Re: [Futurework] Are they going mad?

[Ray Evans Harrell]

This to my mind is more the point.    Its from that excellent site Stephen recommended.     Editorial: 'Moot point'/Andrew Card goes over the line Published 12/09/2003 Andrew Card, President Bush's chief of staff, made the rounds of the Sunday interview shows last weekend. On CNN's "Late Edition," Wolf Blitzer pushed Card fairly hard on the war in Iraq -- not so much on how it's going, but on why it happened. At one point, after broaching the issue of the phantom weapons of mass destruction, Blitzer asked, "Was U.S. intelligence going into the war faulty?" Card answered: "Well, intelligence -- I think, first of all, there was plenty of justification to go to war. He had stiffed the United Nations many, many times. He was a threat to his own people and a threat to the region. He was a threat to our interests. And we had called for -- as a country, we had called for regime change under the previous administration. "But when you go there today and you see some of the mass graves that are there, where he murdered his own people, you just can't help but think that we are much better off with[out] Saddam there. So, I think that's a moot point." Such an innocuous phrase, "moot point," but it is breathtaking in its significance and damnably outrageous of Card to use it. As you will recall, and as people like Card keep hoping you will forget, Saddam Hussein's WMD stockpiles and programs were the fundamental reason the United States went to war in Iraq. Yes, there were secondary reasons as well, some of which Card mentioned. But without the WMD threat to the United States and its friends, never would the American people or the U.S. Senate have consented to war. They were assured the administration had a rock-solid WMD case against Iraq. And so the United States invaded Iraq, despite the misgivings of some of its closest allies. The case against Saddam, however, turned out to be so much mush. It was based on faulty intelligence, which those who wanted war in the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney's office apparently cherry-picked to make their case -- hyping that information which was supportive, dismissing that which was not. Numerous critics have accused the administration of using raw intelligence data from unreliable sources, which Cheney has denied. But just this week, Newsweek is reporting that the exile Iraqi National Congress had direct pipelines into Cheney's office and the Pentagon, through which they fed information gathered from exiles and INC sources, and most of which turned out to be so much hooey. This was an intelligence failure of immense proportions and consequences. The American people were misled into war. That failure hardly qualifies as a "moot point." The price paid so far, and to be paid for who knows how long into the future, is just too horrific. The little town of Tipton, Iowa, paid part of that price last week. Specialist Aaron James Sissel, 22, of Tipton was killed when his convoy was attacked in Haditha, Iraq. His photographs suggest an engaging, outgoing kid, big smile on his spectacled face. The obituary in the Iowa City Press-Citizen tells about Sissel. He was just four years out of high school. Sissel loved stock cars and NASCAR racing, bowling, the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Michigan Wolverines. Sissel was assigned to the Iowa National Guard's 2133rd Transportation Company. He thought he had a future: He left behind a fiance, Specialist Kari N. Prellwitz. She's also serving with the Iowa National Guard in Iraq. Sissel and Prellwitz and all those who serve with them aren't so many throwaway pieces in some grand geostrategic game. They are American flesh and blood. Yes, they were soldiers pledged to defending their country, and they went about their tasks the best way they could. But they did not pledge to protect the civilian Iraqi population from the despot Saddam Hussein. They did not pledge to prevent more mass graves in Iraq. They were not asked to do those things. They were asked to help eliminate a threat to the United States posed by Saddam's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. They went; now Sissel is dead. For Andrew Card or anyone else in Washington to play bait-and-switch with such sacrifice is vulgar. Minnepolis Star Tribune   ----- Original Message ----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 9:56 AM Subject: RE: [Futurework] Are they going mad? I don't find the US action all that strange.  In fact it seems quite logical.  Why should those countries share in the contracts when they weren't willing to go along in the first place.   There was an interview with Laura Bush (Larry King) and she in passing felt it a pity that the French were so intransigent.  That a more united front might have forced Saddam's hand and lessened the need for armed intervention.  So that is the view in the US and is worth considering.  Not "mad."  Just angry.   arthur -----Original Message----- From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 8:35 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Keith Hudson Subject: Re: [Futurework] Are they going mad? Perhaps they always were a little mad and are now becoming more so.  Naom Chomsky has a new book out, "Hegemony or Survival".  I saw a short televised interview with him last night in which he argued that the US Administration has become so obsessed with power that it has become a real danger to the world.  George Soros says something similar in an article in the current Atlantic.  Madness does seem to have descended upon us.   Ed  ----- Original Message ----- From: Keith Hudson To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 3:21 AM Subject: [Futurework] Are they going mad? What irony! If there could have been any "justification" for America invading Iraq, it was because Saddam was excluding US and UK oil corporations from development contracts in the rich oilfields of northern Iraq. What's up with the Bush team?  Are they going mad?  Those whom the Gods wish to destroy ............. I think the Bush team is falling to pieces. Consider. Two days ago, Powell wanted NATO to help with the occupation of Iraq. Now the Pentagon comes out with this (below). Of course, this could seen as an immediate riposte to NATO turning him down (or, rather, expressing reservations). No, I think the members of the Bush team are now staggering about from one decision to another with little coordination of strategy. They're in a schizophrenic state. They really don't know what to do in Iraq. (Besides, why are they thinking about reconstruction contracts when they should be applying themselves to the prime objective of bringing about an Iraqi government by July?) I repeat my guess of a couple of days ago. I think Powell (and perhaps Condee) will resign soon. Then the team will really be seen to be falling apart. Now that Howard Dean is overwhelmingly the Democratic front-runner, it's possible that there'll now be a tidal wave of opinion against Bush. I'm amazed that America has been so supine over the invasion so far -- considering Vietnam (and soon, being kicked out of Afghanistan). Keith Hudson <<<< PENTAGON BARS THREE NATIONS FROM IRAQ BIDS Douglas Jehl WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 The Pentagon has barred French, German and Russian companies from competing for $18.6 billion in contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq, saying it was acting to protect "the essential security interests of the United States." The directive, issued Friday by Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, represents the most substantive retaliation to date by the Bush administration against American allies who opposed its decision to go to war in Iraq. from New York Times -- 10 December 2003 >>>> Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>