- © Copyright 2003, From The Wilderness Publications,
www.copvcia.com. All Rights Reserved. May be reprinted, distributed or
posted on an Internet web site for non-profit purposes only.
-
- (FTW) - Atlanta, Military, economic, oil, and political
storms continue to gather and converge in what may become a Perfect Storm
for the Bush Administration and the United States economy.
-
- On the fifth day of a U.S. military campaign rejected
by the U.N. Security Council, at least 12 U.S. soldiers have been captured
by Iraqi forces near al Nasiriyah even as various foreign news sources
are reporting that as many as four to ten of the vaunted M1A1 Abrams main
battle tanks have been destroyed in combat. A helicopter aircrew has been
captured further north. ABC has reported that coalition casualties are
approaching 200. Promises that Iraqi civilians expecting liberation would
greet coalition troops with open arms have been unfulfilled as Iraqi resistance
stiffens on a daily basis. In a tragic event, an African-American Sergeant
of the 101st Air Assault Division staged a grenade attack on tents occupied
by his comrades-in-arms, killing one and wounding fourteen. The fallout
from this tragedy will have lasting repercussions on the psyches of both
U.S. military and civilian populations. Images of an American Black man
face down and handcuffed - no matter how serious the offense - will not
fade quickly and will further erode an extremely fragile and increasingly
volatile domestic landscape. The suspect is Muslim.
-
- Saddam Hussein and his forces are now gaining strength,
political cachet, and popular support with each new engagement while coalition
forces lose it with every casualty and delay. One of the first questions
asked at a somber, live press conference at Central Command headquarters
in Qatar on Sunday was, "Has America gotten itself into another Vietnam?"
This question came after only three days of ground combat. Around the Arab
and Muslim world, Saddam Hussein,s picture is becoming an icon of anti-colonial
resistance. Over a thousand years of European and American history, the
Arab world has never given in easily to occupying forces; they always prefer
one of their own no matter how distasteful to an outsider. The Crusades
were the earliest lesson for Europe and the Suez crisis of 1956 the most
recent.
-
- Consistent with predictions made in FTW, the Turkish
government, poised to send several brigades into northern Iraq, is threatening
to turn Northern Iraq into absolute chaos. The Kurds who live in the region
ethnically blur the borders of Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran and their support
is critical to U.S. military plans. Having sought an independent homeland
for decades, they have been consistently used by the U.S. and western powers
for covert operations and destabilization programs and they have always
been betrayed later. At the moment FTW gives a 50-50 likelihood that the
U.S. will ultimately and after much protestation for effect allow the
Turkish incursion. That will instantly create a highly unstable and balkanized
region. The U.S. has historically both created and preferred "balkanization"
to secure commercial control of natural resources and civilian populations
with devastating results for anyone living in the region. This could ultimately
if the U.S. invasion is successful - result in Iraq being divided into
three or more separately governed regions.
-
- The instability created by such a development would likely
spread throughout the Middle East quickly. None of the region,s borders
has existed for more than eighty years and all of them were drawn by departing
colonial powers. Perceptions in Saudi Arabia of this kind of trend might
automatically require U.S. forces to engage in a two-front war if the already
unstable Saudi regime begins to fracture and weaken.
-
- To date, this writer has seen no reportage of how the
Saudi populace is reacting to a war plan that is stumbling. For approximately
six months, FTW has been reporting that Saudi Arabia would likely become
unstable with the invasion and that American war planners might be planning
for a nearly simultaneous operation to control Saudi oil fields, which
contain 25% of all the oil on the planet. But as the efficacy of U.S. military
might comes into question, the brass ring of oil becomes ever more elusive
and a Saudi occupation becomes a military goal out of reach.
-
- In the meantime, there are increasing signs that the
U.S. political and economic elites are laying the groundwork to make the
Bush administration, specifically Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Perle
and Wolfowitz, sacrificial scapegoats for a failed policy in time to consolidate
post 9-11 gains, regroup and move forward. These indications include: written
press attacks on the Bush administration by select journalists long known
for their loyalty and obedience to financial interests and the CIA; a growing
revolt from within the intelligence communities of the U.S. and the U.K.
including damaging leaks undermining the credibility of the administration;
serious economic consequences closing in on the financial markets; growing
signs of pending oil shortages; and indications that the use of forged
documents by the Bush and Blair regimes may become the Watergate burglary
of the 21st century.
-
- THE WRITTEN PRESS TURN ON BUSH, BIG TIME
-
- While most of the American people rely on television
coverage for their worldview, those within the government, politics and
the financial markets look to a select group of entrenched print journalists
to sniff the winds of political change. Those winds started blowing against
George W. Bush and his administration before the war began. In what appears
to be intensifying anti-Bush rhetoric, an unprecedented media effort is
beginning to cut the legs from under the administration even as it gambles
everything on an increasingly elusive military victory.
-
- March 12 Beginning with a relatively unknown press organization,
it was reported at www.informationtimes.com that 35 members of the U.S.
Congress, overwhelmingly Democrat, had flatly rejected the U.S. war effort
and were calling for a repeal of the February resolution authorizing the
president to use force against Iraq.
-
- March 12 On the same day, journalistic heavyweight Howard
Fineman of NEWSWEEK reported that the "blame game" had already
begun for a war that had not. He wrote "But few think it,s going to
be easy. And my guess is that team discipline inside the Bush administration
is about to be fractured by the collateral damage that already is being
caused by a war we have yet to fight. We are embarrassingly alone diplomatically,
and State Department underlings (privately) blame Rumsfeld & Co. Inside
the Pentagon - but outside of Rumsfeld,s office I,m told that E-Ring brass
have adopted what one source calls a Vietnam mentality,, a sense of resignation
about a policy...they seriously doubt will work...
-
- "This time around is a different story. The closer
we get to the event, the less Bush is in control of events..."
-
- March 14 The Los Angeles Times, Greg Miller reported
that a State Department document was contradicting the Bush administration,s
claim that the Iraqi invasion would encourage the spread of democracy.
-
- "A classified State Department report expresses
doubt that installing a new regime in Iraq will foster the spread of democracy
in the Middle East, a claim President Bush has made in trying to build
support for a war, according to intelligence officials familiar with the
document.
-
- "The report exposes significant divisions within
the Bush administration over the so-called domino theory, one of the arguments
that underpins the case for invading Iraq."
-
- The story specifically singled out Pentagon hawks Richard
Perle and Paul Wolfowitz as objects of criticism by the U.S. intelligence
community.
-
- March 15 The International Herald Tribune reported that
top officials of the World Trade Organization had also started turning
on Bush by reporting, "...officials said they feared that American
moves within the organization and toward a war in Iraq would weaken respect
for international rules and lead to serious practical consequences for
the world economy and business.
-
- "In the past months the United States has compiled
one of the worst records for violating trade rules...
-
- "They said they were worried that all international
institutions would suffer a loss of credibility if the one superpower appeared
to be choosing which rules to obey and which rules to ignore."
-
- The WTO, globalization, is the heart of the economic
power bloc that brought Bush into power.
-
- March 16 The big guns at The Washington Post begin to
open fire. In a lengthy story on the controversial Carlyle Group, a major
private investment bank with which both the President and his father have
deep financial connections, Greg Schneider made some absolutely stunning
statements:
-
- "David M. Rubenstein is exasperated, and he blurts
something that a quick look around the room proves is outrageous: "We,re
not," he nearly shouts, "that well connected!
-
- "Behind him is a picture of Rubenstein on a plane
with then-Gov. George W. Bush. Across the room, a photo of Rubenstein with
the President,s father and mother. Next to that, Rubenstein and Mikhail
Gorbachev. Elsewhere: Rubenstein and Jimmy Carter. On a bookshelf: Rubenstein
and the pope...
-
- "Rubenstein, after all, is founder of the Carlyle
Group...
-
- "But the connections have cost Carlyle, in ways
that are hard to measure. It has developed a reputation as the CIA of the
business world omnipresent, powerful, a little sinister...
-
- "Last year then-congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.)
even suggested that Carlyle,s and Bush,s ties to the Middle East made them
somehow complicitous in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. While her comments
were widely dismissed as irresponsible, the publicity highlighted Carlyle,s
increasingly notorious reputation. Internet sites with headlines such as
"The Axis of Corporate Evil" purport to link Carlyle to everything
from Enron to Al Qaeda.
-
- ",We,ve actually replaced the Trilateral Commission,
as the darling of conspiracy theorists, says Rubenstein who, truth be
told, happens to be a member of the Trilateral Commission.
-
- "It didn,t help that as the World trade Center burned
on Sept. 11, 2001, the news interrupted a Carlyle business conference at
the Ritz-Carlton Hotel here attended by a brother of Osama bin Laden. Former
President Bush, a fellow investor, had been with him at the conference
the previous day...
-
- "The company has rewarded its faithful with a 36
percent average annual rate of return...
-
- "Times are changing, though. It,s no longer valid
to assume that Carlyle,s golden roll of all-stars automatically opens doors
in certain parts of the world, says Youssef M. Ibrahim of the Council on
Foreign Relations in New York. George Bush junior is kind of screwing his
father up, slowly but surely, in terms of securing relationships in the
region,, Ibrahim says of the Mideast. The current administration,s support
for Israel, its hostility toward Iraq and its rocky dealings with the Saudi
royal family have soured business and political relationships alike, he
says."
-
- [To view previous FTW stories on the Carlyle group please
visit http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/index.html#bush.]
-
- March 16 On the same day as the Carlyle story, one of
The Washington Post,s biggest pundits for several decades, Walter Pincus,
fired a serious shot into the administration,s belly. To veterans of the
1996-98 popular nationwide campaign to expose CIA connections to cocaine
trafficking, Pincus, name will be remembered as one of the chief defenders
of the CIA. In fact, Pincus has been one of the Post,s primary CIA conduits
for more than thirty years. In 1967, he wrote a short feature for the Post
titled, "How I Traveled the World on a CIA Stipend."
-
- In a story titled "U.S. Lacks Specifics on Banned
Arms", Pincus described how U.S. "Senior intelligence analysts
say they feel caught between the demands from the White House, Pentagon
and other government policymakers for intelligence that would make the
administration,s case and what they say is a lack of hard facts,, one official
said.
-
- "The assertions, coming on the eve of a possible
decision by President Bush to go to war against Iraq, have raised concerns
among some members of the intelligence community about whether administration
officials have exaggerated intelligence in a desire to convince the American
public..."
-
- Pincus went on to detail how key U.S. Senators like Carl
Levin and John Warner were questioning data that had apparently been misrepresented
and/or hidden from the U.N.
-
- An ominous note at the end of the story, reminding anyone
who read it of Watergate and the demise of the Nixon presidency, added
"Staff Writer Bob Woodward contributed to this report."
-
- March 18 Pincus returned again, in the company of Post
Staff Writer Dana Milbank, to place more bricks in the wall that might
seal the administration,s fate. The story titled, "Bush Clings to
Dubious Allegations About Iraq" opened with the lead, "As the
Bush administration prepares to attack Iraq this week, it is doing so on
the basis of a number of allegations against Iraqi president Saddam Hussein
that have been challenged and in some cases disproved by the United Nations,
European governments and even U.S. intelligence reports."
-
- The story went on to document misrepresentations by George
Bush, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell that made it clear that if George W.
Bush was going down his whole administration was going with him. It was
now a part of the official Washington record that all three had been guilty
of misrepresentations to the press and the American people.
-
- March 20 Columnist Craig Roberts, writing in the traditionally
pro-Republican, conservative Washington Times delivered perhaps the most
shocking signal that the power establishment, which should have stopped
the war before it started, was moving to set the administration up for
a fall.
-
- In a column titled "A Reckless Path", Roberts,
lead paragraph read:
-
- "Will Bush be impeached? Will he be called a war
criminal? These are not hyperbolic questions. Mr. Bush has permitted a
small cadre of neoconservatives to isolate him from world opinion, putting
him at odds with the United Nations and America,s allies."
-
- It got worse from there.
-
- "...On the eve of Mr. Bush,s ultimatum, it came
to light that a key piece of evidence used by the Bush administration to
link Iraq to a nuclear weapons program is a forgery. Sen. Jay Rockefeller
of West Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee,
has asked the FBI to investigate the forged documents that the Bush administration
has used to make its case that Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass
destruction."
-
- Amazingly, Roberts then went on to make a comparison
with Adolf Hitler,s faked attacks by SS soldiers dressed as Polish troops
in 1939 to justify the invasion of Poland, which started the Second World
War.
-
- Roberts closed his column with a dire warning. "Mr.
Bush and his advisers have forgotten that the power of an American president
is temporary and relative."
-
- March 22 One of The New York Times, chief experts on
intelligence, with close contacts at the CIA, is James Risen. Whenever
reading a Risen story it,s a safe bet to assume that it was fed to him
directly by CIA headquarters. In a story headlined, "CIA Aides Feel
Pressure in Preparing Iraqi Reports" Risen wrote:
-
- "The recent disclosure that reports claiming Iraq
tried to buy uranium from Niger were based partly on forged documents has
renewed complaints among analysts at the C.I.A. about the way intelligence
related to Iraq has been handled, several intelligence officials said.
-
- "Analysts at the agency said they had felt pressured
to make their intelligence reports on Iraq conform to Bush administration
policies.
-
- "For months, a few C.I.A. analysts have privately
expressed concerns to colleagues and Congressional officials that they
have faced pressure in writing intelligence reports to emphasize links
between Saddam Hussein's government and Al Qaeda.
-
- "As the White House contended that links between
Mr. Hussein and Al Qaeda justified military action against Iraq, these
analysts complained that reports on Iraq have attracted unusually intense
scrutiny from senior policy makers within the Bush administration.
-
- ",A lot of analysts have been upset about the way
the Iraq-Al Qaeda case has been handled,, said one intelligence official
familiar with the debate."
-
- INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES TURN ON BUSH/BLAIR
-
- It has been happening for two months now. Leaks, protests,
even overt criticisms from those like former senior CIA analyst Stephen
Pelletier, who has revealed that it was Iran rather than Iraq which had
killed thousands of Kurds in massive poison gas attacks in the 1980s. More
recently we have seen British intelligence personnel leak information to
the press showing that Britain,s infamous intelligence dossier on Iraq,s
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) had been plagiarized from outdated information
in graduate student papers and that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA)
has engaged in illegal wiretapping of U.N. officials in attempts to secure
enough votes for a resolution in support of the invasion. One or perhaps
two of these events could be explained as the actions of individuals. But
the frequency and number of these attacks is suggesting that the intelligence
services, which view themselves as permanent and enduring institutions
as compared to passing administrations, are slowly pulling structural supports
from underneath the Bush and Blair administrations, platform.
-
- On February 8, Counterpunch published a statement by
a group calling itself Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
which gave Secretary of State Colin Powell a C- grade for providing "context
and perspective" on Iraqi weapons and intent. The statement specifically
and correctly chided the Bush administration for making the violation of
a U.N. resolution a pretext for war pointing out that Israel,s refusal
to comply from a U.N. resolution calling for its withdrawal from territories
occupied in 1967 has never been addressed.
-
- [NOTE: Israel is currently in violation of 64 U.N. resolutions
as opposed to Iraq,s 17]
-
- The VIPS statement also vigorously disputed any notion
that Iraq posed any immediate threat to the U.S. and quoted CIA reports
supporting that position. It also disputed Bush/Powell contentions that
Iraq had any previous involvement with terrorist activities. Revealing
what may actually be an intention of the Bush administration, VIPS stated,
"Indeed, it is our view that an invasion of Iraq would ensure overflowing
recruitment centers for terrorists into the indefinite future."
-
- And, striking a chord that is sure to resonate in millions
of U.S. military veterans, VIPS observed, "Reminder: The last time
we sent troops to the Gulf, over 600,000 of them, one out of three came
back ill many with unexplained disorders of the nervous system. Your Secretary
of Veteran,s Affairs recently closed the VA healthcare system to nearly
200,000 eligible veterans by administrative fiat."
-
- Stories from early March in Britain,s The Observer actually
produced a copy of a Top Secret NSA memorandum calling on allied intelligence
agencies to increase their wiretapping and monitoring of U.N. diplomats
who might swing a Security Council vote in favor of the U.S. While reportage
on this major breach of international trust and protocol has gone away,
the rage felt by many diplomats has not. It was later disclosed that an
employee of British intelligence who was outraged by its contents had leaked
the memo. However, reading between the lines, this writer suspects that
the leak took place with a wink and a nod from higher ups.
-
- By March 14, the activities of VIPS were getting favorable
coverage by the Associated Press, a sign that powers controlling both the
media and the intelligence services were pushing the agenda. Although varying
editions of the story appeared in print, on the AP web site and in different
parts of the country, the basic story retained a key lead sentence. "A
small group comprised mostly of retired CIA officers is appealing to colleagues
still inside to go public with any evidence the Bush administration is
slanting intelligence to support its case for war with Iraq."
-
- Such a statement from intelligence veterans has serious
repercussions in a discipline that is noted for never leaking information.
That is, unless there is an agenda that intelligence agencies themselves
are pursuing. In those cases the CIA plays the media, as one CIA executive
once described, "like a Mighty Wurlitzer."
-
- As resignations of outraged civil servants are stacking
up on both sides of the Atlantic like freshly cut firewood, the Bush administration
was also seriously hurt by the resignation of the top Bush National Security
Council official in charge of terrorism, Rand Beers. A March 19 UPI story,
while repeating the Bush administration position that Beers, resignation
was not because of administration deceit and vanishing credibility, left
no doubt that Beers, widely respected in Washington, was just plain fed
up and possibly sensing a sinking ship.
-
- OIL'S NOT WELL
-
- The utterly ridiculous and unjustified drop in oil prices
and upsurge in the Dow last week is belied by real data on oil supplies
as the Iraqi invasion stumbles. As the war intensifies some real garbage
and some occasional gems of truth are coming from the major media.
-
- First, it is a given that while the war is in progress,
Iraqi oil exports are virtually non-existent. The port region around Basra
which accounts for well more than half of Iraqi exports -- is virtually
shut down. One pipeline running from northern Iraq to the Turkish port
of Ceyhan is reported to be intact but there are no reports as to whether
oil is actually flowing. It,s not likely. What this means is that it is
a safe bet that two million plus barrels per day (Mbpd) have been taken
out of world supplies.
-
- In the face of this, BusinessWeek, in the February 24
issue, has engaged in the outrageously dishonest reporting that the Caspian
basin may hold 200 billion barrels (Gb) of reserves and that there are
some three trillion barrels of proven conventional oil remaining on the
planet. Extensive research conducted by FTW has shown that Caspian reserves
have been verified by drilling results over the last three years to be
only around 40 Gb and are a major disappointment. FTW data was derived
through extensive research in oil and gas journals, official government
reports and by direct interviews with oil executives who have been in the
region.
-
- Planetary reserves of conventional oil are only about
one trillion barrels or enough to keep the world supplied for approximately
30 years in an ever tightening and ever more expensive marketplace that
threatens economies all over the globe. Motives for the BusinessWeek deception
would include providing propaganda cover for the fact that the invasion
of Iraq is totally about oil and also give false confidence to investors
as financial and equity markets teeter on the brink of collapse.
-
- The Wall Street Journal, however, on March 18, recently
engaged in some serious truth telling. In a page-one story titled "Why
the U.S. IS Still Hooked On Oil Imports", the Journal reported:
-
- "President Bush says hydrogen power will lead to
energy independence... Mr. Bush is almost certain to be proved wrong, at
least in the next couple of decades."
-
- After acknowledging that oil price spikes have always
led to recessions, the Journal relied on an extensive body of research
of the statements of OPEC founder, Saudi Sheikh Zaki Yamani to hit at one
of the core motivators for the Iraqi invasion oil production costs. Not
every country or region spends the same amount of money to produce a barrel
of oil. And nowhere is oil cheaper to produce than in the Persian Gulf.
The Journal quoted Yamani as stating at a 1980s OPEC meeting, "Let,s
see how the North Sea can produce oil when prices are at $5 a barrel."
-
- The Journal continued: "At low prices, the Persian
Gulf countries have an unbeatable edge. In the mid 1980s it cost them a
couple of dollars a barrel to produce oil. It cost about $15 a barrel off
the coast of Britain and Norway or in the U.S." That was in the 1980s.
Credible estimates of North Sea production costs in dying fields now place
the cost per barrel at over $20.
-
- Russia has current estimated production costs of between
$19 and $27 a barrel which reveal the key to everything that,s going on
now. The world is running out of oil. In order to save a teetering U.S.
economy the Bush administration is betting on the rapidly diminishing hope
that it can get Iraqi oil back on the markets and available to the U.S.
at a price of between $15 and $20 per barrel. If the prices drop to the
levels Bush needs, OPEC loses its profits and Russian oil becomes uncompetitive
in the market place.
-
- Bush is not going to get his way.
-
- In a major development, it was reported on Saturday that
growing unrest in Nigeria, an OPEC member and the world,s sixth largest
exporter, had shut down the Chevron Texaco pumping facilities. A story
in today,s Economist confirmed earlier reports that both Chevron and French
giant TotalFinaElf had not only shut down production but ordered evacuations
of all their personnel. These moves take an immediate 330,000 barrels a
day out of world supplies and they also hearken back to recent lessons
learned in Venezuela after a massive strike shut down Venezuelan production.
Refineries and wells don,t operate at the flip of a switch. They require
a constant flow of chemicals and products to keep their systems primed.
When recovering from a shut down, it often takes a considerable period
to reach previous production levels.
-
- While OPEC has announced that it will increase production
to offset shortages, its ability to do so is limited to perhaps a 3-5 Mbpd
increase. That,s a drop in the bucket in current tight markets and in a
world that consumes a billion barrels every twelve days. Iraqi oil fields
will require billions of dollars of investment and years to increase Iraqi
production to five or eight Mbpd. And that clock will only start ticking
once the country is secure and safe, an outcome that is not at all guaranteed
at the moment.
-
- In the meantime, according to The Financial Times today,
the Mexican government has announced its intent to start selling U.S. dollars
on world currency markets. This move could further weaken an already shaky
U.S. dollar, especially if other nations, angered at the U.S. invasion
of Iraq, follow suit. Since oil is currently purchased in dollars, inevitable
future oil price spikes could become doubly painful for the U.S. economy
as the dollar loses value.
-
- BUSH'S WATGERATE BURGLARY
-
- "At the Security Council, some are questioning the
veracity of any U.S. claim regarding Iraq." The Boston Globe, March
16, 2003
-
- The first official report that documents prepared on
stationery of the governments of Niger and Iraq detailing a planned sale
of uranium to Iraq were forged came on March 7. Mohamed ElBaradei, the
chief nuclear inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency told
the U.N. Security Council that the documents, "were not authentic."
The first paper to break the news was London,s Financial Times. The documents,
not very clever or convincing, failed to convince the U.N. but were, however,
included in British Prime Minister Tony Blair,s now legendary flawed intelligence
dossier, which had been presented to Parliament on Sept. 24, 2002.
-
- The Washington Post picked up on the story on March 8
where it reported that, "The forgers had made relatively crude errors
that eventually gave them away including names and titles that did not
match up with the individuals who held office at the time the letters were
purportedly written, the officials said."
-
- The Post reported administration officials as giving
the somewhat lame excuse, "We fell for it." No one even tried
to suggest a motive for someone other than the Bush or Blair regimes to
commit the crime.
-
- Not everyone fell for it. As reported in what are now
at least a half dozen stories, the CIA was suspicious of the documents
and purposely left them out of their own report on Iraqi weapons. That
did not, however, prevent George W. Bush, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld
or Dick Cheney from touting them as authentic. The State Department even
authoritatively referred to the documents in a December 19, 2002 Fact Sheet
titled "Illustrative Examples of Omissions From the Iraqi Declaration
to the United Nations Security Council".
-
- By March 13, The Post was back with a story indicating
that the FBI was looking into the source of the documents and "the
possibility that a foreign government is using a deception campaign to
foster support for military action against Iraq."
-
- Huh? Is there some country out there we haven,t heard
of that really hates Iraq other than the U.S., Britain or Israel?
-
- The Post story closed by saying, "The CIA, which
also had obtained the documents, had questions about whether they were
accurate,, said one intelligence official, and it decided not to include
them in its file on Iraq,s program to procure weapons of mass destruction."
-
- This begs the question as to whether CIA Director George
Tenet told Bush or Cheney or Powell that the documents were forged. That,s
his job above all else: to give the President reliable and trustworthy
intelligence.
-
- On March 14, Ken Guggenheim of The Associated Press reported
that Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WVa.), ranking member of the Senate Intelligence
Committee had called the FBI and asked for an investigation of the documents.
Rockefeller,s full name is John D. Rockefeller, IV and he is a direct descendant
of the same family that essentially brought the Bush family into power.
What is amazing here is not only that someone has requested an investigation
of just one of the hundreds of Bush administration inconsistencies and
proven lies since 9-11, but that it was a Rockefeller who requested it.
That reality has thundered throughout Washington,s power corridors like
an earthquake.
-
- FTW placed calls to both FBI headquarters and Rockefeller,s
Washington offices asking for comment or further information. An FBI spokesperson
told FTW that the Bureau had nothing to say. After hearing what the topic
was, a Rockefeller spokesperson promised to call back but did not.
-
- Colin Powell immediately started denying that the State
Department had anything to do with creating the forgeries. No one had accused
him! And the story picked up "legs" in print media around the
world.
-
- By the 15th, CNN had picked up the story on its web site
and had added damning observations about the childish, crude and "obvious"
nature of the forgeries that "should never have gotten past the CIA."
But the CIA had already established a record saying that it never trusted
the documents. Asked about the documents on Meet the Press the previous
Sunday, Powell simply stated, "It was the information that we had.
We provided it. If that information is inaccurate, fine."
-
- Not so fine.
-
- Where did the documents come from? Already inconsistent
finger pointing, eerily reminiscent of the loose threads pulled on by Woodward
and Bernstein in 1972 and 1973 are starting to surface. Powell says he
doesn,t know where the documents came from. Britain is remaining silent
and the government of Niger has issued a blunt statement indicating that
the documents were forged in London and Washington.
-
- My guess is that they were forged inside the National
Security Council rather than at the CIA. The CIA would have done a better
job. Can you say, "Iran-Contra"?
-
- The most scathing blow to date and there are sure to
be more came from Congressman Henry Waxman (D, Ca.) who, in a six-page
March 17 letter to George Bush, created a locked-down record of Bush,s,
Cheney,s, Rumsfeld,s and Powell,s use of the documents, even pointing out
that the President had made reference to the documents in his State-of-the-Union
address in January by saying, "The British government has learned
that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from
Africa." Waxman noted next that, "a day later, Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld told reporters at a news briefing that Iraq "recently
was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
-
- Waxman closed his letter with three chilling questions
that may now distance George Tenet from George W. Bush and his cabinet,
who will all go down together if it becomes necessary. Waxman asked the
President to directly address:
-
- 1 -Whether CIA officials communicated their doubts about
the credibility of the forged evidence to other Administration officials,
including officials at the Department of State, the Department of Defense,
the National Security Council, and the White House;
- 2- Whether the CIA had any input into the "Fact
Sheet" distributed by the State Department on December 19, 2002; and
- 3- Whether the CIA reviewed your statement in the State
of the Union address regarding Iraq,s attempts to obtain uranium from Africa
and, if so, what the CIA said about the statement.
- I can hear the distant echoes of Senator Howard Baker
in the Senate Watergate hearings asking, "What did the President know
and when did he know it?"
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- THE PERFECT STORM
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- It,s all coming together on the radar screen and the
chances are that these storms are going to merge. In this all out economic
war of survival, as Peak Oil forces its way into the public consciousness,
Russia will likely continue to provide Saddam with arms and technical assistance.
France may well share intelligence. China, with the slightest nod, can
contribute tactical advice and many mines for the Mediterranean. All of
them can indirectly, and through plausibly deniable methods, foster and
supply revolts in oil producing regions around the globe. And they can
all laugh and deny as the U.S. tries to point a finger at them. This has
all been done before.
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- In the meantime Vladimir Putin can cushion his allies
with cheap oil as the U.S. starts to die of thirst.
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- Before Americans become outraged that such a scenario
might be unfolding, I would remind them that every one of these tactics
has been employed by the United States in spades against each of these
countries for more than fifty years. It was the U.S. that chose this course
to begin with. The tragedy, of course, is that the American people will
suffer greatly as the storms converge. The truth is that the American people
have never been any more of a concern to the powers that be than the people
in the rest of the world have, except that giving them a higher standard
of living made them compliant and dumb. It appears as if even that is no
longer necessary. The destruction of American credibility and the transfer
of its wealth are necessary steps in the creation of the New World Order.
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- Everything might just come crashing down all at once
and if that happens the powers that rule will sacrifice their little Caesar
and cut a deal with the other nations quickly. Just as in Shakespeare,s
play, there will be many wounds in Caesar,s body, inflicted by many different
people. But most certainly one of the daggers will be found in the hand
of George Tenet and the CIA. He knows where the real power resides.
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