Evil GOP Bastards

Former State Dept. official: "Powell lied at the UN"
Greg Thielmann, former State Department director of the Office of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs, charges that key elements of Colin Powell's February 5, 2003, presentation at the UN were "misrepresented" and the "public was deceived." Thielmann, who had the highest security clearances and was tasked with examining WMD threats for his boss, Colin Powell, characterized Powell's presentation as "�Probably one
of the low points in his long, distinguished service to the nation."

As the Bush administration's most credible spokesmen, Powell reported: "The gravity of the moment is matched by the gravity of the threat that Iraq's WMDs pose to the world." Not true, as it turned out. Thielmann also concludes that the decision for war came first, and then the intelligence tailored to fit.

Neocons seize control of government
Retired AF Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski charges that the neocon civilian appointees in the Pentagon have hijacked the policy-making apparatus of the government -- even pushing agendas that are counter to official Bush administration policies. "What these people are doing now makes Iran-Contra look like amateur hour � it's worse than Iran-Contra, worse than what happened in Vietnam," said Kwiatkowski. "George Bush isn't in control�the country's been hijacked," she said, describing how "key areas of neoconservative concern were politically staffed."
Kwiatkowski, who retired this year after 20 years service, was a Middle East specialist in the office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy (headed by Douglas Feith). She described "a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through deceit of a large segment of the Congress," adding that "in order to take that first step -- Iraq -- lies had to be told to Congress to bring them on board."

For more on how the Iraq intelligence-vetting process became politicized -- mainly at the hands of VP Dick Cheney and his staff -- read Seymour Hersh's excellent
article on intelligence "stovepiping." Many now believe
it's actually Cheney who's in charge -- not Bush. The apparent influence of the putative vice president caused GOP moderate Richard Lugar (chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee) to urge the president to take charge. "The president has to be president," said Lugar, "that means the president over the vice president and all those secretaries."

"Fiscal doomsday approaching,"
says US Comptroller General
"Our projected deficits are not manageable without significant changes in status quo programs, policies, processes and operations." This grim prediction was released by David Walker, comptroller general of the US, whose 15-year term renders him immune from partisan political influence. These deficits are so huge, and the impending budgetary catastrophe so devastating, that three independent economic institutes -- the Committee for Economic Development (composed of business and education leaders), the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (a liberal-leaning research and advocacy group) and the bipartisan Concord Coalition -- issued an unprecedented joint statement declaring: "The current budgetary situation is the most fiscally irresponsible in history." What's the Bush solution? More tax cuts.

Bush gives wink, nod and green light to polluters
Since taking office, the Bush administration has proved itself hostile to basic environmental protection and enforcement of environmental regulations. For instance:
� Gutted key provisions of the Clean Air and Clean
Water acts
� Crippled the Superfund toxic waste clean-up program
� Has sought to cut EPA enforcement staff by 20%
� Fines assessed on polluters have dropped by 66%
� Criminal prosecutions are down by 33%
� Opened millions of acres to new logging, mining and
drilling operations
� Ignored alarming global warming trends
� Appointed anti-regulatory zealots to enforce EPA
regulations
Consistent with its pattern of deception, the Bush administration portrays itself as environmentally responsible while secretly doing everything possible to sabotage environmental protections.

John Dean says Bush gang worse than Tricky Dick's
Watergate whistleblower John Dean gives this assessment of the Bush administration, based on the outing of CIA non-official-cover agent Valerie Plame in the Wilson/Niger uranium scandal: "Neither Colson or Erlichman nor anyone else I knew while working at the Nixon White House had the necessary viciousness, or depravity, to attack the wife of a perceived enemy�" Dean recommends a civil suit to get to the bottom of this outrageous breach of national security for purely partisan purposes.

From the candidate who promised to restore "honor and integrity" to the White House, we can see that for the radical cabal running our government, "honor" is just a talking point, and "integrity" just more Rovian spin.

1 November 2003
Banner flap symptomatic of
Bush's pattern of deception
In the grand scheme of things,
it's not that important -- but it is instructive. I refer to the self-congra-
tulatory "Mission Accomplished" banner strategically placed as a backdrop during President Bush's May 1, 2003, USS Abraham Lincoln flight-deck extravaganza. As with nearly every other public act or utterance by the Bush administra-
tion, the entire event was befogged with lies. Remember? It had to be a dramatic flight-suited carrier landing because the Lincoln was too far at sea for a helicopter trip. We later learned the ship was only 30 miles from the coast of California, and that the ship had to slow down and circle at sea to wait for the Commander-in Chief's arrival. With the "Mission Accomplished" banner fluttering in the background, Bush declared that the "combat phase" of the Iraq war was over.

But as later events would reveal, the "combat phase" was not over. More American soldiers have died in Iraq since Bush's nationally televised address from the Lincoln than during the "combat phase." Mission not accomplished, yet. The White House website's proclamation that "combat operations have ended" was changed to "major combat opera-
tions have ended." But that simple edit doesn't reflect the reality on the ground for hundreds of American troops killed and the thousands maimed in the Iraq occupation.

With daily reports of more US military casualties, that "Mission Accomplished" banner was no longer�operative. Bush's triumph had now become a political embar-
rassment. And how does the Bush administration deal with political embarrassment? They rewrite history. They lie. Shamelessly.

When the banner was referenced
in a question at Bush's October 28 press conference, the president denied that the White House had produced the banner. "I know it
was attributed somehow to some ingenious advance man from my staff -- they weren't that ingenious,
by the way," he said.

But the truth slowly emerged. In
no less than the Army Times (an interesting story in itself), the styl-
istic similarities of the "Mission Accomplished" banner with the backdrops Bush uses to reinforce his daily talking points were noted. The story was then changed to "the Navy requested the banner and the White House staff produced it."
Ordinarily, this "correction" by the White House fog machine would have ended the flap -- at least for
the lazy, credulous stenographers
in the corporate press. However,
a May 4, 2003, editorial in the Washington Post gives lie to the latest refinement of the official spin. In this editorial it was revealed (long before the banner would become
an embarrassment) that, "Aides
say the slogan ("Mission Accomp-
lished") was chosen in part to mark a presidential turn toward domestic affairs as his campaign for reelect-
ion approaches." Busted...

Again, it's not that this tawdry episode is important compared with critical issues of national security, the economy and health care. But it once again confirms how this White House operates. For zealous ideo-
logues, any lie in the furtherance of their radical agenda is no vice (to paraphrase Barry Goldwater). The "truth" is whatever they feel they
can get away with. It's a pattern
that they have followed with alarm-
ing, egregious consistency. It's a conscious strategy of deliberate lying used to sell the Iraq war, their disastrous economic program of
tax cuts for the rich, and their evisceration of environmental protections.

9/11 Commission to subpoena White House for documents
The independent, bipartisan commission charged by Congress (over White House objections) with investigating the terrorist attacks of 9/11 has been met with stonewalling by the Bush administration, and has threatened to subpoena necessary documents. The commission is mandated to issue a report in May 2004, and White House resistance is threatening their ability to meet that deadline. Commission member, former Senator Max Cleland (D-GA) said, "The White House wants to run out the clock � it's disgusting." Chairman Thomas Keane, former GOP governor of New Jersey, said, "Any document that has to do with our investigation cannot be beyond our reach � I will not stand for it." Consistent with the pattern of official Bush administration obfuscation, White House spokesperson Ashley Snee reported that the White House was being fully cooperative.

Australian Senate censures
PM Howard for Iraq lies
On October 7, Prime Minister John Howard was formally censured by the Australian Senate for misleading the public about the necessity for war in Iraq -- based in part on revela-
tions by Andrew Wilkie. Wilkie, an analyst in the Australian intelligence service, resigned to protest the false intelligence used to justify Australian support for the war in Iraq. One senator accused Howard of "unpre-
cedented deceit.''

Retired CIA officer and Iraq-lies whistleblower Ray McGovern writes: "In his testimony, Wilkie addressed the question that keeps cropping up not only in Australia but in the US and the United Kingdom as well: If the casus belli was neither WMD
nor support for al Qaeda, then what was it? He reminded Australian lawmakers that ONA had made it ''very clear'' to the government that "the US was intent on invading
Iraq for more important reasons.''

"To find the ''more-important reasons,'' Wilkie's former ONA colleagues needed no spies to ferret out the answer. They could, and did, simply read the ideological and strategic rationale for conquering Iraq by clicking on PNAC (Project for a New American Century), a think-tank created in 1977 by Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others now in charge of US policy toward the Middle East."

The strategy is clearly spelled-out in a PNAC white paper of September 2000, "Rebuilding America's Defenses."

McGovern has issued a public appeal for American and British intelligence personnel to come forward to refute what he calls a
new intelligence cycle: "First
decide on war and then cook-up
the intelligence to justify it."