, Secretary Albright responded:
If you remember in 1991, Saddam Hussein invaded another country, he plagued it, he set fire to it, and he decided that he could control the region. Before that, he had gassed his own people.
Saddam Hussein had been acquiring weapons of mass destruction. We carried out, with the help of an alliance, a war in which we put Saddam Hussein back into his box. The United Nations voted on a set of resolutions which demanded Saddam Hussein live up to his obligations and get rid of weapons of mass destruction.
The United Nations Security Council imposed a set of sanctions on Saddam Hussein until he did that. It also established an organization that is set up to monitor whether Hussein had gotten rid of his weapons of mass destruction.
There has never been an embargo against food and medicine. It's just that Hussein has just not chosen to spend his money on that. Instead, he has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction, and palaces for his cronies.
In December 2001, nine members of Congress (a group which included both Democrats and Republicans) wrote a letter to President Bush urging him to step up support for the internal Iraqi opposition seeking to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Included in that letter was the following paragraph:
This December will mark three years since United Nations inspectors last visited Iraq. There is no doubt that since that time, Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf war status. In addition, Saddam continues to refine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies.
Unless the version reproduced on the Department of State's web site is in error, however, Senator Bob Graham of Florida was not one of the signatories to that letter.
On 19 September 2002, Senator Carl Levin — by then Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee — addressed a committee hearing on U.S. policy on Iraq. His introductory remarks included the following:
The Armed Services Committee meets this afternoon to continue our hearings on U.S. policy toward Iraq. The purpose of these hearings is to give the Administration an opportunity to present its position on Iraq, and to allow this Committee to examine the Administration's proposal with Administration witnesses and experts outside of the government.
We welcome Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers to the Committee. Next week the Committee will hear from former senior military commanders on Monday and from former national security officials on Wednesday.
We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandates of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.
On 23 September 2002, former Vice-President Al Gore addressed the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on the subject of Iraq and the war on terrorism. Among the comments he offered there were the following:
Moreover, if we quickly succeed in a war against the weakened and depleted fourth rate military of Iraq and then quickly abandon that nation as President Bush has abandoned Afghanistan after quickly defeating a fifth rate military there, the resulting chaos could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam. We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.
We have no evidence, however, that he has shared any of those weapons with terrorist groups. However, if Iraq came to resemble Afghanistan — with no central authority but instead local and regional warlords with porous borders and infiltrating members of Al Qaeda than these widely dispersed supplies of weapons of mass destruction might well come into the hands of terrorist groups.
If we end the war in Iraq the way we ended the war in Afghanistan, we could easily be worse off than we are today. When Secretary Rumsfield was asked recently about what our responsibility for restabilizing Iraq would be in an aftermath of an invasion, he said, "That's for the Iraqis to come together and decide."
[ . . .]
What is a potentially even more serious consequence of this push to begin a new war as quickly as possible is the damage it can do not just to America’s prospects to winning the war against terrorism but to America’s prospects for continuing the historic leadership we began providing to the world 57 years ago, right here in this city by the bay.
[ . . .]
Nevertheless, Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power. Moreover, no international law can prevent the United States from taking actions to protect its vital interests, when it is manifestly clear that there is a choice to be made between law and survival. I believe, however, that such a choice is not presented in the case of Iraq. Indeed, should we decide to proceed, that action can be justified within the framework of international law rather than outside it. In fact, though a new UN resolution may be helpful in building international consensus, the existing resolutions from 1991 are sufficient from a legal standpoint.
On 27 September 2002, Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts delivered a speech to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. An excerpt from that speech includes the following statements:
We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction. Our intelligence community is also deeply concerned about the acquisition of such weapons by Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria and other nations. But information from the intelligence community over the past six months does not point to Iraq as an imminent threat to the United States or a major proliferator of weapons of mass destruction.
In public hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee in March, CIA Director George Tenet described Iraq as a threat but not as a proliferator, saying that Saddam Hussein — and I quote — "is determined to thwart U.N. sanctions, press ahead with weapons of mass destruction, and resurrect the military force he had before the Gulf War." That is unacceptable, but it is also possible that it could be stopped short of war.
In October 2002, as the U.S. Senate debated Joint Resolution 46 authorizing President George W. Bush to use military force against Iraq, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia delivered remarks regarding his belief that the "rush to war" was "ignoring the U.S. Constitution" and that Iraq did not pose an imminent threat to the United States. Among his remarks were the following statements:
The Senate is rushing to vote on whether to declare war on Iraq without pausing to ask why. Why is war being dealt with not as a last resort but as a first resort? Why is Congress being pressured to act now, as of today, 33 days before a general election when a third of the Senate and the entire House of Representatives are in the final, highly politicized, weeks of election campaigns? As recently as Tuesday (Oct. 1), the President said he had not yet made up his mind about whether to go to war with Iraq. And yet Congress is being exhorted to give the President open-ended authority now, to exercise whenever he pleases, in the event that he decides to invade Iraq. Why is Congress elbowing past the President to authorize a military campaign that the President may or may not even decide to pursue? Aren't we getting ahead of ourselves?
The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retained some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capability. Intelligence reports also indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons, but has not yet achieved nuclear capability. It is now October of 2002. Four years have gone by in which neither this administration nor the previous one felt compelled to invade Iraq to protect against the imminent threat of weapons of mass destruction. Until today. Until 33 days until election day. Now we are being told that we must act immediately, before adjournment and before the elections. Why the rush?
Yes, we had September 11. But we must not make the mistake of looking at the resolution before us as just another offshoot of the war on terror. We know who was behind the September 11 attacks on the United States. We know it was Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist network. We have dealt with al Qaeda and with the Taliban government that sheltered it — we have routed them from Afghanistan and we are continuing to pursue them in hiding.
So where does Iraq enter the equation? No one in the Administration has been able to produce any solid evidence linking Iraq to the September 11 attack. Iraq had biological and chemical weapons long before September 11. We knew it then, and we know it now. Iraq has been an enemy of the United States for more than a decade. If Saddam Hussein is such an imminent threat to the United States, why hasn't he attacked us already? The fact that Osama bin Laden attacked the United States does not, de facto, mean that Saddam Hussein is now in a lock and load position and is readying an attack on the United States. In truth, there is nothing in the deluge of Administration rhetoric over Iraq that is of such moment that it would preclude the Senate from setting its own timetable and taking the time for a thorough and informed discussion of this crucial issue.
During that same debate, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts also made a speech from the Senate floor, which included the following statements:
When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security and that of our allies in the Persian Gulf region. I will vote yes because I believe it is the best way to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. And the administration, I believe, is now committed to a recognition that war must be the last option to address this threat, not the first, and that we must act in concert with allies around the globe to make the world's case against Saddam Hussein.
Let me be clear, the vote I will give to the President is for one reason and one reason only: To disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections in joint concert with our allies.
In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days — to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out.
If we do wind up going to war with Iraq, it is imperative that we do so with others in the international community, unless there is a showing of a grave, imminent — and I emphasize "imminent" — threat to this country which requires the President to respond in a way that protects our immediate national security needs.
Prime Minister Tony Blair has recognized a similar need to distinguish how we approach this. He has said that he believes we should move in concert with allies, and he has promised his own party that he will not do so otherwise. The administration may not be in the habit of building coalitions, but that is what they need to do. And it is what can be done. If we go it alone without reason, we risk inflaming an entire region, breeding a new generation of terrorists, a new cadre of anti-American zealots, and we will be less secure, not more secure, at the end of the day, even with Saddam Hussein disarmed.
Let there be no doubt or confusion about where we stand on this. I will support a multilateral effort to disarm him by force, if we ever exhaust those other options, as the President has promised, but I will not support a unilateral U.S. war against Iraq unless that threat is imminent and the multilateral effort has not proven possible under any circumstances.
In voting to grant the President the authority, I am not giving him carte blanche to run roughshod over every country that poses or may pose some kind of potential threat to the United States. Every nation has the right to act preemptively, if it faces an imminent and grave threat, for its self-defense under the standards of law. The threat we face today with Iraq does not meet that test yet. I emphasize "yet." Yes, it is grave because of the deadliness of Saddam Hussein's arsenal and the very high probability that he might use these weapons one day if not disarmed. But it is not imminent, and no one in the CIA, no intelligence briefing we have had suggests it is imminent. None of our intelligence reports suggest that he is about to launch an attack.
The argument for going to war against Iraq is rooted in enforcement of the international community's demand that he disarm. It is not rooted in the doctrine of preemption. Nor is the grant of authority in this resolution an acknowledgment that Congress accepts or agrees with the President's new strategic doctrine of preemption. Just the opposite. This resolution clearly limits the authority given to the President to use force in Iraq, and Iraq only, and for the specific purpose of defending the United States against the threat posed by Iraq and enforcing relevant Security Council resolutions.
The definition of purpose circumscribes the authority given to the President to the use of force to disarm Iraq because only Iraq's weapons of mass destruction meet the two criteria laid out in this resolution.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia also delivered a floor speech on the Iraq resolution:
There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. And that may happen sooner if he can obtain access to enriched uranium from foreign sources — something that is not that difficult in the current world. We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction.
When Saddam Hussein obtains nuclear capabilities, the constraints he feels will diminish dramatically, and the risk to America’s homeland, as well as to America’s allies, will increase even more dramatically. Our existing policies to contain or counter Saddam will become irrelevant.
Americans will return to a situation like that we faced in the Cold War, waking each morning knowing we are at risk from nuclear blackmail by a dictatorship that has declared itself to be our enemy. Only, back then, our communist foes were a rational and predictable bureaucracy; this time, our nuclear foe would be an unpredictable and often irrational individual, a dictator who has demonstrated that he is prepared to violate international law and initiate unprovoked attacks when he feels it serves his purposes to do so.
The global community — in the form of the United Nations — has declared repeatedly, through multiple resolutions, that the frightening prospect of a nuclear-armed Saddam cannot come to pass. But the U.N. has been unable to enforce those resolutions. We must eliminate that threat now, before it is too late.
But this isn’t just a future threat. Saddam’s existing biological and chemical weapons capabilities pose a very real threat to America, now. Saddam has used chemical weapons before, both against Iraq’s enemies and against his own people. He is working to develop delivery systems like missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles that could bring these deadly weapons against U.S. forces and U.S. facilities in the Middle East.
And he could make those weapons available to many terrorist groups which have contact with his government, and those groups could bring those weapons into the U.S. and unleash a devastating attack against our citizens. I fear that greatly.
We cannot know for certain that Saddam will use the weapons of mass destruction he currently possesses, or that he will use them against us. But we do know Saddam has the capability. Rebuilding that capability has been a higher priority for Saddam than the welfare of his own people — and he has ill-will toward America.
I am forced to conclude, on all the evidence, that Saddam poses a significant risk.
During the simultaneous debate on the Iraq resolution in the House of Representatives, Congressman Henry Waxman of California issued a statement on a possible war with Iraq:
Whether one agrees or disagrees with the Administration's policy towards Iraq, I don't think there can be any question about Saddam's conduct. He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do. He lies and cheats; he snubs the mandate and authority of international weapons inspectors; and he games the system to keep buying time against enforcement of the just and legitimate demands of the United Nations, the Security Council, the United States and our allies. Those are simply the facts.
And now, time has run out. It has been four long years since the last UN weapons inspectors were effectively ejected from Iraq because of Saddam’s willful noncompliance with an effective inspection regime.
What Saddam has done in the interim is not known for certain - but there is every evidence, from the dossier prepared by the Prime Minister of Britain, to President Bush’s speech at the United Nations, that Saddam has rebuilt substantial chemical and biological weapons stocks, and that he is determined to obtain the means necessary to produce nuclear weapons. He has ballistic missiles, and more are on order. He traffics with other evil people in this world, intent on harming the United States, Israel, other nations in the Middle East, and our friends across the globe.
Senator Hillary Clinton of New York also spoke on the issue of the Iraq resolution:
In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001.
It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.
Now this much is undisputed. The open questions are: what should we do about it? How, when, and with whom?
Some people favor attacking Saddam Hussein now, with any allies we can muster, in the belief that one more round of weapons inspections would not produce the required disarmament, and that deposing Saddam would be a positive good for the Iraqi people and would create the possibility of a secular democratic state in the Middle East, one which could perhaps move the entire region toward democratic reform.
This view has appeal to some, because it would assure disarmament; because it would right old wrongs after our abandonment of the Shiites and Kurds in 1991, and our support for Saddam Hussein in the 1980's when he was using chemical weapons and terrorizing his people; and because it would give the Iraqi people a chance to build a future in freedom.
However, this course is fraught with danger. We and our NATO allies did not depose Mr. Milosevic, who was responsible for more than a quarter of a million people being killed in the 1990s. Instead, by stopping his aggression in Bosnia and Kosovo, and keeping on the tough sanctions, we created the conditions in which his own people threw him out and led to his being in the dock being tried for war crimes as we speak.
If we were to attack Iraq now, alone or with few allies, it would set a precedent that could come back to haunt us. In recent days, Russia has talked of an invasion of Georgia to attack Chechen rebels. India has mentioned the possibility of a pre-emptive strike on Pakistan. And what if China were to perceive a threat from Taiwan?
So Mr. President, for all its appeal, a unilateral attack, while it cannot be ruled out, on the present facts is not a good option.
Making a speech at Georgetown University on 23 January 2003, during the build-up to the war with Iraq, Senator John Kerry said:
Second, without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. We all know the litany of his offenses. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. He miscalculated an eight-year war with Iran. He miscalculated the invasion of Kuwait. He miscalculated America's response to that act of naked aggression. He miscalculated the result of setting oil rigs on fire. He miscalculated the impact of sending scuds into Israel and trying to assassinate an American President. He miscalculated his own military strength. He miscalculated the Arab world's response to his misconduct. And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. That is why the world, through the United Nations Security Council, has spoken with one voice, demanding that Iraq disclose its weapons programs and disarm.
So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but it is not new. It has been with us since the end of the Persian Gulf War. Regrettably the current Administration failed to take the opportunity to bring this issue to the United Nations two years ago or immediately after September 11th, when we had such unity of spirit with our allies. When it finally did speak, it was with hasty war talk instead of a coherent call for Iraqi disarmament. And that made it possible for other Arab regimes to shift their focus to the perils of war for themselves rather than keeping the focus on the perils posed by Saddam's deadly arsenal. Indeed, for a time, the Administration's unilateralism, in effect, elevated Saddam in the eyes of his neighbors to a level he never would have achieved on his own, undermining America's standing with most of the coalition partners which had joined us in repelling the invasion of Kuwait a decade ago.
In U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, the United Nations has now affirmed that Saddam Hussein must disarm or face the most serious consequences. Let me make it clear that the burden is resoundingly on Saddam Hussein to live up to the ceasefire agreement he signed and make clear to the world how he disposed of weapons he previously admitted to possessing. But the burden is also clearly on the Bush Administration to do the hard work of building a broad coalition at the U.N. and the necessary work of educating America about the rationale for war. As I have said frequently and repeat here today, the United States should never go to war because it wants to, the United States should go to war because we have to. And we don't have to until we have exhausted the remedies available, built legitimacy and earned the consent of the American people, absent, of course, an imminent threat requiring urgent action.
October 4th, 2005 at 1:31 pmLast updated: 2 October 2003
http://entertainment.myway.com/celebgossip/pgsix/id/02_05_2004_1.html
The U.S. is Pulling out of Puerto Rico's Island of Vieques, but Now They Don't Want us to Leave-Truth!
Summary of the eRumor
The eRumor talks of the history of the U.S. Navy's presence and use of the Island of Vieques in Puerto Rico and the protests in the late 1990's that the Navy should stop using portions of the island for bombing and live-fire military exercises. Now, the Navy is pulling out and the Puerto Ricans are lamenting the loss of jobs and millions of dollars of income from the base. The email also talks of U.S.bases in Western Europe that will be moved to Eastern Europe, perhaps a way of saying to countries like Germany that it is payback for not supporting the war in Iraq in 2003?
The Truth
We've not found the origin of this email, but the facts seem to be accurate.
A real example of the eRumor as it has appeared on the Internet:
Another lesson learned the hard way! Always be careful what you ask for,
October 4th, 2005 at 1:34 pmyou just may get it!
One of the many headaches that George W. Bush inherited from his
predecessor was the Puerto Rican Island of Vieques. In the waning years
of the Clinton administration, protesters demanded that the U.S. Navy
abandon bombing and naval gunfire exercises that had taken place on the
largely uninhabited island for nearly seventy years. It became a leftist
cause. Liberal icons bumped into one another to fly to Puerto Rico, boat
over to the island, trespass (but never on a day that there was an
exercise scheduled) and get arrested for the benefit of the New York
Times or Newsweek. They included the Reverend Al Sharpton, Mrs. Jesse
Jackson, Joan Baez, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Edward Olomos, Michael Moore
and Ramsey Clark, just to name a few.
Hillary Clinton, then running for the U.S. Senate in New York, chastised
the U.S. Navy for not bowing to the "will of the citizens of Puerto
Rico," until her husband, a week before the election, issued an executive
order to phase out the facility by 2003, despite recommendations to the
contrary by his own Secretary of Defense and the Chief of Naval
Operations.
In 2002, the bombing exercises were transferred to an Air Force bombing
range in central Florida, not far from the Jacksonville and Pensacola
Naval Air Stations. In January, many of the protesters were back in
Puerto Rico, celebrating the final bombing exercise on Vieques and waved
Puerto Rican flags and placards that read "U.S. Navy, get out of Puerto
Rico." On February 21, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced
that the U.S. Navy will close the Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station in
Puerto Rico in 2004, eliminating 1200 civilian jobs as well as 700
military positions. This naval facility is estimated to put nearly $300
million annually into the local economy. The next day a stunned Governor
Sila Calderon, held a news conference in San Juan, protesting the base
closure as a serious blow to Commonwealth's fragile economy. The governor
stated that "The people of Puerto Rico don't now or never did have an
interest in closing the Vieques bombing range or the Roosevelt Roads
naval base. My government is interested in both staying in Puerto Rico."
When asked, Admiral Robert J. Natter, Commander-in Chief, Western
Atlantic Command, said, "Without Vieques, I see no further need for the
facility at Roosevelt Roads. None." So, Yanqui go home? Fine.. But we'll
take our dollars with us. Hasta la vista . . . baby!
On February 21, the Secretary of Defense also announced that starting
this year, the U.S. European Command would begin moving most if not all
of its active combat and support units from bases in Germany to others
being established in Poland, The Czech Republic, Hungary and Turkey to
"better position them for rapid deployment to likely hot spots in those
parts of the world". Immediately the business and government leaders in
the German states of Hesse, Rhineland and Wurttemburg, protested the loss
of nearly $6 billion in revenue each year from the bases and manpower to
be displaced. A spokes-man for the Foreign Ministry speculated that the
move may be "what the Americans call 'payback' for the actions of this
government in opposing military action in Iraq." Whatever. Does anyone
know the German translation for "Hasta la vista . . . baby?"
The Dems’ Enemy
Smearing Halliburton.
The Democrats have discovered the enemy in the ongoing Iraq war. And it is Halliburton.
Nothing quite so angers Democrats about the current situation in Iraq than that Halliburton is making money there. Dennis Kucinich, the out-to-lunch leftist who sounds ever more mainstream given the leftward drift of the rest of the Democratic field, wants the United Nations in Iraq so there will be "no more Halliburton sweetheart deals." Bob Graham huffs, "I will not support a dime to protect the profits of Halliburton in Iraq." John Edwards vows "to stop this president from giving billions of dollars in American taxpayer money to companies like Halliburton in unbid contracts."
The Texas oil-services giant formerly headed by Dick Cheney, who still gets deferred compensation from the firm, has achieved iconic status. Halliburton is the equivalent of Dow, the maker of a key ingredient to napalm, during the Vietnam War — the focus of supposed corporate evil during wartime. It is the equivalent of Mena Airport, the Arkansas site that obsessed anti-Clinton conspiracy theorists during the 1990s — the focus of dark speculation about the mercenary scheming of a U.S. president.
Behind the Democratic outrage is the implicit, and sometimes explicit, charge that Bush waged war in Iraq to fatten the bottom line of one corporation. As the New York Times has put it, Halliburton's Iraq contract "undermines the Bush administration's portrayal of the war as a campaign for disarmament and democracy, not lucre." But to have risked his presidency — not mention American lives — on the war in order to benefit Halliburton, Bush would have to be a psychopath. That the Halliburton charge has become a chief Democratic critique of the war is another sign of the party's descent into unhinged ravings.
As NR's Byron York has reported, it's not really true that the company got its work without competitive bidding. In the 1990s, the military looked for ways to get outside help handling the logistics associated with foreign interventions. It came up with the U.S. Army Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP. The program is a multiyear contract for a corporation to be on call to provide whatever services might be needed quickly.
Halliburton won a competitive bidding process for LOGCAP in 2001. So it was natural to turn to it (actually, to its wholly owned subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root) for prewar planning about handling oil fires in Iraq. "To invite other contractors to compete to perform a highly classified requirement that Kellogg Brown & Root was already under a competitively awarded contract to perform would have been a wasteful duplication of effort," the Army Corps of Engineers commander has written.
Then, in February 2003, the Corps of Engineers gave Halliburton a temporary no-bid contract to implement its classified oil-fire plan. The thinking was it would be absurd to undertake the drawn-out contracting process on the verge of war. If the administration had done that and there had been catastrophic fires, it would now be considered evidence of insufficient postwar planning. And Halliburton was an obvious choice, since it put out 350 oil-well fires in Kuwait after the first Gulf War.
The Clinton administration made the same calculation in its own dealings with Halliburton. The company had won the LOGCAP in 1992, then lost it in 1997. The Clinton administration nonetheless awarded a no-bid contract to Halliburton to continue its work in the Balkans supporting the U.S. peacekeeping mission there because it made little sense to change midstream. According to Byron York, Al Gore's reinventing-government panel even singled out Halliburton for praise for its military logistics work.
So, did Clinton and Gore involve the United States in the Balkans to benefit Halliburton? That charge makes as much sense as the one that Democrats are hurling at Bush now. Would that they directed more of their outrage at the people in Iraq who want to sabotage the country's oil infrastructure, rather than at the U.S. corporation charged with helping repair it.
(c)2003 King Features Syndicate
— Rich Lowry is author of the upcoming Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.
October 4th, 2005 at 1:37 pmA senior Syrian journalist reports Iraq WMD located in three Syrian sites
06 January, 2004
http://www.2la.org/syria/iraq-wmd.php
AFP
Nizar Nayuf (Nayyouf-Nayyuf), a Syrian journalist who recently defected from Syria to Western Europe and is known for bravely challenging the Syrian regime, said in a letter Monday, January 5, to Dutch newspaper “De Telegraaf,†that he knows the three sites where Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) are kept. The storage places are:
click for images of Iraq's WMD location in Syria
-1- Tunnels dug under the town of al-Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria. These tunnels are an integral part of an underground factory, built by the North Koreans, for producing Syrian Scud missiles. Iraqi chemical weapons and long-range missiles are stored in these tunnels.
-2- The village of Tal Snan, north of the town of Salamija, where there is a big Syrian air force camp. Vital parts of Iraq's WMD are stored there.
-3-. The city of Sjinsjar on the Syrian border with the Lebanon, south of Homs city.
ADVERTISEMENT
Nayouf writes that the transfer of Iraqi WMD to Syria was organized by the commanders of Saddam Hussein's Special Republican Guard, including General Shalish, with the help of Assif Shoakat , Bashar Assad's cousin. Shoakat is the CEO of Bhaha, an import/export company owned by the Assad family.
In February 2003, a month before America's invasion in Iraq, very few are aware about the efforts to bring the Weapons of Mass Destruction from Iraq to Syria, and the personal involvement of Bashar Assad and his family in the operation.
Nayouf, who has won prizes for journalistic integrity, says he wrote his letter because he has terminal cancer.
Click here for Satellite Images of the Syrian-Iraq's WMD Locations
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First Message from the Syrian source to Nizar Nayouf
First messages from a Syrian Source, WMD Location
"Dear Nizar.
We received confirmations that the Iraqi weapons, which were moved to Syria by the help of General Zoul-Himla Chalich are now hidden in three places inside Syria:
First place: a tunnel dug in the mountain close to the Al-Baïdah village, which is roughly two kilometers from Misyaf village. This place is under the 489 Safety cipher Documents' office control .
Second place: the factory of the Air Armed Forces in the village of Tal Sinan, between the town of Hama and Salamiyyah. This factory is under the Air Force control.
Third place: the location of Shinsar, 40 kilometers south of Homs, two kilometers east of the Homs - Damascus road. There are underground tunnels there, controlled by Brigade 661 of the armed air Forces. It is a Brigade of air Patrol. The tunnels are several tens of meters deep.
The weapons were transported in large wooden cases and barrels, under the supervision of the General Zoul-Himla Chalich and the son of his brother Assef, who works at Al-Bachaer company.
The company is owned by the Assad family and has offices in Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad.
This company also undertook the illegal Iraqi oil importation in Syria, and supplied weapons to Saddam. I will try to send you all the new information as i get .
Take care and be safe."
Second Message to Nizar Nayuf
Second messages from a Syrian Source, WMD Location
"Dear Nizar.
I have sent you another chart of the positions which tells where the weapons which were sent from Iraq into Syria, are hidden. Because the preceding chart that I sent you earlier is not clear.
Until now, the authorities in Syria did not worry of what was being published by the Dutch television news about this subject.
New information: The weapons were evacuated by the means of ambulances. Mohammed Mansoura also took part in the operation.
There are other serious, detailed pieces of information concerning the money of Saddam being moved into Syria and into Lebanon and those who took part in moving it - Syrians and Lebanese.Also there are more details about the assassination of the General Moustapha Tajer which took place last summer.
Take care of yourself.
Damascus, January 7, 2004."
October 4th, 2005 at 1:39 pmThe Americans
Claim: Canadian radio commentator Gordon Sinclair delivered a stirring, pro-American editorial in 1973.
Status: True.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 1999]
Good reading, from a Toronto newspaper's editorial page!
Widespread, but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth.
Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it. When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.
The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans. I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States Dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar, or the Douglas DC-10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American planes?
Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon — not once, but several times — and safely home again.
You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.
When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the American who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those.
Origins: On 5 June 1973, Canadian radio commentator Gordon Sinclair decided he'd had enough of the stream of criticism and negative press recently directed at the United States of America by foreign journalists (primarily over America's long military involvement in Vietnam, which had ended with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords six months earlier). When he arrived at radio station CFRB in Toronto that morning, he spent twenty minutes dashing off a two-page editorial defending the USA against its carping critics which he then delivered in a defiant, indignant tone during his "Let's Be Personal" spot at 11:45 AM that day.
The unusualness of any foreign correspondent — even one from a country with such close ties to the U.S. as Canada — delivering such a caustic commentary about those who would dare to criticize the U.S. is best demonstrated by the fact that even more than thirty years later, a generation of Americans too young to remember Sinclair's broadcast doubt that this piece (which has been circulating on the Internet in the slightly-altered form quoted above as something "recently" printed in a Toronto newspaper) is genuine. It is real, and it received a great deal of attention in its day. After Sinclair's editorial was rebroadcast by a few American radio stations, it spread like wildfire all over the country. It was played again and again (often superimposed over a piece of inspirational music such as "Battle Hymn of the Republic" or "Bridge Over Troubled Water"), read into the Congressional Record multiple times, and finally released on a record (titled "The Americans"), with all royalties donated to the American Red Cross. (A radio broadcaster in the Windsor/Detroit area named Byron MacGregor recorded and released an unauthorized version of the piece which hit the record stores before Sinclair's official version; an infringement suit was avoided when MacGregor agreed to donate his profits to the Red Cross as well). It gained additional currency when it was dusted off and circulated anew in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. in
2001.
Sinclair passed away in 1984, but he will long be remembered on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border both for his contributions to journalism, and for his loudly proclaiming a friendship that few at the time were willing to embrace.
October 4th, 2005 at 1:41 pmOur Man in Niger
Exposed and discredited, Joe Wilson might consider going back.