Prescription Drug Changes

Will the Democrats Cut and Run on the Medicare Drug Bill?
By Dean Baker
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Wednesday 29 November 2006

It takes courage for politicians to fight powerful special-interest rate groups. The reform of the Medicare prescription drug benefit will provide a clear test as to whether the Democratic Congressional leadership has enough backbone to stand up for the public good and follow through on one of its most important campaign promises.

The basic story here is simple. When the Republican-controlled Congress passed the Medicare prescription drug benefit in 2003, it deliberately structured the benefit so as to ensure that the drug industry and the insurance industry would be able to profit at the expense of beneficiaries and taxpayers. They wrote the law so that onlyprivate insurers would be able to offer the drug benefit; Medicare was prohibiting from offering its own plan. Eliminating competition from Medicare guaranteed the insurance industry a piece of the action and raised the cost of the program by almost 10 percent, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.

Congress also explicitly prohibited Medicare from directly negotiating prices with the pharmaceutical industry. Given Medicare's enormous potential buying power, it surely would have been able to negotiate prices that are comparable to those paid by the Veterans Administration (VA) or the Canadian government. These prices average 50 to 60 percent of the prices paid to insurers under the Medicare drug plan. If the Medicare drug plan paid the same prices for drugs as the VA, it would be possible to eliminate the $2,850 "doughnut hole" gap in coverage and still have large savings left over for taxpayers.

There was no reason to design the drug benefit in this way, except to benefit the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry. Several of the members of Congress and administration officials most directly involved in the design of the benefit and getting the bill through Congress have since been rewarded with lucrative positions with these industries. The most obvious example of such a payoff went to Louisiana Congressman Billy Tauzin, who as chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee played a key role in getting an industry-friendly bill to the floor of the House. Just over a year later he left Congress and became head of PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry's trade association.

Now that the Democrats are in control of Congress, they have a chance to reform the Medicare drug bill, making it simpler and cheaper. This is exactly what the party leadership committed itself to doing during the campaign. However, there have been numerous reports that it intends to back away from this commitment. For example, there has been discussion of the possibility of just removing the phrase in the law that prohibits Medicare from negotiating with the drug industry, but not setting up any mechanism that would allow for meaningful negotiation.

There are also reports that Max Baucus, who will chair the Finance Committee in the Senate, wants to hold hearings on how best to deal with the bill. This would be comparable to holding hearings after December 7, 1941, to determine who had attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor.

We already know what needs to be done: Medicare should be allowed to offer its own plan as an add-on to the existing program. Free-standing prescription drug programs don't exist in the private sector; the Republican Congress invented this animal as a way to put money in their friends' pockets and to undermine the traditional Medicare program. The Democrats promised to fix this travesty in their election campaign. The question now is whether they have the backbone to follow through on their promise. If they don't, it won't just be Republicans who call them "Defeatocrats" in the next election campaign.

Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer (www.conservativenannystate.org). He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues. You can find it at the American Prospect's web site.

Legal Indictment of Bush Administration

The Indictment: United States v. George W. Bush et al.
By Elizabeth de la Vega
TomDispatch.com

Wednesday 29 November 2006

Assistant United States Attorney: Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. We're here today in the case of United States v. George W. Bush et al. In addition to President Bush, the defendants are Vice President Richard B. Cheney, former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice - who's now the Secretary of State, of course - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

It's a one-count proposed indictment: Conspiracy to Defraud the United States in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371. I'll explain the law that applies to the case this afternoon, but I'm going to hand out the indictment now, so you'll have some context for that explanation. Take as long as you need to read it, and then feel free to take your lunch break, but please leave your copy of the indictment with the foreperson. We'll meet back at one o'clock.

United States District Court

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,

v.

GEORGE W. BUSH,
RICHARD B. CHENEY,
CONDOLEEZZA RICE,
DONALD M. RUMSFELD, and
COLIN POWELL,
Defendants

Criminal No.
Conspiracy to Defraud the United States
18 U.S.C. Section 371

Indictment

The Grand Jury Charges:

Introductory Allegations

At times relevant to this Indictment:

1. The primary law of the United States Federal Government was set forth in the U.S. Constitution ("Constitution"), which provides that the first branch of government is the Legislative Branch ("Congress"). Pursuant to Article I, Section 8, Congress has certain powers and obligations regarding oversight of foreign affairs, including the powers to: (1) declare war; (2) raise and support the armed forces; and (3) tax and spend for the common good.

2. Article II of the Constitution establishes the Executive Branch. The Executive Power of the United States is vested in the President, who is also the Commander in Chief of the Armed Services.

3. Defendant GEORGE W. BUSH ("BUSH") has been employed as President of the United States since January 20, 2001. On that day, BUSH took a constitutionally mandated oath to faithfully execute the Office of President and to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. BUSH is also constitutionally obligated to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

4. As Chief Executive, BUSH exercised authority, direction, and control over the entire Executive Branch, which includes the White House, the Office of the Vice President, the Departments of State, Defense, and others, and the National Security Council.

5. Defendant RICHARD B. CHENEY ("CHENEY") has been employed as Vice President of the United States since January 20, 2001.

6. Defendant CONDOLEEZZA RICE ("RICE") was employed as the National Security Adviser from January 2001 to January 2005, when she became Secretary of State, a position she holds as of the date of this indictment. As National Security Adviser, RICE exercised direction, control, and authority over the National Security Council, which coordinates various national security and foreign policy agencies, including the Departments of Defense and State.

7. Defendant DONALD M. RUMSFELD ("RUMSFELD") has been employed as Secretary of Defense since January 2001.

8. Defendant COLIN M. POWELL ("POWELL") was employed as Secretary of State from January 2001 through January of 2005.

9. Before assuming their offices, CHENEY, RICE, RUMSFELD and POWELL took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.

10. As employees of the Executive Branch, BUSH, CHENEY, RICE, RUMSFELD, and POWELL were governed by Executive Orders 12674 and 12731. These Orders provide that Executive Branch employees hold their positions as a public trust and that the American people have a right to expect that they will fulfill that trust in accordance with certain ethical standards and principles. These include abiding by the Constitution and laws of the United States, as well as not using their offices to further private goals and interests.

11. Pursuant to the Constitution, their oaths of office, their status as Executive Branch employees, and their presence in the United States, BUSH, CHENEY, RICE, RUMSFELD, and POWELL, and their subordinates and employees, are required to obey Title 18, United States Code, Section 371, which prohibits conspiracies to defraud the United States.

12. As used in Section 371, the term "to defraud the United States" means "to interfere with or obstruct one of its lawful government functions by deceit, craft, trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest." The term also means to "impair, obstruct, or defeat the lawful function of any department of government" by the use of "false or fraudulent pretenses or representations."

13. A "false" or "fraudulent" representation is one that is: (a) made with knowledge that it is untrue; (b) a half-truth; (c) made without a reasonable basis or with reckless indifference as to whether it is, in fact, true or false; or (d) literally true, but intentionally presented in a manner reasonably calculated to deceive a person of ordinary prudence and intelligence. The knowing concealment or omission of information that a reasonable person would consider important in deciding an issue also constitutes fraud.

14. Congress is a "department of the United States" within the meaning of Section 371. In addition, hearings regarding funding for military action and authorization to use military force are "lawful functions" of Congress.

15. Accordingly, the presentation of information to Congress and the general public through deceit, craft, trickery, dishonest means, and fraudulent representations, including lies, half-truths, material omissions, and statements made with reckless indifference to their truth or falsity, while knowing and intending that such fraudulent representations would influence Congress' decisions regarding authorization to use military force and funding for military action, constitutes interfering with, obstructing, impairing, and defeating a lawful government function of a department of the United States within the meaning of Section 371.

The Conspiracy to Defraud the United States

16. Beginning on or about a date unknown, but no later than August of 2002, and continuing to the present, in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, the defendants,


GEORGE W. BUSH,

RICHARD B. CHENEY,

CONDOLEEZZA RICE,

DONALD M. RUMSFELD, and

COLIN M. POWELL,

and others known and unknown, did knowingly and intentionally conspire to defraud the United States by using deceit, craft, trickery, dishonest means, false and fraudulent representations, including ones made without a reasonable basis and with reckless indifference to their truth or falsity, and omitting to state material facts necessary to make their representations truthful, fair and accurate, while knowing and intending that their false and fraudulent representations would influence the public and the deliberations of Congress with regard to authorization of a preventive war against Iraq, thereby defeating, obstructing, impairing, and interfering with Congress' lawful functions of overseeing foreign affairs and making appropriations.

17. The Early Months of the Bush-Cheney Administration: Prior to January of 2001, BUSH, CHENEY, and RUMSFELD each demonstrated a predisposition to employ U.S. military force to invade the Middle East, including, specifically, to forcibly remove Saddam Hussein.

18. Since 1992, CHENEY has endorsed a "bold foreign policy" that includes using military force to "punish" or "threaten to punish" possible aggressors in order to protect the United States's access to Persian Gulf oil and to halt proliferation of weapons of mass destruction ("WMD"), a term that is customarily used to describe chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.

19. On or about January 26, 1998, RUMSFELD and seven other future BUSH-CHENEY administration appointees signed a letter sent by a conservative policy institute named "Project for a New American Century" ("PNAC") to then President William Clinton, which called for U.S. military action to forcibly remove Saddam Hussein from power.

20. In January 1999, BUSH named RICE and her future Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley ("Hadley"), as his presidential-campaign foreign-policy advisers, along with future Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz ("Wolfowitz") and four others who had publicly advocated forcibly removing Saddam Hussein.

21. On or before September 2000, 12 future BUSH-CHENEY administration appointees, including Wolfowitz, former Assistant to Vice President CHENEY, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and Rumsfeld's long-term aide Stephen Cambone, participated in drafting "Rebuilding America's Defenses," a PNAC policy statement which asserted that the "need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." PNAC acknowledged that its goals would take a long time to achieve "absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event-like a new Pearl Harbor."

22. Once BUSH became the Republican candidate in the 2000 presidential election campaign, he and CHENEY informed the general public that they would be reluctant to use military force and did not believe that the United States should engage in "nation-building."

23. On and after January 20, 2001, BUSH and CHENEY caused to be appointed as senior foreign policy advisors and consultants, at least thirty-four persons who had publicly endorsed the PNAC principles of United States global preeminence and use of force to "punish" or "threaten to punish" emerging threats from weapons of mass destruction ("WMD") or impediments to United States access to oil in the Middle East. Of those appointees, eighteen had also publicly advocated forcibly removing Saddam Hussein.

24. In late December 2000, BUSH and CHENEY advised outgoing President William J. Clinton and others that, among potential foreign policy issues, BUSH's primary concern was Iraq.

25. On February 11, 2001, BUSH ordered the first airstrikes since 1998 to be conducted outside of the United Nations ("UN") agreed-upon No-Fly zones, to get Saddam Hussein's "attention."

26. The Attacks of September 11, 2001. On September 11, 2001, nineteen men hijacked four commercial airplanes. They crashed two planes into the World Trade Towers in New York City and another into the Pentagon in Washington, DC. The fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania. In total, nearly 3,000 people died as a result of the September 11, 2001, attacks ("9/11").

27. Shortly afterward, United States intelligence agencies determined that 9/11 was the work of the terrorist organization al Qaeda, spearheaded by Osama Bin Laden. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, two from Yemen, and two from Lebanon. This information, along with the conclusion that no evidence linked the attacks to Saddam Hussein or al Qaeda, was immediately communicated to BUSH, CHENEY, RICE, RUMSFELD, POWELL, and others.

28. BUSH-CHENEY administration members began discussing an invasion of Iraq immediately after 9/11. BUSH, RUMSFELD and others also assigned various subordinates, including former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, CIA Director George Tenet, and General Richard Meyers to look for intelligence that could justify attacking Saddam Hussein's regime.

29. On September 17, 2001, BUSH secretly ordered the formulation of preliminary plans for an invasion of Iraq, while admitting to his aides that no evidence existed to justify an attack.

30. On or about September 18, 2001, in response to BUSH's request, Clarke sent RICE a memo that stated: (a) the case for linking Hussein to 9/11 was weak; (b) only anecdotal evidence linked Hussein to al Qaeda; (c) Osama Bin Laden resented the secularism of Saddam Hussein; and (d) there was no confirmed reporting of Saddam cooperating with Bin Laden on unconventional weapons.

31. On September 20, 2001, BUSH informed British Prime Minister Tony Blair that after Afghanistan, the United States and Britain should return to the issue of invading Iraq.

32. U.S. Intelligence Community Assessments of Risk from Iraq in Effect on November 2001. On occasion, Executive Branch officials request assessments of current intelligence on risks posed by WMD in a given country. Although such assessments are coordinated by the Central Intelligence Agency ("CIA"), the final product incorporates the analyses, including dissenting opinions, of the intelligence branches of the Departments of State, Energy, Defense, the National Security Agency, and others, which are collectively called the Intelligence Community ("IC").

33. As of November 2001, the most recent assessment on Iraq was a December 2000 classified Intelligence Community Assessment ("ICA") called "Iraq: Steadily Pursuing WMD Capabilities." This ICA was a comprehensive update on possible Iraqi efforts to rebuild WMD and weapons delivery systems after the 1998 departure of International Atomic Energy Agency ("IAEA") representatives and UN weapons inspectors, who are collectively referred to as the United Nations Special Commission ("UNSCOM").

34. Regarding Iraq's possible nuclear program, the December 2000 NIE unanimously concluded that:

(a) The IAEA and UNSCOM had destroyed or neutralized Iraq's nuclear infrastructure, but Iraq still had a foundation for future nuclear reconstitution;

(b) Iraq was continuing low-level theoretical research and training, and attempting to obtain dual-use items that cold be used to reconstitute its nuclear program;

(c) if Iraq acquired a significant quantity of fissile material through foreign assistance, it could have a crude nuclear weapon within a year; if Iraq received foreign assistance, it would take five to seven years to produce enough weapons-grade fissile material for a nuclear weapon; and

(d) Iraq did not appear to have reconstituted its nuclear weapons program.

35. Escalation of Military Activity and Planning for Invasion of Iraq. On November 21, 2001, BUSH secretly ordered preparation of a formal war plan for invading Iraq. Thereafter, for sixteen months, the BUSH-CHENEY administration expended substantial U.S. government funds in military activity and planning for invasion of Iraq, all without notice to, or approval by, the U.S. Congress.

36. BUSH did not receive an extensive briefing about possible WMD in Iraq before ordering a war plan, nor did he discuss the legitimacy of grounds for war with anyone. BUSH received no such briefing until December 21, 2002.

37. On or about November 27, 2001, RUMSFELD asked General "Tommy" Franks, head of Central Command, which supervises Middle East operations, to immediately prepare an Iraq war plan in response to BUSH's order.

38. Thereafter, Franks discussed numerous revised Iraq war plans with RUMSFELD. Between December 2001 and August 2002, BUSH, CHENEY, RICE, RUMSFELD, POWELL, and others held at least five lengthy meetings about Franks' plans. In August, BUSH ordered Franks to prepare to invade Iraq using the "Hybrid Plan," a combination of the "Running Start" and "Generated Start" plans developed previously.

39. During 2002, the United States and Great Britain increased air strikes in order to degrade Iraqi air defenses and began deploying troops to areas around Iraq.

40. On or about July 30, 2002, without approval by, or notice to, Congress, BUSH caused the diversion of $700 million from Afghanistan war funds into Iraq invasion preparations.

41. On September 5, 2002, without approval by, or notice to, Congress, BUSH caused approximately 100 United States and British aircraft to launch ballistic missiles at Iraq's major western air-defense facility.

42. By September 12, 2002, without approval by, or notice to, Congress, BUSH had caused the movement of 40,000 military personnel and over 350,000 tons of equipment to areas around Iraq. Franks also ordered Central Command to be moved to Al Udeid Air Base near Doha, Qatar.

43. Behind-the-Scenes Strategizing with British Officials: On or before March 2002, BUSH, RICE, Wolfowitz, and others secretly began discussing ways to persuade the public and foreign allies to accept Bush's goal of invading Iraq, with British Prime Minister Tony Blair ("Blair") and his advisers.

44. On March 12, 2002, in Washington, DC, RICE met with Blair's Foreign Policy Adviser Sir David Manning and informed him of BUSH's problems with persuading "international opinion that military action against Iraq was necessary and justified."

45. On March 17, 2002, in Washington, DC, British Ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer advised Wolfowitz that the two countries should "wrongfoot" Saddam Hussein by seeking a UN resolution that would require the readmission of weapons inspectors with the expectation that Saddam would create a justification for war by obstructing the inspections.

46. On April 6, 2002, in Crawford, Texas, BUSH and Blair discussed strategies to sway public opinion regarding military action in Iraq. Blair agreed to support a United States invasion if the two countries obtained a UN resolution first.

47. In mid-July, 2002, in Washington, DC, White House officials discussed Iraq with visiting British officials. Upon their return to London, these officials reported the talks to Blair in a meeting at 10 Downing St. on July 23, 2002. Among other things, Blair's advisers suggested that he urge BUSH to devise a more realistic political strategy for attacking Iraq, because a desire for "regime change" would not justify military action under international law.

48. In mid-July, 2002, in Washington, DC, CIA Director Tenet and others talked about the Bush administration's intentions regarding Iraq with Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of British Intelligence.

49. On July 23, 2002, during the Downing St. meeting described above, Dearlove informed Blair that in the United States "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."

50. On July 23, 2002, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw also noted that BUSH had "made up his mind to take military action." Straw said he would urge POWELL to persuade BUSH to seek a UN resolution requiring Saddam Hussein to readmit weapons inspectors, in effect, suggesting the "wrongfooting" strategy that Meyer had described to Wolfowitz.

51. Behind-the-Scenes Efforts to Fix Intelligence Around the Policy. Within weeks after learning from Clarke, Tenet, and others that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had no involvement with either 9/11 or al Qaeda, RUMSFELD caused Deputy Undersecretary for Defense Douglas Feith ("Feith") to secretly create the Counter Terrorism Group ("CTEG"), a small unit of political appointees whose mission was to find links between Iraq and al Qaeda by reviewing raw intelligence that previously had been discarded as unreliable. CTEG reported weekly to RUMSFELD's long-term associate Stephen Cambone, and occasionally presented information directly to Wolfowitz, thereby circumventing standard IC procedures.

52. At some time in 2002, Feith also designated political appointees to work under his supervision in the newly-created Office of Special Plans, whose purpose was to develop and package information for use in marketing the President's plan for an invasion of Iraq. In the fall of 2002, this group presented information directly to RUMSFELD, to RICE's office, and to CHENEY's office, thereby circumventing standard IC procedures.

53. In the spring of 2002, CHENEY and his former aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, began visiting CIA headquarters to question CIA agents' assessments about Iraq. RUMSFELD and Deputy National Security Adviser Hadley also repeatedly pressed CIA Director Tenet and his subordinates to present a stronger case against Iraq.

54. Bush's Creation of the White House Iraq Group. By the summer of 2002, domestic and international support for BUSH's plan to invade Iraq was lukewarm. At the same time, Bush's chief political strategist and Senior Adviser Karl Rove and Kenneth Mehlman, head of the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, were beginning to coordinate the President's involvement in the November 7, 2002, congressional election. Their overall goal was to gain Republican majorities in both houses of Congress so that the President would have the greatest possible support for his policies. Rove had specifically recommended that Republicans "focus on war" as a way to win elections. Consequently, in the summer of 2002, BUSH's efforts to win support for an invasion of Iraq and his efforts to assist Republican congressional candidates became inextricably intertwined.

55. In the summer of 2002, BUSH caused the creation of the White House Iraq Group, which was cochaired by BUSH's long-term political operatives Karl Rove and Karen Hughes, who remained BUSH's close associate even though she had resigned her position as Counselor to the President. This team, also called WHIG, was largely a political and public-relations entity that included RICE, Hadley, President's Chief of Staff Andrew Card, President's legislative liaison Nicholas Calio, CHENEY's key aide and veteran Republican political strategist Mary Matalin, CHENEY's senior adviser Libby, and James Wilkinson, another Republican campaign consultant.

56. On or about September 6, 2002, Rove and Card publicly announced that: (a) the BUSH-CHENEY administration was beginning to "roll out" its case for an invasion of Iraq; (b) its public-relations campaign was specifically directed at forcing Congress to pass a resolution authorizing the President to use military force in Iraq; (c) BUSH wanted the resolution passed in about five weeks, before the 2002 election; and (d) in the end, it would be difficult for any legislator to vote against it.

57. The Defendants' Massive Fraud to "Market" an invasion of Iraq. On or about September 4, 2002, BUSH staged a photo opportunity with a bipartisan group of congressional leaders, after which he falsely and fraudulently announced that Iraq posed a serious threat to the safety of the United States and the world, while concealing from Congress and the American people the material facts that: (a) he had no reasonable basis whatsoever for his assertion; (b) he had never discussed the legitimacy of the grounds for an attack against Iraq with anyone; (c) he had never extensively reviewed existing intelligence regarding any possible threat from Iraq; (d) he had not requested an updated intelligence assessment on Iraq; (e) the United States intelligence assessment then in effect stated that Iraq had neither nuclear weapons nor a nuclear weapons program; and (f) the IC had consistently reported that Iraq had no involvement in 9/11 and no relationship with al Qaeda.

58. On September 4, 2002, BUSH also falsely and fraudulently claimed he was beginning an "open dialogue" with the American public, with Congress, and with United States allies to decide how to respond to Iraq, while concealing the material facts that he: (a) had requested a formal plan to invade Iraq nearly a year before; (b) had been conducting significant military and nonmilitary planning and attacks against Iraq for a year; (c) had directed significant military deployment to areas around Iraq; (d) was planning a massive air assault against Iraq's air defense facility for the next day; and (e) intended to work with the UN only to create a justification to use military force against Iraq.

59. Thereafter, the defendants and WHIG executed a calculated and wide-ranging strategy to deceive Congress and the American people by making hundreds of false and fraudulent representations that were only half-true, or literally true but misleading; by concealing material facts; and by making statements without a reasonable basis and with reckless indifference to their truth, regarding, among other things:

(a) their true intent to invade Iraq;

(b) the extent of military buildup and force used against Iraq without notice to or approval by Congress;

(c) their true purpose in seeking a Congressional resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq;

(d) their true intent to use their involvement in seeking a UN resolution requiring Iraq to cooperate with weapons inspectors as a sham; and

(e) their claimed justifications for invading Iraq, including but not limited to:

* The alleged connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of September 11, 2001;

* The alleged connection between Iraq and al Qaeda;

* The alleged connection between Saddam Hussein and any terrorists whose primary animus was directed towards the United States;

* Saddam Hussein's alleged intent to attack the United States in any way;

* Saddam Hussein's possession of nuclear weapons and the status of any alleged ongoing nuclear weapons programs;

* The lack of any reasonable basis for asserting with certainty that Saddam Hussein was actively manufacturing chemical and biological weapons; and

* The alleged urgency of any threat posed to the United States by Saddam Hussein.

60. Congressional Joint Resolution to Authorize Use of Force Against Iraq. As a result of the defendants' false and fraudulent "marketing" of the President's plan to invade Iraq, on October 11, 2002, the U.S Congress, acting pursuant to its Article I constitutional authority to oversee and authorize use of military force, passed a Congressional Joint Resolution to Authorize Use of Force Against Iraq ["the Resolution"] which stated:

The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to-

(a) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and

(b) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.

61. The Resolution required the President to, either before or within 48 hours after exercising the authority to use force, make available to the Senate and the House of Representatives his determination that:

(a) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either (1) will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or (2) is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(b) acting pursuant to this resolution is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorists attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

62. The Resolution also required the President to, at least every 60 days, present Congress a report on "matters relevant to this joint resolution."

63. In furtherance of the above-described conspiracy, the defendants and their coconspirators committed and caused to be committed the following overt acts:

Overt Acts

A. On December 9, 2001, CHENEY announced on NBC's Meet the Press that "it was pretty well confirmed" that lead 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta had met the head of Iraqi intelligence in Prague in April 2001, which statement was, as CHENEY well knew, made without reasonable basis and with reckless disregard for the truth, because it was based on a single witness's uncorroborated allegation that had not been fully investigated by U.S. intelligence agencies.

B. On July 15, 2002, POWELL stated on Ted Koppel's Nightline: "What we have consistently said is that the President has no plan on his desk to invade Iraq at the moment, nor has one been presented to him, nor have his advisors come together to put a plan to him," which statement was deliberately false and misleading in that it deceitfully implied the President was not planning an invasion of Iraq when, as POWELL well knew, the President was close to finalizing detailed military plans for such an invasion that he had ordered months previously.

C. On August 26, 2002, CHENEY made numerous false and fraudulent statements including: "Simply stated there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us," when, as CHENEY well knew, this statement was made without reasonable basis and with reckless indifference to the truth in that the IC's then prevailing assessment was that Iraq had neither nuclear weapons nor a reconstituted nuclear weapons program.

D. On September 7, 2002, appearing publicly with Blair, BUSH claimed a recent IAEA report stated that Iraq was "six months away from developing a [nuclear] weapon" and "I don't know what more evidence we need," which statements were made without basis and with reckless indifference to the truth in that: (1) the IAEA had not even been present in Iraq since 1998; and (2) the report the IAEA did write in 1998 had concluded there was no indication that Iraq had the physical capacity to produce weapons-usable nuclear material or that it had attempted to obtain such material.

E. On September 8, 2002, on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, RICE asserted that Saddam Hussein was acquiring aluminum tubes that were "only suited" for nuclear centrifuge use, which statement was deliberately false and fraudulent, and made with reckless indifference to the truth in that it omitted to state the following material facts: (1) the U.S. intelligence community was deeply divided about the likely use of the tubes; (2) there were at least fifteen intelligence reports written since April 2001 that cast doubt on the tubes' possible nuclear-related use; and (3) the U.S. Department of Energy nuclear weapons experts had concluded, after analyzing the tubes's specifications and the circumstances of the Iraqis' attempts to procure them, that the aluminum tubes were not well suited for nuclear centrifuge use and were more likely intended for artillery rocket production.

F. On September 8, 2002, RUMSFELD stated on Face the Nation: "Imagine a September 11th, with weapons of mass destruction. It's not three thousand, it's tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children," which statement was deliberately fraudulent and misleading in that it implied without reasonable basis and in direct contradiction to then prevailing intelligence that Saddam Hussein had no operational relationship with al Qaeda and was unlikely to provide weapons to terrorists.

G. On September 19, 2002, RUMSFELD told the Senate Armed Services Committee that "no terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people than the regime of Saddam Hussein," which statement was, as Rumsfeld well knew, made without reasonable basis and with reckless indifference to the truth in that: (1) Hussein had not acted aggressively toward the United States since his alleged attempt to assassinate President George H. W. Bush in 1993; (2) Iraq's military forces and equipment were severely debilitated because of UN sanctions imposed after the 1991 Gulf War; (3) the IC's opinion was that Iraq's sponsorship of terrorists was limited to ones whose hostility was directed toward Israel; and (4) Iran, not Iraq, was the most active state sponsor of terrorism.

H. On October 1, 2002, the defendants caused the IC's updated classified National Intelligence Estimate to be delivered to Congress just hours before the beginning of debate on the Authorization to Use Military Force. At the same time, the defendants caused an unclassified "White Paper" to be published which was false and misleading in many respects in that it failed to include qualifying language and dissents that substantially weakened their argument that Iraq posed a serious threat to the United States.

I. On October 7, 2002, in Cincinnati, Ohio, BUSH made numerous deliberately misleading statements to the nation, including stating that in comparison to Iran and North Korea, Iraq posed a uniquely serious threat, which statement BUSH well knew was false and fraudulent in that it omitted to state the material fact that a State Department representative had been informed just three days previously that North Korea had actually already produced nuclear weapons. The defendants continued to conceal this information until after Congress passed the Authorization to Use Military Force against Iraq.

J. Between September 1, 2002, and November 2, 2002, BUSH traveled the country making in excess of thirty congressional-campaign speeches in which he falsely and fraudulently asserted that Iraq was a "serious threat" which required immediate action, when as he well knew, this assertion was made without reasonable basis and with reckless indifference to the truth.

K. In his January 28, 2003 State of the Union address, BUSH announced that the "British have recently learned that Iraq was seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa" which statement was fraudulent and misleading and made with reckless disregard for the truth, in that it falsely implied that the information was true, when the CIA had advised the administration more than once that the allegation was unsupported by available intelligence.

L. In a February 5, 2003, speech to the UN, POWELL falsely implied, without reasonable basis and with reckless disregard for the truth, that, among other things: (1) those who maintained that Iraq was purchasing aluminum tubes for rockets were allied with Saddam Hussein, even though POWELL well knew that both Department of Energy nuclear weapons experts and State Department intelligence analysts had concluded that the tubes were not suited for nuclear centrifuge use; and (2) Iraq had an ongoing cooperative relationship with al Qaeda, when he well knew that no intelligence agency had reached that conclusion.

M. On March 18, 2003, BUSH sent a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate which asserted that further reliance on diplomatic and peaceful means alone would not either: (1) adequately protect United States national security against the "continuing threat posed by Iraq" or (2) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant UN Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq, which statement was made without reasonable basis and with reckless indifference to the truth in that, as BUSH well knew, the U.S. intelligence community had never reported that Iraq posed an urgent threat to the United States and there was no evidence whatsoever to prove that Iraq had either the means or intent to attack the U.S. directly or indirectly. The statement was also false because, as BUSH well knew, the UN weapons inspectors had not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and wanted to continue the inspection process because it was working well.

N. In the same March 18, 2003 letter, BUSH also represented that taking action pursuant to the Resolution was "consistent with continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorists attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001," which statement was entirely false and without reasonable basis in that, as BUSH well knew, Iraq had no involvement with al Qaeda or the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

All in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371.

A True Bill

[Note: This is not an actual indictment]

Assistant United States Attorney: Ladies and Gentlemen, we're going to spend the afternoon discussing the law that applies to your consideration of the indictment...

The full discussion is omitted in this excerpt, but, in brief, this is the legal question you will be deciding:

Is there probable cause to believe that the defendants used deceit, craft, trickery, dishonest means - including lies, false pretenses, misrepresentations, deliberate omissions, half-truths, false promises, and statements made with reckless indifference to their truth - to obstruct, impede, or interfere with Congress' lawful government function of overseeing foreign affairs, relating to the invasion of Iraq?

We'll see you all tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. Our witness tomorrow will be an FBI agent. She's from Boston, but we should be able to get by without a translator.

Have a good evening.

End of Day One

--------

[Coming Thursday: Part 3 of United States v. George W. Bush at Tomdispatch.com - The Grand Jury Testimony]

Elizabeth de la Vega is a former federal prosecutor with more than 20 years of experience. During her tenure, she was a member of the Organized Crime Strike Force and Chief of the San Jose Branch of the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California. Her pieces have appeared in the Nation Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and Salon. She writes regularly for Tomdispatch.com. This hypothetical indictment is part of her new book, United States v. George W. Bush et al. She may be contacted at ElizabethdelaVega@Verizon.net.

Excerpted from United States v. George W. Bush et al. by Elizabeth de la Vega, published December 1, 2006 by Seven Stories Press and Tomdispatch.com.

Olbermann Spanks Bush, Nov. 21

Lessons From the Vietnam War
By Keith Olbermann
MSNBC Countdown

Monday 20 November 2006

Keith Olbermann responds to Bush's comparison between Vietnam and Iraq.

It is a shame and it is embarrassing to us all when President Bush travels 8,000 miles only to wind up avoiding reality again.

And it is pathetic to listen to a man talk unrealistically about Vietnam, who permitted the "Swift-Boating" of not one but two American heroes of that war, in consecutive presidential campaigns.

But most importantly - important beyond measure - his avoidance of reality is going to wind up killing more Americans.

And that is indefensible and fatal.

Asked if there were lessons about Iraq to be found in our experience in Vietnam, Mr. Bush said that there were, and he immediately proved he had no clue what they were.

"One lesson is," he said, "that we tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraq is going to take a while."

"We'll succeed," the president concluded, "unless we quit."

If that's the lesson about Iraq that Mr. Bush sees in Vietnam, then he needs a tutor.

Or we need somebody else making the decisions about Iraq.

Mr. Bush, there are a dozen central, essential lessons to be derived from our nightmare in Vietnam, but "we'll succeed unless we quit," is not one of them.

The primary one - which should be as obvious to you as the latest opinion poll showing that only 31 percent of this country agrees with your tragic Iraq policy - is that if you try to pursue a war for which the nation has lost its stomach, you and it are finished. Ask Lyndon Johnson.

The second most important lesson of Vietnam, Mr. Bush: If you don't have a stable local government to work with, you can keep sending in Americans until hell freezes over and it will not matter. Ask Vietnamese Presidents Diem or Thieu.

The third vital lesson of Vietnam, Mr. Bush: Don't pretend it's something it's not. For decades we were warned that if we didn't stop "communist aggression" in Vietnam, communist agitators would infiltrate and devour the small nations of the world, and make their insidious way, stealthily, to our doorstep.

The war machine of 1968 had this "domino theory."

Your war machine of 2006 has this nonsense about Iraq as "the central front in the war on terror."

The fourth pivotal lesson of Vietnam, Mr. Bush: If the same idiots who told Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon to stay there for the sake of "peace With honor" are now telling you to stay in Iraq, they're probably just as wrong now, as they were then ... Dr. Kissinger.

And the fifth crucial lesson of Vietnam, Mr. Bush - which somebody should've told you about long before you plunged this country into Iraq - is that if you lie your country into a war, your war, your presidency will be consigned to the scrap heap of history.

Consider your fellow Texan, sir.

After Kennedy's assassination, Lyndon Johnson held the country together after a national tragedy, not unlike you did. He had lofty goals and tried to reshape society for the better. And he is remembered for Vietnam, and for the lies he and his government told to get us there and keep us there, and for the Americans who needlessly died there.

As you will be remembered for Iraq, and for the lies you and your government told to get us there and keep us there, and for the Americans who have needlessly died there and who will needlessly die there tomorrow.

This president has his fictitious Iraqi WMD, and his lies - disguised as subtle hints - linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11, and his reason-of-the-week for keeping us there when all the evidence for at least three years has told us we need to get as many of our kids out as quickly as possible.

That president had his fictitious attacks on Navy ships in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, and the next thing any of us knew, the Senate had voted 88-2 to approve the blank check with which Lyndon Johnson paid for our trip into hell.

And yet President Bush just saw the grim reminders of that trip into hell: the 58,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese killed; the 10,000 civilians who've been blown up by landmines since we pulled out; the genocide in the neighboring country of Cambodia, which we triggered.

Yet these parallels - and these lessons - eluded President Bush entirely.

And, in particular, the one over-arching lesson about Iraq that should've been written everywhere he looked in Vietnam went unseen.

"We'll succeed unless we quit"?

Mr. Bush, we did quit in Vietnam!

A decade later than we should have, 58,000 dead later than we should have, but we finally came to our senses.

The stable, burgeoning, vivid country you just saw there, is there because we finally had the good sense to declare victory and get out!

The domino theory was nonsense, sir.

Our departure from Vietnam emboldened no one.

Communism did not spread like a contagion around the world.

And most importantly - as President Reagan's assistant secretary of state, Lawrence Korb, said on this newscast Friday - we were only in a position to win the Cold War because we quit in Vietnam.

We went home. And instead it was the Russians who learned nothing from Vietnam, and who repeated every one of our mistakes when they went into Afghanistan. And alienated their own people, and killed their own children, and bankrupted their own economy and allowed us to win the Cold War.

We awakened so late, but we did awaken.

Finally, in Vietnam, we learned the lesson. We stopped endlessly squandering lives and treasure and the focus of a nation on an impossible and irrelevant dream, but you are still doing exactly that, tonight, in Iraq.

And these lessons from Vietnam, Mr. Bush, these priceless, transparent lessons, writ large as if across the very sky, are still a mystery to you.

"We'll succeed unless we quit."

No, sir.

We will succeed against terrorism, for our country's needs, toward binding up the nation's wounds when you quit, quit the monumental lie that is our presence in Iraq.

And in the interim, Mr. Bush, an American kid will be killed there, probably tonight or tomorrow.

And here, sir, endeth the lesson.

January strategy for Democrats

Send in the Subpoenas
By Ron Suskind
The Washington Post

Sunday 19 November 2006

Senate Foreign Relations Committee aides debated last Tuesday whether to call deposed Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to the hearing table for a public flogging. The decision was no - at least for now. Later that day, I bumped into the incoming committee chairman, presidential hopeful Joseph R. Biden Jr. He said that while there was "extraordinary malfeasance" born of the Iraq crisis, he was planning to stay clear of all that. "That's looking backward," he said. "I'm in the 'action plan' department."

Biden expressed concern about the inquisitorial zeal of some of his "friends in the House," stressing that the key for both chambers will be "attaching all investigations to the broadest public purpose."

The new Democratic Congress may well come down to a series of confrontations between the competing urges to investigate and to lead. Between delving into past wrongdoings and building consensus on how to proceed in Iraq. Between, in a sense, the Democratic Party's show horses and its pit bulls.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), the soon-to-be chairman of the Government Reform Committee, is a classic pit bull. He has dreamed of subpoenas - issuing them, and placing witnesses under oath - for

12 years. Biden, meanwhile, is an unabashed show horse. The Delaware Democrat has dreamed of the Oval Office even longer. Both must exist within the new, mandate-infused Democratic Congress, and must figure out a way to survive together.

It's not as easy as it may seem, especially for Democrats. They say they've learned from the long run of Republican rule, but their efforts to adopt the GOP playbook may propel them into an identity crisis. Republicans, after all, are all about hierarchy and top-down decision-making. If everyone on the field uses a different playbook, they like to say, then you lose.

Democrats should be able to both investigate and lead, but it will take an embrace of Republican-style discipline (hardly a Democratic strong suit), an appreciation for deferred gratification (think inauguration day, January 2009) and a shrewd division of labor between pit bulls and show horses.

Here, then, is a playbook for the Democrats - one that keeps the show horses preening, lets the pit bulls attack, helps the party figure out how to use its new subpoena power to maximum effect and encourages the sort of reality-based disclosures that all citizens, regardless of party, deserve.

First, the Democrats must broker a separation of powers. The show horses are their putative candidates for president, especially in the Senate, and the party's leadership in both chambers. Keep them above the fray, focusing on proposals for the future and the new "action plans," especially in foreign policy. But unleash the pit bulls: the committee chairs, their seconds and investigators who will dig relentlessly, identify targets and thus, inevitably, leave themselves vulnerable in their next reelection campaigns.

I've spent the past several years investigating various aspects of the Bush administration - including economic policy and the battle against terrorism - so I know there are so very many targets for the Democrats to choose from. However, there is not unlimited public patience for such efforts. The Democrats should therefore start with the freshest data: Exit polls from the midterm elections showed that concern about Iraq was matched by broader concerns about terrorism and, surprisingly, government corruption.

Indeed, the Bush administration's ability to remain scandal-free until last year's meltdown over lobbyist Jack Abramoff was, in large measure, a triumph of one-party rule over congressional oversight. While lobbyists for energy, health care and the automotive industry have walked through the Bush years in a state of near bliss, congressional watchdogs were defunded and career inspectors general of various departments were replaced by political appointees.

The vast U.S. energy industry may be the ripest target for a corruption investigation. When Vice President Cheney's energy task force was meeting in early 2001 - meetings whose secrecy Cheney has managed to protect against legal challenge - the goal of U.S. energy independence was barely an afterthought. Now, with the United States mired in the affairs of petro-dictatorships in the Middle East, even the president has emphasized the need to cure our addiction to oil.

Studied inaction on this front stems from the coziness between the administration and big oil - a relationship that affects the global warming debate, Iraq, gas prices and oil company profits. Investigations into that relationship are a sure win for the Democrats. Just lining up oil company executives under the hot lights - much like the seven tobacco company chief executives were lined up in 1994, looking like gray-suited deer - creates the image, if not necessarily the fact, of activist government. (Suggested witnesses: Lee Raymond, chief executive of Exxon Mobil until this year; Spencer Abraham, former energy secretary; Cheney; and David Addington, Cheney's deputy on many energy matters.)

While some inquests set the table for responsible policy - much as hearings on pollution helped spur 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act - most are designed to strengthen accountability and deter future perfidy. The administration's repeated practice of strong-arming experts who stray off message makes for a bevy of high-intensity witnesses. They include global warming experts in various departments as well as Richard Foster, the Health and Human Services accountant who was threatened with dismissal for trying to alert Congress about the deceptive cost estimates on the Medicare prescription drug program. Hearings would show who gave the order to mislead the public on these issues of pressing concern - a proper investigation for any Congress. (Suggested witnesses: Tom Scully, Foster's boss; James Hansen of NASA; Rick Piltz, formerly of the U.S. Global Change Research Program; and former Environmental Protection Agency director Christine Todd Whitman.)

All this comes before the Democrats even get to Iraq and the manipulation of prewar intelligence, the botched postwar planning and the myriad mistakes made after the invasion.

Oddly, Iraq may be the last place that Democratic investigators want to go, precisely because it is the arena from which the party's key above-the-fray "action plan" must emerge. So much is known from this year's host of Iraq books and stream of media disclosures that hearings would mostly unearth common knowledge - a patience-trying prospect for a war-fatigued public.

Some Republicans would disagree. The goal of an investigation, and public hearings, they argue, is to destroy the targets. Ruin them, and whatever public purpose they champion is ruined as well. You have to make it personal. That's what people understand - and that's what will create a public "moment" at a hearing table, one that will echo forward, even if the events in question are long passed.

Over in the people's chamber, some House investigators are quite clear on how to make things personal: Force administration officials to say that they lied or to take the Fifth Amendment. Two areas of modest public purpose, but fierce public passions, are the rescue of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch and the death of NFL star-turned-Army Ranger Pat Tillman. In both cases, government officials willfully distributed false information. To show how that sort of thing happens - who crafted and authorized the release - would lead to the question of whether the practice is part of approved policy, an issue that drives at the very character of this administration. (Suggested witnesses: Jim Wilkinson, deputy national security adviser from 2003 to 2005 and spinmeister for the Iraq war; Dan Bartlett, special assistant to Bush for communications; and Gen. John P. Abizaid, chief of the U.S. Central Command.)

Indeed, the results of the midterm elections suggest that people's eyes are adjusting to the Bush administration's message management innovations. Recent polls show that public concerns over how the government is handling the terrorism threat now surpass concerns over the handling of the Iraq war, which may mean that the administration's overall credibility problems are bleeding into what was once an area of relative strength for the president. Add the foiled terrorist attacks in London in August, and Americans can quite naturally be wondering what we're not being told on the terrorism front.

Unfortunately, as I've encountered repeatedly in my own reporting, discernible reality in the war on terrorism is mostly locked in a vault marked "classified." There is no realm in which more misinformation has been passed to the public, a result of the creative license that a largely secret war affords this - or any - government.

A mission of the Democratic Congress that would please both the gods of politics and of public purpose (they don't always intersect) may be to drag that war from the shadows. But it will be difficult. Though members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees know from interrogation and wiretap scandals that they are ill-equipped to oversee such wide swaths of classified activities, the administration's position on keeping secrets secret is strong. Virtually no one now in the government advocates disclosure - the default setting is to classify everything.

Democratic-run congressional committees could push for some modicum of transparency in public hearings. Start with whether any Americans who are clearly uninvolved in terrorist activities have been, or are being, wiretapped. The list is long, and addressing it would encourage judicial oversight of that program - as well as various financial surveillance programs - rather than keeping it caught in partisan gridlock between executive and legislative branches. (Suggested witnesses: Michael V. Hayden, formerly National Security Agency director, now head of the CIA; Robert S. Mueller III, FBI director; and Charles T. Fote, former chief executive of First Data Corp.)

The list of areas crying out for inquiry is quite long as well. The "war on terror" is a vast undiscovered country. The erosion of global U.S. human intelligence assets since the start of the Iraq war, for example, is harrowing. The fraying threads of international cooperation (as anti-Americanism becomes a path to political success throughout the world) correspond to a dizzying growth of self-activated terrorist cells. And it gets worse. A September 2003 meeting of all pertinent top officials in government, including the president and vice president, discussed how suspected terrorists, identified by the CIA, were lost by the FBI once they entered the United States - even after the 9/11 attacks. The heated exchanges that day, and numerous similar ones over the past three years, suggest a breakdown in process that will surely be discussed by some commission after the next terrorist attack. (Suggested witnesses: Cheney, Mueller and FBI counterterrorism chief Phil Mudd, formerly at the CIA.)

And while all this proceeds, what about those show horses? Well, they'll steer clear of the hearings and, as one senator recently quipped, "stay away from past-tense words like 'woulda, coulda, or shoulda' " as they develop their action plans. But once the 2008 campaign season heats up, they'll choose among the coming year's subpoena fest for the sharpest disclosures, and wield them in electoral battle.

Or so the playbook reads.

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Ron Suskind is author of The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of its Enemies Since 9/11 (Simon and Schuster).

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The Carlyle White House

The Carlyle White House
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Tuesday 14 November 2006

It was bad enough when the Carlyle Group bought Dunkin' Donuts last year, forcing millions of conscientious caffeine addicts to look elsewhere for their daily fix. Now, it appears Carlyle has added 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to its formidable portfolio of acquisitions.

The Carlyle Group achieved national attention in the early days of the Iraq occupation, especially after Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" exposed the firm's umbilical ties to the Bush family and the House of Saud. For the uninitiated, Carlyle is a privately-owned equity firm organized and run by former members of the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations.

Currently, Carlyle manages more than $44 billion in 42 different investment funds, which is an interesting fact in and of itself: Carlyle could lay claim to only a meager $12 billion in funds in December of 2001. Thanks to their ownership of United Defense Industries, a major military contractor that sells a whole galaxy of weapons systems to the Pentagon, Carlyle's profits skyrocketed after the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Some notable present and former employees of Carlyle include former president George H.W. Bush, who resigned in 2003; James Baker III, Bush Sr.'s secretary of state and king fixer; and George W. Bush, who served on Carlyle's board of directors until his run for the Texas governorship. One notable former client of Carlyle was the Saudi BinLaden Group, which sold its investment back to the firm a month after the September 11 attacks. Until the October 2001 sellout, Osama bin Laden himself had a financial interest in the same firm that employed the two presidents Bush.

How has Carlyle managed to acquire the White House? The newest edition of Newsweek begins to tell the tale in a story titled "The Rescue Squad": "Bush Senior has been relegated to watching all those political talk shows his son refuses to watch, wincing each time he hears his son's name being mocked or criticized. George H.W. Bush has been, in effect, sidelined by nepotism. He has repeatedly told close friends that he does not believe it is appropriate or wise to second-guess his son, or even offer advice beyond loving support. This time, however, was different. A source who declined to be identified discussing presidential confidences told NEWSWEEK that Bush 41 left 'fingerprints' on the Rumsfeld-Gates decision, though the father's exact role remains shrouded in speculation."

There is much more to this than Big George simply trying to shove Little George in a different direction, because Big George never travels alone. All of a sudden, two of the elder's main men - James Baker III and Robert Gates - are back in the saddle. Baker has spent the last weeks riding herd over the Iraq Study Group, a collection of old foreign policy hands tasked to come up with a solution to the Iraq debacle. Gates was a member of this group until he was tapped to replace Don Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. The Iraq Study Group is slated to produce some tablets of wisdom come December.

A third member of the Iraq Study Group, former congressman Lee Hamilton, is the rope that ties this curious historical package together. During the Reagan days, Hamilton was chairman of the committee investigating the Iran/Contra scandal that nearly submarined Reagan's presidency and haunted Bush Sr. until his defeat in 1992. In essence, Hamilton took Reagan's people at their word when they assured the chairman that neither Reagan nor Bush were "in the loop" regarding the arms-for-hostages deal.

History and investigation have proven this to be quite separate from the truth, and Hamilton later admitted he should not have bought what Reagan's people were selling. The fact remains, however, that Hamilton let these guys slip the noose during what was, at the time, an investigation into one of the most serious abrogations of Constitutional law in our history. It is worthwhile to note that the man who brought the most pressure upon Hamilton within Congress to be "bipartisan" and avoid a protracted investigation was then-Wyoming representative Dick Cheney.

One of the men spared prosecution in the Iran/Contra scandal, thanks in no small part to the gentility of Mr. Hamilton, was Robert Gates. Gates, then a senior official within the CIA, was widely believed to have been neck-deep in the plot. During the investigation into the scandal, Gates parroted Reagan and claimed not to remember when he knew what he knew about everything that was happening down in Ollie North's office. In 1991, he was nominated and eventually appointed to be the head of CIA by Bush Sr. During his confirmation hearings, according to the New York Times, it was revealed that "Mr. Gates [had] distorted intelligence reports so they would conform to the political beliefs of his superiors."

That sounds familiar.

Gates's nomination to the post of secretary of defense was field-generaled behind the scenes by James Baker III, who has suddenly taken on a muscular role within the Bush White House since the spectacular Republican wipeout during the midterm elections last Tuesday. Baker's return, along with the new prominence of Bush Sr., has been hailed in the mainstream press as a healthy step toward stability and sanity.

One is forced to wonder, however, which masters Mr. Baker is actually serving. Baker's Carlyle Group has profited wildly from the conflict in Iraq, which begs the question: will the bottom line, augmented by Carlyle's defense contracts, trump any attempts to establish a just and lasting peace? It must also be noted that Baker's law firm, Baker Botts, is currently serving as defense counsel for Saudi Arabia against a suit brought by the families of 9/11 victims. The connections between the Bush family and the Saudi royals have been discussed ad nauseam, and Mr. Baker is so closely entwined with the Bush clan that he might as well be a blood relative.

The weakening of George W. Bush, in short, has opened the door for an alumnus of the Iran/Contra scandal, Robert Gates, to gain control of the Pentagon - his nomination, as yet, has met with little Congressional resistance. This process was managed by James Baker, whose Carlyle Group made billions off the Iraq occupation and whose fealty to the American people has all too often taken a back seat to the needs and desires of the royal family of Saudi Arabia. These two, along with Hamilton, have been instrumental in crafting, by way of the Iraq Study Group, what by all accounts will soon be America's foreign policy lynchpin in Iraq and the Middle East as a whole.

Behind it all is George H.W. Bush, former employee of Carlyle, who has somehow managed to refashion his reputation into that of a grandfatherly, level-headed, steady hand, a foreign policy "realist" whose mere presence will soothe and calm the troubled waters we sail in. Unfortunately, his "realism" is a significant reason the United States finds itself in its current mess - until the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was a boon confederate of both the Reagan and Bush administrations in their fight against Iran - and the team of experts he has brought with him have done more to undermine the national security of the country than any other three people one could name.

The winner in all this, of course, is the Carlyle Group. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence. His newest book, House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation, will be available this winter from PoliPointPress.

Paying for the Iraq War

Who Will Pay for Iraq and When?
By Jonathan Coopersmith
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor

Thursday 16 November 2006

In all the heated words about the Iraq war, we've heard little or nothing about paying for it. Regardless of how you feel about the war, you must concede that it is going to cost us all dearly.

The Iraq war is consuming over $1.4 billion a week - or $200 million a day. In the time it takes you to read this article, the American government will have spent $700,000 on the war. The war has cost $200 billion already. Economists have estimated the war's ultimate bill will be $1-2 trillion, which includes costs such as the hospitalization and long-term care of tens of thousands of wounded veterans, interest payments on the wartime debt and replacement of worn-out equipment.

The enormous expense of the Iraq war is no surprise: historically, wars cost money, lots of it. In the past, paying for wars has often provided the impetus for new and more efficient ways of taxing citizens. Lotteries, an essential source of income for 42 states today, helped pay for the Revolutionary War. The income tax first surfaced in the United States to pay the huge costs of the Civil War, although the Supreme Court declared the tax unconstitutional after the war.

Half a century later, in 1913, Congress passed an income tax. That progressive tax began at 1 percent for married couples making over $4,000 and rose to 7 percent on incomes over $500,000. To pay for World War I, the top rate rose to 77 percent on income over $2 million, although the number of people earning $2 million then was minuscule. To pay for World War II, Congress expanded the number of people paying income taxes from 4 to 42 million and increased the top rate to 91 percent. Excess-profits taxes brought in even more money, as did sales of savings bonds.

And those were "good" wars. Controversial wars, such as the Iraq war today, have been harder to fund. Lyndon Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon, failed to raise taxes sufficiently to pay for the Vietnam War, partly because of opposition to the war from liberals and others, and to Johnson's war on poverty from conservatives. Neither left nor right wanted to fund what they considered as dangerously misguided government policies.

Consequently, growing deficits and cuts to politically vulnerable parts of the federal budget marked attempts by Johnson and Nixon to pay for the war in Vietnam. Among the cuts were those to scientific and technical research that could have had long-term benefits; cutting such funding meant slower long-term growth. The deficits also helped spark an inflationary spiral that persisted through the 1970s. This inflation reduced the value of the dollar, a less direct but longer-lasting cost of the Vietnam war.

The most impressive wartime financing ever was by President Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, in the first Gulf War of 1990-1991. The first President Bush and his advisers worked through diplomacy to persuade countries like Japan to pay almost all of America's immediate war costs.

In the case of Iraq, instead of raising taxes to pay for the war, the current Bush administration is cutting them, adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the federal deficit. The Bush administration has raised the ceiling on the national debt from $5.95 trillion in 2001 to $9.62 trillion in 2006, an increase of over 60 percent in five years. All this debt must eventually be repaid by taxing us, our children and our grandchildren.

Why this flight from financial reality? No politician likes to raise taxes. The Bush administration has made cutting taxes a policy hallmark and has vigorously opposed any discussion of raising any taxes.

Before it invaded Iraq, the White House disavowed its treasury secretary, John Snow, who estimated the war would cost $100-200 billion. The administration argued that the war would cost only a few tens of billions of dollars, hardly enough to get excited about. Since then, the administration has funded the war through annual supplemental requests instead of regular budget appropriations, effectively hiding the war's cost.

For their part, Democrats have not tried to pay for the war by raising taxes, for fear the Republicans will call them "tax-and-spend" liberals. Although this is a far more responsible policy than being a "borrow-and-spend" conservative, a platform of fiscal frugality will not win elections in today's polarized political climate. Nor, afraid of being accused of not supporting the troops, have Democrats attempted to challenge funding for the war.

Equally important, investors, including the Chinese government, are financing the war in Iraq by buying Treasury bonds. Foreign investors are not buying bonds because they agree with American foreign policy; they buy bonds as a good investment that will be repaid with interest - by taxes on Americans for decades to come.

Both the Congress and the president deserve blame for not fulfilling their Constitutional duty to find the funding for the Iraq war. But especially for an administration that uses historical events to justify its actions, it's sad that the president and his supporters have not learned one of the most important lessons of history: fiscal responsibility.

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Jonathan Coopersmith is Associate Professor of History at Texas A&M University and is a writer for the History News Service, an independent, nonprofit distribution service provided by professional historians to the news media, offers commentary that places current issues in their historical perspectives.

Neocons throw Bush under the bus

The Rat Pack
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 06 November 2006

Blaming George W. Bush for everything that has gone wrong these last years is a lot like blaming Mickey Mouse when Disney screws up.
- Me

"There is probably some long-standing rule," wrote Hunter S. Thompson, "among writers, journalists and other word-mongers that says: 'When you start stealing from your own work, you're in bad trouble.'" Indeed. It is truly bad form to quote yourself, but I am at a loss to frame this situation without deploying that old line, which I used to throw out as the occupation of Iraq began spiraling into the horrific bloodbath we see on the news every night.

It is what it is, and I can live with the shame, because it's undeniably true. Mr. Bush is not running the show, and I can't think of a better way to say it. We saw this on 9/11, when he sat there like a pithed frog as the citizens he was supposed to protect and defend died in fire and dust in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. We saw this when Dick Cheney chaperoned him during the 9/11 Commission's interview of him. Neither man was under oath, but Dick was there anyway, because George can't be trusted to manage anything on his own. We saw this after Katrina, and we have seen it every day for three years of this Iraq war. It has become, by now, axiomatic: water is wet, sky is up there, and George W. Bush might as well be animate furniture for all the actual governing he does. Water him twice a week, turn him towards the light, and he'll be fine ... but for the love of God, don't expect leadership or vision from the man. We're dealing with a sock puppet in a three-thousand dollar suit, no more, no less.

The actual culprits are, of course, well known. Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld are the real ideological muscle behind this administration, with Paul Wolfowitz playing the role of Rasputin. Rice has some input, and Rove calls the shots. Water is wet, sky is up there, and that's the deal.

But what of the others, the smart boys in the back room whose white papers and dreams of empire fueled the mayhem and slaughter that has marked our passage through these years? These are the ones most people never hear about, the speechwriters and think tankers, the ones who grind the grist and make the arguments, the ones who truly craft policy. There are lots of them, and they are as much a part of the story as Dick and Don and Condi and Karl.

Usually, these folks get to operate behind the scenes. Today, however, the curtain has been rolled back and the smart boys have been exposed. David Rose has popped off with an astonishing Vanity Fair article titled "Neo Culpa." In it, the fellows who helped to design and implement the radical foreign policy catastrophe we currently endure, to a man, remove themselves from blame for all this and throw George W. Bush under the bus.

Ken Adelman, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney and Richard Perle have spent many years waiting for the opportunity to road-test their wild ideas about how to deal with the world, and with the installation of the Bush administration, they finally got their big chance. Now that the wheels are coming off, however, they are trying to pretend that none of this has anything to do with them.

It is, in a way, uproariously funny reading. Some quotes from Rose's Vanity Fair piece:

"I just presumed," saith Adelman, "that what I considered to be the most competent national-security team since Truman was indeed going to be competent. They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the post-war era. Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional. There's no seriousness here, these are not serious people. If he had been serious, the president would have realized that those three are each directly responsible for the disaster of Iraq."

"Ask yourself," saith Ledeen, "who the most powerful people in the White House are. They are women who are in love with the president: Laura (Bush), Condi, Harriet Miers, and Karen Hughes."

"(Bush) doesn't in fact seem to be a man of principle," saith Gaffney, "who's steadfastly pursuing what he thinks is the right course. He talks about it, but the policy doesn't track with the rhetoric, and that's what creates the incoherence that causes us problems around the world and at home. It also creates the sense that you can take him on with impunity."

"The decisions did not get made that should have been," saith Perle. "They didn't get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly. At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible."

For the record, Ken Adelman served the Bush administration as an assistant to Don Rumsfeld, and was also a Reagan administration official. Michael Ledeen is fellow at the ultra-conservative American Enterprise Institute, and has served in the Pentagon, the State Department and the National Security Council. Frank Gaffney is another hardcore think tanker who has worked with The Committee on the Present Danger and the Center for Security Policy. During the Reagan administration, Gaffney was an aide to Richard Perle, who was serving as Assistant Secretary of Defense. Perle is also a think tanker who served the Bush administration as chairman of the Defense Policy Board. Each, in his own way, has worked to bend American policy around the needs and desires of the hard-liners within the government of Israel.

These are the four horseman of this neo-conservative apocalypse, and almost everything that has happened in the last several years can be laid directly at their feet. Compare and contrast, if you will, their statements in the Vanity Fair piece to their words from just a few years ago.

"I believe," said Adelman in a February 2002 Washington Post editorial, "demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps."

"Change - above all violent change," wrote Ledeen not too long ago, "is the essence of human history. Creative destruction is our middle name. We do it automatically. It is time once again to export the democratic revolution." Ominously, Ledeen is also the spiritual leader for those who think total war in the Middle East is the way to go. "The time for diplomacy is at an end," he wrote in April of 2003. "It is time for a free Iran, free Syria and free Lebanon."

"I believe," said Gaffney two months before the Iraq invasion, "that when you find, as you will I hope shortly, that the Iraqi people welcome the end of this horrible regime, even if it comes at some further expense to themselves, knowing as they do that the alternative is more of the horror that they've lived under for the past two or three decades. You'll see, I think, an outpouring of appreciation for their liberation that will make what we saw in Afghanistan recently pale by comparison."

"A year from now," said Perle, "I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush." Perle also noted once that, "If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now."

Pretty much says it all right there. But we also have this: a slide-show presentation by Perle's Defense Policy Board to the decision-makers within this administration titled "Grand Strategy for the Middle East." The final slide of the presentation described "Iraq as the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia as the strategic pivot (and) Egypt as the prize."

Gaffney and Perle were also centrally involved in the policy formulations that came out of the Project for the New American Century, or PNAC. The blueprint for this administration's Middle East policies can be found in the seminal PNAC white paper, published in 2000, titled Rebuilding America's Defenses. Other notable members of PNAC include Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Elliot Abrams, Donald Kagan and Lewis "Recently Indicted" Libby.

In the aftermath of the conviction of Saddam Hussein, and the trumpeting of the menace to the world he supposedly presented, it is worthwhile to note what PNAC had to say about the man at the turn of the century. "Indeed," reads page 14 of the document, "the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."

Got that? Hussein didn't matter. It was about carving out a permanent military presence in Iraq, the ultimate purpose of which would be to knock off every other regime in the region, friend and foe alike. Adelman, Ledeen, Gaffney and Perle husbanded these concepts all the way into the White House and the Pentagon, and now that their plans have been exposed as being horribly flawed, they are desperate to cut and run from their own undeniable responsibility.

"Huge mistakes were made," said Perle in the Vanity Fair piece, "and I want to be very clear on this: They were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the downfall of the regime in Baghdad. I'm getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war. I was in favor of bringing down Saddam. Nobody said, 'Go design the campaign to do that.' I had no responsibility for that."

Reading this, there can be but one unavoidable conclusion to make: these men, ultimately, are nothing more or less than the worst form of coward to be found in this country. They talk tough about global domination while sending other people's children off to die, and then run like rabbits when the scab is ripped off their festering ideology. That they said all those ridiculous things before and during the occupation is bad enough. That they have now attempted to blame it all on Bush, while denying their own culpability, is nauseating beyond words.

The best bit of all, perhaps, came after Rose's article hit the wires. A National Review "symposium" published on Sunday morning sprayed heated outrage from these four men over the fact that their thoughts about Bush and Iraq were made public. Each was apparently shocked - shocked! - that they might actually have to stand by their words.

"Concerned that anything I might say could be used to influence the public debate on Iraq just prior to Tuesday's election," said Perle on Sunday, "I had been promised that my remarks would not be published before the election. I should have known better than to trust the editors at Vanity Fair who lied to me and to others who spoke with Mr. Rose. Moreover, in condensing and characterizing my views for their own partisan political purposes, they have distorted my opinion about the situation in Iraq and what I believe to be in the best interest of our country. I believe the president is now doing what he can to help the Iraqis get to the point where we can honorably leave. We are on the right path."

These rats are trying to scramble off the sinking ship they helped put to sea, but don't you dare take anything they have to say about it, anything they ever said about it, at face value. They lack the courage of their earlier convictions, and flee even the chance to repent. They are neither here nor there, but nowhere. They are a vapid void where morality and simple integrity have not, and never will, find purchase.

If only the folks in the White House and Pentagon had known this a few years ago. They could have taken the words of Phaedrus to heart - "A coward boasting of his courage may deceive strangers, but he is a laughing-stock to those who know him." - and saved us all a great deal of death and sorrow.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence. His newest book, House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation, will be available this winter from PoliPointPress.