National Security Archive Update, August 22, 2008 – PR Push for Iraq War Preceded Intelligence Findings
“White Paper” Drafted before NIE even Requested
For more information contact:
John Prados – 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, August 22, 2008 – The U.S. intelligence community buckled sooner in 2002 than previously reported to Bush administration pressure for data justifying an invasion of Iraq, according to a documents posting on the Web today by National Security Archive senior fellow John Prados.
The documents suggest that the public relations push for war came before the intelligence analysis, which then conformed to public positions taken by Pentagon and White House officials. For example, a July 2002 draft of the “White Paper” ultimately issued by the CIA in October 2002 actually pre-dated the National Intelligence Estimate that the paper purportedly summarized, but which Congress did not insist on until September 2002.
A similar comparison between a declassified draft and the final version of the British government’s “White Paper” on Iraq weapons of mass destruction adds to evidence that the two nations colluded in the effort to build public support for the invasion of Iraq. Dr. Prados concludes that the new evidence tends to support charges raised by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan and by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in its long-delayed June 2008 “Phase II” report on politicization of intelligence.
Visit the Web site of the National Security Archive for more information about today’s posting.
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Taxpayers for Common Sense: Our Troops Deserve Better
Our Troops Deserve Better
Volume XIII No. 34 – August 22, 2008
The election system that serves our military and other citizens serving away from home is in shambles. In the most recent national election in 2006, just 5.5 percent of such people voted, according to a report (pdf) by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Compare that to an overall 2006 voter turnout (pdf) of 48 percent (which is still too low).
But the report also indicates that the low turnout in the overseas group is not for a lack of trying or money. Unsurprisingly, it looks like the various military and other bureaucracies in charge of making sure our most dedicated public servants can select their elected leaders, are falling short. Not only are millions of U.S. citizens effectively being shut out of participating in their democracy, we’re wasting millions of dollars in taxpayer money in the process.
Congress has been trying to fix the problem by directing the Department of Defense (DOD) to come up with a better fax and email system to facilitate a more simple remote voting method. But progress has been pathetic. Snail mail absentee ballots for these voters has been in place for a while, but in 2000 DOD launched a pilot program that investigated using an electronic email/fax combination. In 2004, 17 people received ballots through the system at a total cost of $576,000; in 2006 DOD reported eight ballots cast at a cost of about $1.1 million. Not exactly cost-effective.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that there are 6 million people who fall into the category covered by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). These include overseas military and their families, civilians working overseas, as well as military and civilians working in the U.S., but whose work requires them to live where they are not registered to vote. In addition to the failed electronic system described above, UOCAVA-related voters are able to utilize the more traditional mail absentee ballot method to vote. However, especially for the military, the logistical hurdles have resulted in very low voter participation. An individual has to request a ballot from the appropriate source by the deadline, receive it, fill it out correctly, and return it in time for the vote to count. According to the EAC report, in 2006 less than 1 million of the UOCAVA-eligible people requested an absentee ballot, and of those, only 264,000 ballots were actually cast in the election.
These are not new problems, according to recent studies. But in this digital day and age when people can safely file their local and federal income taxes from their home computers, it’s a disgrace that some of the most dedicated of our citizens are effectively disenfranchised at the ballot box by an archaic system.
DOD claims it can’t implement a new email-based system until the EAC writes their guidelines for Internet based voting.
In other words, millions of people, who in many cases are putting their lives on the line for the rest of us, continue to be denied the ability to choose their Commander-in-Chief and other leaders. There is no excuse for DOD and federal elections officials wasting millions of dollars in failing efforts to cost-effectively construct an electronic system that allows military and civilian public servants to safely and securely participate in electing their leaders.
Let us know what you think.
Going on at Taxpayer.net This Week
DOD: $13b to Contractors in Afghanistan
Judge Rules Against Sen. Stevens’ Motion to Shift Trial to Alaska
Top 10 Congressional Resolutions of the 110th Congress
110th Congress By the Numbers
New Analysis: Lawmakers Cutting Their Earmark Calories
FY2009 Appropriations Bills: TCS Analyses and Earmark Databases
Check out TCS’s Database of 2008 Congressional Earmarks
TCS in the News
TCS was cited in dozens of stories this past week Check them all out in the Headlines About TCS section of our redesigned website.
Notable Quote
“You always find out who’s been swimming naked when the tide goes out. We found out that Wall Street has been kind of a nudist beach.”
–Warren Buffett
weekly wastebasket at www.taxpayer.net
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The Eurasian Corridor: Pipeline Geopolitics and the New Cold War
By Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, August 22, 2008
The ongoing crisis in the Caucasus is intimately related to the control over energy pipeline and transportation corridors.
There is evidence that the Georgian attack on South Ossetia on August 7 was carefully planned. High level consultations were held with US and NATO officials in the months preceding the attacks.
The attacks on South Ossetia were carried out one week after the completion of extensive US – Georgia war games (July 15-31st, 2008). They were also preceded by high level Summit meetings held under the auspices GUAM, a US-NATO sponsored regional military alliance.
War in Georgia Time Line
July 1-2, 2008 GUAM Summit in Batumi, Georgia.
July 1, “US-GUAM Summit” on the sideline of the official GUAM venue.
July 5 -12, Russian Defense Ministry hold War Games in the North Caucasus region under the codename “Caucasus Frontier 2008″.
July 9, 2008 China and Kazakhstan announce the commencement of construction of the Kazakhstan-China natural gas pipeline (KCP)
July 15-31, The US and Georgia hold War Games under the codename Operation “Immediate Response”. One thousand US servicemen participate in the military exercise.
August 7, Georgian Ground Forces and Air Force Attack South Ossetia
August 8, Russian Forces Intervene in South Ossetia.
August 14, 2008 Signing of US-Polish Agreement on the stationing of “US Interceptor Missiles” on Polish Territory
Introduction: The GUAM Summit Venue
In early July 2008, a regional summit was held in the Georgian city of Batumi under the auspices of GUAM
GUAM is a military agreement between Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova, first established in 1997. Since 2006, following the withdrawal of Uzbekistan, GUAM was renamed: The Organization for Democracy and Economic Development – GUAM.
GUAM has little to do with “Democracy and Economic Development”. It is a de facto appendage of NATO. It has been used by the US and the Atlantic Alliance to extend their zone of influence into the heartland of the former Soviet Union.
The main thrust of GUAM as a military alliance is to “protect” the energy and transportation corridors, on behalf of the Anglo-American oil giants. GUAM countries are also the recipients of US-NATO military aid and training.
The militarization of these corridors is a central feature of US-NATO planning. Georgia and Ukraine membership in NATO is part of the agenda of controlling the energy and transport corridors from the Caspian Sea basin to Western Europe.
The July 1-2, 2008 GUAM Summit Batumi meetings, under the chairmanship of President Saakashvili, focused on the central issue of pipeline and transportation corridors. The theme of the Summit was a “GUAM – Integrating Europe’s East”, from an economic and strategic-military standpoint, essentially with a view to isolating Russia.
The presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia and the Ukraine (respectively Ilham Aliyev, Mikheil Saakashvili and Viktor Yushchenko) were in attendance together with the presidents of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, and Lithuania, Valdas Adamkus. Moldova’s head of State flatly refused to attend this summit.
Undermining Russia
The GUAM Summit agenda focused on undermining Moscow’s influence in the Caucasus and Eastern Europe. The Polish President was in attendance.
US-NATO installations in Eastern Europe including the Missile Defense Shield are directly related to the evolving geopolitical situation in the Caucasus. Barely a week after the bombing of South Ossetia by Georgian forces, the US and Poland signed an agreement (August 14) which would allow the US Air Force to deploy US “interceptor missiles” on Polish soil:
“… As military strategists have pointed out, the US missiles in Poland pose a total existential threat to the future existence of the Russian nation. The Russian Government has repeatedly warned of this since US plans were first unveiled in early 2007. Now, despite repeated diplomatic attempts by Russia to come to an agreement with Washington, the Bush Administration, in the wake of a humiliating US defeat in Georgia, has pressured the Government of Poland to finally sign the pact. The consequences could be unthinkable for Europe and the planet. ” (William Engdahl, Missile Defense: Washington and Poland just moved the World closer to War, Global Research, August 15, 2008)
The “US-GUAM Summit”
Barely acknowledged by the media, a so-called “US-GUAM Summit” meeting was also held on July 1st on the sidelines of the official GUAM summit venue.
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Merkel met both GUAM and non-GUAM delegations behind closed doors. Several bilateral meetings were held including a Poland GUAM meeting (during which the issue of the US missile defense shield on Polish territory was most probably addressed). Private meetings were also held on July 1st and 2nd at the residence of the Georgian President.
US-Georgia War Games
…
Complete article at:
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9907
Author’s Note: This article has focused selectively on key pipeline corridors with a view to analyzing broad geopolitical and strategic issues.
An examination of the overall network of Eurasian pipeline corridors would require a far more detailed and comprehensive presentation.
Michel Chossudovsky is the author of the international bestseller America’s “War on Terrorism” Global Research, 2005.
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And None Dare Call It Treason
08/22/2008
Who is Randy Scheunemann?
He is the principal foreign policy adviser to John McCain and potential successor to Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski as national security adviser to the president of the United States.
But Randy Scheunemann has another identity, another role.
He is a dual loyalist, a foreign agent whose assignment is to get America committed to spilling the blood of her sons for client regimes who have made this moral mercenary a rich man.
From January 2007 to March 2008, the McCain campaign paid Scheunemann $70,000 — pocket change compared to the $290,000 his Orion Strategies banked in those same 15 months from the Georgian regime of Mikheil Saakashvili.
What were Mikheil’s marching orders to Tbilisi’s man in Washington? Get Georgia a NATO war guarantee. Get America committed to fight Russia, if necessary, on behalf of Georgia.
Scheunemann came close to succeeding.
Had he done so, U.S. soldiers and Marines from Idaho and West Virginia would be killing Russians in the Caucasus, and dying to protect Scheunemann’s client, who launched this idiotic war the night of Aug. 7. That people like Scheunemann hire themselves out to put American lives on the line for their clients is a classic corruption of American democracy.
U.S. backing for his campaign to retrieve his lost provinces is what Saakashvili paid Scheunemann to produce. But why should Americans fight Russians to force 70,000 South Ossetians back into the custody of a regime they detest? Why not let the South Ossetians decide their own future in free elections?
Not only is the folly of the Bush interventionist policy on display in the Caucasus, so, too, is its manifest incoherence.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates says we have sought for 45 years to stay out of a shooting war with Russia and we are not going to get into one now. President Bush assured us there will be no U.S. military response to the Russian move into Georgia.
That is a recognition of, and a bowing to, reality — namely, that Russia’s control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and occupation of a strip of Georgia cannot be a casus belli for the United States. We may deplore it, but it cannot justify war with Russia.
If that be true, and it transparently is, what are McCain, Barack Obama, Bush, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel doing committing the United States and Germany to bringing Georgia into NATO? For that would commit us to war for a cause we have already conceded, by our paralysis, does not justify a war.
Not only did Scheunemann’s two-man lobbying firm receive $730,000 since 2001 to get Georgia a NATO war guarantee, he was paid by Romania and Latvia to do the same. And he succeeded.
Latvia, a tiny Baltic republic annexed by Joseph Stalin in June 1940 during his pact with Adolf Hitler, was set free at the end of the Cold War. Yet hundreds of thousands of Russians had been moved into Latvia by Stalin, and as Riga served as a base of the Baltic Sea fleet, many Russian naval officers retired there.
The children and grandchildren of these Russians are Latvian citizens. They are a cause of constant tension with ethnic Letts and of strife with Moscow, which has assumed the role of protector of Russians left behind in the “near abroad” when the Soviet Union broke apart.
Thanks to the lobbying of Scheunemann and friends, Latvia has been brought into NATO and given a U.S. war guarantee. If Russia intervenes to halt some nasty ethnic violence in Riga, the United States is committed to come in and drive the Russians out.
This is the situation in which the interventionists have placed our country: committed to go to war for countries and causes that do not justify war, against a Russia that is re-emerging as a great power only to find NATO squatting on her doorstep.
Scheunemann’s resume as a War Party apparatchik is lengthy. He signed the PNAC (Project for the New American Century) letter to President Clinton urging war on Iraq, four years before 9-11. He signed the PNAC ultimatum to Bush, nine days after 9-11, threatening him with political reprisal if he did not go to war against Iraq. He was executive director of the “Committee for the Liberation of Iraq,” a propaganda front for Ahmad Chalabi and his pack of liars who deceived us into war.
Now Scheunemann is the neocon agent in place in McCain’s camp.
The neocons got their war with Iraq. They are pushing for war on Iran. And they are now baiting the Russian Bear.
Is this what McCain has on offer? Endless war?
Why would McCain seek foreign policy counsel from the same discredited crowd that has all but destroyed the presidency of George Bush?
“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence … a free people ought to be constantly awake,” Washington warned in his Farewell Address. Our Founding Father was warning against the Randy Scheunemanns among us, agents hired by foreign powers to deceive Americans into fighting their wars. And none dare call it treason.
Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War”: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, “The Death of the West,”, “The Great Betrayal,” “A Republic, Not an Empire” and “Where the Right Went Wrong.”
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=28157
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Data Raise Questions on Role of Speculators
by Ann Davis
Dow Jones Newswires
Friday, August 15, 2008
NEW YORK (Wall Street Journal via Dow Jones Newswires), August 15, 2008
Data emerging on players in the commodities markets show that speculators are a larger piece of the oil market than previously known, a development enlivening an already tense election-year debate about traders’ influence.
Last month, the main U.S. regulator of commodities trading, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, reclassified a large unidentified oil trader as a “noncommercial” speculator.
The move changed many analysts’ perceptions of the oil market from a more diversified marketplace to one with a heavier-than-thought concentration of financial players who punt on big bets.
As a result, the number of futures and options contracts held by traders counted as speculators — those who don’t have a commercial need to mitigate the risks of energy prices in their business — rose to 49% of all crude-oil bets outstanding on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up from 38%.
The scale of the recent revision and questions about the reliability and transparency of data in this market are feeding into efforts by Congress to impose restrictions on energy trading. Four Democratic senators on Thursday called for an internal CFTC inspector-general investigation into the timing of a July 22 release of a report led by the agency. That report concluded speculators weren’t “systematically” driving oil prices. Oil prices soared until mid-July before beginning a decline.
A letter by the senators asks why the report was released before full reviews could take place of trader information the agency only asked for this summer. Also at issue is whether the report played down speculators’ influence, notwithstanding the report’s finding that “the positions of non-commercial traders in general, and hedge funds in particular, often move in the same direction as prices.”
A CFTC spokesman declined to comment on the senators’ letter. The CFTC, in response to legislators’ demands, this summer has been collecting more data about the trades Wall Street firms handle for clients. It has pledged to report back to Congress by Sept. 15.
Meanwhile, a debate is erupting within the agency, which is charged with overseeing the $4.78 trillion commodity futures and options markets, about what the agency does and does not know about participants in this market. The CFTC has been accused by some in Congress this year of lax oversight.
…
Complete article at:
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=65564
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Oil Speculators Cost Consumers $31 Billion this Summer
By Rep. Ed Markey
23 Aug 2008
On August 21, 2008, the Washington Post reported that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has now learned that an astonishing 80 percent or more of oil contracts on the New York futures market are held by speculators. “Financial firms speculating for their clients or for themselves account for about 81 percent of the oil contracts on the NYMEX, a far bigger share than had previously been reported by the agency.” At one point in July, a single foreign energy firm held 11 percent of all regulated NYMEX oil futures contracts for the purpose of speculation… Throughout the spring and summer, President [sic] Bush and Republicans in Congress thwarted attempt after attempt by Democrats to pop this speculative bubble and provide relief to consumers. Each time, Republicans sided with Big Oil over the American people. …[A]ccording to my calculations, have resulted in additional costs for American consumers of $31 billion at the pump this summer.
At:
http://tinyurl.com/68cscc (www.huffingtonpost.com)
From: CLG News
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BIG OIL’S NEW DARLING
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
by Jim Hightower
John McCain built his maverick image in part by being a Republican senator who’s willing to go against Big Oil. As recently as June 13, he had this to say about the petro giants: “I am very angry, frankly, at the oil companies, not only because of the obscene profits they’ve made, but at their failure to invest in alternate energy to help us eliminate our dependence on foreign oil.”
Good stuff! McCain has long stood up to oil corporations on such big issues as their demand that we open all of America’s shorelines to their drilling rigs. But, suddenly, that John McCain has disappeared. On June 16 – only three days after his “angry” speech – he made another talk in which he reversed his position. “My friends, we have to drill offshore,” he now says. “We have to do it.”
Really? Why? Because, he explains, “The oil executives” told him it would be a good thing.
Wait… I thought he was angry at those thieves. Not any more. You see, right after his June 16th flip-flop speech, he flew off to Texas for a round of fundraisers with – guess who? – oil executives! On June 17th, for example, he had a closed-door luncheon with energy honchos at the San Antonio Country Club – and walked out with a love offering of $1.3 million for his presidential campaign.
A McCain spokesman rushed out to assert that it is “completely absurd” for anyone to suggest that the senator’s switch on drilling had anything to do with oil money. Well, maybe he’s confused by the “position=money” relationship of politics, but the oil barons definitely are not. Prior to McCain’s miraculous conversion, they had not been big backers of the senator, but once they heard his new position, the money spigots opened.
As one advisor to oil companies said of McCain’s switch: “I think the industry was very appreciative.”
“Industry Gushed Money After Reversal on Drilling,” www.washingtonpost.com, July 27, 2008.
“The Corrupting Influence Of Oil Money,” www.thinkprogress.org, July 31, 2008.
“Big Oil’s bets,” www.oilwatchdog.org, July 29, 2008.
From:
http://jimhightower.com//node/6576
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AP, Wash. Post fail to report ties between Swift Boat Vets, ad attacking Obama
The Associated Press and The Washington Post quoted a spokesman for the American Issues Project, which has produced an ad attacking Sen. Barack Obama, without mentioning that he was employed in 2004 by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that led a smear campaign against Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 election.
Read More
http://mediamatters.org/items/200808220011?lid=538954&rid=13072166
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Borowitz Report – McCain Uncertainty Shocker
August 22, 2008
Cindy McCain ‘Unsure’ How Many Half-sisters She Has
Says Staff Member Will Handle Sibling Tally
Presumptive first lady nominee Cindy McCain responded to a reporter’s question today about how many half-sisters she had by saying that she was “unsure” about the exact number but would have “a staff member look into it.”
Ms. McCain’s claims of being an only child were clouded this week by revelations that she has at least two heretofore unmentioned half-sisters, leading to reporters’ queries as to whether more undisclosed half-siblings were waiting in the wings.
When a reporter from the Toledo Blade asked Mrs. McCain at a campaign stop in Ohio about how many half-sisters she had, she looked momentarily startled by the question before handing it off to a staff member.
Mrs. McCain’s uncertainty about the precise tally of her siblings, coming on the heels of her husband’s confusion about the number of the couples’ homes, might not be as big a problem for the McCain campaign as some might expect, says Davis Logsdon, professor of economics at the University of Minnesota.
“As long as the couple has more homes than half-sisters, they could easily house one of the half-sisters in each of the residences and keep them happy,” Dr. Logsdon says. “However, if the number of half-sisters grows faster than the number of homes, that could potentially lead to crowding.”
For his part, Sen. McCain said that the campaign would provide a “guesstimate” of how many half-sisters and homes the couple has by the end of next week: “Right now, we’re trying to put it all on a spreadsheet.”
Andy’s Upcoming Events
Upcoming EventsSeptember 23, 2008 at 7:30PM
Andy in ColumbusCome see Andy at his first-ever Columbus, Ohio show! For info contact Matt Ratner at mratner@ohiodems.org or 847-927-7200
Location:
Columbus Funny Bone, 145 Easton Town Center
For tickets go to The Audacity of JokesSeptember 24, 2008 at 7:30PM
Andy in ClevelandAndy comes home to Cleveland for one show only! For info contact Matt Ratner at mratner@ohiodems.org or 847-927-7200
Location:
Pickwick & Frolic, 2035 East 4th Street
For tickets go to The Audacity of JokesOctober 22, 2008 at 8:00PM
Countdown to ’08Andy hosts “Countdown to the Election, with special guests Joy Behar (The View) and Jeffrey Toobin (CNN, bestselling author of “The Nine”)
Location:
92nd Street Y in NYC
For tickets go to www.92y.orgNovember 2, 2008 at 7:30PM
Andy in New HavenSpend “An Evening with Andy Borowitz” in New Haven on Sunday, November 2. Cocktails before the show start at 6:30
Location:
Joseph Slifka Center at Yale
For tickets go to JewishNewHaven.org
http://www.borowitzreport.com/
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three thousand words
Nick Anderson: back to school sale
http://img.slate.com/media/14/080822_ed.gif
Jack Ohman: which house do you actually live in?
http://tinyurl.com/63n3te (images.ucomics.com)
Bruce Beattie: 2008 conventions
http://tinyurl.com/6h9d3u (editorialcartoonists.com)
