Saturday, December 27, 2003 TNR gets results? In the last week, The New Republic had a cover story on Dean's secularlism, pointing out what I saw as the first truly real problem with Dean's electability.
There, before nearly 100 parishioners, Dean said in a rhythmic tone notably different from his usual stampede through policy points, "In this house of the Lord, we know that the power rests in God's hands and in Jesus's hands for helping us. But the power also is on this, God's earth -- Remember Jesus said, `Render unto God those things that are God's but unto Caesar those things that are Caesar's,' " a reference to Jesus's admonition that the secular and religious remain separate. Dean continued: "In this political season there is also other power. Not as important or as strong as the power of Jesus but it's important power in the world of politics and the world of Caesar."
The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board has concluded that the White House made a questionable claim in January's State of the Union address about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain nuclear materials because of its desperation to show that Hussein had an active program to develop nuclear weapons, according to a well-placed source familiar with the board's findings. . .
After reviewing the matter for several months, the intelligence board -- chaired by former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft -- has determined that there was "no deliberate effort to fabricate" a story, the source said. Instead, the source said, the board believes the White House was so anxious "to grab onto something affirmative" about Hussein's nuclear ambitions that it disregarded warnings from the intelligence community that the claim was questionable.
The source said that at the time of the State of the Union speech, there was no organized system at the White House to vet intelligence, and the informal system that was followed did not work in the case of that speech. The White House has since established procedures for handling intelligence in presidential speeches by including a CIA officer in the speechwriting process.
Posted by Timothy,
3:12 PM
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Thursday, December 25, 2003 South Asia So Muslim fundamentalists are attempting to kill Musharraf and move the country towards a harder islamic line. The latest attempt was this morning, seven people died, but Musharraf luckily escaped. Over in India, the RSS is attempting to create a generation of young Hindus who will respond in kind:
In the section "Get to know Bharat," the children are told that "Hindu dharma originated in the land known as Bharat." In another section titled "Indias freedom movement," the graphic shows a saint in the middle of Indias map while a hand with "aum" on the palm is placed on the top (Jammu and Kashmir). The image then slowly fades away and another, showing Mughals attacking Indian temples, emerges.
Posted by Nikhil,
9:30 AM
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Wednesday, December 24, 2003 Bloody Hell. That's about all I can muster as a response to this whitehouse news item. No, its not a bad policy announcement, nor some strange faith-based initiative, its...
Karl Rove, Secretary Veneman Read Holiday Bedtime Stories.
As if American children don't have enough to fear in this new age of terror and evildoers. If you're interested you can listen to Rove read "Santa's New Reindeer" here.
Merry Christmas.
Posted by Nikhil,
5:17 AM
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High Alert MSNBC quotes David Heyman, who apparently directs the Homeland Security Initiatives program at CSIS saying
Every time we go to orange, it costs $1 billion a week to put in place enhanced protective measures across the country.
This all to avoid an attack that Bush warns could be larger than 9/11. Is Bush's strategy for the war on terror really making any progress? Wasn't it suppossed to attack terrorist organizations rather than allowing them to stage yet larger attacks, and force us to spend a billion a week guarding against them? What did all those other billions Bush spent in Iraq and Afghanistan accomplish?
Posted by Nikhil,
5:10 AM
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Tuesday, December 23, 2003 Spongebrain Pisspants
"> BREAKING NEWS U.S. Department of Agriculture confirms a cow in Washington state has tested "presumptive positive" for mad cow disease. Details soon. " - CNN
News is too fresh for me to give a good link, but if you're online right now, Sec. Veneman is doing a press conference (www.usda.gov to see the webcast) on it.
Posted by Jonathan,
5:57 PM
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Monday, December 22, 2003 Chicago the Warzone?
Here's an interesting article on the Padilla case.
"A suspected terrorist who has been detained by the military for the past 18 months without charge, access to counsel, or any judicial forum in which to challenge the allegations against him, Padilla was taken into custody in Chicago. He had just gotten off a civilian airliner, was wearing civilian clothing, and was unarmed."
I'm no law student, but this sounds really frightening.
Posted by Neha,
6:16 PM
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Sunday, December 21, 2003 More on Rumsfeld's Baghdad trip Maybe Rumsfeld feels sorry. Nah. Back in the early 1980s, the U.S. said it deplored Iraq's use of WMD against Iran. Rummy was dispatched to tell the Iraqis that, of course, that earlier chiding did not mean relations between the U.S. and Iraq would suffer.
The Washington Post: Donald H. Rumsfeld went to Baghdad in March 1984 with instructions to deliver a private message about weapons of mass destruction: that the United States' public criticism of Iraq for using chemical weapons would not derail Washington's attempts to forge a better relationship, according to newly declassified documents.
Rumsfeld, then President Ronald Reagan's special Middle East envoy, was urged to tell Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz that the U.S. statement on chemical weapons, or CW, "was made strictly out of our strong opposition to the use of lethal and incapacitating CW, wherever it occurs," according to a cable to Rumsfeld from then-Secretary of State George P. Shultz.
The statement, the cable said, was not intended to imply a shift in policy, and the U.S. desire "to improve bilateral relations, at a pace of Iraq's choosing," remained "undiminished." "This message bears reinforcing during your discussions."
The documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the nonprofit National Security Archive, provide new, behind-the-scenes details of U.S. efforts to court Iraq as an ally even as it used chemical weapons in its war with Iran.
The documents do not show what Rumsfeld said in his meetings with Aziz, only what he was instructed to say. It would be highly unusual for a presidential envoy to have ignored direct instructions from Shultz.
When details of Rumsfeld's December trip came to light last year, the defense secretary told CNN that he had "cautioned" Saddam Hussein about the use of chemical weapons, an account that was at odds with the declassified State Department notes of his 90-minute meeting, which did not mention such a caution. Later, a Pentagon spokesman said Rumsfeld raised the issue not with Hussein, but with Aziz.
But, I hear a neocon say, because Rummy was guilty then of overlooking that moral tragedy, that's no reason he should not have made up for it. Ok. But pardon me if I'm skeptical that Rummy's advocacy for invading Iraq had anything to do with moral or humanitarian reasons. And without WMDs (or 9-11 connections), you're left without any compelling national security reasons to justify that war.
Posted by Timothy,
3:49 AM
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Who said only Dean is angry? "I'll beat the sh*t out of 'em." As many of you probably already know, Wes Clark uttered the most vivid preview of campaign strategy ever heard on C-Span. It came after a town hall in NH on Saturday morning, as he made his way through the crowd, when a New Hampshirite asked him how he'd respond to some slime attacks. No wonder Karl Rove is scared of this guy. [link]
Posted by Timothy,
3:30 AM
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Bush on WMD: Possibility=Possession Bush is still dissembling about WMD in Iraq, saying that it doesn't make a difference whether Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, or there was merely the possibility he could acquire them. The latter is not an imminent threat. It is not even a grave and gathering threat that required us to go to war in March. Bush is an idiot, delusional, a demogogue, or a liar. Take your pick. The one thing he is not is credible on foreign policy. (ABCnews via liberaloasis).
DIANE SAWYER: Fifty percent of the American people have said that they think the administration exaggerated the evidence going into the war with Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, connection to terrorism. Are the American people wrong? Misguided?
PRESIDENT BUSH: The intelligence I operated one was good sound intelligence, the same intelligence that my predecessor operated on. The there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein was a threat. The otherwise the United Nations might wouldn't a passed, you know, resolution after resolution after resolution, demanding that he disarm. ... I first went to the United Nations, September the 12th, 2002, and said you've given this man resolution after resolution after resolution. He's ignoring them. You step up and see that he honor those resolutions. Otherwise you become a feckless debating society. ... And so for the sake of peace and for the sake of freedom of the Iraqi people, for the sake of security of the country, and for the sake of the credibility of institu in international institutions, a group of us moved, and the world is better for it.
DIANE SAWYER: But let me try to ask this could be a long question. ... ... When you take a look back, Vice President Cheney said there is no doubt, Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, not programs, not intent. There is no doubt he has weapons of mass destruction. Secretary Powell said 100 to 500 tons of chemical weapons and now the inspectors say that there's no evidence of these weapons existing right now. The yellow cake in Niger, in Niger. George Tenet has said that shouldn't have been in your speech. Secretary Powell talked about mobile labs. Again, the intelligence the inspectors have said they can't confirm this, they can't corroborate.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yet.
DIANE SAWYER: an active
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yet.
DIANE SAWYER: Is it yet?
PRESIDENT BUSH: But what David Kay did discover was they had a weapons program, and had that, that let me finish for a second. Now it's more extensive than, than missiles. Had that knowledge been examined by the United Nations or had David Kay's report been placed in front of the United Nations, he, he, Saddam Hussein, would have been in material breach of 1441, which meant it was a causis belli. And look, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein was a dangerous person, and there's no doubt we had a body of evidence proving that, and there is no doubt that the president must act, after 9/11, to make America a more secure country.
DIANE SAWYER: Again, I'm just trying to ask, these are supporters, people who believed in the war who have asked the question.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, you can keep asking the question and my answer's gonna be the same. Saddam was a danger and the world is better off cause we got rid of him.
DIANE SAWYER: But stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons of mass destruction as opposed to the possibility that he could move to acquire those weapons still
PRESIDENT BUSH: So what's the difference?
DIANE SAWYER: Well
PRESIDENT BUSH: The possibility that he could acquire weapons. If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger. That's, that's what I'm trying to explain to you. A gathering threat, after 9/11, is a threat that needed to be de dealt with, and it was done after 12 long years of the world saying the man's a danger. And so we got rid of him and there's no doubt the world is a safer, freer place as a result of Saddam being gone.
DIANE SAWYER: But, but, again, some, some of the critics have said this combined with the failure to establish proof of, of elaborate terrorism contacts, has indicated that there's just not precision, at best, and misleading, at worst.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah. Look what what we based our evidence on was a very sound National Intelligence Estimate. ...
DIANE SAWYER: Nothing should have been more precise?
PRESIDENT BUSH: What I, I I made my decision based upon enough intelligence to tell me that this country was threatened with Saddam Hussein in power.
DIANE SAWYER: What would it take to convince you he didn't have weapons of mass destruction?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Saddam Hussein was a threat and the fact that he is gone means America is a safer country.
DIANE SAWYER: And if he doesn't have weapons of mass destruction [inaudible]
PRESIDENT BUSH: Diane, you can keep asking the question. I'm telling you I made the right decision for America
DIANE SAWYER: But-
PRESIDENT BUSH: because Saddam Hussein used weapons of mass destruction, invaded Kuwait. ... But the fact that he is not there is, means America's a more secure country.
