Did you cry during “Hotel Rwanda“? Secretly root on Don Cheadle’s nomination last night? Have you been wearing your green “Save Darfur” bracelet despite it not always *gasp* matching the rest of your outfit?
And when thousands of people died yesterday in Africa, did you even blink an eye? Read more
President Bush frequently says that “we are working with European allies” to use diplomacy to avert a nuclear impasse with Iran.
What exactly does that mean, you ask? Maybe toning down our heated rhetoric, or reassuring Iran we’re not planning an attack? Helping to cool down tensions in the Middle East so talks can proceed smoothly — or even joining the Europeans in the negotiations?
Uh, not quite. Here are some ways the White House has “supported” the talks over the past few weeks:
Could it be — gasp! — the White House doesn’t really want the talks to succeed?
Today President Bush met with President Vladimir Putin in a visit just as important as their first encounter, four years ago in Texas, where Bush “got a sense of his soul” when he looked into his eyes. The Russian Press Corps got the chance to take a look into President Bush’s eyes — and exhibit Russian-style democracy at work.
Highlights from the press conference include:
Bush on American and Russian differences — “if you really think about what we have done in the last four years and what we want to do during the next four years, the common ground is a lot more than those areas where we disagree.” Considering that Freedom House just downgraded Russia this year to “Not Free” for the first time in a decade — is that such a ringing endorsement for how the Bush Administration has behaved?
Bush on Putin — “This is the kind of fellow who when he says yes, he means yes, and when he says no, he means no. And we had a discussion about some decisions he’s made. He’s had some interest in decisions I’ve made. That’s a very important dialogue.” So, when Putin says “we’re going to remain committed to the fundamental principles of democracy,” that is the same thing as making “sweeping constitutional changes” to benefit one party?
Bush on the American Press — “And he wanted to know about our press. It’s a nice bunch of folks.” Apparently he’s changed his mind from the days of expressing his personal feelings about some reporters.
Russian scholars and politicians across America and in Western Europe all want Bush to be tough on Putin — but it is hard to tell what actually transpired in their private meeting. Was the President who met with Putin the Bush who said that America will “seek and support the growth of democratic movements… in every nation” or the Bush who asked “politely about Russia’s retreat from democracy?” We’ll have to wait and see.
One thing not being addressed by President Bush in his visit abroad: the effect of America’s ballooning deficit on the European economy. As America has fallen deeper and deeper into debt, the value of the dollar has plummeted against the euro; the dollar has lost 37 percent against the euro since 2002. Bush needs to restore confidence that America can manage the global financial system – but he is saying little about the dollar these days. European and U.S. economists alike are concerned that the falling dollar and the growing deficits are increasing the risk of financial instability in the United States.
Europe is America’s largest trading partner, exchanging over $1 billion in goods per day. Europe’s net direct investment in the US is over $1 trillion, so it is hard to blame Europeans for being worried about their investments.
“And so the objective is to solve this issue diplomatically, is to work with friends, like we’re doing with France, Europe, and — I mean, France, Germany, and Great Britain, to continue making it clear to the Iranians that developing a nuclear weapon will be unacceptable.” — President Bush, 2/17/05
Funny, Bush makes it sound as if the U.S. is participating in European talks. That’s not how today’s news puts it:
“Germany, France and the U.K. may fail to dissuade Iran from seeking nuclear weapons unless the U.S. joins European-led talks with Iran’s Islamic government, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s adviser on U.S. relations said.” — Bloomberg, 2/17/05
For the second time in as many months Bush’s wannabe-missile defense system (or, the “Son of Star Wars“) failed to work properly as the interceptor rocket failed to launch, leaving the target rocket to splash in the Pacific Ocean — and costing taxpayers another $85 million.
The Missile Defense system has a long sordid history, starting under President Reagan and continuing under Bush, who declared his goal to have the system ready by 2004. Since 1999 there have been a total of ten tests, but none that included the interceptor have worked. In 2003 the administration sought a waiver to “exempt the Pentagon’s controversial missile defense system from the operational testing legally required of every new weapons system in order to deploy it by 2004.” In February 2003 it was still not demonstrating “significant operational capability” and now the 2004 deadline has come and gone. It doesn’t look like the missile defense will be ready by the end of this year either, let alone while Bush is president. In case it ever does work though, don’t worry, the Pentagon already has six missiles in place in Alaska, two in California and ten about to be installed in Alaska.
No doubt the program will continue, despite its lack of success. As David Wright, of the Union of Concerned Scientists notes, “the program is being pushed ahead for political reasons regardless of its capability.”
Iraqi election results have been tallied, giving the Shiite alliance a slim margin. But the big question: What kind of position will Ahmad “Never Say Die” Chalabi grab?
According to the New York Times, “one of the American Embassy’s most important diplomats, Robert Ford,” met with Chalabi to “assess what the next Iraqi government, perhaps with Mr. Chalabi in a senior post, was planning for the future.”
This is the same Ahmad Chalabi who, caught feeding the White House outright fabrication about the Iraqi WMD threat, crowed he and his buddies were “heroes in error.”
The same Ahmad Chalabi who may have “supplied sensitive information about U.S. security operations in Baghdad to the Iranian government.”
The same Ahmad Chalabi who has worked closely with Moqtada al-Sadr, the militant cleric who led violent uprisings against U.S. troops in Iraq.
The same Ahmad Chalabi who is a fugitive from the law after being convicted in absentia of embezzling millions of dollars from a bank in Jordan and sentenced to 22 years of hard labor.
Ahmad Chalabi is a power-mad opportunist willing to play any angle to grab control in Iraq. It’s far past time for the U.S. to finally drop the Chalabi.
Reasonable people disagree on the right course for Iraq, that much is obvious. Some, like Sen. Ted Kennedy, want the White House to issue a detailed timeline for withdrawing U.S. troops. Others, like Rep. Marty Meehan, favor withdrawal but eschew the notion of a timeline. Another camp, which includes prominent MidEast scholar Juan Cole, warns a precipitous withdrawal might make conditions in Iraq far worse.
Here’s one demand we can all agree on: the White House needs to publicly announce its goals for training Iraqi security forces. Right now, we know neither the training goals that will satisfy our mission, nor the timeline for when those goals will be met. Sec. Rumsfeld even says such information is “unknowable.” This is false. If American commanders can make reasonable estimates about the training of American forces, it can do the same for Iraqi forces. Setting standards that define our success or failure is a basic step, and should be expected from an administration that so frequently preaches accountability.
Yesterday in one of her first speeches as the nation’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice paraphrased the 2003 words of President Bush: “Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe — because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty.” However, it seems that the Bush administration is perfectly content with matching the price of liberty against the price of foreign oil. Although Scott McClellan claims that President Bush “never hesitates to point out when countries can do more when it comes to human rights and religious tolerance,” the president has essentially kept silent on the Saudi decision to not allow women to vote in their upcoming elections.
Citing the organizational difficulties of allowing women to vote, the controversial Saudi government will not be permitting female citizens to vote even though not only do women “make up more than half the Saudi population,” but the laws give the right to vote to “citizens over 21 years of age, except military personnel.” President Bush’s response to this affront to basic human rights was inconsequential, as he essentially glossed it over in the recent State of the Union: “The government of Saudi Arabia can demonstrate its leadership in the region by expanding the role of its people in determining their future.”
The president can demonstrate his commitment to freedom and liberty — words that he has been throwing around quite often as of late — by speaking out against the actions of the Saudi government, be it friend or foe. Yesterday, Secretary Rice herself declared, “[S]preading freedom in the Arab and Muslim worlds is also urgent work that cannot be deferred.” We can either spread democracy or peddle hypocrisy; we cannot do both.
Revelations about the involvement of A.Q. Khan — Pakistan’s nuclear weapons guru — in the nuclear K-Mart that supplied Iran, North Korea, Libya, and possibly other countries with sensitive nuclear technology keep getting scarier and scarier.
The latest one comes courtesy of this week’s edition of Time Magazine, which has A.Q. Khan’s mug emblazoned across the cover. The cover story, “The Man Who Sold the Bomb,” profiles the man who built Pakistan’s bomb and “masterminded a vast, clandestine and hugely profitable enterprise whose mission boiled down to this: selling to a rogues’ gallery of nations the technology and equipment to make nuclear weapons.”
The article notes that “Despite the U.S.’s obvious interest in uncovering the scope of the nuclear bazaar, neither the Administration nor the IAEA has been allowed to interrogate Khan directly.” Instead, the Bush administration is relying on the Pakistani government — which the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service says may have been complicit in sustaining the network — for intelligence on Khan’s proliferation hijinks. It’s hardly surprising, then, that “the quest to get more information out of Khan has been slow.”
– Andy Grotto
Congressman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and 114 conservatives in the House of Representatives are pushing hard for a bill — the REAL ID Act — that would make it more difficult for people persecuted for their religious beliefs to receive asylum in the United States. Under the legislation, many refugees tortured, raped and brutalized on the basis of their race, national origin, or political opinions would also be turned away. Sensenbrenner claims the law is necessary “to prevent another 9/11-type attack by disrupting terrorist travel.” But current law already bars anyone who poses a security risk from being granted asylum.
What does Donald Rumsfeld think about the insurgency in Iraq? Depends on what he’s trying to spin.
Touting Sunday’s election, Rumsfeld offered a dramatically grim description of the dangers faced by Iraqis. “There were constant threats of death to people who worked in the election polling booths,” Rumsfeld said, “threats of death to the security forces; threats of death to people who voted; graffiti that said “You vote, you die.” Truly frightening stuff.
That same day, Rumsfeld was asked about the future “security situation on the ground in Iraq.” Presumably feeling under the gun, Rumsfeld waded into a world of spin and made the “constant threat of death” sound like an everyday occurance:
“Well, if you have a country of 25 million people and you have X thousands of criminals, terrorists, Ba’athists, former regime elements who want to blow up things and make bombs and kill people, they can still do that. That happens in most major cities in the world, most countries in the world, that people get killed and there’s violence.“
The Iraqi people showed great courage and faith in democracy during Sunday’s election. The election was something the Iraqis insisted on, not something that was part of the Coalition Provisional Authority’s original plan for Iraq. Let’s hope that Sunday’s step forward indicates the administration is now more willing to listen to the world rather than dictate to it.
President Bush said: “Our men and women in uniform are fighting terrorists in Iraq, so we do not have to face them here at home.”
FACT: According to the Washington Post on January 13, “Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of ‘professionalized’ terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director’s think tank. Iraq provides terrorists with ‘a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills,’ said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. ‘There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries.’”
President Bush said: “We are working with European allies to make clear to the Iranian regime that it must give up its uranium enrichment program and any plutonium re-processing, and end its support for terror. ”
FACT: Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, “on Friday urged the United States to join forces with the EU to persuade Iran to give up atomic processes that could be used to make weapons.”
FACT: Just three months ago, Undersecretary of State John Bolton mocked the very notion of diplomacy with Iran. At a conference in London, Bolton “responded to a question about whether he would support Europe’s attempt to offer Iran incentives with the terse one-liner: ‘I don’t do carrots.‘”
President Bush said, “Other nations around the globe have stood with us….In the next for years, my Administration will continue to build the coalitions that will defeat the dangers of our time.”
There goes that talk about coalitions again. Does anyone else remember the 2003 State of the Union address? President Bush announced, “If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.” Two years ago, we were set to lead a coalition into Iraq; our allies on the “coalition of the willing” list were much publicized even though “only a few” of the countries in the coalition were “providing any major military presence in the Gulf.” The reason why we are back to building coalitions is that:
FACT: The once heavily touted 45-member “coalition of the willing” list has been scrapped and replaced “with a smaller roster of 28 countries with troops in Iraq sometime after the June transfer of power to an interim Iraqi government.”
FACT: Spain has withdrawn its troops in Iraq.
FACT: The Netherlands has withdrawn its troops in Iraq.
FACT: Hungary has withdrawn its troops in Iraq.
FACT: Ukraine is expected to withdraw its troops in Iraq soon.
FACT: Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Philippines, Thailand, and New Zealand are some more countries “which had troops in or supported operations in Iraq at one point but have pulled out since.”
And of the remaining countries:
FACT: “Polish military officers, who command the multinational division in south-central Iraq, have said their reduced numbers…could force them to cut the number of provinces they patrol — a decision that may force the US to fill the gaps.”
FACT: “Several allied countries, many of them eastern European, that were part of the original ‘New Europe’ group backing the Iraqi war have said they will either completely withdraw or substantially reduce their forces in Iraq after the January 30 elections.”
FACT: “Several western European NATO members — including France, Germany, Belgium, and Spain — [have refused] to participate in the alliance’s new training mission in Baghdad.”
President Bush said, “We are cooperating with 60 governments in the Proliferation Security Initiative, to detect and stop the transit of dangerous materials.”
FACT: The administration has undermined the legitimacy of the Proliferation Security Initiative by refusing to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This treaty has been ratified by 145 nations, including the other members of the Proliferation Security Initiative (who insist that it provides the only legitimate international framework for the initiative). Even Republican Senator Richard Lugar — chairman of the Armed Services Committee and a Bush supporter — has repeatedly criticized the administration for failing to ratify the treaty.
QUOTE: “During this time of war, we must continue to support our military and give them the tools for victory.”
FACT: In December, a soldier serving in Iraq asked why he had to “dig through local land fills” to find scrap metal to properly arm his military combat vehicle. Rumsfeld’s response? “You have to go to war with the Army you have.”
FACT: Soldiers in Iraq have been forced to buy their own body armor and armor their own vehicles. Many guardsman claim they were not adequately trained.
President Bush said: “There are still regimes seeking weapons of mass destruction – but no longer without attention and without consequence.”
FACT: “Questions of how to deal with North Korea…have divided the Bush administration since its first days.” Under Bush’s watch, North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is thought to have quadrupled. Charles Pritchard, formerly Colin Powell’s top official dealing with North Korea, has warned for months that “the White House lacks an effective strategy to dissuade North Korea from building up its nuclear arms.” And while the U.S. sat passively on the sidelines, North Korea may have sold nuclear material to Libya. In fact, instead of stepping up efforts to secure nuclear materials, a recent Harvard University report titled “Securing the Bomb: An Agenda for Action,” finds “less fissile materials were secured in the two years after Sept. 11 than in the two years before.”
President Bush said, “We have created a new department of government to defend our homeland, focused the FBI on preventing terrorism,…improved border security, and trained more than a half million first responders.”
FACT: “As its leadership changes for the first time, the Department of Homeland Security remains hampered by personality conflicts, bureaucratic bottlenecks and an atmosphere of demoralization, undermining its ability to protect the nation against terrorist attack, according to current and former administration officials and independent experts.”
FACT: “DHS is still a compilation of 22 agencies that aren’t integrated into a cohesive whole,” said its recently departed inspector general, Clark Kent Ervin, who released many critical reports and was not reappointed after a falling-out with Ridge. Asked for examples of ineffectiveness, he replied: “I don’t know where to start. . . . I’ve never seen anything like it.”
FACT: When asked about the administration’s effort “to secure chemical plants and trains carrying chemicals,” President Bush’s former Deputy Homeland Security Adviser Richard Falkenrath replied, “I’m sorry to say, since 9/11 we have essentially done nothing.”
FACT: Virtual Case File, the software overhaul intended to aid in coordinating the FBI’s antiterrorism measures, “has been a train wreck in slow motion.”
FACT: The White House has consistently underfunded top security priorities like firefighter and police departments…
FACT: …as well as ports…
FACT: …and trains.
FACT: “The Bush administration has failed to create a unified U.S. fingerprint database because of agency infighting,” though this project was one of the top priorities of the Department of Homeland Security.
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