Reagan kicks bucket. Bush reportedly furious: "Couldn't he have waited until October, when it would've done me some good?"

UPDATE: Trapper John and Tom Schaller have posted lovely panegyrics over at Daily Kos. Schaller even found a link to David Corn's memorable "66 Things to Think About When Flying into Reagan National Airport," from 1998.

Let the deification begin! In addition to the obvious candidates for commemoration (landmarks, municipal buildings, all roads except intersecting ones, where confusion might arise), everything that is now named after France should be renamed in honor of the late President: Reagan fries, Reagan toast, Reagan dressing, Reagan's mustard, Reagan cuffs, Reagan kissing (not to be confused with "Nancy Reagan kissing," which designates an even Frencher practice). The French and Indian War will now be called the Reagan and Indian War. The French Revolution will be referred to as the First Reagan Revolution (to distinguish it from the Reagan Revolution, which will now be known as the Second Reagan Revolution or, more appropriately, the First Second Coming).

Old episodes of Family Affair will be redubbed to reflect the Sebastian Cabot character's new name, "Mr. Reagan." Also, the Paris Hilton sex video will henceforth be known as the Reagan Hilton sex video.

The phrase "Going Dutch" should be fine as is.

UPDATE II (6/6): If you've turned on a television in the last 24 hours, you have no doubt heard many a treacle merchant describing Ronald Reagan as "America's most beloved President," "the most popular President in living memory," and so on. Just remember: 'tain't so. And Atrios has the numbers to prove it.

UPDATE III (6/6): Far be it from me to speak ill of the dead when Steve Gilliard, Greg Palast, and Lucius Shepard have already done it so eloquently.

UPDATE IV (6/6): And, of course, Billmon; always Billmon.

UPDATE V (6/6): Via Zemblan patriot J.D., William Rivers Pitt of TruthOut:

The truth is straightforward: Virtually every significant problem facing the American people today can be traced back to the policies and people that came from the Reagan administration. It is a laundry list of ills, woes and disasters that has all of us, once again, staring apocalypse in the eye . . . .

Mainstream media journalism today is a shameful joke because of Reagan's deregulation policies. Once upon a time, the Fairness Doctrine ensured that the information we receive - information vital to the ability of the people to govern in the manner intended - came from a wide variety of sources and perspectives. Reagan's policies annihilated the Fairness Doctrine, opening the door for a few mega-corporations to gather journalism unto themselves. Today, Reagan's old bosses at General Electric own three of the most-watched news channels. This company profits from every war we fight, but somehow is trusted to tell the truths of war. Thus, the myths are sold to us.

The veneer of honor and respect painted across the legacy of Ronald Reagan is itself a myth of biblical proportions. The coverage proffered today of the Reagan legacy seldom mentions impropriety until the Iran/Contra scandal appears on the administration timeline. This sin of omission is vast. By the end of his term in office, some 138 Reagan administration officials had been convicted, indicted or investigated for misconduct and/or criminal activities . . . .

Ronald Reagan actively supported the regimes of the worst people ever to walk the earth. Names like Marcos, Duarte, Rios Mont and Duvalier reek of blood and corruption, yet were embraced by the Reagan administration with passionate intensity. The ground of many nations is salted with the bones of those murdered by brutal rulers who called Reagan a friend. Who can forget his support of those in South Africa who believed apartheid was the proper way to run a civilized society?

One dictator in particular looms large across our landscape. Saddam Hussein was a creation of Ronald Reagan. The Reagan administration supported the Hussein regime despite his incredible record of atrocity. The Reagan administration gave Hussein intelligence information which helped the Iraqi military use their chemical weapons on the battlefield against Iran to great effect. The deadly bacterial agents sent to Iraq during the Reagan administration are a laundry list of horrors . . . .

Another name on Ronald Reagan's roll call is that of Osama bin Laden. The Reagan administration believed it a bully idea to organize an army of Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union. bin Laden became the spiritual leader of this action. Throughout the entirety of Reagan's term, bin Laden and his people were armed, funded and trained by the United States. Reagan helped teach Osama bin Laden the lesson he lives by today, that it is possible to bring a superpower to its knees. bin Laden believes this because he has done it once before, thanks to the dedicated help of Ronald Reagan.

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If only the Pontiff were younger and in better health. Even in his current palsied state, the old boy is clearly a gamer. From the Guardian:

The Pope yesterday subjected George Bush to a very public, relentlessly critical assessment of the US administration's performance in Iraq, attacking "deplorable" abuses of prisoners and calling for an international solution to the country's crisis.

During the president's visit to the Vatican, which the administration had hoped would help him win Catholic votes in November's presidential election, the Pope warned Mr Bush he would never succeed in the war on terrorism if he failed to ensure respect for basic human rights.

And he urged him to involve the United Nations in an oper ation for the swift return of sovereignty to Iraq.

In a clear reference to the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib jail, the pontiff said: "In the past few weeks _ deplorable events have come to light which have troubled the civic and religious conscience of all and made more difficult a serene and resolute commitment to shared human values.

"In the absence of such a commitment, neither war nor terrorism will ever be overcome" . . . .

After a string of ground-clearing exercises culminating in a visit to the Vatican by Vice-President Dick Cheney in January, it had been expected the Pope would tone down his remarks on Iraq, particularly since he was to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest US award available to a civilian.

But targeting Washington's reluctance to hand over full powers to the Iraq government and its misgivings over UN involvement, the pontiff said: "It is the evident desire of everyone that this situation now be normalised as quickly as possible with the active participation of the international community and, in particular, the United Nations organisation, in order to ensure a speedy return of Iraq's sovereignty."

Meanwhile, between 25,000 (police estimate) and 150,000 (organizers' estimate) protestors took to the streets to thumb their front teeth at the President, who was rather taken aback until his handlers reassured him that in Italy, the gesture is roughly equivalent to a thumbs-up. In Iraq.

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The first-person account of British novelist and magazine writer Elena Lappin, one of twelve foreign journalists who have been detained and deported from LAX in the past year. Cases such as hers prompted Reporters Without Borders and the American Society of Newspaper Editors to file formal protests with Colin Powell and Tom Ridge, denouncing "a systemic policy of harassing media representatives from 27 friendly countries"; as a result, the Department of Homeland Security has just issued new, more lenient guidelines for Port Directors to follow in dealing with members of the foreign media.

The handcuffs came off just before I was locked in a cell behind a thick glass wall and a heavy door. No bed, no chair, only two steel benches about a foot wide. There was a toilet in full view of anyone passing by, and of the video camera watching my every move. No pillow or blanket. A permanent fluorescent light and a television in one corner of the ceiling. It stayed on all night, tuned into a shopping channel.

After 10 minutes in the hot, barely breathable air, I panicked. I don't suffer from claustrophobia, but this enclosure triggered it. There was no guard in sight and no way of calling for help. I banged on the door and the glass wall. A male security officer finally approached and gave the newly arrived detainee a disinterested look. Our shouting voices were barely audible through the thick door. "What do you want?" he yelled. I said I didn't feel well. He walked away. I forced myself to calm down. I forced myself to use that toilet. I figured out a way of sleeping on the bench, on my side, for five minutes at a time, until the pain became unbearable, then resting in a sitting position and sleeping for another five minutes. I told myself it was for only one night . . . .

Since September 11 2001, any traveller to the US is treated as a potential security risk. The Patriot Act, introduced 45 days after 9/11, contains a chapter on Protecting The Border, with a detailed section on Enhanced Immigration Provision, in which the paragraph on Visa Security And Integrity follows those relating to protection against terrorism. In this spirit, the immigration and naturalisation service has been placed, since March 2003, under the jurisdiction of the new department of homeland security. One of its innovations was to revive a law that had been dormant since 1952, requiring journalists to apply for a special visa, known as I-visa, when visiting the US for professional reasons. Somewhere along the way, in the process of trying to develop a foolproof system of protecting itself against genuine threats, the US has lost the ability to distinguish between friend and foe. The price this powerful country is paying for living in fear is the price of its civil liberties.

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From the New York Times :

Vice President Dick Cheney was recently interviewed by federal prosecutors who asked whether he knew of anyone at the White House who had improperly disclosed the identity of an undercover C.I.A. officer, people who have been involved in official discussions about the case said on Friday.

Mr. Cheney was also asked about conversations with senior aides, including his chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, according to people officially informed about the case. In addition, those people said, Mr. Cheney was asked whether he knew of any concerted effort by White House aides to name the officer. It was not clear how Mr. Cheney responded to the prosecutors' questions.

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Digby notes that, under the sort of strict deadline rules Republicans insisted on in Florida c. 2000, George W. Bush would not be on the ballot in Illinois.

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Via Zemblan patriot L.S. (of Good Idea): Presumably the CIA-sponsored coup allegedly plotted by new Iraqi P.M. Iyad Allawi was wholly unrelated to the CIA-sponsored assassination attempt described here:

Officials yesterday recounted an incident in early 1995 when Chalabi's name turned up in an encrypted Iranian cable reporting a purported CIA-backed plan to assassinate Saddam Hussein, then Iraq's president. The message was intercepted by U.S. intelligence and caused a major political stir in Washington . . . .

Exactly who came up with the assassination idea is subject to some dispute. One U.S. official interviewed yesterday, who was familiar with the event, credited [case officer Robert] Baer with pushing the plan.

Baer has denied this. In his book "See No Evil: the True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism," published in 2001, he wrote that the plot to kill Hussein was phony, concocted by Chalabi in hopes of enticing Iranian support for his Iraqi opposition efforts.

To prove to the Iranians he had Washington's support to go after Hussein, Chalabi forged a letter on U.S. National Security Council stationery that asked him to contact the Iranian government for help, Baer wrote. The letter said Washington had dispatched to northern Iraq an "NSC team" headed by Robert Pope, a fictitious name.

In a meeting with Iranian intelligence officers, Chalabi left the letter on his desk while he took a phone call in another room, knowing the Iranians would read it, Baer wrote.

What happened next has not been previously reported.

The Iranian intelligence officers sent an encrypted message to Tehran about Chalabi's supposed plot, officials said yesterday. The United States intercepted the transmission. U.S. intelligence had broken Iran's secret communications codes during that period as well.

The contents of the 1995 intercept became the basis of a report that circulated fairly widely in Washington intelligence and law enforcement circles, an official recalled. The result was not only deep distrust within the CIA for Chalabi but also an FBI investigation of Baer.

The concern of investigators, as Baer recounted in his book, was that he was in violation of presidential orders and U.S. law that prohibited assassinations. Baer passed a polygraph test, but it would be almost a year before he and his team were cleared. Nevertheless, Baer's career was damaged and never recovered.

Shortly after the intercept, Chalabi's militia forces and Kurdish fighters went ahead with an attempted coup, launching a three-city strike against Hussein's troops. But the offensive quickly foundered.

The White House, having warned Chalabi not to proceed because Iraqi intelligence had learned of the operation, declined to provide air power to help him. Hussein's troops crushed the attackers, leaving the CIA angry that it had funded such a fiasco and infuriating top officials in the Clinton administration.

Well, Josh Marshall has been saying for some time now (here and here, for example) that the CIA had Chalabi and/or his "intelligence chief," Aras Karim Habib, pegged as Iranian assets from the mid-nineties on. Fool me once, etc., etc.

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From Reuters:

The United Nations' top human rights official said on Friday abuses by U.S. soldiers of Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison could amount to war crimes.

Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan said U.S.-led occupation forces had committed "serious violations" of international humanitarian law in Iraq (news - web sites) and had ill-treated ordinary Iraqis.

In a report for the world body's Human Rights Commission, Ramcharan, a British-trained barrister from Guyana and long-time U.N. official, also said coalition troops were able to act with impunity and urged the appointment of an independent figure to monitor their behavior . . . .

The United States has refused to sign a 1998 treaty creating the world's first permanent global war crimes tribunal.

The United States was one of 135 nations to sign the treaty under former President Bill Clinton. But President Bush's administration rescinded the signature, fearing the court could bring politically motivated or frivolous cases against U.S. troops serving on foreign soil.

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Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern of VIPS (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) on the Tenet resignation:

Always eager to please, Tenet put the intelligence community to work in support of his masters’ effort to play fast and loose with the Constitution. Virtually all of the NIE’s conclusions have since been proven wrong. But no matter; it achieved its primary purpose.

Sadly, this is what happens when a CIA director lets himself become “part of the team” in the way the president’s political advisers are part of the team. Such behavior is antithetical to the director’s statutory duty to tell the emperor when he is wearing no clothes. In an unguarded moment a few months ago, former House speaker Newt Gingrich—like Vice President Dick Cheney, a frequent visitor to CIA Headquarters—told the press, “George Tenet is so grateful to the president (presumably for not firing him on Sept. 12, 2001) that he will do anything for him.”

“Anything” now includes taking the fall for the policy and human disaster of Iraq. As things there go from worse to worse, even some Republican leaders are saying that those responsible must be held to account.

Tenet is the first sacrificial lamb because—team player that he is—he can be counted upon to set a good example by taking his “superb” performance appraisal and leaving quietly—burning no bridges. And when, in the coming weeks, the Senate Intelligence Committee and the 9/11 Commission issue reports strongly critical of the performance of U.S. intelligence, administration spokespersons will stop the buck at Tenet’s desk, saying, “Yes, it was a bad show, but now he’s gone.”

This will blow convenient smoke over the actual reasons for the war and protect its neoconservative authors. For Tenet, it renders a certain poetic justice, because the unforgivable sin in intelligence analysis is telling policymakers what you think they want to hear—in the case of Iraq, justifying with cooked “intelligence” what they have already decided to do. Sycophancy has no place in intelligence work—and especially not on issues of war and peace.

Zemblan patriot K.Z. directs your attention to McGovern's interview at Democracy Now!, which contains a number of unsettling quotes on the order of the following:

People have asked me, is that unusual? Well, it’s not unusual for the vice president to go to CIA headquarters. It’s unprecedented. I worked there for twenty seven years, and never once did a serving vice president come on a working visit to CIA headquarters. That’s not the way you do things in Washington. We went down to see him. I saw the first George Bush every other morning over a period of more than two years. If they have questions, you bring down the experts. You get the answers. But you don’t need key policy makers looking over your shoulder to make sure you haven’t missed something, to make sure in effect that you get the answers right. And right, the description of right is what the policy makers want . . . .

Gonzalez specifically warns [the President] that who knows, some future administration or some future group might sue you for violating the Geneva Conventions. And not only the Geneva Conventions but to the degree that they are embedded in this US law of 1996, and so you’re really, we have a strong basis in law but we can’t exclude the possibility. So four more years? Why do I say all this? I say all this because I am more frightened now than at any time over the last three and a half years, that this administration will resort to extra-legal methods to do something to ensure that there are four more years for George Bush. And Ashcroft’s statement last week, gratuitous statement, uncoordinated with the department of, CIA, with the Department of Homeland Security, his warning that there is bound to be a terrorist strike before the US elections. That can be viewed and this can be reasonably viewed as the opening salvo in the justification for doing, taking measures to ensure that whatever happens in November comes out so that four more years can be devoted to maybe changing that war crimes act or protecting at least these vulnerable people for four more years.

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Via Zemblan patriot J.D.: July 4th is still a month off, but John Dean, White House Counsel under Richard M. Nixon, says that the President's decision to hire a private criminal defense attorney in connection with the Plame investigation is an all-but-certain guarantee of dazzling fireworks ahead:

The [Special Counsel Patrick J.] Fitzgerald investigation has not made friends with the Washington press corps, many of whom are being subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury. Those journalists with whom I have spoken say they are not willing to appear before any grand jury to reveal their sources. So this issue is headed toward a showdown. And under existing law, a journalist cannot refuse to provide information to a grand jury.

Nor, based on the few existing precedents, can a sitting president refuse to give testimony to a grand jury. And that appears to be the broad, underlying reason Bush is talking with Washington attorney James Sharp.

Why might the grand jury wish to hear Bush's testimony? Most of the possible answers are not favorable for Bush.

There is, of course, one totally benign way to view the situation. "It is hard for me to imagine that Pat Fitzgerald is going to be going aggressively after the president," one Washington lawyer told the Los Angeles Times. "My guess is that he feels a need to conduct an interview because he needs to be in a position to say, 'I have done everything that could be done.'" The lawyer added, "If [Fitzgerald] closes the case without an indictment and has not interviewed the president, he is going to be criticized."

But from what I have learned from those who have been quizzed by the Fitzgerald investigators it seems unlikely that they are interviewing the President merely as a matter of completeness, or in order to be able to defend their actions in front of the public. Asking a President to testify - or even be interviewed - remains a serious, sensitive and rare occasion. It is not done lightly. Doing so raises separation of powers concerns that continue to worry many . . . .

Undoubtedly, those from the White House have been asked if they spoke with the president about the leak. It appears that one or more of them may indeed have done so.

If so - and if the person revealed the leaker's identity to the President, or if the President decided he preferred not to know the leaker's identity. -- then this fact could conflict with Bush's remarkably broad public statements on the issue. He has said that he did not know of "anybody in [his] administration who leaked classified information." He has also said that he wanted "to know the truth" about this leak.

If Bush is called before the grand jury, it is likely because Fitzgerald believes that he knows much more about this leak than he has stated publicly.

Perhaps Bush may have knowledge not only of the leaker, but also of efforts to make this issue go away - if indeed there have been any. It is remarkably easy to obstruct justice, and this matter has been under various phases of an investigation by the Justice Department since it was referred by the CIA last summer.

Dean explains that Bush may have to hire a private attorney instead of relying on White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez because Kenneth Starr, in his zealous pursuit of the Clintons, secured two court rulings that essentially gutted the attorney-client privilege between government lawyers and their clients. Which leads Dean to the obvious conclusion:

I spoke with an experienced former federal prosecutor who works in Washington, specializing in white collar criminal defense (but who does not know Sharp). That attorney told me that he is baffled by Bush's move - unless Bush has knowledge of the leak. "It would not seem that the President needs to consult personal counsel, thereby preserving the attorney-client privilege, if he has no knowledge about the leak," he told me.

What advice might Bush get from a private defense counsel? The lawyer I consulted opined that, "If he does have knowledge about the leak and does not plan to disclose it, the only good legaladvice would be to take the Fifth, rather than lie. The political fallout is a separate issue."

And here's an underreported detail: according to Dean, Vice-President Dick Cheney has lawyered up as well.

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Robert Dreyfuss quizzed a "well-connected intelligence veteran" and got this insider's take on L'Affaire Chalabi:

Chalabi had been blabbing about anything and everything to the Iranians for months, especially to the Iranian intelligence chieftain in Baghdad. Because the United States had broken the Iranians’ code, the Iranian official’s reports of his talks with the gabby Chalabi routinely started showing up on the desk of intel officers around Washington, and Chalabi starting becoming even more of a laughingstock than usual among insiders. Then, the gaggle of neocon, pro-Chalabi backers decided to tell Chalabi to shut up, and they warned him that reports of his talks were being picked up by the National Security Agency, which was monitoring the cable traffic from the Iranian intelligence station in Baghdad to Teheran. In doing so, they made the mistake of telling Chalabi that the Iranian code had been broken.

So Chalabi, in a panic, went to the Iranian spy, saying something like, ‘Look, I can’t talk to you anymore, at least not openly, because the CIA is listening to your cable traffic.” Now Chalabi is a notorious fabricator, and there’s no reason to think that the Iranians would take him any more seriously than the CIA does. Then one of two things is possible: either the Iranian intelligence chief in Baghdad didn’t believe Chalabi, and once again just sent an account of Chalabi’s blathering to Iran; or, the Iranians decided to burn Chalabi on purpose, and sent the message knowing it was going to be picked up and that Chalabi would be trashed. In either case, the message was picked up, Chalabi was caught by the NSA, and now the investigation is underway.

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"Personal reasons."

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Good news: The FBI is administering polygraph examinations to the select handful of Pentagon officials who had access to the classified info Ahmed Chalabi passed to Iran.

Bad news: Polygraph examinations are a load of bunk.

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Won't someone help us out on this one? We will be pleased to entertain any and all possible explanations, no matter how ludicrous. From the AP wire, via Zemblan patriot B.K.:

Nabil al-Marabh, once imprisoned as the No. 27 man on the FBI's list of must-capture terror suspects, is free again. He's free despite telling a Jordanian informant he planned to die a martyr by driving a gasoline truck into a New York City tunnel, turning it sideways, opening its fuel valves and having an al-Qaida operative shoot a flare to ignite a massive explosion.

Free despite telling the FBI he had trained on rifles and rocket propelled grenades at militant camps in Afghanistan and after admitting he sent money to a former roommate convicted of trying to blow up a hotel in Jordan.

Free despite efforts by prosecutors in Detroit and Chicago to indict him on charges that could have kept him in prison for years. Those indictments were rejected by the Justice Department in the name of protecting intelligence. Even two judges openly questioned al-Marabh's terror ties.

The Bush administration in January deported al-Marabh to Syria - his home and a country the U.S. government long has regarded as a sponsor of terrorism.

The quiet end to al-Marabh's case provides a stark contrast to other cases in which the Bush administration has held suspects without lawyers as enemy combatants. It also contrasts with the terms FBI agents used to describe al-Marabh in internal documents obtained by The Associated Press . . . .

Even the federal judge who accepted al-Marabh's plea agreement on minor immigration charges in 2002 balked. "Something about this case just makes me feel uncomfortable,'' Judge Richard Arcara said in court. The Justice Department assured the judge that al-Marabh did not have terrorist ties.

A second judge who ultimately ordered al-Marabh's deportation sided with FBI agents, federal prosecutors and Customs Service agents in the field who believed al-Marabh was tied to terrorism . . . .

Justice spokesman Bryan Sierra said Wednesday the government has concerns about many people with suspected terror ties, including al-Marabh, but cannot effectively try them in court without giving away intelligence sources and methods.

"If the government cannot prosecute terrorism charges, another option is to remove the individual from the United States via deportation. After careful review, this was determined to be the best option available under the law to protect our national security,'' he said.

Federal prosecutors in Detroit developed evidence linking al-Marabh to a terror cell there, but were prevented from bringing their case. One of those prosecutors was Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino, who made the news back in February:

The Justice Department has exaggerated its performance in the war on terrorism, interfered with a major terror prosecution and compromised a confidential informant, a federal prosecutor has alleged in an extraordinary lawsuit against Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The lawsuit by Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino is the latest twist in the Bush administration's first major post-Sept. 11 terrorism prosecution, a Detroit case jeopardized over allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.

Convertino was the lead prosecutor on the case, in which the government did not provide defense attorneys a letter alleging that a prosecution witness lied until long after a trial had ended.

In his lawsuit, Convertino says the Justice Department is retaliating against him because he has complained frequently and publicly about "the lack of support and cooperation, lack of effective assistance, lack of resources and intradepartmental infighting" in terrorism cases . . . .

"They have rendered no assistance and, are in my judgment, adversely impacting on both trial prep and trial strategy," the e-mail cited in the lawsuit states.

Convertino also accused Justice officials of intentionally divulging the name of one of his confidential terrorism informants (CI) to retaliate against him.

The leak put the informant at grave risk, forced him to flee the United States and "interfered with the ability of the United States to obtain information from the CI about current and future terrorist activities," the suit alleges.

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Juan Cole, commenting on speculation from various sources that Iran used Ahmed Chalabi to engineer the American invasion of Iraq:

I want to intervene on this meme. It is impossible. Chalabi and the other Iraqi expatriates certainly gamed the Bush administration. But it is not credible to me that Iranian intelligence actively sought a US invasion of Iraq.

In 2002, the US occupied Afghanistan, to Iran's east. The hardliners in Iran did not like this development. They certainly would not have wanted US troops in Iraq to their West, as well. That they would manufacture fairy tales about Iraqi weapons to lure the US to Baghdad is inconceivable. And the hardliners are in charge of Iranian intelligence.

The hardline clerics objected strenuously in summer, 2002, when the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, then based in Tehran, openly admitted to having conducted negotiations with US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office about an alliance against Saddam. Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim received great heat for this alliance. Then when Abdul Majid Khoei went to Iran in winter, 2002-2003, he spoke to conservative clerics about the need to ally pragmatically with the US against Saddam, and it caused an uproar. His talk was at one point actually cut off by the tumult and he had to leave the hall.

That the Iranians reluctantly accepted that the US was determined to go to war against Iraq is obvious. But that they connived at it is ridiculous.

Indeed, the likelihood is that the Iranians were also victims of Chalabi's lie factory. The INC peddled the story to the US that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program. It must have peddled the same story to the Iranians. In fact, what if the lies of Chalabi & Associates about the non-existent nuclear program so alarmed Iran that it redoubled its efforts to get a nuclear weapon, conducting an arms race against a phantom? If so, Chalabi and his group have single-handedly destabilized the entire Persian Gulf region. And for what? So that Ahmad could be president for life. And now that will not even happen.

In another post, Cole notes that "The frankly idiotic US battles fought near Shiite shrines in Najaf and Karbala have created a new, seething rage toward the US in many Shiite Muslim communities throughout the world," including Pakistan and India.

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Two recent entries from Iraq Dispatches, a new blog by Dahr Jamail, Baghdad correspondent for the NewStandard:

DISINTEGRATION (May 31): How is life possibly going to get better in Iraq? Kids are being raised to fight against the most powerful military the Earth has ever known. Every U.S. soldier who comes here knows they will be in-country for at least one full year. More troops are on the way. More soldiers have been killed near Ramadi and Fallujah recently. The truce in Najaf and Kufa came and went. A man has been selected by the IGC as the president whom every single Iraqi I know thinks is an absolute bastard.

One man I know, when asked what he thought about Alawi, said frankly, “He will be killed, insh’allah.” Another Iraqi friend said, “If he lasts a month, he’ll be very lucky.”

So as the Bush and Blair camps race about trying to paint a picture of stability and structure in Iraq, with June 30 is now just a month away -- this place is coming apart at the seams. For each step forward the coalition makes, two disasters occur... whether they take the form of deadly attacks on the occupying forces, more mortars blasting into the CPA, sabotage of a pipeline or powerplant, a murder, another SUV of secret service or security mercenaries taken out by an RPG, or something less obvious...

A child being raised to fight. A woman dying of breast cancer from depleted uranium exposure. A highly trained engineer, without work, sweating in his car, which he drives as a taxi, which means waiting for hours in a fuel line. A family home raided in the middle of the night by the military. Women not being able to leave their homes in safety. Nor men, for that matter. A soldier who has lost his legs in an IED blast goes home to his country. He and his family having to learn to live with his disability. An Iraqi war veteran begging on the street -- has no family.

Iraq has been shattered. And now, today, over a year since the horrible regime of Saddam Hussein was overthrown, what is left of the country seems to be unraveling more and more with each passing day.

---

FOOD (June 1): Iraqis continue to receive monthly food rations from the UN's oil-for-food program. They receive a large piece of paper from the Iraqi government which has all of their family information. Each month they take this to certain stores who distribute the rations, where they have one of the coupons taken from their sheet, and in return they are granted a ration of basic foodstuffs comprised of rice, beans, soap, cooking oil, sugar, chai, salt and flour.

Most of these products are imported as Iraqi companies, in general, are not producing them.

The monthly food ration does not include any meat or vegetables, so Iraqis must buy these for themselves in the markets. By itself, the ration is not enough for anyone to survive on, at least in a healthy way.

Meat and vegetables in the markets hasn’t grown much more expensive than it has always been here. However, the gas crisis, like those in the past, has pushed prices upwards... meaning of course, less fresh vegetables and meat for Iraqis . . . .

Nevertheless, every time I am invited into someone’s home to conduct an interview, they insist I stay for lunch. Someone is sent out to purchase some soda, chicken, and usually kabobs. There is always more than enough food provided for their guests, even if it means they have to go without later. Offers to contribute are never accepted, and if one does not accept the invitation for lunch or dinner, the host is offended and hurt.

Yet another irreconcilable situation in the long line of them I’ve encountered in Iraq. The generosity and warmth extended by a people who are in the midst of such suffering and strife, goes far beyond anything most people in the West may ever know.

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Jeez! Take the kid out to see Harry Potter, gone for just a couple of hours, and what happens? From the AP wire, courtesy of Zemblan patriot J.D.:

President Bush has consulted an outside lawyer about possibly representing him in the grand jury investigation of who leaked the name of a covert CIA operative last year, White House officials said Wednesday night.
There was no indication that Bush was a target of the leak investigation, but the president's move suggested he anticipates being questioned about what he knows.

A federal grand jury has questioned numerous White House and administration officials to learn who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame, wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to the news media. Wilson has charged that officials made the disclosure in an effort to discredit him.

"The president has made it very clear he wants everyone to cooperate fully with the investigation and that would include himself," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

He confirmed that Bush had contacted Washington attorney Jim Sharp. "In the event the president needs his advice, I expect he probably would retain him," McClellan said . . . .

"It speaks for itself that the president initially claimed he wanted to get to the bottom of this, but now he's suddenly retained a lawyer," said Jano Cabrera, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee. "Bush shouldn't drag the country through grand juries and legal maneuvering. President Bush should come forward with what he knows and come clean with the American people."

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Last weekend on Meet the Press host Tim Russert quizzed Nancy Pelosi about her recent (long-overdue) (rather tamer than I would have liked) quote:

What message does this send to the troops in Iraq when the ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives says that the commander in chief is not a leader, has no judgment, no experience and no knowledge? How does that make the troops feel?

Can't speak for the troops, Tim, but I'm hard-pressed to imagine it makes them feel much worse than having to live with the consequences of the President's manifest incompetence. From an op-ed by Andrew Exum in the New York Times:

Many Americans, feeling that we did not have enough troops in Iraq, were pleased when the Defense Department announced last month that 20,000 more soldiers were being sent to put down the insurgency and help rebuild the country. Unfortunately, few realized that many of these soldiers would serve long after their contractual obligations to the active-duty military are complete. In essence, they will no longer be voluntarily serving their country.

These soldiers are falling victim to the military's "stop-loss" policy — and as a former officer who led some of them in battle, I find their treatment shameful. Announced shortly after the 9/11 attacks and authorized by President Bush, the stop-loss policy allows commanders to hold soldiers past the date they are due to leave the service if their unit is scheduled to be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. Military officials rightly point out that stop-loss prevents a mass exodus of combat soldiers just before a combat tour.

But nonetheless, the stop-loss policy is wrong; it runs contrary to the concept of the volunteer military set up in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Many if not most of the soldiers in this latest Iraq-bound wave are already veterans of several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have honorably completed their active duty obligations. But like draftees, they have been conscripted to meet the additional needs in Iraq.

Yet even after two deployments to Afghanistan, and with many nearing the end of their commitments, these soldiers will have to head to Iraq this summer and remain there for at least a year. I remain close with them, and as the unit received its marching orders a few called me to express their frustration. To a man, they felt a sense of hopelessness — they know they have little say over their future until the Army releases them.

Elsewhere, Thomas Schaller of The Gadflyer takes a post-Memorial Day look at fatality trends in Iraq, where the official casualty count for Americans has now eclipsed 5,000 -- over 800 dead, over 4,200 wounded:

Still, the striking divergence of burden between America and its allies in recent months deserves mention. Although non-American coalition forces suffered a record 28 deaths last November (only one of which was British), in the six months beginning December 1 American troops have suffered 372 of the 397 total coalitional fatalities – almost 94 percent. By comparison, in the first 256 days of the war through November 30, 2003, American deaths constituted but 84 percent of coalition fatalities.

If it wasn't fully our war a year ago, with each passing month it is becoming so.

What's more, thus far the share of the 814 American casualties who were killed by hostile fire seems to be increasing. Again using December 1 as the cut point, only 300 of the 442 Americans, or 67.9 percent, killed prior to that date were victims of hostile fire, whereas the 299 service personnel of the 372 total who died in the past six months yield hostile-action death rate of 80.4 percent. Though non-hostile deaths from friendly fire, accidents and suicides are no less tragic, not only is Iraq becoming more relatively more dangerous for America, but the dangers are more external.

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Best fun I've had on the net today: reading the comments section to Billmon's recent post about Ahmed Chalabi and Alger Hiss. Worthy of special mention are "Outraged," who supplies a wealth of useful background links, and "Valdron," who offers up some well-thought-out and highly persuasive speculations as to who's playing whom in L'affaire Chalabi. And how often do you see an eruption of spleen like this one, from the human Krakatoa of vituperation who calls himself "Helpful Spook"?

Each rubbish amateurish forgery, each lunatic 'claim' that fell down every time one of Chalabi's revolving door 'sources' showed up for a serious debriefing, each slug trail back to the same office from the desks of various sleazy, immoral, spineless journalists whoring their profession for more pellets of ratshit, each 'mad science' theory that was debunked by reputable scholars, each flabby jowled Iraqi charlatan with a big gut and a taste for high living who was touted around as some kind of uber-patriot resistance fighter (seems none of them can resist food), whose 'story' was shot full of holes by decent and honorable Iraqis - the whole crock of shit that's been sprayed around as 'intelligence' is so demonstrably, pathetically risible that a septuagenarian's sewing circle or a gang of octogenarian duck hunters could have dismissed it all as bullshit in a seven minute conversation.

If what has appeared in the public domain, or has been leaked into it, is 'intelligence', if what was done with it was 'analysis' and if what was done with that constitutes 'policy' then I'm sorry to have to say it people, but you're fucked . . . .

Just LOOK at the utter drivel that's been served up to you all as the fruits of this gang of crazies. It's woeful - a high school kid would turn in more paperwork for a nature project for Christ's sake. And all the years of expensive spy-work boil down to is a stinking Chalabi turd dropped right on top of your Constitution and Bill of Rights with Cheney's, Perle's, Feith's, Rumsfeld's and Wolfowitz's fingerprints all over it - they wouldn't let Bush near it or the buffoon would have eaten it.

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Today's lesson: in fighting terrorism, as in cleaning up the air and water, public safety is not the issue. Cash money is the issue. Maybe you are a conspicuous hazard to the health and well-being of every man, woman, child and household pet within a hundred-mile radius. But does that mean you should spend thousands, perhaps even millions, to tidy up your industrial act? Hell, no. Just slip the Republicans a couple of bucks and before you know it, presto, problem solved -- you're voluntarily self-regulating! From the Boston Globe (via Cursor):

Homeland Security watchdogs call them "prepositioned weapons of mass destruction" for terrorists: huge tanks of concentrated deadly gases that the chemical industry stores near densely populated areas and that railroads bring through cities en route to somewhere else.

The United States harbors more than 100 chemical facilities where an accident would put more than a million people at risk, according to documents filed with the Environmental Protection Agency. One is in Boston: A chemical distributor acknowledged in its filing that in a worst-case scenario if a tank holding 180,000 pounds of vinyl acetate -- a highly flammable liquid -- ruptured, it would send a 4.9-mile-long toxic cloud through the city.

As federal security officials warn that Al Qaeda is poised to strike the United States again, the presence of these highly toxic chemicals in the midst of cities may be the most vulnerable point in the nation's defenses. But proposals to reduce that risk by requiring the use of alternative chemicals or rerouting hazardous tankers around a city have faltered.

Fear of such an attack on a chemical facility prompted bipartisan momentum in Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks for requiring the chemical industry to switch to less dangerous processes where possible. Although many Republicans supported the measure initially, many changed their minds after intense industry lobbying, and the bill died on the Senate floor.

Nearly three years later, the laws regulating chemical plants remain the same as before Sept. 11 -- a striking exception to an otherwise transformed security landscape. Similarly, support has emerged for new regulations on railroads that carry dangerous materials such as chlorine through urban areas. Rupturing a chlorine rail tanker would produce a 40-mile-long cloud of the same deadly gas used as a weapon in World War I. But a first-in-the-nation proposal by the District of Columbia City Council to reroute tankers carrying such hazardous cargo around the nation's capital has been stalled for months: The chemical and rail industries objected, with backing from the Bush administration.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group, both industries heavily back the Republican Party. In the two election cycles since the Sept. 11 attacks, the railroad industry has given $9.5 million to political campaigns -- 77 percent of it to Republicans. The chemical manufacturing industry has given $11 million -- 78 percent of it to Republicans.

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The latest in our ongoing series of Articles That Everyone Else Has Linked To Already is "The Source of the Trouble," Franklin Foer's New York magazine profile of Pulitzer Prize-winning hooey merchant Judith Miller.

However -- if only to shake things up a little -- may we recommend that you read Steve Gilliard's expert commentary first?

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For the love of God, don't let your powerful Republican friends read this post. James Ridgeway, in the Village Voice:

So far, all eyes have been focused on whether Kerry can persuade McCain to sign on as his veep on the Dem ticket. McCain has said over and over again he won't do it. But there's another possibility: If George Bush wanted to rescue himself from his current suicide dive, he could dump Cheney—whose negatives are substantial—and select McCain as his veep. If he did that, John Kerry would vanish without a trace.

McCain is a political gold mine: fiscal conservative, campaign finance reformer, cancer survivor, war hero, beloved by Hollywood, great on TV, loves the environment, hero of many Democrats, and ensconced in one of the most important battleground states of the coming election. As Craig Crawford of Congressional Quarterly notes, "Bush barely won it in 2000, and Kerry is on the move there. The state's maverick political culture is shared by the neighboring Southwest battlegrounds of New Mexico and Nevada. Despite many spats with Arizona's staunchest conservatives, McCain is wildly popular there and would almost certainly deliver the state on Election Day."

If your powerful Republican friends are really persistent, just scroll down so that the above excerpts are no longer visible on the screen. They're more than welcome to read this part:

Meanwhile, Bush continues to tank. The war is bad enough, but his strategy of trying to win by energizing his right-wing base is beginning to look plain silly. Kiss-assing the Christian right by condemning abortion, gay marriages, cloning, and stem cell research, and by promoting abstinence as sex education, may pacify the base, but it's always got to get something more it wants. And Bush's efforts to endear himself with fiscal conservatives by running up huge deficits to fight the war while preparing people to accept cuts in homeland security ($1 billion), education ($1.5 billion), and veterans' affairs ($900 million) have all the earmarks of a wacko at the helm.

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Via Corrente: Are you old enough to remember that antediluvian age when "Democrat" was synonymous with "populist"? That fog-shrouded era when Republicans had yet to discover the sinister alchemy by which they transmogrified us, in the public imagination, from enemies of the plutocrat and champions of the common man into pointy-headed, ivory-tower elitists? Thomas Frank remembers; the editor of The Baffler and author of the essential One Market Under God has written a new book entitled What's the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, expanded from his Harper's article of several months ago, and George Scialabba's review (from The Nation) gives you a sense of the central mystery Frank wrestles with -- how it came to pass that "Out here, the gravity of discontent pulls in only one direction: to the right, to the right, farther to the right":

The central electoral phenomenon of the past thirty-five years has been the movement of working-class and lower-middle-class voters from the Democratic to the Republican Party. Some were Nixon Democrats, who supported the Vietnam War or were outraged by its more flamboyant opponents. Some were Wallace Democrats, who objected to busing or affirmative action and resented the pointy-headed judges and bureaucrats who imposed them. Some were Reagan Democrats, who wanted to feel good again after Jimmy Carter informed them of their malaise. Some were antiabortion Democrats, mobilized after Roe v. Wade by a newly assertive Catholic and evangelical Protestant leadership, or anti-Hollywood Democrats, offended by television's reflection of changed attitudes to sex and authority. All had once felt a traditional allegiance to the party of FDR and the New Deal, which had been their charter of inclusion in American prosperity. No longer.

Instead, they now vote for the party that has engineered their exclusion. Real wages in the United States are roughly the same now as they were in 1980; fewer jobs provide adequate health or retirement benefits; the percentage of working people protected by unions has declined precipitously; unemployment benefits are less generous; and the federal government's finances are so gravely impaired that Social Security and Medicare benefits may well be reduced and/or delayed, beginning with the next generation of retirees. At the same time, financial profits and the income of the richest Americans have increased dramatically. That most of the blame for all this can be laid at the door of Republican tax, labor, regulatory, agricultural, antitrust and trade policies has not shaken the allegiance of these working-class and lower-middle-class Republicans. It is, for some reason, completely off their radar screen.

The apparent blindness of the backlashers to their self-victimization has long made many of us crazy. Tom Frank has gone home to get to the bottom of it. Instead of shouting futilely across the kitchen table, he has turned his quarrel with his home state into a brilliant book, one of the best so far this decade on American politics.

Kansas has a radical past, Frank tells us . . . . A century later Kansans are still raising hell. But they've given up fighting the "money power" that obsessed their Populist and Socialist forebears. Now they're fighting for the money power. The descendants of the Eastern bankers and tycoons who drove nineteenth-century farmers, artisans and shopkeepers off the land or into bankruptcy are ConAgra, Boeing and Wal-Mart, who are turning farmers into virtual sharecroppers, eliminating union jobs and laying waste the small-town culture that conservatives claim to cherish. But they are doing this without a peep of protest from the fired-up grassroots activists who have taken over the Kansas Republican Party. On the contrary: Populist radicalism in Kansas today, though its causes are moral and religious, is fervently antigovernment and pro-free market, even as market forces devastate Kansas's social and economic landscape . . . .

A war against the "money power" is a class war; a war against intellectuals is a culture war. Frank's dissection of the contemporary culture war--of the indefatigable insistence of backlashers and the hucksters who claim to represent them that the government take action against abortion and the teaching of evolution, against gay marriage and gangsta rap, against pornography and Robert Mapplethorpe, but never against predatory corporations or on behalf of their victims--is superb.

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From the New York Times:

Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi leader and former ally of the Bush administration, disclosed to an Iranian official that the United States had broken the secret communications code of Iran's intelligence service, betraying one of Washington's most valuable sources of information about Iran, according to United States intelligence officials . . . .

The Bush administration, citing national security concerns, asked The New York Times and other news organizations not to publish details of the case. The Times agreed to hold off publication of some specific information that top intelligence officials said would compromise a vital, continuing intelligence operation. The administration withdrew its request on Tuesday, saying information about the code-breaking was starting to appear in news accounts . . . .

American officials said that about six weeks ago, Mr. Chalabi told the Baghdad station chief of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security that the United States was reading the communications traffic of the Iranian spy service, one of the most sophisticated in the Middle East.

According to American officials, the Iranian official in Baghdad, possibly not believing Mr. Chalabi's account, sent a cable to Tehran detailing his conversation with Mr. Chalabi, using the broken code. That encrypted cable, intercepted and read by the United States, tipped off American officials to the fact that Mr. Chalabi had betrayed the code-breaking operation, the American officials said.

American officials reported that in the cable to Tehran, the Iranian official recounted how Mr. Chalabi had said that one of "them" — a reference to an American — had revealed the code-breaking operation, the officials said. The Iranian reported that Mr. Chalabi said the American was drunk.

The Iranians sent what American intelligence regarded as a test message, which mentioned a cache of weapons inside Iraq, believing that if the code had been broken, United States military forces would be quickly dispatched to the specified site. But there was no such action.

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Courtesy of Daily Kos diarist PastorDan: Ruy Teixeira of Donkey Rising, who has actually gone to the trouble of doing the research, has compiled a list of Fun Facts on Religion and Politics:

• Most progressives are religious;
• It is true that progressives attend church less than conservatives;
• In the 2000 VNS exit poll, it was widely noted that Bush won the support of voters who say they attend church more than weekly by 63 to 36 and voters who say they attend church weekly by 57 to 40;
• Not all evangelicals are conservative Republicans;
• Karl Rove has claimed that there were four million evangelicals who didn’t go to the polls in 2000, but who can be turned out in 2004 ("This is an urban legend. There is, in fact, no evidence that evangelicals’ turnout in 2000 was particularly low (it was about at the national average) and that, therefore, there are, in any meaningful sense, “missing” evangelicals in the voting pool");
• Conservatives and the GOP have made aggressive efforts to target Catholics ("But there is no evidence that this targeting is actually working");
• The GOP has also targeted Jews ("In the 2004 NSRP, Jews favor Kerry by 46 points [70-24]").

"Moral for the GOP: Don't count your (religious) chickens before they've hatched."

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All good Zemblans know that Enron was, until recently, President Bush's single largest patron, in terms of campaign contributions, over the course of his political career. Now CBS has graciously transcribed several taped conversations among that company's top energy traders as they contrived to "fuck California" during the year of rolling blackouts, 2000. (The following exchange is believed to represent the first Quentin Tarantino revision of David Mamet's original draft.)

When a forest fire shut down a major transmission line into California, cutting power supplies and raising prices, Enron energy traders celebrated, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports.

"Burn, baby, burn. That's a beautiful thing," a trader sang about the massive fire.

Four years after California's disastrous experiment with energy deregulation, Enron energy traders can be heard – on audiotapes obtained by CBS News – gloating and praising each other as they helped bring on, and cash-in on, the Western power crisis.

"He just f---s California," says one Enron employee. "He steals money from California to the tune of about a million" . . . .

The tapes, from Enron's West Coast trading desk, also confirm what CBS reported years ago: that in secret deals with power producers, traders deliberately drove up prices by ordering power plants shut down.

"If you took down the steamer, how long would it take to get it back up?" an Enron worker is heard saying.

"Oh, it's not something you want to just be turning on and off every hour. Let's put it that way," another says.

"Well, why don't you just go ahead and shut her down."

Officials with the Snohomish Public Utility District near Seattle received the tapes from the Justice Department.

"This is the evidence we've all been waiting for. This proves they manipulated the market," said Eric Christensen, a spokesman for the utility.

That utility, like many others, is trying to get its money back from Enron.

"They're f------g taking all the money back from you guys?" complains an Enron employee on the tapes. "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?"

"Yeah, grandma Millie, man"

"Yeah, now she wants her f------g money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her a------ for f------g $250 a megawatt hour."

And the tapes appear to link top Enron officials Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling to schemes that fueled the crisis . . . .

Before the 2000 election, Enron employees pondered the possibilities of a Bush win . . . .

"When this election comes Bush will f------g whack this s--t, man. He won't play this price-cap b------t."

"We will not take any action that makes California's problems worse and that's why I oppose price caps," said Mr. Bush on May 29, 2001.

Appetites whetted? Internal memos (in .PDF format) here and here. Streaming video here. Missing letters filled in upon request.

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Remember the brief flap surrounding Kerry's (undeniably true) remark that many foreign leaders were hoping for Bush to be defeated in November? Here, via MaxSpeak, is an Adrian Wooldridge column from the Weekly Standard explaining why, in England, the Tories hate George Bush at least as much as Labour does -- if not more so:

In general, the Tory party's position on the Iraq war is almost identical to John Kerry's. It voted for the war after much grumbling about "crusades" and meddling in other people's affairs. And now the party is keen to exploit Tony Blair's embarrassments about everything from weapons of mass destruction to the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib.

Unconvinced? Try Sir Max Hastings, a former editor of the Daily Telegraph and, for a time, one of Mrs. Thatcher's favorite journalists. In a recent column entitled "I hate George Bush" (at least you can't accuse him of burying the lead), Sir Max denounced American conservatives as "lunatics" and proclaimed that "every single bleak forecast about their follies has been fulfilled." To back up these arguments, Sir Max employed the full gamut of Moorist tropes--America is a land of gun-toting religious zealots; the Bush administration thinks that democracy can be marketed in the same way as Enron shares, etc.--before urging his readers to pray for John Kerry's victory in November.

Michael Moore conservatives can be found massing on both wings of the Tory party. On the left, the "wets" (as Thatcher called them) have always believed that Britain's destiny lies with civilized Old Europe rather than with the land of the Big Mac. The slightly elderly lions of this group include Ken Clarke, the bruiser whom wets regard as the best leader the Tories never had, Michael Heseltine, the man who brought down Thatcher, and Chris Patten, who is both the European commissioner for foreign affairs and the vice chancellor for Oxford University.

To a man the wets give the impression that they would be much happier with nice internationalist John Kerry than the Toxic Texan, and they have sniped at American foreign policy. Clarke was the only leading Tory to oppose the Iraq war. Patten fumes about the number of contracts in Iraq that have been awarded to Halliburton, and worries that American foreign policy is being too influenced by supporters of the Likud party.

The other wing of the party, the Little Englander right, is best known for its loathing of the European Union. But it is equally rabid about the United States, a prejudice that was kept under the surface in the Thatcher era but is now bursting out in its full glory. The patron saint of the Little Englanders, Enoch Powell, made no secret of the fact that, if he was forced to choose between America and the Soviet Union, he might have a hard job making up his mind.

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Craig Unger, author of House of Bush, House of Saud, broke the inside story of the charter flights that ferried close to a gross of Saudi nationals, including members of Osama bin Laden's immediate family, out of the U.S. in the days immediately following 9/11. Now we learn, thanks to flight manifests newly unearthed by the intermittently-attractive nuisances at Larry Klayman's Judicial Watch, that Unger's original story didn't tell the half of it. Here's his update, from the NYT:

In addition, new evidence shows that the evacuation involved more than the departure of 142 Saudis on six charter flights that the [9/11]commission is investigating. According to newly released documents, 160 Saudis left the United States on 55 flights immediately after 9/11 — making a total of about 300 people who left with the apparent approval of the Bush administration, far more than has been reported before. The records were released by the Department of Homeland Security in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Judicial Watch, a conservative, nonpartisan watchdog group in Washington.

The vast majority of the newly disclosed flights were commercial airline flights, not charters, often carrying just two or three Saudi passengers. They originated from more than 20 cities, including Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit and Houston. One Saudi Arabian Airlines flight left Kennedy Airport on Sept. 13 with 46 Saudis. The next day, another Saudi Arabian Airlines flight left with 13 Saudis.

The panel has indicated that it has yet to find any evidence that the F.B.I. checked the manifests of departing flights against its terror watch list. The departures of additional Saudis raise more questions for the panel. Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar, told The Hill newspaper recently that he took full responsibility for approving some flights. But we don't know if other Bush administration officials participated in the decision.

The passengers should have been questioned about any links to Osama bin Laden, or his financing. We have long known that some faction of the Saudi elite has helped funnel money to Islamist terrorists —inadvertently at least. Prince Ahmed bin Salman, who has been accused of being an intermediary between Al Qaeda and the House of Saud, boarded one of the evacuation planes in Kentucky. Was he interrogated by the F.B.I. before he left?

And by the way, if Judicial Watch was able to put their hands on this info with a simple FOIA request, why couldn't the 9/11 panel? -- or is that the sort of question that answers itself?

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Bush administration gotta blame the small fry, hide the paper trail, step on the whistleblowers and cover the boss's ass. Why? Because that's the way the Good Lord made 'em, is why, and besides -- it worked for Reagan. From Newsweek:

Some critics say Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department is doing its best to stop potentially incriminating information from coming out, that it's deflecting Congress's inquiries and shielding higher-ups from investigation. Documents obtained by NEWSWEEK also suggest that Rumsfeld's aides are trying hard to contain the scandal, even within the Pentagon. Defense Under Secretary Douglas Feith, who is in charge of setting policy on prisoners and detainees in occupied Iraq, has banned any discussion of the still-classified report on Abu Ghraib written by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, which has circulated around the world. Shortly after the Taguba report leaked in early May, Feith subordinates sent an "urgent" e-mail around the Pentagon warning officials not to read the report, even though it was on Fox News. In the e-mail, a copy of which was obtained by NEWSWEEK, officials in Feith's office warn that the leak is being investigated for "criminal prosecution" and that no one should mention the Taguba report to anybody, even to family members. Feith has turned his office into a "ministry of fear," says one military lawyer . . . .

More worrisome, critics say, is that the Pentagon is investigating itself. Maj. Gen. George Fay, the No. 2 in Army Military Intelligence, is in charge of the probe into whether his own intel officers directed the MPs to abuse prisoners. But so far Fay has questioned no one above the rank of colonel, military and other sources say. Among those critical of Fay is Sgt. Samuel Provance, who was formerly in military intelligence at Abu Ghraib and has told reporters in recent weeks that the Army is engaged in a cover-up. "I had to volunteer more information than was being asked of me [by Fay]. It was like I was adding to his burden," Provance told NEWSWEEK last week. "There are so many soldiers directly involved who haven't been talked to."

The Army has tried to silence Provance. In a May 21 disciplinary order, a copy of which was shown to NEWSWEEK, battalion commander Lt. Col. James Norwood notifies Provance that he has lost his security clearance and is being "flagged" for violating a previous order to keep quiet. That means he is ineligible for promotions, awards or security clearance. Norwood appears to threaten Provance with prosecution, saying, "There is reason for me to believe that you may have been aware of the improper treatment of the detainees at Abu Ghraib before they were reported by other soldiers." General Fay's conclusions, Norwood warns, "may reveal that you should face adverse action for your failure to report."

Yet no officer above General Fay's rank is likely to have to worry about the conclusions of his investigation. Under military doctrine, Fay, as a two-star general, "can only hold a one-star accountable," says an Army general familiar with such investigations. "He can say someone higher up is the proximate cause, but he can't actually have a finding that says, 'I recommend Maj. Gen. so-and-so be relieved of command' . . . . In fact, none of the five investigations the military itself is now conducting is aimed higher up the chain of command than Sanchez.

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From the Dept. of Abject Cluelessness, via Steve Gilliard: After a full year in country, our cultural ambassadors-in-uniform are still trying to get the hang o' them hajis 'n' their funny ways 'n' shit:

About 100 [Iraqi] police officers arrived in Najaf on Saturday to help calm the Shiite Muslim holy city, which has been besieged by fighting between U.S. forces and a militia loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

But when coalition troops arrived the next day to begin the joint patrols, the Iraqis were gone.

The Iraqis left their posts because they felt they received second-class treatment when they arrived from Baghdad, the American adviser said Monday.

The U.S. adviser said no sleeping arrangements had been made for the Iraqis, they had no personal gear for their duties or changes of clothes, and they were given military rations for meals that included pork. Muslims are forbidden to eat pork.

"They were not even given a mattress to sleep on," the adviser said. "The U.S. Army really dropped the ball here."

Steve is reminded of the Sepoy Rebellion, when Muslim soldiers responded to a similar offense by decorating nearby streetlamps with the corpses of colonial officers.

Clearly a peace offering is in order. Maybe a nice Honeybaked Ham?

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The Army is now admitting to at least 91 cases of possible misconduct by American soldiers against Iraqi civilians and detainees. From the Washington Post:

The figure, provided by a senior Army official, extends beyond the much-publicized abuse of detainees in military-run prisons to include the mistreatment of dozens of Iraqis in U.S. custody outside detention centers. It covers not only cases that resulted in death but also those that involved nonlethal assaults. It also includes as many as 18 instances of U.S. soldiers in Iraq allegedly stealing money, jewelry or other property . . . .

Taken together, the 91 cases indicate misconduct by U.S. troops wider in type and greater in number than suggested by the focus simply on the mistreatment of Iraqis held at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad. The majority of the cases under investigation occurred in Iraq, although the Army has not provided an exact accounting of all the locations.

President Bush and other senior administration officials have sought to explain the abuses at Abu Ghraib as reflecting the aberrant behavior of a few low-ranking soldiers last fall, graphically exposed in photographs and an internal Army report that emerged a month ago. But the Army's list of investigations appears to bolster the contention of others, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, that misconduct by U.S. forces has been more extensive -- and its consequences more damaging -- than can be blamed on the troubled actions of a small group.

Although the new figures show at least 59 of the 91 investigations are now closed, the Army has reported the disciplining of only several soldiers. According to the senior Army official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the assault cases have led to at least 14 courts-martial and seven nonjudicial punishments.

And based on the following scoop, also from tomorrow's Post, the few-bad-apples explanation of Abu Ghraib is about to join phlogiston, Lamarckism, and Piltdown Man on the Junkheap of Discredited Theories:

On May 1, a U.S. Army investigator took the stand in a criminal proceeding in Baghdad against one of the seven military police soldiers charged in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. There was, he said, "absolutely no evidence" that military intelligence officers or the military police chain of command had authorized the abuse to aid interrogations.

But questions remain about the shots of snarling dogs intimidating detainees. The photos were taken weeks after the most publicized MP abuse occurred, according to date stamps accompanying photographs obtained by The Washington Post. The date stamps, which are in a database obtained by The Post that was apparently compiled by military investigators, show that the widely published photograph of a naked man confronted by unmuzzled German shepherds was taken on Dec. 12 -- a month after the human pyramid and during a period when military intelligence officers were in formal control of the prison.

The date stamps reveal that the recording of the abuses started shortly after the MPs arrived at the prison and built to a crescendo of perversity, with the naked human pyramid on Nov. 8. One of the photographed incidents stands out because it contains military intelligence officers in the frame -- showing soldiers gathered around three naked men lying shackled together on Oct. 25. Finally, the photographs suggest that two distinct types of abuse occurred at the prison. First, sexual humiliation and crude brutality at the hands of the MPs. Then, the more targeted use of dogs.

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His judgment is nothing to brag about, but once he's made a decision, President Often Wrong But Never in Doubt can at least be counted on to "stay the course," no? Well, actually, no. The President is not at all averse to switching stallions in mid-quagmire, as Justin Huggler and Rupert Cornwell of the Independent demonstrate in this catalogue of ten disastrous "U-turns on the road to peace":

• The Prime Minister: The appointment of Iyad Allawi as Iraq's interim Prime Minister this weekend was being seen as an American-backed coup which wrong-footed Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations envoy supposed to be putting together the interim government which will wield "sovereignty" after 30 June.
  
  The more that is learnt, however, about the sudden emergence of Mr Allawi, a man close to the CIA and MI6, the more it appears the appointment of the new government has been hijacked by the ambitious politicians of the Iraqi Governing Council - the very body it was meant to replace. The only question is whom the IGC was conspiring with as its members picked jobs for themselves.
  
  But whatever the answer, the appointment of Mr Allawi is the culmination of a series of spectacular U-turns that has given President George Bush and his administration the appearance of lurching in a panic from one flawed policy on Iraq to the next. Since last November every decision seems to have been taken with an eye to one political event alone: Mr Bush's bid for re-election this November . . . .



• The Proconsul



• Rebuilding Iraq



• Troop Levels



• The Constitution: In mid-November 2003 came the biggest course correction of all. With plans for a new constitution foundering and US forces growing more unpopular by the day, Mr Bremer rushed back to Washington for consultations. Instead of waiting for a new constitution to be drawn up - a process that could take years - the US junked its existing seven-stage, multi-year plan and decided to transfer power to the transitional government that assumes power in 32 days' time. That government would preside over elections for an assembly This body is meant to produce a constitution, on the basis of which Iraq would hold its first election for a permanent government, all by the end of 2005. But Mr Bush still dares not set a firm date for the withdrawal of US troops. Critics accordingly accuse him of still lacking an exit strategy. The President says "full" sovereignty will be transferred on 30 June. But what does "full" mean?)



• Disbanding the Army: The US was supposed to train a new Iraqi security force, but this has proved woefully inadequate. In the past two months the CPA has twice reversed course. De-Baathification was ditched when the US gave responsibility for policing the flashpoint Sunni city of Fallujah to a force under a senior Saddam-era Iraqi commander. The same could happen in the Shia south, where the US struck a deal with the rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Najaf under which local militias are taking over some security tasks. The about-turn is further admission that the US doesn't have the troops, or the respect of the local citizenry, to do the job.



• 'Foreign Fighters'



• UN Involvement



• American Bases



• Mid-east democracy: Since the uprisings against the occupying forces there has been less talk among Washington's neo-conservatives of a "democratic" Iraq as a model for the region, a policy particularly passionately esoused by MrWolfowitz. Officials now speak merely of a stable and secure Iraq. Next week's G8 summit, which will be dominated by Iraq, was originally to launch a "Greater Middle East Initiative" bringing reform to the Muslim world.
  
  Thanks to the Iraq shambles, compounded by the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, the project is virtually dead in the water. Last week USA Today reported that a draft document for the summit says: "Change should not and cannot be imposed from the outside." This phrase is likely to strike Middle Eastern states as particularly ironic. A regional conference to promote democracy has also been scaled back.

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Courtesy of Zemblan patriots J.D. and J.M., here's Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice reporting on growing opposition to the USA-PATRIOT Act. Numerous "sunset provisions" of the act expire automatically unless Congress reapproves them before the end of 2005. Bush, naturally, is lobbying to have those provisions renewed sooner rather than later, but he's meeting with surprising resistance -- not just from Democrats, but from the libertarian wing of his own party as well:

By May, 311 towns and cities—-and four state legislatures (Alaska, Hawaii, Vermont, and Maine)—-had passed Bill of Rights resolutions instructing the members of Congress from those areas to roll back the most egregiously repressive sections of the Patriot Act, subsequent executive orders, and other extensions of the act . . . .

On April 20, Wired News quoted constitutional law professor David Cole, of the Georgetown University Law Center, on the resistance to the Patriot Act. Since 9-11, Cole has been the Samuel Adams of our time, a one-man version of the pre-Revolution committees of correspondence. Said Cole:

"One year after 9/11, National Public Radio did a poll and found that only 7 percent of Americans felt they had given up important liberties in the war on terrorism. Two years after 9/11, NBC or CBS did a very similar poll and they found that now 52 percent of Americans report being concerned that their civil liberties are being infringed by the Bush administration's war on terrorism. That's a huge shift."

And on April 14, in Salt Lake City, when the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, came home to harvest support for the Patriot Act, among his fiercest critics was Scott Bradley of the Utah Branch of the ultra-conservative EagleForum. Bradley reminded Hatch—-Ashcroft's premier cheerleader in Congress—-of a prediction by Osama bin Laden in a BBC interview after 9-11. The arch-terrorist said:

"The battle has moved to inside America. . . . Freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people and the West in general into an unbearable hell and choking fire."

Then, this libertarian conservative confronted Orrin Hatch with a grave warning by James Madison in 1788:

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

The next day, as if to confirm Madison's prophecy, the Associated Press reported, "The number of secret surveillance warrants sought by the FBI has increased by 85 percent in the last three years, a pace that has outstripped the Justice Department's ability to quickly process them."

If the Patriot Act expires on schedule, expect swift introduction of the even more sweeping JINGO Act (Just Indulge your National Government, Okay?).

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Great news for young Americans just entering the job market: it looks like thousands of desirable positions will be opening up in the next year and a half. From the Guardian:

Tony Blair yesterday set an 18-month deadline for pulling "very substantial" numbers of troops out of Iraq, as he admitted the conflict was the major "divisive" issue that had eroded public trust.

The prime minister said the security situation was worse than he had anticipated a year ago, and warned of an escalation in violence in the run-up to the June 30 handover . . . .

"I would want, certainly by the end of next year, to have a substantial reduction in the British troop commitment.

"It depends on the capability of the Iraqis but when I spoke to the Iraqi defence minister just the other day he was very upbeat about it" . . . .

Despite the promise of a large-scale withdrawal, Mr Blair also confirmed that at least 3,000 fresh troop deployments were to be made.

But he denied that this move - designed to help stabilise the country and assist Iraqis in the months leading up to next January's elections - had been delayed because it would be politically damaging to Labour ahead of next week's local and European elections. "It's not being delayed because of the elections at all. It's simply...you need to make sure you get the decision right," he said.

Another Guardian article explains where replacement bodies will inevitably be found:

The American public just wants the war to go away. One thing that would get their attention (but not their votes) would be their children being sent off to die in foreign lands. Best not disturb the electorate until after November, seems to be the thinking. There are, after all, more important things than wars: getting your man into the White House, for example. Kerry has clearly calculated that, as president, he too may have to bring in the draft. So his lips are also sealed.

And, of course, the strategic case for the draft is overwhelming. If, as Rumsfeld promises, Iraq turns out to be "a long, hard slog", who will do the slogging? If others follow the Spaniards, and Tony Blair goes, the US may find itself a coalition of one. What then if something blows up in North Korea?

On how many fronts can America fight its global war on terror with a "professional" army of half a million? Half a million and shrinking fast. Reservists are not re-enlisting. They signed up for the occasional weekend playing soldiers and some useful income, not death or glory.

Today's free tip for the Democratic Party: do not react to the prospect of a draft with horror; embrace it as an issue. Front and center. Early and often. And don't talk about whether; talk about how. Treat it as a fait accompli: "Of course, everyone realizes there will have to be a draft. Unfortunately there's no other way to clean up the mess our President made in Iraq. Our allies have abandoned us and the neighboring Arab countries loathe us, so they won't be contributing troops. And you're looking, this very moment, at the disastrous results of trying to do the job with insufficient manpower. The President, by the way, is already planning to institute a draft; he knows it's his only hope of straightening out this fiasco. He's just afraid to tell you so. He won't show you the bill for his war until after the election."

Let Bush respond. Make Bush respond. Force him to explain why we don't need a draft. Let him describe the splendid progress we've made under the existing policy.

Give the voters plenty of time to think about their 18-year-olds missing out on their freshman year of college so they can police Basra instead. Then, while they're stewing on it, remind them that our one hope of avoiding the draft is a diplomatic miracle: a truly international peacekeeping force, a rebuilt alliance, a new coalition of the willing -- led by an American administration that doesn't want the oil, doesn't want the permanent bases, doesn't want the dominos knocked over and the map redrawn. One that only wants to get the nation of Iraq up and running so that U.S. forces can leave with honor.

Which candidate is likelier to bring off a diplomatic miracle?

The stuff I'm describing is exactly what President-elect Kerry would be trying to do anyway. If he doesn't bring it off, well, he warned you, didn't he. But if he does, then damn: he looks like a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.

As I said, free; no charge; on the house. With my compliments. Theme song already written:

They're gonna have to introduce conscription / They're gonna have to take away my prescription . . . .

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Who's the playa and who's the hata? From Dana Milbank and Jim VandeHei in the Washington Post:

Last Monday in Little Rock, Vice President Cheney said Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry "has questioned whether the war on terror is really a war at all" and said the senator from Massachusetts "promised to repeal most of the Bush tax cuts within his first 100 days in office."

On Tuesday, President Bush's campaign began airing an ad saying Kerry would scrap wiretaps that are needed to hunt terrorists.

The same day, the Bush campaign charged in a memo sent to reporters and through surrogates that Kerry wants to raise the gasoline tax by 50 cents.

On Wednesday and Thursday, as Kerry campaigned in Seattle, he was greeted by another Bush ad alleging that Kerry now opposes education changes that he supported in 2001.

The charges were all tough, serious -- and wrong, or at least highly misleading. Kerry did not question the war on terrorism, has proposed repealing tax cuts only for those earning more than $200,000, supports wiretaps, has not endorsed a 50-cent gasoline tax increase in 10 years, and continues to support the education changes, albeit with modifications.

Scholars and political strategists say the ferocious Bush assault on Kerry this spring has been extraordinary, both for the volume of attacks and for the liberties the president and his campaign have taken with the facts. Though stretching the truth is hardly new in a political campaign, they say the volume of negative charges is unprecedented -- both in speeches and in advertising.

Three-quarters of the ads aired by Bush's campaign have been attacks on Kerry. Bush so far has aired 49,050 negative ads in the top 100 markets, or 75 percent of his advertising. Kerry has run 13,336 negative ads -- or 27 percent of his total. The figures were compiled by The Washington Post using data from the Campaign Media Analysis Group of the top 100 U.S. markets. Both campaigns said the figures are accurate.

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From the Dept. of Tomorrow's Headlines Today, courtesy of the indispensible Billmon:

It looks like Shi'a insurgent leader Moqtada Sadr has been targeted for a little Saddam-style law enforcement -- only someone let the cat out of the bag a little too soon, according to the New York Times:

Meanwhile on Sunday, people in the streets of Najaf were handed mysterious fliers with Mr. Sadr's picture that said "Moktada was followed by the Iraqi police for his ties to the slaying of Khoei, and due to violent actions he was killed during an attempt to arrest him."

Another flier had a photo of Iraqi policemen and the words "The Justice Ministry tried to arrest Mr. Sadr, but he and his followers resisted fiercely, which drove the Iraqi police to defend themselves."

The fliers appeared to have been made by Iraq's Justice Ministry or its allies to be handed out in case Iraqi policemen killed Mr. Sadr. Somehow, they were distributed prematurely.

The old shot-while-resisting-arrest trick. You have to love that intentionally obtuse use of the conditional "in case" -- as if the Times reporter didn't really know what the real plan was. That's journalistic objectivity for you.

Of course, since the Iraqi police in question -- who were brought down to Najaf from Baghdad as part of the "truce" worked out between Sadr and the U.S. Army -- promptly deserted as soon as they hit the streets, the plan was a failure right from the start.

UPDATE: From the New York Times:

A cease-fire between American forces and insurgents loyal to a rebel cleric appeared to be unraveling as fighting erupted Sunday and early Monday in the centers of the cities of Najaf and Kufa . . . .

The fighting in Najaf on Sunday was the first combat in that city since officials on both sides announced the cease-fire on Thursday. The Sunday night assault by the Americans in Kufa appeared to be a resumption of offensive operations that had been suspended under the terms of the cease-fire between occupation forces and the militia of Moktada al-Sadr, the 31-year-old radical cleric. Spokesmen for the First Armored Division, which is trying to assert control over the area, could not be reached for comment early Monday.

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From the San Francisco Chronicle, via our esteemed colleagues at Corrente :

Dozens of art lovers and First Amendment defenders turned out Saturday outside a San Francisco gallery to bolster the flagging spirits of owner Lori Haigh, who has been under siege for the past two weeks for displaying a controversial painting depicting the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers.

The supporters had hoped to persuade Haigh, 39, to reconsider her decision to close the Capobianco Gallery, which came after she was threatened, spat upon and, most recently, punched in the face for showing Guy Colwell's painting of torture. Gathered on the sidewalk outside the small studio, her supporters talked of vigils, petitions and even providing volunteer security to help keep the gallery going . . . .

The furor began on May 16, when Colwell, an East Bay artist, made an addition to his monthlong showing at Haigh's gallery on Powell Street. Angered by the pictures he saw of Iraqi prisoners being abused, he created a black-and- white painting depicting three hooded and naked men undergoing electric shock torture by American soldiers. Colwell, who took down his paintings Saturday, declined to comment.

Two days after the painting went up, Haigh arrived at her gallery to find broken glass, eggs and trash strewn outside her storefront. Haigh also began receiving the first of about 200 angry voice mails, e-mails and death threats.

A week ago, a man walked into the gallery and spat in Haigh's face. On Tuesday, Haigh decided to temporarily close the gallery and began to consider giving up on her dream of owning an art gallery. Just two days later, another man knocked on the door of the gallery and then punched Haigh in the face, knocking her out, breaking her nose and causing a concussion . . . .

"When this can happen in the middle of North Beach in San Francisco, where people always expressed themselves, it means Iraq is not the only place being occupied," said Daniel Macchiarini, a North Beach gallery owner himself. "But this is an act of desperation. The people who attack like this, their ideas have failed."

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Earlier today Zemblan patriot J.M. wondered whether anyone had done a study to correlate the timing of AG John Ashcroft's various threat announcements with changes in the President's approval ratings. While our crack investigative team at KoZ is undertaking the grueling research that this worthy project will require -- or more properly, undertaking to farm out the grueling research -- by all means read David Neiwert of Orcinus, who addresses the issue in this excellent discussion of the newest (and to date, slimiest) Republican smear tactic:

It's becoming clearer every day that one of the chief Republican talking points emerging in the campaign is the suggestion that a vote for Kerry is a vote for Al Qaeda -- because, purportedly, the terrorists secretly want Bush defeated, since Kerry is "soft" on the "war on terror." Of course, a cornerstone of this ploy is the belief that the so-called liberal media will gladly transmit this smear . . . .

Still, while a clear case can be made (mostly for the sake of rebutting the Kerry smear) that Al Qaeda is far more likely to actually hope Bush, not Kerry, wins, it's worth noting that neither the Kerry camp nor any Democrat -- not even a pundit -- has not resorted to this argument, even by inference. [Maybe a blogger. Okay, definitely a blogger -- S.]

While Kerry appears so far to be taking the high road, the Bush camp clearly is already throwing its smear machine into high gear. The "Democrats are traitors" theme has been circulating for some time now (see especially Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity), and in recent months that has mutated into the suggestion that Al Qaeda wants Bush to lose. The repetition of the meme on CNN, now focusing specifically on Kerry, was in fact only a minor iteration of what will likely be a major GOP theme this fall.

More significant, actually, was the recent manipulation of the nation's concern with terrorism by Attorney General John Ashcroft, when he made headlines with dire warnings of an imminent terrorist attack this summer.

At least one pundit -- Newsweek's Eleanor Clift -- was astute enough to pick up on the warning's real purpose:

You don't have to be ultra-cynical to suspect the timing of Ashcroft’s dire pronouncements. Bush is in a jam over Iraq, and the exit strategy is changing the subject, or at least broadening it from Iraq to the wider world of terror, where Bush clings to a narrow lead over Kerry in voter confidence. It’s fishy that police departments in the target cities of Los Angeles and New York weren’t notified and learned along with the public about the newest vague threats from television. This was hardly breaking news. Six of the seven names Ashcroft revealed as likely terrorists have been known to the FBI for months, some for as long as two and a half years.

Of course, it turns out that this isn't the half of it. NBC News is reporting that Ashcroft depended on threats from a group that no one believes is a serious terror threat:

[T]errorism experts tell NBC News there's no evidence a credible al-Qaida spokesman ever said that, and the claims actually were made by a largely discredited group, Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, known for putting propaganda on the Internet.

"This particular group is not really taken seriously by Western intelligence," said terrorism expert M.J. Gohel of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, an international policy assessment group. "It does not appear to have any real field operational capability. But it is certainly part of the global jihad movement -- part of its propaganda wing, if you like. It likes to weave a web of lies; it likes to put out disinformation so that the truth is deeply buried. So it is a dangerous group in that sense, but it is not taken seriously in terms of its operational capability" . . . .

A senior U.S. intelligence official previously told NBC News that this group has no known operational capability and may be no more than one man with a fax machine.

First Chalabi, now this. Gullibility isn't exactly an asset when it comes to making serious strides against terrorism, is it?

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. . . and I blush to admit I count myself among them. From an ABC News poll of Americans' attitudes toward torture:

Americans by nearly 2-to-1 oppose torturing terrorism suspects — but half believe the U.S. government, as a matter of policy, is doing it anyway. And even more think the government is employing physical abuse that falls short of torture in some cases.

Given pro and con arguments, 63 percent in an ABC News/Washington Post poll say torture is never acceptable, even when other methods fail and authorities believe the suspect has information that could prevent terrorist attacks. Thirty-five percent say torture is acceptable in some such cases . . . .

Partisanship, and views of the war in Iraq, also produce sharp dividing lines in these views. Among Americans who strongly feel the war was worth fighting, half say torture is acceptable at times. Among those who strongly believe it wasn't worth fighting, three in four say torture is never acceptable.

Similarly, 57 percent of strong war supporters say abuse is acceptable, while two-thirds who strongly say the war wasn't worth fighting say abuse is never acceptable.

In terms of partisanship, most Republicans, 55 percent, say physical abuse is acceptable in some cases; so do about half of independents, but 38 percent of Democrats. About four in 10 Republicans and independents say torture is acceptable in some cases, while fewer Democrats, 27 percent, agree . . . .

Race is another factor. Whites divide, 49 percent to 49 percent, on whether abuse that falls short of torture is acceptable in some cases, while 62 percent of nonwhites call it unacceptable. On torture; six in 10 whites, and seven in 10 nonwhites, say it's unacceptable.

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There's a portrait in his attic. Every time he tells a lie, the nose on the portrait grows. The nose is now so long that they had to add a second canvas just to accommodate it:

Vice President Dick Cheney was a guest on NBC's Meet the Press last September when host Tim Russert brought up Halliburton. Citing the company's role in rebuilding Iraq as well as Cheney's prior service as Halliburton's CEO, Russert asked, "Were you involved in any way in the awarding of those contracts?" Cheney's reply: "Of course not, Tim ... And as Vice President, I have absolutely no influence of, involvement of, knowledge of in any way, shape or form of contracts led by the [Army] Corps of Engineers or anybody else in the Federal Government."

Cheney's relationship with Halliburton has been nothing but trouble since he left the company in 2000. Both he and the company say they have no ongoing connections. But TIME has obtained an internal Pentagon e-mail sent by an Army Corps of Engineers official—-whose name was blacked out by the Pentagon-—that raises questions about Cheney's arm's-length policy toward his old employer. Dated March 5, 2003, the e-mail says "action" on a multibillion-dollar Halliburton contract was "coordinated" with Cheney's office. The e-mail says Douglas Feith, a high-ranking Pentagon hawk, got the "authority to execute RIO," or Restore Iraqi Oil, from his boss, who is Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. RIO is one of several large contracts the U.S. awarded to Halliburton last year.

The e-mail says Feith approved arrangements for the contract "contingent on informing WH [White House] tomorrow. We anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated w VP's [Vice President's] office." Three days later, the Army Corps of Engineers gave Halliburton the contract, without seeking other bids . . . .

Cheney is linked to his old firm in at least one other way. His recently filed 2003 financial-disclosure form reveals that Halliburton last year invoked an insurance policy to indemnify Cheney for what could be steep legal bills "arising from his service" at the company. Past and present Halliburton execs face an array of potentially costly litigation, including multibillion-dollar asbestos claims.

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