Fox News’s Neil Cavuto skips past the “should the United States go to war with Iran” debate and informs us we already have. Watch it:
Transcript:
CAVUTO: But what if I told you it is too late, that we’re already probably at war with Iran and most of us don’t even know it. Welcome everybody, I’m Neil Cavuto, and this is Your World.
Since January, the White House has tried to re-brand their domestic warrantless wiretapping program as a “terrorist surveillance program.” The goal is to make critics of the program’s legality seem weak on terrorism.
So far, the White House press corps hasn’t bought it. But today, Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron became the first reporter use the term “terrorist surveillance program” during a White House press conference.
From today’s Press Conference:
THE PRESIDENT: Carl.
CAMERON: Thank you, sir. On the subject of the terrorist surveillance program -
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
CAMERON: — not to change the tone from all this emphasis on bipartisanship, but there have been now three sponsors to a measure to censure you for the implementation of that program.
Cameron is not only doing the administration’s bidding – he is not doing his job. The term “terrorist surveillance program” could refer to any number of programs, many of which have been around for decades and are not at all controversial.
The program at issue is different precisely because it is conducted a) without a warrant and b) involves people on U.S. soil. That’s why it’s accurately described as a warrantless domestic wiretapping program.
In his press conference this morning, President Bush claimed he had not made up his mind to go to war before the start of the military invasion:
On Iraq, Bush bristled at a suggestion that he had wanted to wage war against that country since early in his presidency. “I didn’t want war. To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong … with all due respect,” he told a reporter. “No president wants war.” To those who say otherwise, “it’s simply not true,” Bush said.
Bush appears to be the only person left who believes his own myth that he went to war with Iraq as a last resort. The evidence is overwhelming to the contrary:
British Memo — Bush, Blair Agreed to Invade In Late Jan. 2003:
A memo of a two-hour meeting between [Bush and Blair] at the White House on January 31 2003 – nearly two months before the invasion – reveals that Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme. [Guardian, 2/3/06]
British Memo — Bush Had Made Up His In July 2002:
It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. [Downing Street Minutes, 7/23/02]
Bush Suggested War Against Iraq Nine Days After 9/11:
President George Bush first asked Tony Blair to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power at a private White House dinner nine days after the terror attacks of 11 September, 2001. [The Observer, 4/4/04]
a critical report off its website. The report by the DoD’s Inspector General found serious flaws in the Missile Defense Agency’s ground-based defense system. (FCW saved a copy of the report here.)
At this morning’s press conference, President Bush said that U.S. troops would remain in Iraq through the end of his presidency. According to Bush, the question of whether U.S. troops will ever leave Iraq will be one for “future presidents.” Watch it:
Transcript:
REPORTER: Will there come a day, and I’m not asking you when — I’m not asking for a timetable — will there come a day when there will be no more American forces in Iraq?
BUSH: That, of course, is an objective, and that will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq.
UPDATE: The AP has picked up the story.
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh, My FBI, pg. 289:
But in theory – and I stress theory – if we had been able to do that, and if we had connected that information with the arrest the next month in Minnesota of Zacarias Moussaoui, the French-Moroccan who aroused a flight instructor’s suspicions when he asked to learn how to fly a commercial airliner, and then tied that to the two al Qaeda cell members living in San Diego and to the earlier warnings that terrorists were plotting to use commercial flights as kamikaze planes…then perhaps 9/11 never would have happened, or would have happened at a lesser scale.
Washington Post, 3/21/06:
An FBI agent who interrogated Zacarias Moussaoui before Sept. 11, 2001, warned his supervisors more than 70 times that Moussaoui was a terrorist and spelled out his suspicions that the al-Qaeda operative was plotting to hijack an airplane, according to federal court testimony yesterday.
The truth, as we understand it now, is that the dots were connected. The higher-ups, however, weren’t listening.
Tight budgets are “forcing some local Federal Bureau of Investigation agents to operate without e-mail accounts.” “As ridiculous as this might sound, we have real money issues right now, and the government is reluctant to give all agents and analysts dot-gov accounts,” said the FBI’s top official in New York.
A new report reveals major discrepancies between lists of designated terrorist organizations from various government agencies. TalkLeft: The report brings up the question of “whether these agencies are capable of ensuring our safety.”
As hurricane season approaches, New Orleans “doesn’t have an emergency shelter, and local officials are asking for federal help to get people out of harm’s way if another disaster strikes.”
$8.965 Trillion: The nation’s new debt limit after Bush “on Monday signed into law a $781 billion increase in U.S. borrowing authority.
300,000 Acres: Amount of national forest land the Bush administration plans to sell off to pay for other government programs. Read more
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