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Hulet was the first to challenge Bush live on

The Jim Bohannon Show Sept. 20th, 2001.

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Proof Bush Fixed The Facts
Ray McGovern, Tompaine.com
May 04, 2005

Ray McGovern served 27 years as a CIA analyst and is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He works for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour.

"Intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy."

Never in our wildest dreams did we think we would see those words in black and white—and beneath a SECRET stamp no less. For three years now, we in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) have been saying that the CIA and its British counterpart, MI-6, were ordered by their countries' leaders to "fix facts" to "justify" an unprovoked war on Iraq. More often than not, we have been greeted with stares of incredulity.

(See: < http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html >),

It has been a hard learning—that folks tend to believe what they want to believe. As long as our evidence, however abundant and persuasive, remained circumstantial, it could not compel belief. It simply is much easier on the psyche to assent to the White House spin machine blaming the Iraq fiasco on bad intelligence than to entertain the notion that we were sold a bill of goods.

Well, you can forget circumstantial. Thanks to an unauthorized disclosure by a courageous whistleblower, the evidence now leaps from official documents—this time authentic, not forged. Whether prompted by the open appeal of the international Truth-Telling Coalition < http://www.tompaine.com/20050504/articles/appeal_for_truth_t
elling.php > or not, some brave soul has made the most explosive "patriotic leak" of the war by giving London's Sunday Times the official minutes of a briefing by Richard Dearlove, then head of Britain's CIA equivalent, MI-6. Fresh back in London from consultations in Washington, Dearlove briefed Prime Minister Blair and his top national security officials on July 23, 2002, on the Bush administration's plans to make war on Iraq.

Blair does not dispute the authenticity of the document, which immortalizes a discussion that is chillingly amoral. Apparently no one felt free to ask the obvious questions. Or, worse still, the obvious questions did not occur.

Juggernaut Before The Horse

In emotionless English, Dearlove tells Blair and the others that President Bush has decided to remove Saddam Hussein by launching a war that is to be "justified by the conjunction of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction." Period. What about the intelligence? Dearlove adds matter-of-factly, "The intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy."

At this point, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw confirms that Bush has decided on war, but notes that stitching together justification would be a challenge, since "the case was thin." Straw noted that Saddam was not threatening his neighbors and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.

In the following months, "the case" would be buttressed by a well-honed U.S.-U.K. intelligence-turned-propaganda-machine. The argument would be made "solid" enough to win endorsement from Congress and Parliament by conjuring up:

* Aluminum artillery tubes misdiagnosed as nuclear related;

* Forgeries alleging Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium in Africa;

* Tall tales from a drunken defector about mobile biological weapons laboratories;

* Bogus warnings that Iraqi forces could fire WMD-tipped missiles within 45 minutes of an order to do so;

* Dodgy dossiers fabricated in London; and

* A U.S. National Intelligence Estimate thrown in for good measure.

All this, as Dearlove notes dryly, despite the fact that "there was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." Another nugget from Dearlove's briefing is his bloodless comment that one of the U.S. military options under discussion involved "a continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli"—the clear implication being that planners of the air campaign would also see to it that an appropriate casus belli was orchestrated.

The discussion at 10 Downing St. on July 23, 2002 calls to mind the first meeting of George W. Bush's National Security Council (NSC) on Jan. 30, 2001, at which the president made it clear that toppling Saddam Hussein sat atop his to-do list, according to then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil, who was there. O'Neil was taken aback that there was no discussion of why it was necessary to "take out" Saddam. Rather, after CIA Director George Tenet showed a grainy photo of a building in Iraq that he said might be involved in producing chemical or biological agents, the discussion proceeded immediately to which Iraqi targets might be best to bomb. Again, neither O'Neil nor the other participants asked the obvious questions. Another NSC meeting two days later included planning for dividing up Iraq's oil wealth.

Obedience School

As for the briefing of Blair, the minutes provide further grist for those who describe the U.K. prime minister as Bush's "poodle." The tone of the conversation bespeaks a foregone conclusion that Blair will wag his tail cheerfully and obey the learned commands. At one point he ventures the thought that, "If the political context were right, people would support regime change." This, after Attorney General Peter Goldsmith has already warned that the desire for regime change "was not a legal base for military action,"—a point Goldsmith made again just 12 days before the attack on Iraq until he was persuaded by a phalanx of Bush administration lawyers to change his mind 10 days later.

The meeting concludes with a directive to "work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action."

I cannot quite fathom why I find the account of this meeting so jarring. Surely it is what one might expect, given all else we know. Yet seeing it in bloodless black and white somehow gives it more impact. And the implications are no less jarring.

One of Dearlove's primary interlocutors in Washington was his American counterpart, CIA director George Tenet. (And there is no closer relationship between two intelligence services than the privileged one between the CIA and MI-6.) Tenet, of course, knew at least as much as Dearlove, but nonetheless played the role of accomplice in serving up to Bush the kind of "slam-dunk intelligence" that he knew would be welcome. If there is one unpardonable sin in intelligence work, it is that kind of politicization. But Tenet decided to be a "team player" and set the tone.

Politicization: Big Time

Actually, politicization is far too mild a word for what happened. The intelligence was not simply mistaken; it was manufactured, with the president of the United States awarding foreman George Tenet the Medal of Freedom for his role in helping supervise the deceit. The British documents make clear that this was not a mere case of "leaning forward" in analyzing the intelligence, but rather mass deception—an order of magnitude more serious. No other conclusion is now possible.

Small wonder, then, to learn from CIA insiders like former case officer Lindsay Moran that Tenet's malleable managers told their minions, "Let's face it. The president wants us to go to war, and our job is to give him a reason to do it."

Small wonder that, when the only U.S. analyst who met with the alcoholic Iraqi defector appropriately codenamed "Curveball" raised strong doubt about Curveball's reliability before then-Secretary of State Colin Powell used the fabrication about "mobile biological weapons trailers" before the United Nations, the analyst got this e-mail reply from his CIA supervisor:

"Let's keep in mind the fact that this war's going to happen regardless of what Curveball said or didn't say, and the powers that be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curveball knows what he's talking about."

When Tenet's successor, Porter Goss, took over as director late last year, he immediately wrote a memo to all employees explaining the "rules of the road"—first and foremost, "We support the administration and its policies." So much for objective intelligence insulated from policy pressure.

Tenet and Goss, creatures of the intensely politicized environment of Congress, brought with them a radically new ethos—one much more akin to that of Blair's courtiers than to that of earlier CIA directors who had the courage to speak truth to power.

Seldom does one have documentary evidence that intelligence chiefs chose to cooperate in both fabricating and "sexing up" (as the British press puts it) intelligence to justify a prior decision for war. There is no word to describe the reaction of honest intelligence professionals to the corruption of our profession on a matter of such consequence. "Outrage" does not come close.

Hope In Unauthorized Disclosures

Those of us who care about unprovoked wars owe the patriot who gave this latest British government document to The Sunday Times a debt of gratitude. Unauthorized disclosures are gathering steam. They need to increase quickly on this side of the Atlantic as well—the more so, inasmuch as Congress-controlled by the president's party-cannot be counted on to discharge its constitutional prerogative for oversight.

In its formal appeal of Sept. 9, 2004 to current U.S. government officials, the Truth-Telling Coalition said this:

We know how misplaced loyalty to bosses, agencies, and careers can obscure the higher allegiance all government officials owe the Constitution, the sovereign public, and the young men and women put in harm's way. We urge you to act on those higher loyalties...Truth-telling is a patriotic and effective way to serve the nation. The time for speaking out is now.

If persons with access to wrongly concealed facts and analyses bring them to light, the chances become less that a president could launch another unprovoked war—against, say, Iran.

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SECRET PLANS
Eighty-eight members of Congress call on Bush for answers on secret Iraq plan
May 5, 2005

Eighty-eight members of Congress have signed a letter authored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) calling on President Bush to answer questions about a secret U.S.-UK agreement to attack Iraq, RAW STORY < http://rawstory.com/ > has learned.

In a letter, Conyers and other members say they are disappointed the mainstream media has not touched the revelations.

"Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States was too busy with wall-to-wall coverage of a "runaway bride" to cover a bombshell report out of the British newspapers," Conyers writes. "The London Times < http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-1592904-
523,00.html > reports that the British government and the United States government had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in 2002, before authorization was sought for such an attack in Congress, and had discussed creating pretextual justifications for doing so."

"The Times reports, based on a newly discovered document, that in 2002 British Prime Minister Tony Blair chaired a meeting in which he expressed his support for "regime change" through the use of force in Iraq and was warned by the nation's top lawyer that such an action would be illegal," he adds. "Blair also discussed the need for America to "create" conditions to justify the war."

The members say they are seeking an inquiry.

"This should not be allowed to fall down the memory hole during wall-to-wall coverage of the Michael Jackson trial and a runaway bride," he remarks. "To prevent that from occuring, I am circulating the following letter among my House colleagues and asking them to sign on to it."

The letter follows.

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May 5, 2005

The Honorable George W. Bush President of the United States of America The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

We write because of troubling revelations in the Sunday London Times apparently confirming that the United States and Great Britain had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in the summer of 2002, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action. While various individuals have asserted this to be the case before, including Paul O'Neill, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, and Richard Clarke, a former National Security Council official, they have been previously dismissed by your Administration. However, when this story was divulged last weekend, Prime Minister Blair's representative claimed the document contained "nothing new." If the disclosure is accurate, it raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own Administration.

The Sunday Times obtained a leaked document with the minutes of a secret meeting from highly placed sources inside the British Government. Among other things, the document revealed:

* Prime Minister Tony Blair chaired a July 2002 meeting, at which he discussed military options, having already committed himself to supporting President Bush's plans for invading Iraq.

* British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw acknowledged that the case for war was "thin" as "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran."

* A separate secret briefing for the meeting said that Britain and America had to "create" conditions to justify a war.

* A British official "reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

As a result of this recent disclosure, we would like to know the following:

1) Do you or anyone in your Administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?

2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?

3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?

4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?

5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?

We have of course known for some time that subsequent to the invasion there have been a variety of varying reasons proffered to justify the invasion, particularly since the time it became evident that weapons of mass destruction would not be found. This leaked document - essentially acknowledged by the Blair government - is the first confirmation that the rationales were shifting well before the invasion as well.

Given the importance of this matter, we would ask that you respond to this inquiry as promptly as possible. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Members who have already signed letter:
Neil Abercrombie
Brian Baird
Tammy Baldwin
Xavier Becerra
Shelley Berkley
Eddie Bernice Johnson
Sanford Bishop
Earl Blumenauer
Corrine Brown
Sherrod Brown
G.K. Butterfield
Emanuel Cleaver
James Clyburn
John Conyers
Jim Cooper
Elijah Cummings
Danny Davis
Peter DeFazio
Diana DeGette
Bill Delahunt
Rosa DeLauro
Lloyd Doggett
Sam Farr
Bob Filner
Harold Ford, Jr.
Barney Frank
Al Green
Raul Grijalva
Louis Gutierrez
Alcee Hastings
Maurice Hinchey
Rush Holt
Jay Inslee
Sheila Jackson Lee
Jessie Jackson Jr.
Marcy Kaptur
Patrick Kennedy
Dale Kildee
Carolyn Kilpatrick
Dennis Kucinich
William Lacy Clay
Barbara Lee
John Lewis
Zoe Lofgren
Donna M. Christensen
Carolyn Maloney
Ed Markey
Carolyn McCarthy
Jim McDermott
James McGovern
Cynthia McKinney
Martin Meehan
Kendrick Meek
Gregory Meeks
Michael Michaud
George Miller
Gwen S. Moore
James Moran
Jerrold Nadler
Grace Napolitano
James Oberstar
John Olver
Major Owens
Frank Pallone
Donald Payne
Charles Rangel
Bobby Rush
Bernie Sanders
Linda Sanchez
Jan Schakowsky
Jose Serrano
Ike Skelton
Louise Slaughter
Hilda Solis
Pete Stark
Ellen Tauscher
Bennie Thompson
Edolphus Towns
Stephanie Tubbs Jones
Chris Van Hollen
Nydia Velazquez
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Maxine Waters
Diane Watson
Melvin Watt
Robert Wexler
Lynn Woolsey
David Wu
Albert R. Wynn

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The Pathology of America:

As America become more collectively neurotic, as more individual pathology manifests itself in the collective will, each individual neurotic finding his “other” counterpart, the sane person will find himself isolated and alienated, now the sane person is at risk.

“The ‘pathology of normalcy’ rarely deteriorates to graver forms of mental illness because society produces the antidote against such deterioration. When pathological processes become socially patterned, they lose their individual character. On the contrary, the sick individual finds himself at home with all other similarly sick individuals. The whole culture is geared to this kind of pathology and arranges the means to give satisfactions which fit the pathology. The result is that the average individual does not experience the separateness and isolation the fully schizophrenic person feels. He feels at ease among those who suffer from the same deformation; in fact, it is the fully sane person who feels isolated in the insane society--and he may suffer so much from the incapacity to communicate that it is he who may become psychotic.” (Eric Fromm, the Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, p.356)

As the behavior of the collective nation becomes more pathological, its behavior collectively, if it were seen in an individual, like Mr. Bush Jr., would be understood as psychotic.

“Those whose narcissism refers to their group rather than to themselves as individuals are as sensitive as the individual narcissist, and they react with rage to any wound, real or imagined, inflicted upon their group. If anything, they react more intensely and certainly more consciously. An individual, unless he is mentally very sick, may have at least some doubts about his personal narcissistic image. The member of the group has none, since his narcissism is shared by the majority. In case of conflict between groups that challenge each other’s collective narcissism, this very challenge arouses intense hostility in each of them. The narcissistic image of one’s own group is raised to its highest point, while the devaluation of the opposing group sinks to the lowest. One’s own group becomes a defender of human dignity, decency, morality, and right. Devilish qualities are ascribed to the other group; it is treacherous, ruthless, cruel, and basically inhuman. The violation of one of the symbols of group narcissism--such as flag, or the person of the emperor, the president, or an ambassador--is reacted to with such intense fury and aggression by the people that they are even willing to support their leaders in a policy of war.” (Fromm, Ibid., p. 204)

Those who have erected a flag on every window and car, clothing and hats, are demonstrating an illness now pervasive in American society. But there are reasons behind this zeal for war and hatred of those who differ with the collective view. It is their neurotic need to “feel safe,” because of their pathology of greed and self-importance.

“Many people are seized by one and the same effect with great consistency. All his senses are so strongly affected by one object that he believes this object to be present even if it is not. If this happens while the person is awake, the person is believed to be insane....But if the greedy person thinks only of money and possessions, the ambitious one only of fame, one does not think of them as being insane, but only as annoying; generally one has contempt for them. But factually greediness, ambition, and so forth are forms of insanity, although usually one does not think of them as ‘illness.’ (B. de Spinoza, 1927.)....The change from the seventeenth century to our time becomes apparent in the fact that an attitude which Spinoza says one ‘generally...has contempt for’ is considered today not contemptuous but laudable.” (Fromm, Ibid.)

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Ben Barnes to break silence on "60 Minutes"
The Republican campaign gets ready for shock waves, as the former Texas official who says he pulled strings to get George W. Bush into the Air National Guard finally goes public.
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By Eric Boehlert

Sept. 1, 2004 | The campaign battle over Vietnam War records is still raging, but President Bush may soon be the one answering uncomfortable questions about his past service. Ben Barnes, the former lieutenant governor of Texas, will finally break his silence and talk to the press about what role he played in helping Bush get a coveted slot in the Texas Air National Guard in 1968. Sources say Barnes has already sat down for a "60 Minutes" interview that will air next week. A "60 Minutes" spokesperson declined to comment, saying the program does not discuss reports that are in progress.

Barnes made headlines last week when his videotaped comments that he was "very ashamed" of getting Bush into the National Guard began circulating on the Web. He said the remorse was prompted by a recent visit to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, where he saw the names of thousands of other young men who did not enjoy the connections of the Bush family. Barnes made his comments in May and the video was posted on a pro-Kerry Web site in June, but word of it only began to spread widely last Friday.

Over the weekend, the national press, which for weeks has been amplifying factually challenged allegations against John Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, gave Barnes' stunning remarks only cursory coverage. The Washington Post, for instance, ran a brief wire story on Saturday, the same day it printed yet another exhaustive piece about allegations surrounding Kerry's war past. In a subsequent WashingtonPost.com online chat, the Post reporter covering the Swift boat story suggested Barnes' comments didn't qualify as "fresh information," and consequently he wasn't interested in "simply regurgitating old controversies." The New York Times ran a brief item on Barnes' statements deep inside its Saturday news section, next to yet another lengthy profile of Kerry's longtime Swift boat nemesis, John O'Neill.

With Barnes now being featured in a sit-down interview with "60 Minutes," the highly rated CBS news magazine, reporters may finally be forced to address the consistent curiosities of Bush's National Guard record. Such as why, after nearly a decade of sifting through military records, neither Bush nor his team of longtime advisors can piece together a coherent explanation for his whereabouts, particularly after April 1972 when Bush inexplicably stopped flying and moved to Alabama, failed to take his physical exam, was grounded by his superiors, and by all accounts failed to show up for weekend training for months at a time. Bush received an honorable discharge in 1973 in order to attend Harvard Business School. Bush supporters insist the honorable discharge proves his service was above reproach. But military legal experts note honorable discharges, particularly in the early '70s as the Vietnam War was winding down, do not indicate unblemished military records.

Rather than offering insight into Bush's so-called "missing years" Barnes has firsthand knowledge of how Bush was able to get into the Guard. During the Vietnam War, Guard members were rarely called up for duty in Vietnam, making it a top choice among those seeking to avoid serving in wartorn Southeast Asia. (On his Air Force pilot application, when asked about an overseas assignment, Bush checked "do not volunteer.") In fact, Bush's Guard unit was known as the Champagne Unit, because among its members were sons of prominent Texas politicians and businessmen.

Throughout his political career Bush has adamantly denied that he got a Guard pilot spot through preferential treatment. That, despite the fact Bush was jumped ahead of a nationwide waiting list of 100,000 Guard applicants, while achieving the lowest possible passing grade on his pilot aptitude test for would-be fliers, and listing "none" as his background qualifications.

Barnes, once a rising star in Texas politics, insists strings were pulled on Bush's behalf, and he helped pull them. Speaking to Kerry supporters in Austin, Texas, in May, he said, "I got a young man named George W. Bush into the Texas National Guard ... I got a lot of other people in the National Guard because I thought that was what people should do when you're in office, and you help a lot of rich people." Recalling a recent visit to the Vietnam Memorial, Barnes added, "I looked at the names of the people that died in Vietnam, and I became more ashamed of myself than I have ever been, because it was the worst thing I ever did, was help a lot of wealthy supporters and a lot of people who had family names of importance get into the National Guard. And I'm very sorry about that, and I'm very ashamed."

That story is entirely consistent with the statement Barnes made five years ago, when he revealed that in 1968 he made the phone call to the head of the Texas Air National Guard at the request of the late Sidney Adger, a Houston oil man and longtime Bush family friend. At the time, neither Bush nor his campaign directly denied the story. Bush simply stressed that neither he nor his father had made a call on his behalf, and he was unaware of any other such string pulling.

"Ben Barnes is a key to this election because he knows firsthand what happened in 1968," says Paul Alexander, director of "Brothers in Arms," a new pro-Kerry documentary about the Democratic candidate's Vietnam experience. Alexander has also written extensively about Bush's past. "Barnes is an eyewitness

Barnes is a Kerry supporter, and the White House last week tried to depict him as a longtime partisan. But the fact is, Barnes for years resisted any attempt to get dragged into a political debate about Bush's war record. It was only under threat of legal action back in 1999 -- and only after efforts to assert "executive privilege" failed -- that Barnes came forward with his statement about helping Bush. (And even then, Barnes issued it through his attorney, refusing to answer press questions.) The lawsuit was brought by a disgruntled Texas lottery executive who charged that his former company, which Barnes lobbied for, was able to keep a lucrative Texas state contract in exchange for Barnes' remaining silent about helping Bush get into the Guard. The case was later settled out of court, with the executive receiving $300,000.

In 1998 Barnes even met privately with Bush's then-campaign manager and current commerce secretary, Donald Evans, in order to give him a heads up about the unfolding Guard story. Bush himself sent Barnes a note thanking him "for his candor" on the matter.

Whether Bush still appreciates Barnes' "candor" next week remains to be seen.

Still Unreported: The Pay-off in Bush Air Guard Fix
Saturday, August 28, 2004

By Greg Palast

In 1968, former Congressman George Herbert Walker Bush of Texas, fresh from voting to send other men’s sons to Vietnam, enlisted his own son in a very special affirmative action program, the ‘champagne’ unit of the Texas Air National Guard. There, Top Gun fighter pilot George Dubya was assigned the dangerous job of protecting Houston from Vietcong air attack.

This week, former Lt. Governor Ben Barnes of Texas 'fessed up to pulling the strings to keep Little George out of the jungle. "I got a young man named George W. Bush into the Texas Air Guard - and I'm ashamed."

THE PAY-OFF

That’s far from the end of the story. In 1994, George W. Bush was elected governor of Texas by a whisker. By that time, Barnes had left office to become a big time corporate lobbyist. To an influence peddler like Barnes, having damning information on a sitting governor is worth its weight in gold – or, more precisely, there’s a value in keeping the info secret.

Barnes appears to have made lucrative use of his knowledge of our President’s slithering out of the draft as a lever to protect a multi-billion dollar contract for a client. That's the information in a confidential letter buried deep in the files of the US Justice Department that fell into my hands at BBC television.

Here's what happened. Just after Bush's election, Barnes' client GTech Corp., due to allegations of corruption, was about to lose its license to print money: its contract to run the Texas state lottery. Barnes, says the Justice Department document, made a call to the newly elected governor's office and saved GTech's state contract.

The letter said, "Governor Bush ... made a deal with Ben Barnes not to rebid [the GTech lottery contract] because Barnes could confirm that Bush had lied during the '94 campaign."

In that close race, Bush denied the fix was in to keep him out of 'Nam, and the US media stopped asking questions. What did the victorious Governor Bush's office do for Barnes? According to the tipster, "Barnes agreed never to confirm the story [of the draft dodging] and the governor talked to the chair of the lottery two days later and she then agreed to support letting GTech keep the contract without a bid."

And so it came to pass that the governor's commission reversed itself and gave GTech the billion dollar deal without a bid.

The happy client paid Barnes, the keeper of Governor Bush’s secret, a fee of over $23 million. Barnes, not surprisingly, denies that Bush took care of his client in return for Barnes’ silence. However, confronted with the evidence, the former Lt. Governor now admits to helping the young George stay out of Vietnam.

Take a look at the letter yourself - with information we confirmed with other sources - at http://www.gregpalast.com/ulf/documents/draftdodgeblanked.jpg). (See immediately below; CBH)

Frankly, I don’t care if President Bush cowered and ran from Vietnam. I sure as hell didn’t volunteer … but then, my daddy didn’t send someone else in my place. And I don’t march around aircraft carriers with parachute clips around my gonads talking about war and sacrifice.

More important, I haven't made any pay-offs to silence those who could change my image from war hero to war zero.

"Time Warner Won't Let Us Air This"

By the way: I first reported this story in 1999, including the evidence of payback, in The Observer of London. US media closed its eyes. Then I put the story on British television last year in the one-hour report, "Bush Family Fortunes." American networks turned down BBC's offer to run it in the USA. "Wonderful film," one executive told me, "but Time Warner is not going to let us put this on the air." However, US networks will take cash for advertisements calling Kerry a Vietnam coward.

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TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB

American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go?

by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2004-05-10
Posted 2004-04-30

In the era of Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib, twenty miles west of Baghdad, was one of the world’s most notorious prisons, with torture, weekly executions, and vile living conditions. As many as fifty thousand men and women-no accurate count is possible-were jammed into Abu Ghraib at one time, in twelve-by-twelve-foot cells that were little more than human holding pits.

In the looting that followed the regime’s collapse, last April, the huge prison complex, by then deserted, was stripped of everything that could be removed, including doors, windows, and bricks. The coalition authorities had the floors tiled, cells cleaned and repaired, and toilets, showers, and a new medical center added. Abu Ghraib was now a U.S. military prison. Most of the prisoners, however-by the fall there were several thousand, including women and teen-agers-were civilians, many of whom had been picked up in random military sweeps and at highway checkpoints. They fell into three loosely defined categories: common criminals; security detainees suspected of “crimes against the coalition”; and a small number of suspected “high-value” leaders of the insurgency against the coalition forces.

Last June, Janis Karpinski, an Army reserve brigadier general, was named commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade and put in charge of military prisons in Iraq. General Karpinski, the only female commander in the war zone, was an experienced operations and intelligence officer who had served with the Special Forces and in the 1991 Gulf War, but she had never run a prison system. Now she was in charge of three large jails, eight battalions, and thirty-four hundred Army reservists, most of whom, like her, had no training in handling prisoners.

General Karpinski, who had wanted to be a soldier since she was five, is a business consultant in civilian life, and was enthusiastic about her new job. In an interview last December with the St. Petersburg Times, she said that, for many of the Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib, “living conditions now are better in prison than at home. At one point we were concerned that they wouldn’t want to leave.”
A month later, General Karpinski was formally admonished and quietly suspended, and a major investigation into the Army’s prison system, authorized by Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior commander in Iraq, was under way. A fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release, was completed in late February. Its conclusions about the institutional failures of the Army prison system were devastating. Specifically, Taguba found that between October and December of 2003 there were numerous instances of “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” at Abu Ghraib. This systematic and illegal abuse of detainees, Taguba reported, was perpetrated by soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company, and also by members of the American intelligence community. (The 372nd was attached to the 320th M.P. Battalion, which reported to Karpinski’s brigade headquarters.) Taguba’s report listed some of the wrongdoing:

Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.

There was stunning evidence to support the allegations, Taguba added-“detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence.” Photographs and videos taken by the soldiers as the abuses were happening were not included in his report, Taguba said, because of their “extremely sensitive nature.”

The photographs-several of which were broadcast on CBS’s “60 Minutes 2” last week-show leering G.I.s taunting naked Iraqi prisoners who are forced to assume humiliating poses. Six suspects-Staff Sergeant Ivan L. Frederick II, known as Chip, who was the senior enlisted man; Specialist Charles A. Graner; Sergeant Javal Davis; Specialist Megan Ambuhl; Specialist Sabrina Harman; and Private Jeremy Sivits-are now facing prosecution in Iraq, on charges that include conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty toward prisoners, maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts. A seventh suspect, Private Lynndie England, was reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after becoming pregnant.

The photographs tell it all. In one, Private England, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, is giving a jaunty thumbs-up sign and pointing at the genitals of a young Iraqi, who is naked except for a sandbag over his head, as he masturbates. Three other hooded and naked Iraqi prisoners are shown, hands reflexively crossed over their genitals. A fifth prisoner has his hands at his sides. In another, England stands arm in arm with Specialist Graner; both are grinning and giving the thumbs-up behind a cluster of perhaps seven naked Iraqis, knees bent, piled clumsily on top of each other in a pyramid. There is another photograph of a cluster of naked prisoners, again piled in a pyramid. Near them stands Graner, smiling, his arms crossed; a woman soldier stands in front of him, bending over, and she, too, is smiling. Then, there is another cluster of hooded bodies, with a female soldier standing in front, taking photographs. Yet another photograph shows a kneeling, naked, unhooded male prisoner, head momentarily turned away from the camera, posed to make it appear that he is performing oral sex on another male prisoner, who is naked and hooded.

Such dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture, but it is especially so in the Arab world. Homosexual acts are against Islamic law and it is humiliating for men to be naked in front of other men, Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at New York University, explained. “Being put on top of each other and forced to masturbate, being naked in front of each other-it’s all a form of torture,” Haykel said.

Two Iraqi faces that do appear in the photographs are those of dead men. There is the battered face of prisoner No. 153399, and the bloodied body of another prisoner, wrapped in cellophane and packed in ice. There is a photograph of an empty room, splattered with blood.

The 372nd’s abuse of prisoners seemed almost routine-a fact of Army life that the soldiers felt no need to hide. On April 9th, at an Article 32 hearing (the military equivalent of a grand jury) in the case against Sergeant Frederick, at Camp Victory, near Baghdad, one of the witnesses, Specialist Matthew Wisdom, an M.P., told the courtroom what happened when he and other soldiers delivered seven prisoners, hooded and bound, to the so-called “hard site” at Abu Ghraib-seven tiers of cells where the inmates who were considered the most dangerous were housed. The men had been accused of starting a riot in another section of the prison. Wisdom said:

SFC Snider grabbed my prisoner and threw him into a pile. . . . I do not think it was right to put them in a pile. I saw SSG Frederic, SGT Davis and CPL Graner walking around the pile hitting the prisoners. I remember SSG Frederick hitting one prisoner in the side of its [sic] ribcage. The prisoner was no danger to SSG Frederick. . . . I left after that.

When he returned later, Wisdom testified:
I saw two naked detainees, one masturbating to another kneeling with its mouth open. I thought I should just get out of there. I didn’t think it was right . . . I saw SSG Frederick walking towards me, and he said, “Look what these animals do when you leave them alone for two seconds.” I heard PFC England shout out, “He’s getting hard.”

Wisdom testified that he told his superiors what had happened, and assumed that “the issue was taken care of.” He said, “I just didn’t want to be part of anything that looked criminal.”

The abuses became public because of the outrage of Specialist Joseph M. Darby, an M.P. whose role emerged during the Article 32 hearing against Chip Frederick. A government witness, Special Agent Scott Bobeck, who is a member of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, or C.I.D., told the court, according to an abridged transcript made available to me, “The investigation started after SPC Darby . . . got a CD from CPL Graner. . . . He came across pictures of naked detainees.” Bobeck said that Darby had “initially put an anonymous letter under our door, then he later came forward and gave a sworn statement. He felt very bad about it and thought it was very wrong.”

Questioned further, the Army investigator said that Frederick and his colleagues had not been given any “training guidelines” that he was aware of. The M.P.s in the 372nd had been assigned to routine traffic and police duties upon their arrival in Iraq, in the spring of 2003. In October of 2003, the 372nd was ordered to prison-guard duty at Abu Ghraib. Frederick, at thirty-seven, was far older than his colleagues, and was a natural leader; he had also worked for six years as a guard for the Virginia Department of Corrections. Bobeck explained:

What I got is that SSG Frederick and CPL Graner were road M.P.s and were put in charge because they were civilian prison guards and had knowledge of how things were supposed to be run.
Bobeck also testified that witnesses had said that Frederick, on one occasion, “had punched a detainee in the chest so hard that the detainee almost went into cardiac arrest.”
At the Article 32 hearing, the Army informed Frederick and his attorneys, Captain Robert Shuck, an Army lawyer, and Gary Myers, a civilian, that two dozen witnesses they had sought, including General Karpinski and all of Frederick’s co-defendants, would not appear. Some had been excused after exercising their Fifth Amendment right; others were deemed to be too far away from the courtroom. “The purpose of an Article 32 hearing is for us to engage witnesses and discover facts,” Gary Myers told me. “We ended up with a c.i.d. agent and no alleged victims to examine.” After the hearing, the presiding investigative officer ruled that there was sufficient evidence to convene a court-martial against Frederick.

Myers, who was one of the military defense attorneys in the My Lai prosecutions of the nineteen-seventies, told me that his client’s defense will be that he was carrying out the orders of his superiors and, in particular, the directions of military intelligence. He said, “Do you really think a group of kids from rural Virginia decided to do this on their own? Decided that the best way to embarrass Arabs and make them talk was to have them walk around nude?”

In letters and e-mails to family members, Frederick repeatedly noted that the military-intelligence teams, which included C.I.A. officers and linguists and interrogation specialists from private defense contractors, were the dominant force inside Abu Ghraib. In a letter written in January, he said:
I questioned some of the things that I saw . . . such things as leaving inmates in their cell with no clothes or in female underpants, handcuffing them to the door of their cell-and the answer I got was, “This is how military intelligence (MI) wants it done.” . . . . MI has also instructed us to place a prisoner in an isolation cell with little or no clothes, no toilet or running water, no ventilation or window, for as much as three days.

The military-intelligence officers have “encouraged and told us, ‘Great job,’ they were now getting positive results and information,” Frederick wrote. “CID has been present when the military working dogs were used to intimidate prisoners at MI’s request.” At one point, Frederick told his family, he pulled aside his superior officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Phillabaum, the commander of the 320th M.P. Battalion, and asked about the mistreatment of prisoners. “His reply was ‘Don’t worry about it.’”
In November, Frederick wrote, an Iraqi prisoner under the control of what the Abu Ghraib guards called “O.G.A.,” or other government agencies-that is, the C.I.A. and its paramilitary employees-was brought to his unit for questioning. “They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away. They put his body in a body bag and packed him in ice for approximately twenty-four hours in the shower. . . . The next day the medics came and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in his arm and took him away.” The dead Iraqi was never entered into the prison’s inmate-control system, Frederick recounted, “and therefore never had a number.”

Frederick’s defense is, of course, highly self-serving. But the complaints in his letters and e-mails home were reinforced by two internal Army reports-Taguba’s and one by the Army’s chief law-enforcement officer, Provost Marshal Donald Ryder, a major general.

Last fall, General Sanchez ordered Ryder to review the prison system in Iraq and recommend ways to improve it. Ryder’s report, filed on November 5th, concluded that there were potential human-rights, training, and manpower issues, system-wide, that needed immediate attention. It also discussed serious concerns about the tension between the missions of the military police assigned to guard the prisoners and the intelligence teams who wanted to interrogate them. Army regulations limit intelligence activity by the M.P.s to passive collection. But something had gone wrong at Abu Ghraib.

There was evidence dating back to the Afghanistan war, the Ryder report said, that M.P.s had worked with intelligence operatives to “set favorable conditions for subsequent interviews”-a euphemism for breaking the will of prisoners. “Such actions generally run counter to the smooth operation of a detention facility, attempting to maintain its population in a compliant and docile state.” General Karpinski’s brigade, Ryder reported, “has not been directed to change its facility procedures to set the conditions for MI interrogations, nor participate in those interrogations.” Ryder called for the establishment of procedures to “define the role of military police soldiers . . .clearly separating the actions of the guards from those of the military intelligence personnel.” The officers running the war in Iraq were put on notice.

Ryder undercut his warning, however, by concluding that the situation had not yet reached a crisis point. Though some procedures were flawed, he said, he found “no military police units purposely applying inappropriate confinement practices.” His investigation was at best a failure and at worst a coverup.
Taguba, in his report, was polite but direct in refuting his fellow-general. “Unfortunately, many of the systemic problems that surfaced during [Ryder’s] assessment are the very same issues that are the subject of this investigation,” he wrote. “In fact, many of the abuses suffered by detainees occurred during, or near to, the time of that assessment.” The report continued, “Contrary to the findings of MG Ryder’s report, I find that personnel assigned to the 372nd MP Company, 800th MP Brigade were directed to change facility procedures to ‘set the conditions’ for MI interrogations.” Army intelligence officers, C.I.A. agents, and private contractors “actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses.”

Taguba backed up his assertion by citing evidence from sworn statements to Army C.I.D. investigators. Specialist Sabrina Harman, one of the accused M.P.s, testified that it was her job to keep detainees awake, including one hooded prisoner who was placed on a box with wires attached to his fingers, toes, and penis. She stated, “MI wanted to get them to talk. It is Graner and Frederick’s job to do things for MI and OGA to get these people to talk.”

Another witness, Sergeant Javal Davis, who is also one of the accused, told C.I.D. investigators, “I witnessed prisoners in the MI hold section . . . being made to do various things that I would question morally. . . . We were told that they had different rules.” Taguba wrote, “Davis also stated that he had heard MI insinuate to the guards to abuse the inmates. When asked what MI said he stated: ‘Loosen this guy up for us.’‘Make sure he has a bad night.’‘Make sure he gets the treatment.’” Military intelligence made these comments to Graner and Frederick, Davis said. “The MI staffs to my understanding have been giving Graner compliments . . . statements like, ‘Good job, they’re breaking down real fast. They answer every question. They’re giving out good information.’”
When asked why he did not inform his chain of command about the abuse, Sergeant Davis answered, “Because I assumed that if they were doing things out of the ordinary or outside the guidelines, someone would have said something. Also the wing”-where the abuse took place-“belongs to MI and it appeared MI personnel approved of the abuse.”

Another witness, Specialist Jason Kennel, who was not accused of wrongdoing, said, “I saw them nude, but MI would tell us to take away their mattresses, sheets, and clothes.” (It was his view, he added, that if M.I. wanted him to do this “they needed to give me paperwork.”) Taguba also cited an interview with Adel L. Nakhla, a translator who was an employee of Titan, a civilian contractor. He told of one night when a “bunch of people from MI” watched as a group of handcuffed and shackled inmates were subjected to abuse by Graner and Frederick.

General Taguba saved his harshest words for the military-intelligence officers and private contractors. He recommended that Colonel Thomas Pappas, the commander of one of the M.I. brigades, be reprimanded and receive non-judicial punishment, and that Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, the former director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center, be relieved of duty and reprimanded. He further urged that a civilian contractor, Steven Stephanowicz, of CACI International, be fired from his Army job, reprimanded, and denied his security clearances for lying to the investigating team and allowing or ordering military policemen “who were not trained in interrogation techniques to facilitate interrogations by ‘setting conditions’ which were neither authorized” nor in accordance with Army regulations. “He clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse,” Taguba wrote. He also recommended disciplinary action against a second CACI employee, John Israel. (A spokeswoman for CACI said that the company had “received no formal communication” from the Army about the matter.)
“I suspect,” Taguba concluded, that Pappas, Jordan, Stephanowicz, and Israel “were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuse at Abu Ghraib,” and strongly recommended immediate disciplinary action.

The problems inside the Army prison system in Iraq were not hidden from senior commanders. During Karpinski’s seven-month tour of duty, Taguba noted, there were at least a dozen officially reported incidents involving escapes, attempted escapes, and other serious security issues that were investigated by officers of the 800th M.P. Brigade. Some of the incidents had led to the killing or wounding of inmates and M.P.s, and resulted in a series of “lessons learned” inquiries within the brigade. Karpinski invariably approved the reports and signed orders calling for changes in day-to-day procedures. But Taguba found that she did not follow up, doing nothing to insure that the orders were carried out. Had she done so, he added, “cases of abuse may have been prevented.”

General Taguba further found that Abu Ghraib was filled beyond capacity, and that the M.P. guard force was significantly undermanned and short of resources. “This imbalance has contributed to the poor living conditions, escapes, and accountability lapses,” he wrote. There were gross differences, Taguba said, between the actual number of prisoners on hand and the number officially recorded. A lack of proper screening also meant that many innocent Iraqis were wrongly being detained-indefinitely, it seemed, in some cases. The Taguba study noted that more than sixty per cent of the civilian inmates at Abu Ghraib were deemed not to be a threat to society, which should have enabled them to be released. Karpinski’s defense, Taguba said, was that her superior officers “routinely” rejected her recommendations regarding the release of such prisoners.

Karpinski was rarely seen at the prisons she was supposed to be running, Taguba wrote. He also found a wide range of administrative problems, including some that he considered “without precedent in my military career.” The soldiers, he added, were “poorly prepared and untrained . . . prior to deployment, at the mobilization site, upon arrival in theater, and throughout the mission.”
General Taguba spent more than four hours interviewing Karpinski, whom he described as extremely emotional: “What I found particularly disturbing in her testimony was her complete unwillingness to either understand or accept that many of the problems inherent in the 800th MP Brigade were caused or exacerbated by poor leadership and the refusal of her command to both establish and enforce basic standards and principles among its soldiers.”

Taguba recommended that Karpinski and seven brigade military-police officers and enlisted men be relieved of command and formally reprimanded. No criminal proceedings were suggested for Karpinski; apparently, the loss of promotion and the indignity of a public rebuke were seen as enough punishment.

After the story broke on CBS last week, the Pentagon announced that Major General Geoffrey Miller, the new head of the Iraqi prison system, had arrived in Baghdad and was on the job. He had been the commander of the Guantánamo Bay detention center. General Sanchez also authorized an investigation into possible wrongdoing by military and civilian interrogators.

As the international furor grew, senior military officers, and President Bush, insisted that the actions of a few did not reflect the conduct of the military as a whole. Taguba’s report, however, amounts to an unsparing study of collective wrongdoing and the failure of Army leadership at the highest levels. The picture he draws of Abu Ghraib is one in which Army regulations and the Geneva conventions were routinely violated, and in which much of the day-to-day management of the prisoners was abdicated to Army military-intelligence units and civilian contract employees. Interrogating prisoners and getting intelligence, including by intimidation and torture, was the priority.

The mistreatment at Abu Ghraib may have done little to further American intelligence, however. Willie J. Rowell, who served for thirty-six years as a C.I.D. agent, told me that the use of force or humiliation with prisoners is invariably counterproductive. “They’ll tell you what you want to hear, truth or no truth,” Rowell said. “‘You can flog me until I tell you what I know you want me to say.’ You don’t get righteous information.”

Under the fourth Geneva convention, an occupying power can jail civilians who pose an “imperative” security threat, but it must establish a regular procedure for insuring that only civilians who remain a genuine security threat be kept imprisoned. Prisoners have the right to appeal any internment decision and have their cases reviewed. Human Rights Watch complained to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that civilians in Iraq remained in custody month after month with no charges brought against them. Abu Ghraib had become, in effect, another Guantánamo.

As the photographs from Abu Ghraib make clear, these detentions have had enormous consequences: for the imprisoned civilian Iraqis, many of whom had nothing to do with the growing insurgency; for the integrity of the Army; and for the United States’ reputation in the world.

Captain Robert Shuck, Frederick’s military attorney, closed his defense at the Article 32 hearing last month by saying that the Army was “attempting to have these six soldiers atone for its sins.” Similarly, Gary Myers, Frederick’s civilian attorney, told me that he would argue at the court-martial that culpability in the case extended far beyond his client. “I’m going to drag every involved intelligence officer and civilian contractor I can find into court,” he said. “Do you really believe the Army relieved a general officer because of six soldiers? Not a chance.”

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When should Perle’s of Wisdom be thrown to swine?

“The problem is, they didn’t like the conclusions.” So they lied to get us into Iraq, manipulated intelligence to fit their plans, then bombed the Iraqi infrastructure into the stone age. Where Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Bush Senior all stand to make millions of dollars off the war reconstruction plans you and I, and our children’s children, will be paying for, for decades. Money taken directly from taxpayers and redistributed into the “iron triangle’s” coffers. Then ultimately into the iron vaults of blind trusts where stock certificates sit dusty and mute, unable to testify to the surreal stage play called American politics.
--Craig B Hulet?

By Craig B Hulet?
February 20, 2004

Should you or I become businessmen and seek funds for an investment opportunity by going to the investment community, to create a start-up company we are on the board of directors of, in the private sector, nobody has anything to say about it. After all, it is good business should it be successful. Should I be a member of Congress, or appointed to the Cabinet of the White House, and the company goes on to do the same business, while my stock is held in a blind trust, nobody complains as that is what goes on in America. Conflict of interest laws point to any “perceived or potential” conflict of interest as its criteria to disallow, say a Cabinet official, from benefiting from political information which would make the individual money from that knowledge. “Apparent” conflict of interest means that it cannot even “look like” one gains from information attained through sources unknown to the general public. At least that is what the law says.

Take the war in Iraq. Vice president Dick Cheney, whose blind trust holds his stockholdings “in trust” as former CEO of Halliburton, will make personally millions of dollars as Halliburton, Kellogg Brown& Root, (HBR) and other HBR wholly-owned subsidiaries and offshoots of the oil and defense firm receives $3.5 billion in Iraq reconstruction work. Cheney having pushed so hard for the war and the strategic bombing of Iraq’s infrastructure, certainly knew in advance that HBR would get the no-bid contracts, as his compatriots Bush and Rumsfeld set up the guaranteed defense contracting bidding rules. Later through competitive bids, Halliburton still got larger contracts for further reconstruction after the media and Congress questioned the obvious corporate nepotism. This done while HBR is being investigated by the Army Corps of Engineers for criminal fraud in its first contractual deal. (Source: See my, “ ‘Cosy’ with Halliburton,” February 18, 2004 www.kcandassociates.org and www.axisoflogic.com)

We know how it works. What happens when an individual whose position includes membership in a non-governmental organization (NGO) whose ad hoc mission is to advise the office of the presidency on ongoing defense related issues, like the war in Iraq, like the Defense Policy Board (DPB)? Well, it is not illegal, just unethical. So when it was discovered that Richard Perle, while chairman of the DPB, stood to gain millions of dollars by his investment holdings and commissions for raising funds for a start-up firm targeting Iraq’s security needs after he had advised the White House and Pentagon to invade and occupy that country, destroying its infrastructure (thus the new reconstruction and security needs in the aftermath of the air-ground war were well-known), he wasn’t prosecuted, as he isn’t a member of the government, just an outside NGO consultant from DPB, he stepped down as Chairman of the DPB, but remained a member. (So Richard Perle still receives insider information from the highest levels of government and still makes money with this inside knowledge, as does Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush Senior, and via his inheritance, Bush Junior as well, to name a few).

As poet Leonard Cohen has said, “The rich get richer, the poor stay poor...And everybody knows.” And economist Paul Krugman has repeated these words in his works on the U.S. economy. Now comes this small but effective brotherhood known euphemistically as neo-cons. (This standing for neo-conservatives, which is a euphemism they gave themselves to mask and veil who they really were and remain; i.e., old European Trotskyites from the émigré communities of New York and Chicago and followers of the Machiavellian anthropologist/philosopher professor Leo Strauss.) We know who they are. Being Machiavellian themselves, and everyone named above so far (and many more in the Bush administration) are members of this tribe, take the telling of lies to the public as a public good. It is politics of a Medieval nature, a view few hold outside of the monopoly corporate structure. (See my piece, “Universal Fascism; Liberty Betrayed,” [titles of two books by Michael Ledeen, proud neo-con himself] same website above).

So when private citizen, “non-governmental,” Richard Perle, of the DPB speaks, the media listens. Why? I don’t know, they do not listen to me? Or you? So when it was reported recently that “Richard Perle, a chief proponent of last year’s U.S. invasion of Iraq, [yesterday] called for the chiefs of the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency to step down because of their faulty conclusions that Saddam Hussein possessed mass-killing weapons,”... I was taken aback, felt odd, somewhat confused....! Who the hell is Richard Perle to call for anyone’s dismissal!? (Source: `Heads should roll' over Iraq Adviser wants U.S. intelligence chiefs to quit Cites faulty conclusions on Saddam's weapons ERIC ROSENBERG SPECIAL TO THE STAR Feb. 18, 2004. )

When asked which heads should roll at the CIA. Perle smugly said, “I’d start with the head head,” naming George Tenet (conveniently a Clinton appointee holdover); adding the DIA “is in at least as bad shape as CIA (and) needs new management.” That would be Navy Vice-Adm. Lowell Jacoby, who has headed the DIA since July, 2002. U.S. President George W. Bush, Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell have said they relied on intelligence from the CIA and DIA in their assertions that Saddam had stockpiles of mass-casualty weapons. The claim was the main rationale for the U.S-led invasion. Is that claim by these “rulers,” true?

That claim has been roundly refuted by a number of the analysts that have resigned over the issue as Seymour M. Hersh has taken pains to report in the New Yorker magazine. Something in the neighborhood of 30 high level CIA and DIA analysts have quit; full bird Colonels and others have as well. All have cited reasons, this: their analysis was never excepted by Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Cheney, that Saddam Hussein was not an immediate threat nor was it likely he had any WMD capabilities! These few analysts have been public for months with their charges. They have charged the above appointed Cabinet officials of having, no demanding, that these analyst’s analyses fit the ideological and preconceived plan for invasion; they were told to come up with “analyses that fit the agenda.” One CIA analyst went so far as to say in one case that meeting with Wolfowitz, was likened to a religious setting, “they were on a mission from God.” They were ordered to doctor their analysis! That is why they quit. To the point:

The director of the Office of Special Plans operation is Abram Shulsky, a scholarly expert in the works of the political philosopher Leo Strauss. Shulsky has been quietly working on intelligence and foreign-policy issues for three decades; he was on the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee in the early nineteen-eighties and served coincidentally in the Pentagon under Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle during the Reagan Administration, after which he joined the Rand Corporation. The Office of Special Plans is overseen by Under-Secretary of Defense William Luti, a retired Navy captain. Luti was an early advocate of military action against Iraq, and, as the Administration moved toward war and policymaking power shifted toward the civilians in the Pentagon, he took on increasingly important responsibilities. (Ibid.)

According to a Pentagon adviser that spoke with Hersh, “Special Plans was created in order to find evidence of what Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, “believed” to be true--that Saddam Hussein had close ties to Al Qaeda, and that Iraq had an enormous arsenal of chemical, biological, and possibly even nuclear weapons that threatened the region and, potentially, the United States.” (Ibid.) In other words find the facts that fit their preconceived plans for war, make the case for the President. “Rumsfeld and his colleagues believed that the C.I.A. was unable to perceive the reality of the situation in Iraq. ‘The agency was out to disprove linkage between Iraq and terrorism,’ the Pentagon adviser told me. ‘That’s what drove them. If you’ve ever worked with intelligence data, you can see the ingrained views at C.I.A. that color the way it sees data.’” The goal of Special Plans, he said, was ‘to put the data under the microscope to reveal what the intelligence community can’t see. Shulsky’s carrying the heaviest part.’” (Ibid.)

In fact Richard Perle himself was one of those claiming in behalf of the administration the very thing he, as an insider when he was Chairman of the DPB, now wants to see “heads roll” over. According to Hersh:

Richard Perle, who was then the chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, was making a similar argument about the intelligence community’s knowledge of Iraq’s weapons. At a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing in March, 2001, he said, “Does Saddam now have weapons of mass destruction? Sure he does. We know he has chemical weapons. We know he has biological weapons. . . . How far he’s gone on the nuclear-weapons side I don’t think we really know. My guess is it’s further than we think. It’s always further than we think, because we limit ourselves, as we think about this, to what we’re able to prove and demonstrate. . . . And, unless you believe that we have uncovered everything, you have to assume there is more than we’re able to report.” (Ibid.)

Perle is quite simply lying when he makes the charges today that the fault rests with faulty intelligence. “Last October [2002], an article in the Times reported that Rumsfeld had ordered up an intelligence operation “to search for information on Iraq’s hostile intentions or links to terrorists” that might have been overlooked by the C.I.A. When Rumsfeld was asked about the story at a Pentagon briefing, he was initially vague. “I’m told that after September 11th a small group, I think two to start with, and maybe four now . . . were asked to begin poring over this mountain of information that we were receiving on intelligence-type things.” He went on to say, “You don’t know what you don’t know. So in comes the daily briefer”-from the C.I.A.-“and she walks through the daily brief. And I ask questions. ‘Gee, what about this?’ or ‘What about that? Has somebody thought of this?’” At the same briefing, Rumsfeld said that he had already been informed that there was “solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of Al Qaeda members.” (Ibid.)

Now comes the current, 2004, admissions by David Kay, as former head of the U.S. weapons-hunting team in Iraq, he has concluded it was highly unlikely that Saddam possessed stockpiles of such weapons “It turns out we were all wrong, probably, in my judgment, and that is most disturbing,” Kay said last month. (Ibid., ROSENBERG, THE STAR Feb. 18, 2004) While Kay dismissed the prospect that stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction would ever be found in Iraq, Perle disputed him on two relatively minor claims: that Iraq wasn’t seeking to enrich uranium or develop mobile weapons laboratories to manufacture chemical or biological weapons. “The jury is still out” on those points, Perle said. (Ibid.) If the jury is still out according to Perle about the latter, can he claim that it is not out over the former, and therefore heads should roll? Of course not.

But that is not what Perle is doing here. Perle is doing what all ideological comrades-in-arms do...he is protecting himself first and the senior Bush administration officials he works for and they need the buck passed now, before the elections; someone has to “go down” somebody’s “head must roll,” somebody other than those really responsible for the bad intelligence (both kinds): that being, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Perle!

Mr. Perle then, former chairman of - and current member of - the Defense Policy Board, a senior level advisory panel to Rumsfeld, and therefore Cheney and Bush, was an advocate, and aggressively so, for overthrowing Saddam, asserting in the months leading up to the war that the Iraqi dictator’s weapons stockpiles posed a grave and imminent threat to the United States. In the lead-up to the war, Perle regularly warned about Saddam’s reputed arsenal and the danger that would follow if the United Nations failed to get the Iraqi dictator to disarm. CIA head, George Tenet, was first appointed by president Bill Clinton and confirmed by the Senate in 1997 and then moved over to the Bush administration after the 2000 election. So his head is easy to roll, he is seen as expendable, blame him for Wolfowitz’s errors if not outright lies, for Cheney’s misconduct, for Perle’s Machiavellian lies. Thus Tenet’s agency has been criticized for the Iraqi weapons episode and for failing to detect the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strikes, according the newly enlightened Richard Perle. How anyone can believe this man is beyond my comprehension!

In a surprising and maybe important ending to this present article but which may go some to explain another political debacle fluttering about these elections is John Kerry’s recent problems regarding general Wesley Clark‘s smug “intern“ remark; recall please, Clark is a close friend and/or colleague of Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Perle and Cheney. (See my “Wesley Clark -- Stalking Horse” series of articles on my site and axisoflogic.com).

It cannot be said better, they, the administration’s “civilian” leadership, the elected governing heads all the way up to the president, had good intelligence from the CIA and DIA all along, “The problem is, they didn’t like the conclusions.” So they lied to get us into Iraq, manipulated intelligence to fit their plans, then bombed the Iraqi infrastructure into the stone age. Iraq, where Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Bush Senior all stand to make millions of dollars off the war reconstruction plans you and I, and our children’s children, will be paying for, for decades. Money taken directly from taxpayers and redistributed into the “iron triangle’s” coffers. Then ultimately into the iron vaults of blind trusts where stock certificates sit dusty and mute, unable to testify to the surreal stage play called American politics.

Do remember what Eric Fromm once warned all of us:

The narcissistic image of one’s own group is raised to its highest point, while the devaluation of the opposing group sinks to the lowest. One’s own group becomes a defender of human dignity, decency, morality, and right. Devilish qualities are ascribed to the other group; it is treacherous, ruthless, cruel, and basically inhuman. The violation of one of the symbols of group narcissism--such as flag, or the person of the emperor, the president, or an ambassador--is reacted to with such intense fury and aggression by the people that they are even willing to support their leaders in a policy of war.” -- Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, p. 204)

End February 20, 2004

For the entire Seymour M. Hersh article scroll down this page.

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MEET OUR NEW SADDAM: INTRODUCING ISLAM KARIMOV OF UZBEKISTAN

Afghan Soldiers
By: Sadik Kassim

Introducing Islam Karimov, one of Washington's most recent allies in the War on Terror. The neo-Stalinist autocrat presides over Uzbekistan, a vast mineral and oil rich country strategically located in central Asia. A country where dissidents are boiled alive (1); where having an Islamically sanctioned beard can get you arrested (2); where torture is widespread. In short, a country where human rights abuses are occurring on "a massive scale," (3) financed in part by the American taxpayer.

Slightly larger than the state of California and home to the fabled Silk Road cities of Samarqand and Bukhara, Uzbekistan today is a prime theater in the "War on Terror". After the September 11 attacks, Uzbekistan granted American troops permission to use its Khanbad military base located just north of Afghanistan.

The establishment of Khanbad, along with other bases in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, enabled the American government to achieve three major strategic goals. In addition to providing a center from which the American military could pursue the Taliban in Afghanistan, the bases more importantly, improved "American access to Kazakh and Turkmen oil and gas," and extended "US influence to a region hitherto dominated by Russia and of constant concern to China (4)." The bases in essence paved the way for America to gain a foothold in a globally strategic region thereby putting it in a better position to compete with Russia and China for the great oil treasures of the Caspian Sea.

In addition to being the world's largest lake, the Caspian sea is believed to hold vast oil reserves comparable to those of the Middle East. Yet, unlike the Middle East, transport of the extracted black gold from the landlocked lake to the open sea is a major hurdle. Therefore, the primary issue guiding the politics of the region revolve around not ownership of oil, rather control of the proposed pipelines by which the oil is transported. It is within this context that Uzbekistan has emerged as "the key strategic state in the area (5)."

Uzbekistan's cooperation with Washington has not gone unrewarded. In March 2002, Messrs Bush and Karimov formally met for 45 minutes in the White House. The meeting produced a five point strategic partnership between the two countries. Among other things, in exchange for continued use of Khanbad, the agreement granted Uzbekistan $500 million in aid and credit guarantees (6), $25 million for military assistance, $18 million for "border security assistance", and $1 million in policing assistance (7). These concessions were made to one of America's "foremost partners in the fight against terrorism (8)" despite the State Department's own declaration that, "Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with a very poor human rights record (9)."

According to the Human Rights Watch (HRW) 2003 World Report, the Karimov led government violates, on a systematic level, basic rights "to freedom of religion, expression, association and assembly." HRW notes that Karimov has used the pretext of the "War on Terror", to pursue a campaign whose aim is to squelch opposition. Specifically, the government has arrested and tortured thousands of independent Muslims, including minors. HRW and other human rights organizations estimate that there are between 7,000 and 10,000 prisoners held on religious and political charges. Most recently, forensic evidence has been revealed suggesting that Karimov's government boiled to death two Muslim prisoners after they refused to stop praying.

The only major critique of Karimov's government by a western government official has come from Britain's Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray (10). "Uzbekistan is not a functioning democracy, nor does it appear to be moving in the direction of democracy," said Murray at the opening of the Freedom House human rights center in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in October 2002. Murray continued by exclaiming that, "The major political parties are banned; parliament is not subject to democratic election; and checks and balances on the authority of the electorate are lacking." Murray concluded by noting that, "no government has the right to use the war against terrorism as an excuse for the persecution of those with a deep personal commitment to the Islamic religion, and who pursue their views by peaceful means."

Murray's speech did not sit well with either the American or the Uzbek governments, the latter calling on Murray to apologize for his remarks. Murray did not relent and continued his critiques. In May 2003 he decried, "the intense repression here [in Uzbekistan] combined with the inequality of wealth and absence of reform." While in August 2003 he restated that there was, "no freedom of speech, mass media, movement and so forth." Furthermore, he called on the Uzbek interior and national security ministries to publicly criticize themselves for using torture.

Murray's blunt manner "was causing alarm in London and Washington, where he was regarded as too undiplomaticsome influential figures in the diplomatic service felt he had gone too far." For his troubles, Murray was subject to a spurious internal British Foreign Office investigation for alleged misconduct. The pressures got to Murray, who eventually returned to London in October of this year for "medical reasons".

According to James McGrory, a British development consultant based in Tashkent, "The common belief is that Mr. Murray is being sacrificed to the AmericansThey certainly loathed him...the US Embassy makes no effort to conceal its dislike of the way he repeatedly and unequivocally slams (the country's) human rights record."

Clare Short, former International Development Secretary who resigned from the Blair cabinet over the war in Iraq, is a purported supporter of Murray's critiques. Of Murray, Short said the following (11), "He is an individual who was taking a stand on human rights issues where there is terrible, terrible repressionif he has been smeared and belittled for standing up for fundamental human rights--this is not just a few honorable political dissidents but really horrible repression--that would be outrageous."

The case of Uzbekistan and Craig Murray prove that once again political expediency takes priority over human rights issues in a globally strategic region. The final word belongs to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the only major American periodical to significantly condemn American policy in Uzbekistan. In an editorial dated November 8, 2003, it was noted that, "If U.S. policy is to have any credibility in the Muslim world--indeed in the world at large--it must be based not on convenience, but on principle. It will be recalled that in the 1980s, the United States made a similar deal of convenience with another Central Asian tyrant. His name was Saddam Hussein."

Notes:

Fielding, F. and Nick Meo. "Mystery Grows Over Recall of 'ill' Ambassador." Sunday Times 12 October 2003, 4.
Barry, E. "Fighting Terror/ UZBEKISTAN; Religious Fervor Sparks a Fearful Leader's Crackdown." The Boston Globe 2 November 2001, third ed.: sec. A: 32.
Human Rights Watch World Report 2003. Uzbekistan. 2003.
"Not Just an Airbase: The US Must Tread Carefully in Central Asia." The Financial Times [London] 25 August 2003, first ed.: pg. 16.
Glenny, M. "To Hell and Baku: The Vast Scale and Bloody Price of the Rush for Oil in the Caspian has Been Little Noticed. Now a Powerful New Study Reveals All." The Observer 2 November 2003.: Observer Review Pages, 16.
"Dealing With the Devil." St. Louis Post- Dispatch [St. Louis] 8 November 2003, Editorial.
Amnesty International. A Catalogue of Failures: G8 Arms Exports and Human Rights Violations. 2003.
United States Government, "Uzbekistan Military Assistance" and "Uzbekistan Exchanges and Law Enforcement Assistance"--US Government, undated, 2002.
"UZBEKISTAN: Leader to Meet Bush." The New York Times [New York] 12 March 2002, final ed.: sec. A pg. 10.
Beeston R., and James Kilner. "Outspoken Envoy to Uzbekistan Comes Home." The Times 1 October 2003, pg. 18.
Bright, M. "Short Backs Envoy Who Criticized US: Repression in Uzbekistan is 'Terrible' ". The Observer 19 October 2003, pg. 12.
Sadik Kassim is a graduate student. He may be reached at shkassim81@yahoo.com

This article was taken from CounterPunch.org

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Bush signs parts of Patriot Act II into law

By David Martin 12/24/2003 ©San Antonio Current 2004

On December 13, when U.S. forces allegedly captured Saddam Hussein, President George W. Bush not only celebrated with his national security team, but also pulled out his pen and signed into law a bill that grants the FBI sweeping new powers. A White House spokesperson explained the curious timing of the
signing - on a Saturday - as "the President signs bills seven days a week." But the last time Bush signed a bill into law on a Saturday happened more than a year ago - on a spending bill that the President needed to sign, to prevent shutting down the federal government the following Monday.

By signing the bill on the day of Hussein being handed over (capture is misleading), Bush effectively consigned a dramatic expansion of the USA Patriot Act to a mere footnote. Consequently, while most Americans watched as Hussein was probed for head lice, few were aware that the FBI had just obtained the power to probe their financial records, even if the feds don't suspect their involvement in crime
or terrorism. By signing the bill on the day of Hussein's capture, Bush effectively consigned a dramatic expansion of the USA Patriot Act to a mere footnote.

The Bush Administration and its Congressional allies tucked away these new executive powers in the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004, a legislative behemoth that funds all the intelligence activities of the federal government. The Act included a simple, yet insidious, redefinition of "financial institution," which previously referred to banks, but now includes stockbrokers, car dealerships, casinos, credit card companies, insurance agencies, jewelers, airlines, the U.S. Post Office, and any other business "whose cash transactions have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, or regulatory matters."

Congress passed the legislation around Thanksgiving. Except for U.S. Representative Charlie Gonzalez, all San Antonio's House members voted for the act. The Senate passed it with a voice vote to avoid individual accountability. While broadening the definition of "financial institution," the Bush administration is ramping up provisions within the 2001 USA Patriot Act, which granted the FBI the authority to obtain client records from banks by merely requesting the records in a "National Security Letter." To get the records, the FBI doesn't have to appear before a judge, nor demonstrate
"probable cause" - reason to believe that the targeted client is involved in criminal or terrorist activity. Moreover, the National Security Letters are attached with a gag order, preventing any financial institution from informing its clients that their records have been surrendered to the FBI.
If a financial institution breaches the gag order, it faces criminal penalties. And finall, the FBI will no
longer be required to report to Congress how often they have used the National Security Letters.

Supporters of expanding the Patriot Act claim that the new law is necessary to prevent future terrorist attacks on the U.S. The FBI needs these new powers to be expeditious and efficient" in its response to these new threats. Robert Summers, professor of international law and director of the new Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary's University, explains, "We don't go to war with the terrorists as we went to war with the Germans or the North Vietnamese. If we apply old methods of following the money, we will not be successful. We need to meet them on an even playing field to avoid another disaster."

Opponents of the PATRIOT Act and its expansion claim that safeguards like judicial oversight and the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure, are essential to prevent abuses of power. "There's a reason these protections were put into place. It has been shown that if you give [these agencies] this power they will abuse it. For any investigative agency, once you tell them that they must make sure that they protect the country from subversives, it inevitably gets translated into a program to silence dissent." Opponents claim the FBI already has all the tools to stop crime and
terrorism. Moreover, explains Patrick Filyk, an attorney and vice president of the local chapter of the ACLU, "The only thing the act accomplishes is the removal of judicial oversight and the transfer of more power to law enforcements agents."

This broadening of the Patriot Act represents a political victory for the Bush Administration's stealth legislative strategy to increase executive power. Last February, shortly before Bush launched the war on Iraq, the Center for Public Integrity obtained a draft of a comprehensive expansion of the Patriot Act, nicknamed Patriot Act II, written by Attorney General John Ashcroft's staff. Again, the timing was suspicious; it appeared that the Bush Administration was waiting for the start of the Iraq war to introduce Patriot Act II, and then exploit the crisis to ram it through Congress with little public debate.

The leak and ensuing public backlash frustrated the Bush administration's strategy, so Ashcroft and Co. disassembled Patriot Act II, then reassembled its parts into other legislation. By attaching the
redefinition of "financial institution" to an Intelligence Authorization Act, the Bush Administration and its Congressional allies avoided public hearings and floor debates for the expansion of the Patriot Act.

Even proponents of this expansion have expressed concern about these legislative tactics. "It's a problem that some of these riders that are added on may not receive the scrutiny that we would like to see," says St. Mary's Professor Robert Summers. The Bush Administration has yet to answer pivotal questions about its latest constitutional coup: If these new executive powers are necessary to
protect United States citizens, then why would the legislation not withstand the test of public debate? If the new act's provisions are in the public interest, why use stealth in ramming them through the legislative process? (Sources included The San Antonio Current Press)

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SELECTIVE INTELLIGENCE

By SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Donald Rumsfeld has his own special sources. Are they reliable?
Issue of 2003-05-12
Posted 2003-05-05

They call themselves, self-mockingly, the Cabal-a small cluster of policy advisers and analysts now based in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans. In the past year, according to former and present Bush Administration officials, their operation, which was conceived by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, has brought about a crucial change of direction in the American intelligence community. These advisers and analysts, who began their work in the days after September 11, 2001, have produced a skein of intelligence reviews that have helped to shape public opinion and American policy toward Iraq. They relied on data gathered by other intelligence agencies and also on information provided by the Iraqi National Congress, or I.N.C., the exile group headed by Ahmad Chalabi. By last fall, the operation rivalled both the C.I.A. and the Pentagon’s own Defense Intelligence Agency, the D.I.A., as President Bush’s main source of intelligence regarding Iraq’s possible possession of weapons of mass destruction and connection with Al Qaeda. As of last week, no such weapons had been found. And although many people, within the Administration and outside it, profess confidence that something will turn up, the integrity of much of that intelligence is now in question.

The director of the Special Plans operation is Abram Shulsky, a scholarly expert in the works of the political philosopher Leo Strauss. Shulsky has been quietly working on intelligence and foreign-policy issues for three decades; he was on the staff of the Senate Intelligence Com-mittee in the early nineteen-eighties and served in the Pentagon under Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle during the Reagan Administration, after which he joined the Rand Corporation. The Office of Special Plans is overseen by Under-Secretary of Defense William Luti, a retired Navy captain. Luti was an early advocate of military action against Iraq, and, as the Administration moved toward war and policymaking power shifted toward the civilians in the Pentagon, he took on increasingly important responsibilities.
W. Patrick Lang, the former chief of Middle East intelligence at the D.I.A., said, “The Pentagon has banded together to dominate the government’s foreign policy, and they’ve pulled it off. They’re running Chalabi. The D.I.A. has been intimidated and beaten to a pulp. And there’s no guts at all in the C.I.A.”
The hostility goes both ways. A Pentagon official who works for Luti told me, “I did a job when the intelligence community wasn’t doing theirs. We recognized the fact that they hadn’t done the analysis. We were providing information to Wolfowitz that he hadn’t seen before. The intelligence community is still looking for a mission like they had in the Cold War, when they spoon-fed the policymakers.”
A Pentagon adviser who has worked with Special Plans dismissed any criticism of the operation as little more than bureaucratic whining. “Shulsky and Luti won the policy debate,” the adviser said. “They beat ’em-they cleaned up against State and the C.I.A. There’s no mystery why they won-because they were more effective in making their argument. Luti is smarter than the opposition. Wolfowitz is smarter. They out-argued them. It was a fair fight. They persuaded the President of the need to make a new security policy. Those who lose are so good at trying to undercut those who won.” He added, “I’d love to be the historian who writes the story of how this small group of eight or nine people made the case and won.”

According to the Pentagon adviser, Special Plans was created in order to find evidence of what Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, believed to be true-that Saddam Hussein had close ties to Al Qaeda, and that Iraq had an enormous arsenal of chemical, biological, and possibly even nuclear weapons that threatened the region and, potentially, the United States.
Iraq’s possible possession of weapons of mass destruction had been a matter of concern to the international community since before the first Gulf War. Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons in the past. At some point, he assembled thousands of chemical warheads, along with biological weapons, and made a serious attempt to build a nuclear-weapons program. What has been in dispute is how much of that capacity, if any, survived the 1991 war and the years of United Nations inspections, no-fly zones, and sanctions that followed. In addition, since September 11th there have been recurring questions about Iraq’s ties to terrorists. A February poll showed that seventy-two per cent of Americans believed it was likely that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11th attacks, although no definitive evidence of such a connection has been presented.
Rumsfeld and his colleagues believed that the C.I.A. was unable to perceive the reality of the situation in Iraq. “The agency was out to disprove linkage between Iraq and terrorism,” the Pentagon adviser told me. “That’s what drove them. If you’ve ever worked with intelligence data, you can see the ingrained views at C.I.A. that color the way it sees data.” The goal of Special Plans, he said, was “to put the data under the microscope to reveal what the intelligence community can’t see. Shulsky’s carrying the heaviest part.”

Even before September 11th, Richard Perle, who was then the chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, was making a similar argument about the intelligence community’s knowledge of Iraq’s weapons. At a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing in March, 2001, he said, “Does Saddam now have weapons of mass destruction? Sure he does. We know he has chemical weapons. We know he has biological weapons. . . . How far he’s gone on the nuclear-weapons side I don’t think we really know. My guess is it’s further than we think. It’s always further than we think, because we limit ourselves, as we think about this, to what we’re able to prove and demonstrate. . . . And, unless you believe that we have uncovered everything, you have to assume there is more than we’re able to report.”
Last October, an article in the Times reported that Rumsfeld had ordered up an intelligence operation “to search for information on Iraq’s hostile intentions or links to terrorists” that might have been overlooked by the C.I.A. When Rumsfeld was asked about the story at a Pentagon briefing, he was initially vague. “I’m told that after September 11th a small group, I think two to start with, and maybe four now . . . were asked to begin poring over this mountain of information that we were receiving on intelligence-type things.” He went on to say, “You don’t know what you don’t know. So in comes the daily briefer”-from the C.I.A.-“and she walks through the daily brief. And I ask questions. ‘Gee, what about this?’ or ‘What about that? Has somebody thought of this?’” At the same briefing, Rumsfeld said that he had already been informed that there was “solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of Al Qaeda members.”

If Special Plans was going to search for new intelligence on Iraq, the most obvious source was defectors with firsthand knowledge. The office inevitably turned to Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress. The I.N.C., an umbrella organization for diverse groups opposed to Saddam, is constantly seeking out Iraqi defectors. The Special Plans Office developed a close working relationship with the I.N.C., and this strengthened its position in disputes with the C.I.A. and gave the Pentagon’s pro-war leadership added leverage in its constant disputes with the State Department. Special Plans also became a conduit for intelligence reports from the I.N.C. to officials in the White House.

There was a close personal bond, too, between Chalabi and Wolfowitz and Perle, dating back many years. Their relationship deepened after the Bush Administration took office, and Chalabi’s ties extended to others in the Administration, including Rumsfeld; Douglas Feith, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy; and I. Lewis Libby, Vice-President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. For years, Chalabi has had the support of prominent members of the American Enterprise Institute and other conservatives. Chalabi had some Democratic supporters, too, including James Woolsey, the former head of the C.I.A.
There was another level to Chalabi’s relationship with the United States: in the mid-nineteen-nineties, the C.I.A. was secretly funnelling millions of dollars annually to the I.N.C. Those payments ended around 1996, a former C.I.A. Middle East station chief told me, essentially because the agency had doubts about Chalabi’s integrity. (In 1992, Chalabi was convicted in absentia of bank fraud in Jordan. He has always denied any wrongdoing.) “You had to treat them with suspicion,” another former Middle East station chief said of Chalabi’s people. “The I.N.C. has a track record of manipulating information because it has an agenda. It’s a political unit-not an intelligence agency.”

In August, 1995, General Hussein Kamel, who was in charge of Iraq’s weapons program, defected to Jordan, with his brother, Colonel Saddam Kamel. They brought with them crates of documents containing detailed information about Iraqi efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction-much of which was unknown to the U.N. inspection teams that had been on the job since 1991-and were interviewed at length by the U.N. inspectors. In 1996, Saddam Hussein lured the brothers back with a promise of forgiveness, and then had them killed. The Kamels’ information became a major element in the Bush Administration’s campaign to convince the public of the failure of the U.N. inspections.
Last October, in a speech in Cincinnati, the President cited the Kamel defections as the moment when Saddam’s regime “was forced to admit that it had produced more than thirty thousand liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents. . . . This is a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has never been accounted for, and is capable of killing millions.” A couple of weeks earlier, Vice-President Cheney had declared that Hussein Kamel’s story “should serve as a reminder to all that we often learned more as the result of defections than we learned from the inspection regime itself.”
The full record of Hussein Kamel’s interview with the inspectors reveals, however, that he also said that Iraq’s stockpile of chemical and biological warheads, which were manufactured before the 1991 Gulf War, had been destroyed, in many cases in response to ongoing inspections. The interview, on August 22, 1995,was conducted by Rolf Ekeus, then the executive chairman of the U.N. inspection teams, and two of his senior associates-Nikita Smidovich and Maurizio Zifferaro. “You have an important role in Iraq,” Kamel said, according to the record, which was assembled from notes taken by Smidovich. “You should not underestimate yourself. You are very effective in Iraq.” When Smidovich noted that the U.N. teams had not found “any traces of destruction,” Kamel responded, “Yes, it was done before you came in.” He also said that Iraq had destroyed its arsenal of warheads. “We gave instructions not to produce chemical weapons,” Kamel explained later in the debriefing. “I don’t remember resumption of chemical-weapons production before the Gulf War. Maybe it was only minimal production and filling. . . . All chemical weapons were destroyed. I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons-biological, chemical, missile, nuclear-were destroyed.”

Kamel also cast doubt on the testimony of Dr. Khidhir Hamza, an Iraqi nuclear scientist who defected in 1994. Hamza settled in the United States with the help of the I.N.C. and has been a highly vocal witness concerning Iraq’s alleged nuclear ambitions. Kamel told the U.N. interviewers, however, that Hamza was “a professional liar.” He went on, “He worked with us, but he was useless and always looking for promotions. He consulted with me but could not deliver anything. . . . He was even interrogated by a team before he left and was allowed to go.”

After his defection, Hamza became a senior fellow at the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington disarmament group, whose president, David Albright, was a former U.N. weapons inspector. In 1998, Albright told me, he and Hamza sent publishers a proposal for a book tentatively entitled “Fizzle: Iraq and the Atomic Bomb,” which described how Iraq had failed in its quest for a nuclear device. There were no takers, Albright said, and Hamza eventually “started exaggerating his experiences in Iraq.” The two men broke off contact. In 2000, Hamza published “Saddam’s Bombmaker,” a vivid account claiming that by 1991, when the Gulf War began, Iraq was far closer than had been known to the production of a nuclear weapon. Jeff Stein, a Washington journalist who collaborated on the book, told me that Hamza’s account was “absolutely on the level, allowing for the fact that any memoir puts the author at the center of events, and therefore there is some exaggeration.” James Woolsey, the former head of the C.I.A., said of Hamza, “I think highly of him and I have no reason to disbelieve the claims that he’s made.” Hamza could not be reached for comment. On April 26th, according to the Times, he returned to Iraq as a member of a group of exiles designated by the Pentagon to help rebuild the country’s infrastructure. He is to be responsible for atomic energy.

The advantages and disadvantages of relying on defectors has been a perennial source of dispute within the American intelligence community-as Shulsky himself noted in a 1991 textbook on intelligence that he co-authored. Despite their importance, he wrote, “it is difficult to be certain that they are genuine. . . . The conflicting information provided by several major Soviet defectors to the United States . . . has never been completely sorted out; it bedeviled U.S. intelligence for a quarter of a century.” Defectors can provide unique insight into a repressive system. But such volunteer sources, as Shulsky writes, “may be greedy; they may also be somewhat unbalanced people who wish to bring some excitement into their lives; they may desire to avenge what they see as ill treatment by their government; or they may be subject to blackmail.” There is a strong incentive to tell interviewers what they want to hear.
With the Pentagon’s support, Chalabi’s group worked to put defectors with compelling stories in touch with reporters in the United States and Europe. The resulting articles had dramatic accounts of advances in weapons of mass destruction or told of ties to terrorist groups. In some cases, these stories were disputed in analyses by the C.I.A. Misstatements and inconsistencies in I.N.C. defector accounts were also discovered after the final series of U.N. weapons inspections, which ended a few days before the American assault. Dr. Glen Rangwala, a lecturer in political science at Cambridge University, compiled and examined the information that had been made public and concluded that the U.N. inspections had failed to find evidence to support the defectors’ claims.

For example, many newspapers published extensive interviews with Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, a civil engineer who, with the I.N.C.’s help, fled Iraq in 2001, and subsequently claimed that he had visited twenty hidden facilities that he believed were built for the production of biological and chemical weapons. One, he said, was underneath a hospital in Baghdad. Haideri was apparently a source for Secretary of State Colin Powell’s claim, in his presentation to the United Nations Security Council on February 5th, that the United States had “firsthand descriptions” of mobile factories capable of producing vast quantities of biological weapons. The U.N. teams that returned to Iraq last winter were unable to verify any of al-Haideri’s claims. In a statement to the Security Council in March, on the eve of war, Hans Blix, the U.N.’s chief weapons inspector, noted that his teams had physically examined the hospital and other sites with the help of ground-penetrating radar equipment. “No underground facilities for chemical or biological production or storage were found so far,” he said.

Almost immediately after September 11th, the I.N.C. began to publicize the stories of defectors who claimed that they had information connecting Iraq to the attacks. In an interview on October 14, 2001, conducted jointly by the Times and “Frontline,” the public-television program, Sabah Khodada, an Iraqi Army captain, said that the September 11th operation “was conducted by people who were trained by Saddam,” and that Iraq had a program to instruct terrorists in the art of hijacking. Another defector, who was identified only as a retired lieutenant general in the Iraqi intelligence service, said that in 2000 he witnessed Arab students being given lessons in hijacking on a Boeing 707 parked at an Iraqi training camp near the town of Salman Pak, south of Baghdad.

In separate interviews with me, however, a former C.I.A. station chief and a former military intelligence analyst said that the camp near Salman Pak had been built not for terrorism training but for counter-terrorism training. In the mid-eighties, Islamic terrorists were routinely hijacking aircraft. In 1986, an Iraqi airliner was seized by pro-Iranian extremists and crashed, after a hand grenade was triggered, killing at least sixty-five people. (At the time, Iran and Iraq were at war, and America favored Iraq.) Iraq then sought assistance from the West, and got what it wanted from Britain’s MI6. The C.I.A. offered similar training in counter-terrorism throughout the Middle East. “We were helping our allies everywhere we had a liaison,” the former station chief told me. Inspectors recalled seeing the body of an airplane-which appeared to be used for counter-terrorism training-when they visited a biological-weapons facility near Salman Pak in 1991, ten years before September 11th. It is, of course, possible for such a camp to be converted from one purpose to another. The former C.I.A. official noted, however, that terrorists would not practice on airplanes in the open. “That’s Hollywood rinky-dink stuff,” the former agent said. “They train in basements. You don’t need a real airplane to practice hijacking. The 9/11 terrorists went to gyms. But to take one back you have to practice on the real thing.”
Salman Pak was overrun by American troops on April 6th. Apparently, neither the camp nor the former biological facility has yielded evidence to substantiate the claims made before the war.

A former Bush Administration intelligence official recalled a case in which Chalabi’s group, working with the Pentagon, produced a defector from Iraq who was interviewed overseas by an agent from the D.I.A. The agent relied on an interpreter supplied by Chalabi’s people. Last summer, the D.I.A. report, which was classified, was leaked. In a detailed account, the London Times described how the defector had trained with Al Qaeda terrorists in the late nineteen-nineties at secret camps in Iraq, how the Iraqis received instructions in the use of chemical and biological weapons, and how the defector was given a new identity and relocated. A month later, however, a team of C.I.A. agents went to interview the man with their own interpreter. “He says, ‘No, that’s not what I said,’” the former intelligence official told me. “He said, ‘I worked at a fedayeen camp; it wasn’t Al Qaeda.’ He never saw any chemical or biological training.” Afterward, the former official said, “the C.I.A. sent out a piece of paper saying that this information was incorrect. They put it in writing.” But the C.I.A. rebuttal, like the original report, was classified. “I remember wondering whether this one would leak and correct the earlier, invalid leak. Of course, it didn’t.” The former intelligence official went on, “One of the reasons I left was my sense that they were using the intelligence from the C.I.A. and other agencies only when it fit their agenda. They didn’t like the intelligence they were getting, and so they brought in people to write the stuff. They were so crazed and so far out and so difficult to reason with-to the point of being bizarre. Dogmatic, as if they were on a mission from God.” He added, “If it doesn’t fit their theory, they don’t want to accept it.”

Shulsky’s work has deep theoretical underpinnings. In his academic and think-tank writings, Shulsky, the son of a newspaperman-his father, Sam, wrote a nationally syndicated business column-has long been a critic of the American intelligence community. During the Cold War, his area of expertise was Soviet disinformation techniques. Like Wolfowitz, he was a student of Leo Strauss’s, at the University of Chicago. Both men received their doctorates under Strauss in 1972. Strauss, a refugee from Nazi Germany who arrived in the United States in 1937, was trained in the history of political philosophy, and became one of the foremost conservative émigré scholars. He was widely known for his argument that the works of ancient philosophers contain deliberately concealed esoteric meanings whose truths can be comprehended only by a very few, and would be misunderstood by the masses. The Straussian movement has many adherents in and around the Bush Administration. In addition to Wolfowitz, they include William Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, and Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, who is particularly close to Rumsfeld. Strauss’s influence on foreign-policy decision-making (he never wrote explicitly about the subject himself) is usually discussed in terms of his tendency to view the world as a place where isolated liberal democracies live in constant danger from hostile elements abroad, and face threats that must be confronted vigorously and with strong leadership.
How Strauss’s views might be applied to the intelligence-gathering process is less immediately obvious. As it happens, Shulsky himself explored that question in a 1999 essay, written with Gary Schmitt, entitled “Leo Strauss and the World of Intelligence (By Which We Do Not Mean Nous)”-in Greek philosophy the term nous denotes the highest form of rationality. In the essay, Shulsky and Schmitt write that Strauss’s “gentleness, his ability to concentrate on detail, his consequent success in looking below the surface and reading between the lines, and his seeming unworldliness . . . may even be said to resemble, however faintly, the George Smiley of John le Carré’s novels.” Echoing one of Strauss’s major themes, Shulsky and Schmitt criticize America’s intelligence community for its failure to appreciate the duplicitous nature of the regimes it deals with, its susceptibility to social-science notions of proof, and its inability to cope with deliberate concealment.

The agency’s analysts, Shulsky and Schmitt argue, “were generally reluctant throughout the Cold War to believe that they could be deceived about any critical question by the Soviet Union or other Communist states. History has shown this view to have been extremely naïve.” They suggested that political philosophy, with its emphasis on the variety of regimes, could provide an “antidote” to the C.I.A.’s failings, and would help in understanding Islamic leaders, “whose intellectual world was so different from our own.”

Strauss’s idea of hidden meaning, Shulsky and Schmitt added, “alerts one to the possibility that political life may be closely linked to deception. Indeed, it suggests that deception is the norm in political life, and the hope, to say nothing of the expectation, of establishing a politics that can dispense with it is the exception.”

Robert Pippin, the chairman of the Committee on Social Thought at Chicago and a critic of Strauss, told me, “Strauss believed that good statesmen have powers of judgment and must rely on an inner circle. The person who whispers in the ear of the King is more important than the King. If you have that talent, what you do or say in public cannot be held accountable in the same way.” Another Strauss critic, Stephen Holmes, a law professor at New York University, put the Straussians’ position this way: “They believe that your enemy is deceiving you, and you have to pretend to agree, but secretly you follow your own views.” Holmes added, “The whole story is complicated by Strauss’s idea-actually Plato’s-that philosophers need to tell noble lies not only to the people at large but also to powerful politicians.”
When I asked one of Strauss’s staunchest defenders, Joseph Cropsey, professor emeritus of political science at Chicago, about the use of Strauss’s views in the area of policymaking, he told me that common sense alone suggested that a certain amount of deception is essential in government. “That people in government have to be discreet in what they say publicly is so obvious-‘If I tell you the truth I can’t but help the enemy.’” But there is nothing in Strauss’s work, he added, that “favors preëmptive action. What it favors is prudence and sound judgment. If you could have got rid of Hitler in the nineteen-thirties, who’s not going to be in favor of that? You don’t need Strauss to reach that conclusion.”

Some former intelligence officials believe that Shulsky and his superiors were captives of their own convictions, and were merely deceiving themselves. Vincent Cannistraro, the former chief of counter-terrorism operations and analysis at the C.I.A., worked with Shulsky at a Washington think tank after his retirement. He said, “Abe is very gentle and slow to anger, with a sense of irony. But his politics were typical for his group-the Straussian view.” The group’s members, Cannistraro said, “reinforce each other because they’re the only friends they have, and they all work together. This has been going on since the nineteen-eighties, but they’ve never been able to coalesce as they have now. September 11th gave them the opportunity, and now they’re in heaven. They believe the intelligence is there. They want to believe it. It has to be there.”

The rising influence of the Office of Special Plans has been accompanied by a decline in the influence of the C.I.A. and the D.I.A. One internal Pentagon memorandum went so far as to suggest that terrorism experts in the government and outside it had deliberately “downplayed or sought to disprove” the link between Al Qaeda and Iraq. “For many years, there has been a bias in the intelligence community” against defectors, the memorandum said. It urged that two analysts working with Shulsky be given the authority to “investigate linkages to Iraq” by having access to the “proper debriefing of key Iraqi defectors.”

A former C.I.A. task-force leader who is a consultant to the Bush Administration said that many analysts in the C.I.A. are convinced that the Chalabi group’s defector reports on weapons of mass destruction and Al Qaeda have produced little of value, but said that the agency “is not fighting it.” He said that the D.I.A. had studied the information as well. “Even the D.I.A. can’t find any value in it.” (The Pentagon, asked for comment, denied that there had been disputes between the C.I.A. and Special Plans over the validity of intelligence.)

In interviews, former C.I.A. officers and analysts described the agency as increasingly demoralized. “George knows he’s being beaten up,” one former officer said of George Tenet, the C.I.A. director. “And his analysts are terrified. George used to protect his people, but he’s been forced to do things their way.” Because the C.I.A.’s analysts are now on the defensive, “they write reports justifying their intelligence rather than saying what’s going on. The Defense Department and the Office of the Vice-President write their own pieces, based on their own ideology. We collect so much stuff that you can find anything you want.”

More than a year’s worth of increasingly bitter debate over the value and integrity of the Special Plans intelligence came to a halt in March, when President Bush authorized the war against Iraq. After a few weeks of fighting, Saddam Hussein’s regime collapsed, leaving American forces to declare victory against a backdrop of disorder and uncertainty about the country’s future. Ahmad Chalabi and the I.N.C. continued to provoke fights within the Bush Administration. The Pentagon flew Chalabi and hundreds of his supporters, heavily armed, into Iraq, amid tight security, over angry objections from the State Department. Chalabi is now establishing himself in Baghdad. His advocates in the Pentagon point out that he is not only a Shiite, like the majority of Iraqis, but also, as one scholar put it, “a completely Westernized businessman” (he emigrated to England with his parents in 1958, when he was a boy), which is one reason the State Department doubts whether he can gain support among Iraqis.

Chalabi is not the only point of contention, however. The failure, as of last week, to find weapons of mass destruction in places where the Pentagon’s sources confidently predicted they would be found has reanimated the debate on the quality of the office’s intelligence. A former high-level intelligence official told me that American Special Forces units had been sent into Iraq in mid-March, before the start of the air and ground war, to investigate sites suspected of being missile or chemical- and biological-weapon storage depots. “They came up with nothing,” the official said. “Never found a single Scud.”
Since then, there have been a number of false alarms and a tip that weapons may have been destroyed in the last days before the war, but no solid evidence. On April 22nd, Hans Blix, hours before he asked the U.N. Security Council to send his team back to Iraq, told the BBC, “I think it’s been one of the disturbing elements that so much of the intelligence on which the capitals built their case seemed to have been so shaky.”

There is little self-doubt or second-guessing in the Pentagon over the failure to immediately find the weapons. The Pentagon adviser to Special Plans told me he believed that the delay “means nothing. We’ve got to wait to get all the answers from Iraqi scientists who will tell us where they are.” Similarly, the Pentagon official who works for Luti said last week, “I think they’re hidden in the mountains or transferred to some friendly countries. Saddam had enough time to move them.” There were suggestions from the Pentagon that Saddam might be shipping weapons over the border to Syria. “It’s bait and switch,” the former high-level intelligence official said. “Bait them into Iraq with weapons of mass destruction. And, when they aren’t found, there’s this whole bullshit about the weapons being in Syria.”
In Congress, a senior legislative aide said, “Some members are beginning to ask and to wonder, but cautiously.” For now, he told me, “the members don’t have the confidence to say that the Administration is off base.” He also commented, “For many, it makes little difference. We vanquished a bad guy and liberated the Iraqi people. Some are astute enough to recognize that the alleged imminent W.M.D. threat to the U.S. was a pretext. I sometimes have to pinch myself when friends or family ask with incredulity about the lack of W.M.D., and remind myself that the average person has the idea that there are mountains of the stuff over there, ready to be tripped over. The more time elapses, the more people are going to wonder about this, but I don’t think it will sway U.S. public opinion much. Everyone loves to be on the winning side.”

Weapons may yet be found. Iraq is a big country, as the Administration has repeatedly pointed out in recent weeks. In a speech last week, President Bush said, “We’ve begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons, and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated.” Meanwhile, if the American advance hasn’t uncovered stashes of weapons of mass destruction, it has turned up additional graphic evidence of the brutality of the regime. But Saddam Hussein’s cruelty was documented long before September 11th, and was not the principal reason the Bush Administration gave to the world for the necessity of war.

Former Senator Bob Kerrey, a Democrat who served on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has been a strong supporter of the President’s decision to overthrow Saddam. “I do think building a democratic secular state in Iraq justifies everything we’ve done,” Kerrey, who is now president of New School University, in New York, told me. “But they’ve taken the intelligence on weapons and expanded it beyond what was justified.” Speaking of the hawks, he said, “It appeared that they understood that to get the American people on their side they needed to come up with something more to say than ‘We’ve liberated Iraq and got rid of a tyrant.’ So they had to find some ties to weapons of mass destruction and were willing to allow a majority of Americans to incorrectly conclude that the invasion of Iraq had something to do with the World Trade Center. Overemphasizing the national-security threat made it more difficult to get the rest of the world on our side. It was the weakest and most misleading argument we could use.” Kerrey added, “It appears that they have the intelligence. The problem is, they didn’t like the conclusions.”

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Background on Gray Fox or the US Army
Intelligence Support Activity (ISA)

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Perhaps the least known, and most classified unit within the realm of US special operations is the Intelligence Support Activity, a small, highly trained and capable intelligence unit. The amount of accurate and up-to-date information about the ISA is very small, due to the extremely high secrecy surrounding the unit, but over the years, various books and reports have gleamed some information about the ISA. The ISA's origins are in the Foreign Operating Group (FOG), whose origin in turn is in the 1979 overthrow of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. The rapidly deteriorating situation in the country prompted the United States to create a small Special Forces unit with the purpose of surveying the US embassy. Operators from the unit entered Nicaragua using false passports, and proceeded to photograph the embassy from every angle, record the types of locks on all doors, inside and outside, record the number of exits and windows, and finally drew up the internal layout of the building. The survey was successful, which led defense officials to create ad hoc Special Forces units to survey US embassies in hotspots around the world. Ironically, the embassy in Iran was on their itinerary, but, history intervened, and it was overrun by a mob who took the larger part of the staff hostage.

When the first rescue attempt of the hostages in Iran failed, a second attempt, code-named Honey Badger, immediately started. One problem that plagued the first attempt was the lack of valuable intelligence. The CIA proved unable to provide the critical intelligence Delta Force needed, such as the number of guards, the type of weapons they were using and what kinds of locks were on the doors. The second rescue force was not going to be affected by the same problem, and the FOG was established in July of 1980, under the control of Colonel Jerry King. In the summer of 1980, FOG agents were infiltrated into Teheran to report back on the hostages' whereabouts, movements of the Iranians, as well as to recruit local agents. Unfortunately, the hostages were dispersed throughout the country, and the chance never came for a second attempt, but the seeds were planted for the Intelligence Support Activity.

The government realized the importance of the FOG. With it, they had a unit of military spies able to covertly infiltrate a country and provide hands-on, critical intelligence, as well as to raise logistical support for counter-terrorist commandos in case of a crisis. The FOG was re-named the Intelligence Support Activity (ISA), and given an initial budged of $7 million. The unit would be immediately deployed to any country where a terrorist act against the United States had taken place, and would start providing critical intelligence, as well as setting up landing zones and infiltration routes for the counter-terrorist force. Colonel Jerry King retained his position as the head of the group, now 100-strong and headquartered in a nondescript building in Arlington, Virginia. ISA was highly classified. It was provided with a cover name, Tactical Concept Activity, and would never be acknowledged by the Pentagon. Its budget would be carefully concealed so that it never made a paper trail, and only a dozen officials would know the names and locations of all of ISA's agents and safehouses. ISA would operate under a host of cover names to confuse anyone without the need to know. Royal Cape, Granite Rock and Powder Keg were some, Centra Spike and Torn Victor being other possible cover names.

ISA was divided into branches of signals intelligence (SIGINT) specialists, human intelligence (HUMINT) specialists, and a highly compartmentalized direct action element, the "shooters." Candidates pulled from computer records, or by word of mouth were required to pass a tough selection course, physical and psychological tests. One selection exercise involved dropping a candidate off in the desert without food, water or means of communication. He would be given instructions and equipment along the way, and was required to perform certain assignments, for example, setting up a SATCOM system. Immediately after, he would be dropped off in a city, and asked to perform clandestine activities. If successful, the candidate would then continue training within ISA in such skills as parachuting, survival, weapons and intelligence gathering.

In 1981, the CIA, along with a covert helicopter unit, Seaspray, was involved in the secret transport of Lebanese Christian leader Bashir Gemayel back to Beirut after a round of secret talks with the President Reagan. The plan involved flying feet above the turbulent Mediterranean Sea, at night, through hostile airspace. An ISA technician with a SATCOM was provided for the operation to aid in the tracking. It was discovered that he was tape-recording the operation, prompting fears that ISA head Jerry King might use the tape as leverage in case the op went bad. The ISA agent was ordered to stop the recording, an order to which he complied.

On December 17, 1981, Colonel James Dozier, the highest ranking American army officer in the NATO southern European Command was kidnapped by members of the Red Brigade terrorist faction. Under Operation Winter Harvest, a small team of Delta Force technicians was dispatched to Italy to provide assistance with the search for Dozier. After a massive effort, including "remote viewers" from the United States, turned up nothing, a team of ISA signals intelligence specialists was also sent over to Italy to provide any assistance they could, along with sophisticated equipment and specially outfitted helicopters. The ISA technicians were instrumental in the tracking and capture of a number of Red Brigades terrorists, and most probably the location of the kidnapped Dozier himself.

In late 1981, ISA agents were involved in the attempt to acquire a Soviet T-72 tank, which had obsessed intelligence analysts. The operation, code-named Great Falcon, made a deal with the Iraqi government for a T-72, in exchange for 175mm cannons. The negotiations were going so well that Iraq decided to throw in a Mil Mi-24 Hind D helicopter and a MiG-25 fighter-interceptor. ISA was close to making the exchange, but the deal fell through at the last minute.

ISA's existence became public in 1982 as a result of a scandal involving US POWs in Vietnam. Reconnaissance overflights revealed a possible location where POWs, still believed to be held by the Vietnamese early in the year. An operation was planned for their rescue, with Seaspray, Delta Force and the ISA all playing a role. But, ISA also sponsored a private rescue mission by Vietnam War veteran Bo Gritz, providing him with thousands of dollars worth of communications equipment, cameras, along with plane tickets and intelligence photos. When government officials found out, they were horrified, they seemed to have a rogue agency within its ranks. A Congressional hearing was held, and the media revealed the existence of a "classified military intelligence unit." As a result, ISA was almost disbanded, but Army officials succeeded in ensuring its survival, albeit on a much tighter leash.

In 1982, ISA SIGINT specialists took part in Operation Queens Hunter, a Seaspray operation in the skies above El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. The specialists, nicknamed "knob turners" operated sophisticated electronic eavesdropping equipment located in the back cabin of specially-outfitted Seaspray Beechcraft 100 airplanes. The aim of the operation was to monitor cross-border raids and movements of Sandinista forces and rebels in El Salvador. ISA operators were said to be so skilled that they could tell whether a tank needed a tune-up from background noise of transmissions. Along with Queens Hunter, ISA was involved in many operations across Central America, in Panama, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. One of their major tasks was to create "pathfinders." They marked secret infiltration routes and bases American forces could use if they were ever sent into the country.

Also in 1982, an ISA team was sent to Sudan to provide protection to Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiry and his vice president. Intelligence picked up reports that the two, along with other Sudanese officials were the targets of Libyan-sponsored terrorist assassinations. ISA intelligence specialists, K9 units, security experts and demolition experts were sent to the country undercover as military advisers. They set up protection for the president and installed a security system. Later that same year, Delta Force and ISA operators were sent to Saudi Arabia to help organize and train a Special Purpose Detachment of the Saudi National Guard. They also provided protection for numerous Arabian princes, and established good contacts while down there.

During the 1983 American invasion of Grenada, special forces units were plagued by lack of useful and up-to-date intelligence. It was the type of mission ISA was designed for, but no agents were sent in. Most officials disliked the unit's head, Jerry King, and thus, JSOC did not send the unit in.

In 1983, a five-man ISA unit led by Lt. Col. William Cowan was dispatched to Beirut, Lebanon to deal with the increasing threat to American interests in the area. Cowan and another ISA agent managed to drive through every sector of Beirut, even the Shiite suburb, a dangerous practice at the time. They acquainted themselves with the layout and landmarks of the city for future reference. ISA members conducted extensive interviews with Special Forces members in the country, Lebanese Army and CIA and embassy officials. They discovered there was no co-ordination between them, and vital information regarding terrorist attacks was not being shared. The team put together a detailed critique and proposed changes to the organization of the forces, but the document was ignored by the higher officials insisting that security was adequate. On October 23, 1983, a truck bomb slammed into the US Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Americans, and injuring scores more. Almost simultaneously, another truck bomb exploded in the French barracks, killing 56. The decision was made to deploy another ISA unit.

Cowan put together another five-man team, but their deployment was stalled for three weeks. This time around, travel through the city was a very dangerous endeavour, with roadblocks everywhere. Along with reviewing the security and organization again, ISA was also tasked with formulating plans for reprisals against the Syrians who had shot down two US fighters. The agents prepared contingency plans for a commando force to enter Beirut clandestinely, and to strike at Hizbollah and Syrian targets. Cowan traveled the Lebanese countryside pinpointing the locations of Syrian anti-aircraft emplacements. While driving through northern Lebanon, Cowan and his mates suffered several close calls with Syrian roadblocks and patrols. Landing zones were established, Lebanese militias contacted for help, and plans formulated for a commando force. ISA agents even managed to obtain Lebanese license plates, which would allow Delta to be parachuted in with their own cars, then "legitimized" with the plates. The ISA team left Beirut in January 1984. Sadly, the team's evaluation did not serve to upgrade American security standards, and a truck bomb exploded from within 40 feet of the embassy entrance later that year.

In 1984, political instability swept through the Seychelles, a group of islands off the coast of Africa. The situation quickly worsened, until officials in the US embassy were in genuine concern for their lives, so much that the ambassador cabled for immediate help. ISA was asked to develop a plan of action. The strategists decided the best option would be to send an ISA team in to provide accurate intelligence on the situation, and to prepare to secure landing zones for a Delta rescue force. Political bickering stalled the deployment of the agents, and finally, the operation was approved. By the time though, the situation had begun to subside.

When TWA Flight 847 was hijacked on June 14, 1985, America's counter-terrorist forces went on full alert. Delta Force and SEAL Team Six were scrambled in preparation to liberate the hostages if needed, as the airplane hopped back and forth from Beirut to Algiers. Delta's deployment was stalled by bureaucratic dealings, so ISA mobilized its most compartmentalized unit, the direct action element, the shooters. They began forming their own plan for storming the airplane and liberating the hostages. ISA operators would infiltrate either Beirut or Algiers on commercial flights to avoid tipping off the terrorists or the authorities. Delta was finally given the go-ahead and flew to Sicily and Cyprus along with Task Force 160 and Seaspray helicopters, thus ending the need for ISA's help. Things became more complicated though, as the airplane took on more terrorists and weapons on one of its hops to Beirut, and Algerian authorities refused Delta permission to mount a rescue on their soil. ISA was asked to form an Algerian-based plan and a Beirut-based one for rescue. ISA recommended covert deployment of its operatives to both airports to secure landing zones and infiltration routes. Approval was given for ISA's deployment, and operators flew to Frankfurt, where some stayed in case the airliner, now back in Beirut, flew back to Algiers. The other half flew to Cyprus to join the rest of the rescue force. Electronic specialists and SIGINT operators comprised part of the force. An ISA agent was secretly infiltrated into Beirut where he provided real-time intelligence on the location of the hostages. The situation looked dire. Hostages were dispersed around Beirut and those with Jewish sounding names were being isolated. Bickering between the CIA and JSOC further complicated matters. Officials developed a contingency plan for the new situation: ISA operators were to infiltrate the city and confirm the locations of the hostages, as well as make contact with the Lebanese Christian militia. Then, Delta and SEAL Team 6 operators would make their way into the city in small groups and wait at safe-houses until the time was right. A simultaneous raid on the targets was to be made. The order never came; a secret arms-for-hostages deal was cut by the American government.

Apparently, ISA's direct action element was also put on alert during the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship, Achille Lauro. They were never used. In 1989, during Operation Just Cause, the American invasion of Panama, ISA proposed to deploy a team of its intelligence agents to track Manuel Noriega, but the offer was declined. The ISA wasn't popular within JSOC.

Also in 1989, ISA was rumoured to have taken part in the hunt for the richest drug trafficker in the world, Pablo Escobar, operating under the code-name Centra Spike. An investigation by journalist Mark Bowden (author of Blackhawk Down) revealed that in 1989, the Colombian government asked for US help in tracking down Escobar. A top-secret "Army electronic surveillance team," was sent to aid the Colombians in August of 1989, as a part of Operation Heavy Shadow. Centra Spike was known to operate under several cover names, including Torn Victor, Cemetery Wind, Capacity Gear and Robin Court, and closely matched ISA's description. Stationed in the fifth floor of the American embassy, and operating from specially outfitted Beechcraft 300 and 350 aircraft, Centra Spike tracked Escobar around the country. Its skills "perfected during missions over El Salvador," Centra Spike honed in on Escobar's cellular phone calls and relayed the information back to Colombian police forces. Unfortunately, the police were either heavily corrupted or unwilling to arrest Escobar, and the intelligence went to waste. When Escobar surrendered in 1991, Centra Spike was pulled out, only to return a year later, when Escobar escaped from his comfortable prison. Deployed together with a small Delta Force contingent, Centra Spike flew over Colombia in their airplanes and continued to track Escobar. The Beechcrafts were made to appear normal from the outside, save for a wingspan six inches longer. This extra length concealed the main eavesdropping antennas, while others could be lowered from the belly while in flight. Once inside, Centra Spike agents would plug in laptops into the airplane's power and could simultaneously track four frequencies. This time, the manhunt for Escobar was being led by Col. Hugo Martinez, who did not intend to let Escobar get away, and who operated with ruthless efficiency, aided by Centra Spike's intelligence. During the operation, a rivalry developed between Centra Spike, and a CIA intelligence unit named Majestic Eagle. Both were doing the same thing in Colombia, except Centra Spike was doing a better job, at a much lower cost. When the CIA took credit for Centra Spike's work, the Army became furious and a competition was arranged between the two units. Tracking dummy targets over Medellin, Centra Spike managed to pinpoint their locations within 200 meters, while Majestic Eagle came no closer than four miles. It was settled, and Majestic Eagle withdrew from the operation. Centra Spike was withdrawn in 1993 for a temporary assignment in Somalia to aid US special forces there, but resumed the hunt later in the year. By November 1993, the noose was tightening around Escobar, and Centra Spike managed to track him down to a suburb of Medellin called Los Olivos. On December 2, 1993, with help from Centra Spike and a mobile Colombian surveillance team, Escobar's hideout was pinpointed, and Colombian police moved in. Escobar was shot as he was trying to escape from the roof of his house. The manhunt was over.

Some of ISA's most recent deployments was in 1993 in Somalia. ISA was allegedly co-operating with Task Force Ranger, and was responsible for tracking down Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Adid, through electronic surveillance and Somalian informants.

ISA was also rumoured to be operating in Bosnia in the last few years under the code-name Torn Victor. Part of a Delta-DEVGRU task force, ISA provided intelligence on the whereabouts of Bosnian Serb war crimes suspects. The operation was codenamed Amber Star, and was a joint US-British-French-Dutch effort to apprehend the suspects. A much more classified component was a solely-US effort codenamed Green Light, focusing specifically on former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. The intelligence gathering part was named "Buckeye" and consisted of CIA, NSA and Torn Victor operatives. US News & World Report describes Torn Victor as "trained as high-risk intelligence gatherers," a title fitting the ISA. Units in Sarajevo tracked Karadzic electronically, while other agents were on the ground in Pale, Karadzic's home. In one particular situation, Delta and Torn Victor agents supposedly donned French uniforms (Pale is in the French sector of the UN zone) and traveled to Pale hoping to conduct closer surveillance of his whereabouts. The raid was cancelled over fears that the French and Italians tipped Karadzic off.

Currently, ISA is believed to be under control of JSOC, and published accounts have it organized into administration, training, SIGINT, HUMINT and direct action elements. The force is supposedly around 250-275 operators, who excel in intelligence gathering, languages and electronic surveillance. The direct action element reportedly trains with Delta Force and DEVGRU to maintain their skills.

(Sources: Secret Warriors: Inside the Covert Military Operations of the Reagan Era by Steven Emerson
Killing Pablo by Mark Bowden
US News & World Report 7/6/98 - "Hunting war criminals: The first account of secret U.S. missions in Bosnia by Richard J. Newman.[See Also: Moscow Times, friday November 1, 2002] [Los Angeles Times, Oct.27, 2002] )

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U.S. political objectives in the Middle East will Fail--
Creating a New Cold War with China and Russia; Target is Iran not Iraq.

Afghan prisoners

Mr. Craig B Hulet?

In every age...the ultimate sources of war are the beliefs of those in power:
their idea about what is of most fundamental importance
and may therefore ultimately be worth a war.
-- Evan Luard, International War

This may answer two questions: The first, what are Bush’s political objectives? It is not so much Iraq’s WMD as we are led to believe; it is more about Iran. Bush will try to outflank Iran and not allow oil and gas pipelines to run through Iran from the Northern Caspian region, Russia, Caspian Sea, and Turkmenistan/ Kazakhstan, South to the Persian Gulf and into Pakistan. Bush, inextricably tied to western oil interests, wants to run their pipelines through Afghanistan into Pakistan as the counter weight on the Eastern front. Then pipelines through Iraq, an Iraq controlled by the U.S., is the counterweight on the Western front. Control Baghdad, you control the Euphrates and Tigris rivers’ trade waterways. But Russia will try to dominate in the North, with pipelines running North and Northwest into Russia and across to the Black Sea; China will try to dominate the East with pipelines running East and Southeast into China, "The Silk Road" route. Put succinctly: Russia wants the Black Sea routes, China the Silk Road routes, Bush wants everything to flow South from the entire region into his deep pockets via the Persian Gulf routes. Geography rules even if borders no longer matter. Also, recently reported (Jan.14, 2003 NYT), Russia is negotiating massive pipeline routes from its Siberian oil fields: one from Angarsk into the northern industrial region of China and a separate one which would bypass China. Negotiating with the Japanese for a pipeline which would run from Lake Baikal to the port of Nakhodka, near Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan. Oil is the Great Game and everyone is in on it. Russia and China have already opened dialogue on security issues with India, and Japan will not remain in economic doldrums forever.

The second is control of the future; the encirclement of Iran, isolating its oil and gas production, is again, but one of many goals. Control of these routes is primary to western interest’s control of the future. Thus, Hulet argues, while Russia and China seem "out of it" today, they along with India have been holding trilateral security meetings regularly since Bush removed the Taliban. They see the chessboard. Bush may be pressing the United States into a highly lucrative new Cold War with this trilateral formation; Iran will not sit idle while this takes place. Iran is more the target than Iraq. To control, or dominate Iran, Mr. Bush has to encircle it: Afghanistan to the East, Turkey/Azerbaijan to the North, Iraq to the West, the South are already U.S. stooges. Pipelines, in effect, will become the new Berlin Wall. See the map attached below.

The Caspian News Agency reported recently: 16:12 16.01.2003/ Iran and Azerbaijan nearing agreement on Caspian Sea: Baku, January 16, 2002. (CNA). The Iranian Deputy Foreign minister Mekhti Safari arrived on January 15 at Baku to hold talks with the Azeri officials on the Caspian sea. Azerbaijani and Iranian officials have considered dividing the Caspian Sea, which is believed to contain large oil and gas reserves, into five equal parts. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, the sea's status was regulated by treaties between the Soviet Union and Iran. Azerbaijan says it is nearing an agreement with Iran on the legal status of the Caspian Sea...(end). Russia and China today may not fend off the American imperium, even going along with what Mr. Bush sees as necessity in the Middle East, but things change. In the words of one of America’s finest scholars on the subject at hand: “Why has the unprecedented concentration of American power today not triggered balancing responses from other major states? One answer is to be patient: the slow distancing of allies and other states from the American imperium is only a matter of time.” -- G. John Ikenberry, Foreign Service School, Georgetown University

Azerbaijan is the Key to Understanding the Region

Azerbaijan is key to understanding the region and the power. During the past decade the only western source of power and force projection into the region was with the USACC. The United States Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. It was this body that has, and remains, the source of negotiations, planning and structure in the region. Prior to many of its board members entering the present White House along with Mr. Bush, they were the force behind the U.S. Congressional effort called the Silk Road Strategy of 1996-1998; the Caspian initiative; Black Sea pipeline routes and the division of the Caspian Sea, etc.

The USACC Advisory Board consisted of “only” these seven men: Dr. Henry Kissinger, James A Baker III, Lloyd Bentsen, Zibigniew Brzezinski, Dick Cheney, Brent Scowcroft, John Sununu. It is noted here that the current Vice President’s daughter, Elizabeth Cheney-Perry, has been named Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs for regional economic issues; she left Armitage Associates for the job. The USACC Vice-Chairman of the Board is James A Baker IV (Baker Botts, L.L.P.); Chairman Emeritus is T. Don Stacy (VP, Amoco); with Richard Armitage as Board President, until he resigned to become Colin Powell’s Deputy, which rounds out the US elite running the USACC. The remaining Board of Directors are a who’s who of the oil and gas multinational corporate interests of the west and specifically the United States. On the Board of Trustees or USACC the latter interests hold sway again with three primary exceptions: Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Joseph R. Pitts (R-PA) (whose efforts formed the 1996 legislative backbone of the House/Senate Silk Road Strategy for Afghanistan, [Unocal, Texaco] et al) and Richard Perle (US Defense Policy Board). The Legal Counsel for USACC is Ted Jones of the Texas Law firm Baker Botts L.L.P. (James A Baker III & IV’s law firm.); Treasurer is Karl Mattison (VP, Riggs Bank, NA). It was the James A. Baker III Institute of Rice University which outlined the Cheney Strategic Energy Initiative which later became the Administration’s Strategic Energy National Security Policy. (Clearly Dick Cheney wouldn’t be interested in giving Congress the names of who he consulted on the Energy Initiative as they would amount to the remainder of the Board of Directors and Board of Trustees of USACC.) * see below.
The argument made here remains theoretical and analytical. If anyone can outline a better explanation as to what Bush’s interests, not necessarily the American citizens, are in the region, this analyst would bend in humble humility before it. Facts are facts regardless of how they may be interpreted. There is no denying the Bush Administration and the above named beneficiaries are out to achieve political objectives the American people, indeed the world’s people, are unaware of. Then “in whose interests” does Bush work? It is this analyst’s theory that Mr. Bush will attempt to achieve the objectives of a unique kind of American-led corporate Empire: HHMMS is what it has been called: the Hollywood Harvard McDonalds Microsoft Syndrome.

This Lucrative New Cold War?

The map above was provided with the legislation offered by the joint US House /Senate hearing on the Silk Road Strategy, 1996. The encirclement and isolation of Iran has been a national security objective for over a decade. The arrests of hundreds of Iranians in the slick INS sting operation the month of January in California may not have been as coincidental as we think. It was primarily Iranians arrested. Mr. Bush will achieve this objective at the cost of likely creating a new Cold War with pipelines as the New Berlin Wall. One can see how Russia, China, India and North Korea (maybe all of South and East Asia including Japan) could easily find themselves in a balancing alliance against the one great hegemon, what Europe is calling the Hyperpower, the American-led Empire. Make no mistake about this theory, the idea encompasses what Mr. Bush might perceive as a positive: A new Cold War. The old Cold War was quite lucrative for specific collections of corporations and individuals. It could be just one of many political objectives the layman might construe as dangerous and with negative side effects.
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* Remaining USACC Board of Directorsand Trustees: Farhad Azima (CEO Aviation Leasing), Howard Chase (Dir. International Affairs, BP), Don Condon (Pres,, CONOCO), Stanley Escudero (Moncrief Oil Int.), Nader Fahm (Pres. Alfacom), Andrew Fawthrop (VP, Unocal), Mike Kostiw (Gen. Manager, Chevron Texaco), David Sambrooks (VP, Devon Energy), Gregory K. Williams (Strategic Security Manager, Coca Cola) -- Trustees: Abdullah Akyuz (Pres. TUSIAD-US Inc.), Iiham Aliyev (VP, SOCAR), Graham Allison (Former Ass. Secretary of Defense; Dir. Belfer Center for Science and Int. Affairs, Kennedy School, Harvard), Frank Henke (Chair, American Bank and Trust), Hafiz Pashayev (Ambassador of Azerbaijan in the US), John Robert (Senior Advisor, American Int. Group), Stephen Robertson ( Pres. Bertling Logistics), Nancy Tuomey (VP, First Union bank), Frank Verrastro (Senior Policy Advisor, Vinson & Elkins).
(End PR: January 17, 2003)
(Source: independent research by Craig B Hulet and its content his sole responsibility)

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The Briefing Paper below titled Election Problematic

was prepared Nov. 7th on the elections of 2000. Click on the WORD document to

review what Mr. Hulet has to say on the November 5th Republican victories.

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