Mr. David Corn,

Good posts!

Keep up the good work.

Thanks for all of your work.

Kirk

Sorry about the re-post but I am trying to clear up an issue I cannot resolve on my own.

Americans Confidence In Direction of U.S. Plunges: 21 Points Lower Than Iraqis Confidence In Iraq

A new poll by NBC and the Wall Street Journal found that just 26 percent of Americans believe that the country is "headed in the right direction."

It’s an astoundingly low number. Iraqis – who are battling a deadly insurgency and live in a country on the brink of a civil war – are far more content with the direction of their country:

A recent poll by the International Republican Institute, a conservative group that promotes democracy, showed that only 47 percent of Iraqis surveyed in early October said the country was moving in the right direction.

Note: 47 percent confidence was considered "low."

*****end of clip*****

I have a copy of the PDF results from the most recent poll and cannot find the word "torture" in the document anywhere?

Maybe you could provide a link to the 55% claim?

capt

Combatting the big lie -

Ray McGovern on C-Cpan's Washington Journal this morning.

David and all, Today I was able to get on C-span to ask Ray Mcgovern a CIA analyst for 27 years 3 questions?

I mentioned that Senator Diane Feinstein had recently made a statement in regard to PhaSe II saying..."we are not looking to place blame". I then asked Mcgovern whether he thought that Phase II would dig deep into the inteligence who produced it and dessiminated it and will they be held accountable"? He said "NO WAY" and that Senator Rockerfeller did not have the backbone to complete this job. You can go listen to the program at c-span. The whole 2 hours was worth it. Or you can just go and hear what Ray McGovern had to say. He was speaking truth to power before the invasion (I heard him many times) and continues to do so.

It would appear from what McGovern said that folks should continue to hammer our represenatives about the INTEGRITY AND DEPTH OF PHASE II. WE NEED TO PUSH FOR THE TRUTH IN REGARD TO THE INTELLIGENCE..

We need to continue to call write and e mail Roberts, Rockerfeller and our own reps. They will not do the job thoroughly if we do not apply the pressure.

Poll: Bush Approval Hits New Low

On Iraq, Economy and Ethics, a Perfect Storm Bedevils Bush

Analysis by GARY LANGER

Nov. 3, 2005 —† An increasingly unpopular war, an ethics cloud, and broad economic discontent have pushed public opinion of the Bush administration from bad to worse, infecting not only the president's ratings on political issues but his personal credentials for honesty and leadership as well.

George W. Bush's approval ratings for handling his job, Iraq, terrorism and the economy are all at career-lows. Sixty percent of Americans disapprove of his work in office overall, a level of discontent unseen since recession chased his father from office.

With an indictment in the White House, just 40 percent call Bush honest and trustworthy —†fewer than half for the first time —†and 67 percent rate his handling of ethics in government negatively. Fewer than half call him a strong leader, another first. Two-thirds say he doesn't understand their problems, and nearly six in 10 say he doesn't share their values —†again career-worst personal ratings on these attributes.

On Iraq, a new high —†55 percent —†say the Bush administration intentionally misled the American public in making its case for war, up 12 points from last spring. Sixty percent say the war was not worth fighting, up seven points just since August to another high.

*****end of clip*****

Maybe you have this 55% figure mistaken as an endorsement of torture? I do agree of course, Bush tortures the truth. 55% see right through his lies. Good one!

HA!

capt

capt

The 55% comes from Andrea Mitchell of NBC. She quoted the poll as saying the American Public support by a 2-1 (55%) margin getting info from prisoners using whatever means possilbe and do not want to know the details of how they got. Don't ask-don't tell.

Kathleen -

I get up around 4:00 am to watch Washington Journal almost every day - I got through to Peter Hoekstra a few months ago, good for you! People like you are the reason I keep such hours!

I referenced the poll, Mrs. Greenspan must be quoting a different poll?

Can you offer a link to the poll she cites?

There is no such question in the poll results released 11/10.

"On the other hand, the Administration's policy on detainees, of which Cheney is the lead defender, gets clear majority support in the poll: 55% say the Administration has taken the right course of action; 30% say they've gone too far."

Above is from "First read (cached) but as far as I can tell they are reading from a different poll?

Here is a link to the actual poll results:

FINAL - Study #6058 - NBC News/Wall Street Journal Survey - November 2005

I have read the poll results and may have missed something maybe you can help me out?

Just to double check I searched the pdf for: 55, torture, detainee, policy, and Cheney.

No reference matches the claim.

Thanks

capt

Kathleen,

You GO!

8 Hey capt, I have a better question. Referencing the previous thread, just what the hell is a "hippocrit", anyway? A weird Dr. Seuss animal? A cross between a hippopotamus and Rex Reed? Very difficult to take the poster of such ignorant drivel serious on any level. Harrumph.

I had an older file copy;

"31. As you may know, suspected terrorists and foreign fighters are being kept at prison facilities that are located outside the United States but are run by the United States government. Do you think the Bush administration has taken the right course of action or has it gone too far in its imprisonment and treatment
of suspected terrorists and foreign fighters?"

55% does indicate the affrimative but hardly accurate to paraphrase the above as an endorsement of torture unless you first assert that the above is an admission of torture?

Thanks anyway,

capt

I am forced to avoid picking on spelling/content/context type errors because I would be the first indicted and convicted.

Worse, I will often use substitute words that pass the spell check and my proof read but are not the correct word.

*sigh*

That is why I try to sick with factual errors. Plenty of them to discuss.

capt

Why take baf seriously? Last I looked 55% does not equal 2 to 1.

The repugnant lobbyists applauding Delay is indicative of the dry rot that has consumed the cesspool that we know as D.C.

Rediscovered testimony given by CIA director in 2001 suggests manipulation of pre-war intelligence
Jason Leopold

President George W. Bush's attempt Friday to silence critics who say his administration manipulated prewar intelligence on Iraq is undercut by congressional testimony given in February 2001 by former CIA Director George Tenet, who said that Iraq posed no immediate threat to the United States or other countries in the Middle East, RAW STORY has found.

Details of Tenet's testimony have not been reported before.

Since a criminal indictment was handed up last month against Vice President Dick Cheney's former Chief of Staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for his role in allegedly leaking the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to reporters in an attempt to muzzle criticism of the administration’≥ rationale for war, questions have resurfaced in the halls of Congress about whether the president and his close advisers manipulated intelligence in an effort to dupe lawmakers and the American public into believing Saddam Hussein was a grave threat. more.

************

Remember the Republicans after the Paul Wellstone memorial? Compare that to the Bush's Veterans' Day speech.

I miss Paul, and a few others.

Nostalgia is not what it used to be.

I do not post to specific handles (trolls), but I do like to fact check outrageous and incorrect claims, lies and misrepresentations. I never check their math because that has always been a lost cause.

capt

Has American Democracy died an electronic death in Ohio 2005's referenda defeats?
by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
November 11, 2005

[...]The polling used by the Dispatch had wrapped up the Thursday before the Tuesday election. Its precision on Issue One was consistent with the Dispatch's historic polling abilities, which have been uncannily accurate for decades. This poll was based on 1872 registered Ohio voters, with a margin of error at plus/minus 2.5 percentage points and a 95% confidence interval. The Issue One outcome would appear to confirm the Dispatch polling operation as the state's gold standard.

But Issues 2-5 are another story.

The Dispatch's Sunday headline showed "3 issues on way to passage." The headline referred to Issues One, Two and Three. As mentioned, the poll was dead-on accurate for Issue One.

Issues Two-Five were meant to reform Ohio's electoral process, which has been under intense fire since 2004. The issues were very heavily contested. They were backed by Reform Ohio Now, a well-funded bi-partisan statewide effort meant to bring some semblance of reliability back to the state's vote count. Many of the state's best-known moderate public figures from both sides of the aisle were prominent in the effort. Their effort came largely in response to the stolen 2004 presidential vote count that gave George W. Bush a second term and led to U.S. history's first Congressional challenge to the seating of a state's delegation to the Electoral College.

Issue Two was designed to make it easier for Ohioans to vote early, by mail or in person. By election day, much of what it proposed was already put into law by the state legislature. Like Issue One, it was opposed by the Christian Right. But it had broad support from a wide range of Ohio citizen groups. In a conversation the day before the vote, Bill Todd, a primary official spokesperson for the opposition to Issues Two through Five, told attorney Cliff Arnebeck that he believed Issues Two and Three would pass.

The November 6 Dispatch poll showed Issue Two passing by a vote of 59% to 33%, with about 8% undecided, an even broader margin than that predicted for Issue One.

But on November 8, the official vote count showed Issue Two going down to defeat by the astonishing margin of 63.5% against, with just 36.5% in favor. To say the outcome is a virtual statistical impossibility is to understate the case. For the official vote count to square with the pre-vote Dispatch poll, support for the Issue had to drop more than 22 points, with virtually all the undecideds apparently going into the "no" column.

The numbers on Issue Three are even less likely. more.

**********

Let me reprise from a couple of days ago:

Buy! New! Improved! Demcracy Hogwash!

*At least you'll have a clean pig!*

Terror Suspect Treatment Most Americans Oppose Torture Techniques

Analysis
By David Morris and Gary Langer

May 27, 2004—†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.

There's more of a division, though, on physical abuse that falls short of torture: Forty-six percent say it's acceptable in some cases, while 52 percent say not.

Majorities identify three specific coercive practices as acceptable: sleep deprivation (66 percent call it acceptable), hooding (57 percent) and "noise bombing" (54 percent), in which a suspect is subjected to loud noises for long periods.

Far fewer Americans accept other practices. Four in 10 call it acceptable to threaten to shoot a suspect, or expose a suspect to extreme heat or cold. Punching or kicking is deemed acceptable by 29 percent. And 16 percent call sexual humiliation —†alleged to have occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad —†acceptable in some cases.

*****end of clip*****

The only recent poll I have found specifically on the subject of torture is linked above.

I assume the question of detainee policy could be interpreted as torture only if we tortured all detainees.

I think the analysis is nearly accurate two to one against torture. So if torture is our detainee policy . . . just the opposite of the mathematically challenged claims made by the troll. (no surprise)

capt

*At least you'll have a clean pig!*

Um... er.. do we have to wash off the lipstick?

HA!

capt

To counter the claim that congress voted for regime change, this is from the Nov. 12, 2005, Washington Post -

Bush, in his speech Friday, said that "it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began." But in trying to set the record straight, he asserted: "When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support."

The October 2002 joint resolution authorized the use of force in Iraq, but it did not directly mention the removal of Hussein from power.

The resolution voiced support for diplomatic efforts to enforce "all relevant Security Council resolutions," and for using the armed forces to enforce the resolutions and defend "against the continuing threat posed by Iraq."

Here's the full text of the resolution - nothing in there about regime change, the language specifies enforcing resolutions and disarming -

http://hnn.us/articles/1282.html

Jeannie

And why it should never be one

By Larry C. Johnson

LARRY C. JOHNSON, a former CIA officer, was a deputy director of the State Department Office of Counterterrorism from 1989 to 1993.

November 11, 2005

I THINK Dick Cheney has been watching too many Hollywood flicks that glorify torture. He needs to get out of his undisclosed location and talk to the people on the ground.

I'm a former CIA officer and a former counterterrorism official. During the last few months, I have spoken with three good friends who are CIA operations officers, all of whom have worked on terrorism at the highest levels. They all agree that torturing detainees will not help us. In fact, they believe that it will hurt us in many ways.

These are the very people the vice president wants to empower to torture —†and they don't want to do it.

I have some experience of my own with "duress interrogation." Back when I was undergoing paramilitary training at a CIA facility in 1986, my colleagues and I were interrogated to prepare us in case we were taken hostage.

At one point we were "captured" by faux terrorists. After being stripped naked and given baggy military uniforms, we entered a CIA version of Gitmo. We were deprived of sleep for 36 hours, given limited rice and water and forced to stand in place. Our interrogators —†all U.S. military personnel —†coaxed and harangued us by turns. Those of us who declined to cooperate were stuffed into punishment boxes —†miniature coffins that induced claustrophobia.

After 30 hours, one of my classmates gave me up in exchange for a grape soda and a ham sandwich.

The lesson of this training was that everyone has a breaking point. But our instructors were not recommending breaking detainees through torture. Instead, they emphasized the need to build rapport and trust with people who had information we wanted.

Two of my friends, one a classmate from hostage school, served in Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Some Americans believe that the suicide attack on the World Trade Center justifies using all techniques to get information from terrorist suspects. But my friends recognize correctly that their mission is to gather intelligence, not to create new enemies.

If you inflict enough pain on someone, they will give you information, but what they tell you may not be true. You will have to corroborate it, which will take time. And, unless you kill every suspect you brutalize, you will make enemies of them, their families, maybe their entire villages. What real CIA field officers know firsthand is that it is better to build a relationship of trust —†even with a terrorist, even if it's time-consuming —†than to extract quick confessions through tactics such as those used by the Nazis and the Soviets, who believed that national security always trumped human rights.

And that's the point. We should never use our fear of being attacked as justification for dehumanizing ourselves or others.

Before the CIA gets all the blame for promoting the torture mentality, we ought to note that Hollywood's hands are dirty as well. In last year's "Man on Fire," we saw Denzel Washington give a corrupt Mexican cop a plastic explosive enema. He also taped the hands of another errant cop to the steering wheel and began to snip off digits in an effort to find out the whereabouts of a kidnapped child.

I am not advocating that terrorists be given room service at the Four Seasons. Some sleep deprivation —†of the sort mothers of newborns all endure —†and spartan living conditions are appropriate. What we must not do is use physical pain or the threat of drowning, as in "waterboarding," to gain information. Tough, relentless questioning is OK. Torture is not.

Thankfully, several Republican senators, including John McCain and Lindsey Graham, are defying Cheney's campaign for a torture loophole. Cheney's plea to permit CIA officers unrestricted interrogation methods would be the death of the CIA as a professional intelligence service and another stain on the reputation of the U.S.

*****end of clip*****

Just another stain on our already tattered reputation.

We have already surrendered the "moral high-ground" and the damage is done. It is good to see a few GOPhers defying Darth Cheney.

capt

JeannieZ,

The supporters of this administration will point to the whereases, specifically:

Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;

Of course, the 'whereas' clauses do not authorize anything, they only serve as justification for the language that follows.

I deeply resented the votes that ANY democrat cast in favor of this illfated adventure, but some were to be, unfortunately, expected, such as the republicrat Joe Lieberman.

The Worst Speech of Bush's Presidency

by David Kusnet

What's most remarkable about this speech is how Bush has bungee-jumped from the rhetorical high-road he usually takes to the lowest road any recent president has taken on a national holiday. Unlike previous presidents from both parties, Bush up until now has rarely attacked the opposition party, individual adversaries, or even ideological categories. (For instance, unlike Reagan and Nixon, he has rarely if ever criticized liberals or secularists.) So it is especially surprising that a president who generally avoided attacking his opponents in State of the Union speeches is now attacking them in a Veterans Day address; and it seems a sign that his shrewdest advisers -- Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, and Michael Gerson -- had no input into this speech.

As for the substantive points in the speech, they were either familiar or flimsy. Once again, Bush defended the Iraq war only after reporting on less controversial endeavors, such as the response to 9/11, the Afghanistan war, and efforts to destroy Al Qaeda.

Less familiar was Bush's lengthy comparison of Islamic extremism with the Communism of the Cold War era. Both, Bush said, were violent, dictatorial, and "dismissive of free peoples." But Communism was also atheist and internationalist, while Al Qaeda is neither. If current enemies have to be equated with twentieth-century totalitarianisms, why not compare Islamic extremism with fascism, which made more use of nationalist emotions and was less hostile to religion?

This was a speech that presented Bush's case implausibly and inappropriately. It's hard for a president to sound unpresidential on a patriotic holiday, but Bush achieved that dubious distinction today.

*****end of clip*****

Just another dubious distinction. It makes perfect sense that the worst president ever would set new lows. Goes without saying.

capt

PS - A few dempublicrats are realiable votes for those they claim to oppose, I hate that.

Democrats Must Call For Pullout

Voters Will Punish Opposition For Not Opposing War

Helen Thomas, Hearst White House columnist

POSTED: 1:14 pm EDT August 29, 2005

It's time for the Democratic Party to take a courageous stand and call for the withdrawal of troops from the senseless war in Iraq.

What is the logic of Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., Joseph Biden, D-Del. and other so-called moderate Democrats still backing the unprovoked war in Iraq when they know they were sold a bill of goods?

Not all Democrats are so clueless. In an opinion article on Wednesday in The Washington Post, former Sen. Gary Hart, D-Col., wrote that "history will deal with George W. Bush and the neoconservatives who misled a mighty nation into a flawed war that is draining the finest military in the world ... diverting Guard and reserve forces that should be on the front line of homeland defense, shredding international alliances that prevailed in two world wars and the Cold war ... and weakening America's national security."

But he is also tough on his own party and asks: "What will history say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes on?"

Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis. is proposing a total pullout of American troops by Dec. 31, 2006. Why wait a year?

*****end of clip*****

A piece from a few months ago.

capt

I am looking for an interview with Helen I read a day or two ago but keep finding little gems like:

Probe Could Find Real 'Why' Of War In Iraq

Still looking for the other, it has a great quote in it. Helen says something like: "Everybody knows who took us to war and the reasons given have turned out to be false" (something like that).

capt

momentary tangent... The oil execs were not required to take an oath before testifying due to a decision made by the republican chairman Ted Stevens of the committee, even though Sen Maria Cantwell asked for a vote to be taken on that, and actually moved for a vote. So my thought is what if Boxer or Cantwell had as their first question... "Do you swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth in answering this question or any further answers to questions or statements yo make today before this committee today? If you cannot answer with a simple yes or no, then explain why you cannot give such a simple answer."

Why are vaccine safety advocates so adamant that John Q. Public might get screwed by all this protect-Big Pharma bird flu legislation? Because it has happened before.

In the 1970s, the panic over swine flu led to an ill-advised vaccine push that crippled many recipients and cost the drug makers millions.

In the 1980s, a dangerously reactive vaccine against whooping cough injured and killed thousands when a safer foreign alternative was already available but stubbornly unapproved by the FDA.

In the 1990s, the federal health establishment insisted -- and still insists -- there is no connection between toxic mercury preservatives in mandated childhood vaccines and the astounding increase in autism (from 1 in 10,000 births to 1 in 166 births), despite ample scientific evidence to the contrary.

Experimental anthrax vaccine is still being tested on troops without informed consent, and was almost tested on infants until a big public fuss erupted.

BBC and Fallujah: War Crimes and Media Lies
Media coverup on the use of White Phosphorous bombs
by Gabriele Zamparini
November 10, 2005
GlobalResearch.ca

November 9, 2005 on the BBC News website, under the title US 'uses incendiary arms' in Iraq I could still read:
Italian state TV, RAI, has broadcast a documentary accusing the US military of using white phosphorus bombs against civilians in the Iraqi city of Falluja.

Rai says this amounts to the illegal use of chemical arms, though the bombs are considered incendiary devices.

Eyewitnesses and ex-US soldiers say the weapon was used in built-up areas in the insurgent-held city.

The US military denies this, but admits using white phosphorus bombs in Iraq to illuminate battlefields.

Yesterday I wrote on why the BBC NEWS is wrong when (in its article: Ҵhough the bombs are considered incendiary devicesӠand with an email to me: җhite Phosphorous is not a chemical weaponө it denies that the white phosphorus is a chemical weapon.

According to international law, any chemical used to harm or kill people or animals is considered a chemical weapon. In the words of Peter Kaiser (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons):
ҁny chemical that is used against humans or against animals that causes harm or death through the toxic properties of the chemical, ARE considered chemical weapons and as long as the purpose is to cause harm - that is prohibited behaviour.Ӡ(You can listen to his words directly by following this link and click the ҐlayӠunder the photo on the right at the bottom of the page)
The BBC NEWS article goes on
Ҕhe US military denies this, but admits using white phosphorus bombs in Iraq to illuminate battlefields.Ӡ
The US Government had already denied the claims in the past. In Did the U.S. Use "Illegal" Weapons in Fallujah? Media allegations claim the U.S. used outlawed weapons during combat in Iraq the US Department of State writes:
“Üinally, some news accounts have claimed that U.S. forces have used "outlawed" phosphorus shells in Fallujah. Phosphorus shells are not outlawed. U.S. forces have used them very sparingly in Fallujah, for illumination purposes. They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters.

There is a great deal of misinformation feeding on itself about U.S. forces allegedly using "outlawed" weapons in Fallujah. The facts are that U.S. forces are not using any illegal weapons in Fallujah or anywhere else in Iraq.Ӡ(Created: 09 Dec 2004 Updated: 27 Jan 2005)

Obviously nobody would expect the truth about war crimes and mass murders coming from those accused of committing such crimes against humanity. Nobody but the BBC and most of the media. Obviously everybody would expect independent and honest information to be sceptical towards military and governmental sources and to investigate, investigate, investigate. Everybody but the BBC and most of the media.

They do not believe independent journalism. They do not trust independent sources. They do not see their job as discovering the truth, investigate, questioning the official version. They have sold their souls for a brilliant career and Рas Noam Chomsky has recently said - Ҵo make sure they are respectable enough to be invited to the right dinner parties.ӊ
OK, here it’≥ the challenge! If the BBC (and most of the media) trust only military sources, then a military source they’¨l have. From US Army's "Field Artillery Magazine":
9. Munitions. The munitions we brought to this fight were 155-mm highexplosive (HE) M107 (short-range) and M795 (long-range) rounds, illumination and white phosphorous (WP, M110 and M825), with point-detonating (PD), delay, time and variable-time (VT) fuzes. (ɩ White Phosphorous. WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired ҳhake and bakeӠmissions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out. (ɩ We used improved WP for screening missions when HC smoke would have been more effective and saved our WP for lethal missions. (ɩ
SOURCE:
THE FIGHT FOR FALLUJAH - TF 2-2 IN FSE AAR: Indirect Fires in the Battle of Fallujah By Captain James T. Cobb, First Lieutenant Christopher A. LaCour and Sergeant First Class William H. HightӠ
More about the SOURCE:
Captain James T. (Tom) Cobb has been assigned to 1st Battalion, 6th Field Artillery (1-6 FA), 1st Infantry Division, and served as the Fire Support Officer (FSO) for Task Force 2d Battalion, 2d Infantry, (TF 2-2 IN) in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) II, including during the Battle of Fallujah. He also deployed with Kosovo Force (KFOR) 4B.

First Lieutenant Christopher A. LaCour, assigned to 1-6 FA, has been the Targeting Officer for TF 2-2 IN in OIF II, including during the Battle of Fallujah. Also in OIF II, he was a Platoon Leader for 2/C/1-6 FA and, previously, a Fire Direction Officer in the same battery.

Sergeant First Class William H. Hight, also assigned to 1-6 FA, has been TF 2-2 IN’≥ Fire Support NCO since September 2003, deploying in OIF II and fighting in the Battle of Fallujah. He also deployed to Bosnia as part of the Implementation Force (IFOR) and to Kosovo as part of KFOR 4B. More.

*********************

I brought up the night vision issue the other day.

Capt,
That was an interesting piece by Larry Johnson. Very intesting guy.
Jane Mayer was on Democracy Now last Friday. She made an intesting point. If we kill them during torture they give us no information.

It had to have been spelled out to this administration that torture doesn't work so why do they insist on it? What is there reasoning?
Does anybody have a clue? I'm really curious. Do they think it will scare the people of Iraq into submission? I don't get it.
----------------------
A Deadly Interrogation: Can The CIA Legally Kill a Prisoner?

JANE MAYER: He was –†actually, he's an interesting case. He was somebody who was rendered by –†he was taken –†there was a fight over him between the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. And the F.B.I. wanted to treat him like a criminal, read him his rights and interrogate him in the sort of usual fashion we do in this country. The C.I.A. got a hold of him and took him away, and they took him to unknown other countries where he was interrogated in ways that were considerably rough, apparently. There were rumors that he had kind of lost his grip on sanity at some point along the way, and he then came up with this information that worked its way into Colin Powell’≥ U.N. address, which, as we know, later became –†was not true. It was one of the great regrets of Powell's life was that he gave that speech, apparently, without checking the information more. So there can be really damage done by false intelligence, and that means damage done by methods that create false intelligence, like using force in a way that makes the information unreliable. I mean, in the case of Jamadi, just take a look in this story that I was writing this week. Jamadi died before he told them anything. So, I mean, it was completely self-defeating what happened in this case.

AMY GOODMAN: Jane Mayer, we want to thank you for being with us, writes for The New Yorker Magazine. Her latest piece is called "A Deadly Interrogation: On Torture and the C.I.A.: Can the C.I.A. Legally Kill a Prisoner?"

yelnats, that's a good thought, about swearing under oath. it would be nice, and in a world of truth and justice, might actually happen. but it's just like bush before the 911 ommission, not under oath and who knows what was actually discussed.

by the way, click my name for a FREE DVD.

James Ha,

I had all but forgotten the swine flu!

Thanks!

Last night my better half made a very good point about the flu, some people do not catch the current flu outbreak. Some are naturally resistant or their bodies manage to fight it off. The MSM speaks of the pandemic as if catching the flu is a given. I have not had a flu shot in five years and have not caught a flu in many more years.

I never caught the swine flu either.

Seems like some major pharma-fearmongering.

Of course re-creating the 1918 virus and sending H5N1 (or variants) is a bit troubling.

capt

Paul Wellstone

I love Paul Wellstone and his quote. Hopefully, Minnesota can elect another Paul Wellstone.

The late U.S. Senator said, "Politics is not about power. Politics is not about money. Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning. Politics is about the improvement of people's lives. It's about advancing the cause of peace and justice in our country and in the world. Politics is about doing well for people."

"It had to have been spelled out to this administration that torture doesn't work so why do they insist on it? What is their reasoning?
Does anybody have a clue? I'm really curious. Do they think it will scare the people of Iraq into submission? I don't get it."

They are a criminal enterprise bottom to top. Think Mafia capo and the violence against individuals is a given. These slugs need an outlet for the hate that foments in their little black hearts. They are also trying to grandfather the torture they have already done as legal.

They are not fooling anybody.

Everything Hitler did was legal under German law because Hitlers word was law. That is what the whole "enemy combatant" declaration and justification to keep an American citizen is all about. Absolute power, Bush word as law.

Nothing American about the concept, nothing new either.

(that is my take on it)

capt

Capt,

Good prevention for the swine flu...

Gargle daily with "Hogwash!"

-T

HA!

(Do I have to wash off my lipstick?)

capt

Please, don't...I like that shade!

Rumsfeld can authorize exceptions to new "humane" interrogation directive

Wed Nov 9, 2:14 PM ET

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld can authorize exceptions to a new Defense Department policy on military interrogations that bars torture and calls for "humane" treatment of detainees, a spokesman said.

The new directive lays out broad policy governing interrogations of detainees in Defense Department custody, but leaves the definition of "humane" to a separate, yet to be released directive that is still being debated within the administration.

A little noticed loophole in the directive, which was made public Tuesday, gives the secretary of defense or his deputy authority to override the policy.

"Intelligence interrogations will be conducted in accordance with applicable law, this directive and implementing plans, policies, orders, directives, and doctrine developed by DoD components and approved by USD (I), unless otherwise authorized, in writing, by the secretary of defense or deputy secretary of defense," the directive states. "USD (I)" refers to the undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said there was nothing unusual about the caveat because a defense secretary always has the authority to change or modify policy he has made.

"Any deviation from the policy would have to be approved," he told reporters. "The secretary can make an exception to any policy."

*****end of clip*****

This kind of thing is maddening!

So, Rummy can make an exception to the rule? That is what he has been doing all along. Is the "new directive" just a backdoor to legalize the exception?

They are using the term "humane" because the exception is clearly inhumane?

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!

capt

I find it rephrensible for the US to use torture to extract "truth" for two reasons: a) it is a moral character flaw that will have a degarding affect on how we live with ourselves and with others in this world. b) unlike maybe some moral 'complex' issues, torture is actually has been borne out as being highly ineffective due to unreliability, and also due to loss of strategic collection of information. Those who propose the use of torture are willing to compromise moral integrity at best due to intellectual incompetence, or at worst because of horrid maliciousness (vengeance, etc). They are shortening their horizons to almost knee jerk reactions and animal like behavior, except even more depraved than seen in nature. case in points: Abu Gharib was the result of a panicked DoD in light of a surprise increase in the insurgency and therefore they rolled out a relatively new clandestine torture program without controls into the mainstream and started torturing the equivalent of cab drivers and day workers mostly in the hands of amatuers. While in America we like to forget this scandal when it comes to affecting the way we govern and vote, like we do with all our other scandals, the middle east has not forgotten. As a result of this scandal confidence of Iraqi citzens in the US (as measured by polls) has dropped dramatically and has never recovered. We have paid a terrible price in terms of credibility in the world, and the mass of Americans are not aware of it, because we want to ignore the hard reality of what we are doing. I posted before about this, but the NeoCon's have created a revised interrogation handbook where they used a book written in the '70s on what are the humilitation points for a muslim as the basis for new forms of torture (e.g. pics in various compromising sexual situations to be shown to family, etc.) The handbook used prior to the NeoCon invasion was based on the work of a man named Sherwood Moran. It was considered to be the best and proven way to get truth from hardened priosoners including the zealous idealogical Japanese soldiers of WWII. He was considered a hero for being able to provide an incomparable amount of information from his interrogations that he was able to create a comperhensive view of what was going on behind the enemy lines. His methods: - trying to extract "the ticking timebomb" information in a hurry from one prisoner almost never works... they can usually hold on to it long enough that it doesn't help and at the loss of getting more strategic information - use compassion, treat them as a friend, tell them they are not out of the "war", show interest in their culture, and make them homesick (in fact he would often be present while a prisoner's wounds were being treated, showing interest and concern that he was treated well) - gathering info from multiple sources over a period time using tidbits here and there gives a reliable picture and helps overcome counter-intelligence efforts of the enemy (e.g. false information) Also, there was an article about torture in the Atlantic monthly quite awhile ago which discussed the success of treating the prisoner with respect but letting them know that you are in control at the same time. AN expert Israeli interrogator talked about how to do this and was very similar to Moran's methods including speaking their dialect well, knowing their culture, building a certain level of trust but letting them know yo will not put their crap. The key point given by the interrogator in being successful was to be a person of strong and good character. Somehow I think we are missing the mark in those lessons as we apply tortue in the "black sites".

#34
That reminds me. I was thinking about the response David Corn got from Chalibi. When I read about that it reminded me of how a con man operates. They come up with an element that no one can check in order to knock the questioner off guard and are long gone when the person has had times to check it out.
We are surrounded by con men and low life criminals.

Interesting and amusing take on "Pajamas Media" here, including some notes directed at Mr. Corn in the comments section:

http://www.thepoorman.net/2005/11/14/bunched-pjs/

YO FOLKS!!
Watched Democracy Now this morning and found out that L.A. Times op-ed columnist Robert Scheer was fired after almost 30yrs. Check out Amy Goodman's phone interview with Scheer on:www.democracynow.org

Also, check out article " Conservatives Wave "Bye" to Manufacturing Jobs on: www.newshounds.us/2005/11/12/conservatives_wave_bye_to_manufacturing_jobs.php#more

If you punch a clock, and still love conservatives, you're one stupid MF who needs a Red Wing or Timberland up your ass, greased or ungreased. These bastards have officially told the working class,"F##k you and your kids. All of you can starve to death". Wake the F$#k up, you Kool-Aid drinkin' b#$ch-made sheep!!

I have spoken!! That is all.

Tips hat to Bro.tex!

Well, all of you'all!

Freelance Intelligent Designers

A little funny cartoon.

capt

Redwing and ungreased!

Endless Intervention

Endless Intervention

Sorry I've been gone a sec, but our local union is making preparations for proposals for contract talks next fall, and I'm being courted to become a 2nd shift union steward . We gotta fight the greedy corporate bastards for our fair share!!

UNIONS AND THE WORKING CLASS ALL OVER THE WORLD, UNITE!!!!!

Hey to: CAPT, PANDE, RIFF, JAMES HA, JEANNE, YELNATS, ALAN(i'm trying to get to H-Town in 2 weeks), HAJJI, GERALD, SAL, ROBT.SCHWARTZ and all of the other great thinkers on this blog!

US reports decline in executions

The number of people sentenced to death in the United States and the number executed fell again in 2004, according to the latest government figures.

Twelve states executed 59 people last year, while 125 people convicted of murder received a death sentence.

The number of new prisoners on death row has fallen for the last four years.

This was the result of a US murder rate that is at its lowest for 40 years, said Tracy Snell, co-author of the Bureau of Justice Statistics report.

*****end of clip*****

It does makes perfect sense when you consider Bunnypants is no longer Governor of Texas.

capt

brotex @#42. I just wrote an e-mail to the LA Times telling them how little I think of them sending away Robert Scheer.

Capt: Read the item at thepoorman. It was linked at buzzflash.

Cheers, folks.

Spinning like a broken record

Bush does not really have to spin like a broken record. With our rigged elections Bush and the repugnants will never lose the WH or Congress through 21st century. We no longer have a Constitution or a democracy. All we can give the world are endless wars.

Bro Tex,
My husbands a programmer. He was laid off three times in one year (contract work). Now he has a permenant job. We have a friend right trying to find a job. There is nothing safe about this job market.

This economy is a mess and it isn't just the administration who is destroying it. It is the greedy business hierarchy. There are really good businesses to work for. My husband found a job where the employer and owners understand how important the employee is. They are very careful about how they spend the company money. And you don't see millions and millions in CEO salary. They are realistic and I respect them for it.

For many of the big companies there is no loyalty to the employees of this nation. Only to themselves.

My husband was telling me that the oil companies have been buying up all the independently owned refineries and now they are in the hands of just a few companies. He also said the statements the oil companies gave in front of the senate was called into question by a whistleblower. I have to find that story.

CAPT #43: Ahhh..... The Red Wing! You have excellent taste in boots, Sir! Yes indeed, your disciminating taste speaks volumes of your great character, a man of principle. CAPT "Da Troll Killa", we salute you!!

HA!!

Pajamas?

Still not even out and hard to predict with certainty but I support David unconditionally. Whatever he chooses to do. I am not the least bit worried that David Corn is going to make a U-turn or betray what he has put to ink.

David is one of the only voices of reason and truth to appear on FOX news. Who can we count on to provide even small doses of the truth on FOX except David?

No matter if it takes off or flops. I want to read everything David Corn puts to print. I do not always agree but that is to the credit of honest differences and that is always good.

"Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes." ~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)

capt

Bro.tex,

You are far too kind! (Thank you)

I seldom have the fortitude to speak as plainly and honestly as you, sir. You have earned my respect and admiration.

capt

capt

the poll sited by Andrea Mitchell was an unpublishhed poll. I guess NBC didn't want anyone to see it. However, Andrea is a NBC correspondent and did site it. I believe this is how Liddy got indicted, lib journalist never lie. Robert S. 2-1 margin is figurative, 55% is the exact percentage you moron!!!

Capt @#52. If you read the article, it looks as if Pajamas Media may not ever get anywhere. Apparently, they found one right wing nut to be not even up to their rock bottom standards.

2-1 = 66.666...%, 55% not even close.

And, er, 'cite.' And who cares what Mrs. Greenspan had to say, anyway.

... oops. on #51 that's "discriminating" taste. my bad.

Riff,

Did read the link you provided.

I had not seen that before your recommendation.

Very right to say it may never come to be.

Thanks for the link! (and much more)

capt

quote from Dem Sen Jay Rockfellar on the Senate floor before the war in Iraq. "Saddam Hussien is an emminent threat" GW never said SH was an emminent threat. I guess Jay was hyping the intelligence. From fox news Sunday with Chris Wallace. Chris scewered this idiot.

So, the troll does not even read the thread?

Figures.

capt

Iraq and the War Votes

Bush euchred the Democrats on the Iraq war. It will take the Dems 50 years to recover from their gutless vote to kill Iraqis. They may never recover with the people. In whom can we trust? Only God!!!

JEANNE #50:

We hope that your hubby can have job security now, and a lot of us know first hand about layoffs. I was laid off twice since the installation of bush "The Wino-Boy".

Chris scewered this idiot. baf

Keep digging. You make my case better than I could.

We have two parties in this country, the Reich repugnants and the moderate repugnants. The Dems are still looking for the caboose. When brains were being past out, the Dems thought they meant trains and they started looking for the caboose.

A very curious thing is happening. Whenever President Bush is criticized or accused of hyping
pre war intelligence in the lead up to the Iraqi war, his supporters quickly point to statements that his democratic critics made in support of the war before President Bush ordered the attacks to begin against Iraq. They are also quick to point out that these democrats had the access to the same intelligence as President Bush. It's as if they are trying to paint the democratic critics as being hypocritical for supporting the war before and now denouncing it after.

Personally, I think this is a really silly defense of President Bush, because the ultimate bottom-line responsibilty for the results of the Iraqi War lie with President Bush, because he is the Commander in Cheif and it was his idea to implement this war in the first place.

Doesnt it make sense that a person who took a certain position in the past made upon the information available at the time, can change their mind in the future, based upon current information that contradicts what was available in the past?

I think this is the biggest difference between Bush and the democrats. Democrats can admit they made a mistake about the Iraqi War..President Bush and his supporters cannot. That is in part why the majority of Americans think they were duped by Bush in starting this war and it is also why his poll numbers on these issues continue to plummet to all time lows for his presidency.

I haven't even read David's newest post yet, much less the 60 comments, so I have alotta catching up reading to do. But I wanted to post this new rappin' crew before I forgot. lol

I need some soldiers

"...thought I'd ask ya
before I havta draftya"
Dubya and the rapping cheney/rummy crue

gerald

If your faith is truly in God then you would know that "his will be done" God uses everything to His good. Maybe you should pray for the evil Bush administration to better there ways. Just a friendly christian thought.

Robert,

I would have expected the squerd spelling but I may have over-under-mis-estimated!

It would appear, Mr. Schwartz, that the illiterate one is also arithmetically challenged, and considers himself in a position to hurl insults as if he were correct! Obviously, to virtually anyone with at least a 6th grade public school education, the sum of 55% and 45% makes 100% or a whole part. Therefore, 55 parts to 45 parts is only slightly more than a "1 to 1" ratio. Put another way, "2 to 1" literally means "2 divided by 1". If the true "moron" in this silly episode is capable of operating a simple calculator with some degree of competence, he will quickly discover, perhaps much to his chagrin and slightly public embarrassment, that a "2 to 1" ratio is properly expressed as "200%", quite a bit more than "55%".

What a brilliant conservative mind. Another William F. Buckley, for sure.

left angle

You finally get it. The Dems are hippocrits and the Pres can not take us to war without the Congress's approval-which they gave him.

The Big Lie

and thousands die!

I guess the repugnants do not read my posts. I was asked if I pray.

baf:

I dont think they are hypocrits at all. I think that based off of the information they had at the time they supported the war effort. Now that all that information has been proven to be false, what i hear is them admitting they made a mistake based upon what they know now. I dont hear Bush doing that.

I guess the repugnants do not read my posts. I was asked if I pray.

We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth... For my part, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst; and to provide for it: Patrick Henry

=
Now those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth, and let me remind you they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyranny: Barry Goldwater

=
He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man...The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people: Samuel Adams

=
Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true: Eric Hoffer

=
The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essense of inhumanity: George Bernard Shaw

Thanks ICH newsletter

People who voted for Bush are accomplices to murders and war crimes.

Gerald,

HA!

I believe we can rest that case.

"Pray as if everything depended upon God and work as if everything depended upon man." ~ Francis Cardinal Spellman (1889 - 1967)

capt

Gerald:

And according to Bush supporters people who are are against the Iraqi War are:

Anti-American traitors who aid and abett the enemy.

By the way dumbass,

eminent - Towering or standing out above others; prominent: an eminent peak.
Of high rank, station, or quality; noteworthy: eminent members of the community.
Outstanding, as in character or performance; distinguished: an eminent historian.
imminent - About to occur; impending: in imminent danger

Not sure which you meant, and am not convinced you know either.

robb

You can squabble about 2-1, 55% -whatever, but the problem is that the American public does not agree with you people and the more they know about your ideas the less they like you. Poll by NBC on Meet The Press- strong moral values the Dems get a whopping 18%, strong national defense another whopping 22%, Dems have same ideals as you-54% say no- the public may have problems with Bush and Republicans but as Tim Russert said " The American Public does not think the Dems are the answer" Not only that the Repubs have a war chest of 84 millon to the dismal 24 million the screech Howard Dean has brought in and this guy was to be your savior. I know its tough love but the majority just don't like Libs.

How thick does one have to be to repeat "hippocrit"?

#77 capt, Amen!!!

baf = Bewildered American for Freedom

baf:

Unfortunately for your party, money cant buy you high approval ratings. Your party is sinking faster than the Titanic..If you think that democrats wont be taking advantage of your parties bad fortune,youre dreaming...

look what happened in virginia and new jersey..thats just the start.

You missed the point. Not surprising. "Lib"? Did you mean "Libertarian"? I'm guessing perhaps not. Blind assumption can be a dangerous thing.

#66 Alan, I would support the draft if all of Bush elder's 14 grandchildren and Mitt Romney's 5 sons were in the front lines in Iraq. Let us draft the repugnants children and grand children first!!!!!

liberal-libertarian-communist your all the same.

Robert,
I am watching C-Span, Washington Journal. Who is Robert Kessler? I swear some of those callers calling in are paid to spout talking points. It sounded like a Bush rally with some of those callers. Weird.

I love it when the chicken hawks declare war and want everyone else's children to fight the war.

Robert,
I meant Ronald Kessler.
I am laughing. Kessler said George Tenet was the best head of the CIA ever. Ray McGovern is on now saying he's one of the worst.
Ray McGovern has so much more credibility.

Libertarians are politically to the far right of the spectrum, idiot, whereas liberals and communists are to the left. You are so ignorant that you are blissfully unaware of your own ignorance. Sort of "uber" or "hyper" ignorant, if you will.

right angle

Actually what happened in VA was the Dem was running as a Rebulician -pro life- christian.
You can keep NJ which is the most corrupt States there is. Where you all lost is Ohio where Move On.Org lost every ballot they paid for. I guess you all couldn't convince them that they have a broken voting system. And as far as approval ratings the Dems aren't in any better shape in fact ther slipping among independ voters big time right now.

Baf,
Your bull is uneducated and annoying. I'm trying to be nice but it really is getting annoying.

gerald

My sister served in Iraq and my bother served in the first gulf war. So as far as sending other peoples children - you don't know what your talkng about. They were both proud to serve even with all the hate coming from libs who show up at military funerals to protest the war. What scum!!

#7 Robert
#9 Hajji

While it has been rewarding politely hammering the media the last 5 years on program like DianeREhm, talk of the nation, chris Matthews,etc etc. And it has also been exciting asking hot shots questions that I think the MSM avoid.

The more important issue here is that we all need to continue to politely, with facts and sincere questions HAMMER THE MEDIA AND THEIR GUEST. Especially in regard to Phase Ii, since it is finally off the ground.

I have been targeting all of these shows for 5 years but the last 2 have been focused on PHASE II OF THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE. What seems so critical at this time is for others to do the same. Our senators have the PHASE II BALL ROLLING, but according to Ray McGovern today, it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY THAT THEY WILL DIG AS DEEP AND AS WIDE AS THEY NEED TO, TO EXPOSE THE TRUTH AND TO HOLD FOLKS ACCOUNTABLE.

According to Ray McGovern "Rockerfeller does not seem to have the spine to go as far as they need to go. Although SEnator Pat Roberts is the problem doing everything he can do to stall, block and diffuse. I personally thought SEnator Diane Feinstein's appointment to that committee was a little fishy, due to her what I believe to be a "conflict of interest". Her husband Richar Blum has made money off of the war in Iraq. How deep is Diane going to want to dig? My alarms went off when I read that she said that this committee " we are not looking to place blame" in regard to the intelligence. I thought what are you trying to do Diane if not hold people accountable for their crimes?

I still believe the public needs to hold our representatives feet to the fire. Specifically Senator Pat Roberts and I believe Feinstein...well how about all of them.

WE DEMAND THAT PHASE II DIG DEEP AND WIDE...WE WANT ANSWERS.....WE WANT THEM TO PLACE BLAME...AND HOLD THESE CRIMINALS ACCOUNTABLE..

CALL OR EMAIL EVERY MEDIA OUTLET AVAILABLE ASK THEM TO DO SHOWS ON THIS TOPIC..ASK THEM TO BRING ROBERTS AND ROCKERFELLER ON AIR. SENATOR PAT ROBERTS HAS REFUSED TO COME ON C-SPAN. ASK THE MEDIA TO GIVE US CONTINUAL UPDATES ON THE PROGRESS OF PHASE II.

CALL WRITE..EMAIL ... ALL SENATORS(EVEN IF YOU ALL READY HAVE DONE THIS SEVERAL TIMES DO IT AGAIN..TELL OTHERS TO DO IT). lET THEM KNOW WE EXPECT EVERY OUNCE OF FALSE INTELLIGENCE AND WE WANT TO KNOW WHO CREATED IT , AND KNOWINGLY USED IT. WE WANT THESE PEOPLE HELD ACCOUNTABLE , THESE SAME FOLKS ARE LAYING THE GROUND WORK FOR MILITARY ACTION IN SYRIA AND IRAN.

THE TIME TO APPLY PRESSURE IS RIGHT NOW...NOT AFTER THE COMMITTEE FINISHES ITS INVESTIGATION...NOW

rob
so your a libetarian - explains alot-maybe you lay off the pot man, then maybe you would make sense.

Troll Alert!

Jeanne

You are right about many employers in America right now. They care more about the bottom line than the work of the people that make that bottom line possible. I am fortunate to work for a good company but I have been employed by some that couldn't care less about me. These days, if you can find an employer like your husband seems to have found, it seems to me that if you give them 100% they will give in return. It only makes sense. Funny how many employers just don't get it.

We now return you to your regular programming.

Robb,

If you're "laying off"....

Who's your Palmetto buddy? Who's your pal?

-T

I will post below an article by a true neocon. Now, you may call him names, you may resent what he says, but I defy you to state where he has misquoted anyone or misstated any facts.

So, if you have any logic other than sophomoric, ad hominem attacks, I challenge you to address the points made in the article, point by point. And if you disagree, please state the source of the reason for your disagreement.

Can't do it? Didn't think so.

Who Is Lying About Iraq?
A campaign of distortion aims to discredit the liberation.

BY NORMAN PODHORETZ
Monday, November 14, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

Among the many distortions, misrepresentations and outright falsifications that have emerged from the debate over Iraq, one in particular stands out above all others. This is the charge that George W. Bush misled us into an immoral or unnecessary war in Iraq by telling a series of lies that have now been definitively exposed.

What makes this charge so special is the amazing success it has enjoyed in getting itself established as a self-evident truth even though it has been refuted and discredited over and over again by evidence and argument alike. In this it resembles nothing so much as those animated cartoon characters who, after being flattened, blown up or pushed over a cliff, always spring back to life with their bodies perfectly intact. Perhaps, like those cartoon characters, this allegation simply cannot be killed off, no matter what.

Nevertheless, I want to take one more shot at exposing it for the lie that it itself really is. Although doing so will require going over ground that I and many others have covered before, I hope that revisiting this well-trodden terrain may also serve to refresh memories that have grown dim, to clarify thoughts that have grown confused, and to revive outrage that has grown commensurately dulled.

The main "lie" that George W. Bush is accused of telling us is that Saddam Hussein possessed an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, or WMD as they have invariably come to be called. From this followed the subsidiary "lie" that Iraq under Saddam's regime posed a two-edged mortal threat. On the one hand, we were informed, there was a distinct (or even "imminent") possibility that Saddam himself would use these weapons against us or our allies; and on the other hand, there was the still more dangerous possibility that he would supply them to terrorists like those who had already attacked us on 9/11 and to whom he was linked.

This entire scenario of purported deceit was given a new lease on life by the indictment in late October of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Libby stands accused of making false statements to the FBI and of committing perjury in testifying before a grand jury that had been convened to find out who in the Bush administration had "outed" Valerie Plame, a CIA agent married to the retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. The supposed purpose of leaking this classified information to the press was to retaliate against Mr. Wilson for having "debunked" (in his words) "the lies that led to war."

Now, as it happens, Mr. Libby was not charged with having outed Ms. Plame but only with having lied about when and from whom he first learned that she worked for the CIA. Moreover, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor who brought the indictment against him, made a point of emphasizing that "this indictment is not about the war":

This indictment is not about the propriety of the war. And people who believe fervently in the war effort, people who oppose it, people who have mixed feelings about it should not look to this indictment for any resolution of how they feel or any vindication of how they feel.

This is simply an indictment that says, in a national-security investigation about the compromise of a CIA officer's identity that may have taken place in the context of a very heated debate over the war, whether some person--a person, Mr. Libby--lied or not.

No matter. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, spoke for a host of other opponents of the war in insisting:

This case is bigger than the leak of classified information. It is about how the Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq and to discredit anyone who dared to challenge the president.

Yet even stipulating--which I do only for the sake of argument--that no weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq in the period leading up to the invasion, it defies all reason to think that Mr. Bush was lying when he asserted that they did. To lie means to say something one knows to be false. But it is as close to certainty as we can get that Mr. Bush believed in the truth of what he was saying about WMD in Iraq.

How indeed could it have been otherwise? George Tenet, his own CIA director, assured him that the case was "a slam dunk." This phrase would later become notorious, but in using it, Mr. Tenet had the backing of all 15 agencies involved in gathering intelligence for the United States. In the National Intelligence Estimate of 2002, where their collective views were summarized, one of the conclusions offered with "high confidence" was that "Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding its chemical, biological, nuclear, and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions."

The intelligence agencies of Britain, Germany, Russia, China, Israel and--yes--France all agreed with this judgment. And even Hans Blix--who headed the U.N. team of inspectors trying to determine whether Saddam had complied with the demands of the Security Council that he get rid of the weapons of mass destruction he was known to have had in the past--lent further credibility to the case in a report he issued only a few months before the invasion:

The discovery of a number of 122-mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km [105 miles] southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker, and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions. . . . They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.
Mr. Blix now claims that he was only being "cautious" here, but if, as he now also adds, the Bush administration "misled itself" in interpreting the evidence before it, he at the very least lent it a helping hand.

So, once again, did the British, the French and the Germans, all of whom signed on in advance to Secretary of State Colin Powell's reading of the satellite photos he presented to the U.N. in the period leading up to the invasion. Mr. Powell himself and his chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, now feel that this speech was the low point of his tenure as secretary of state. But Mr. Wilkerson (in the process of a vicious attack on the president, the vice president, and the secretary of defense for getting us into Iraq) is forced to acknowledge that the Bush administration did not lack for company in interpreting the available evidence as it did:

I can't tell you why the French, the Germans, the Brits and us thought that most of the material, if not all of it, that we presented at the U.N. on 5 February 2003 was the truth. I can't. I've wrestled with it. [But] when you see a satellite photograph of all the signs of the chemical-weapons ASP--Ammunition Supply Point--with chemical weapons, and you match all those signs with your matrix on what should show a chemical ASP, and they're there, you have to conclude that it's a chemical ASP, especially when you see the next satellite photograph which shows the UN inspectors wheeling in their white vehicles with black markings on them to that same ASP, and everything is changed, everything is clean. . . .

But George [Tenet] was convinced, John McLaughlin [Tenet's deputy] was convinced, that what we were presented [for Powell's UN speech] was accurate.
Going on to shoot down a widespread impression, Mr. Wilkerson informs us that even the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, known as INR, was convinced:

People say, well, INR dissented. That's a bunch of bull. INR dissented that the nuclear program was up and running. That's all INR dissented on. They were right there with the chems and the bios.
In explaining its dissent on Iraq's nuclear program, the INR had, as stated in the NIE of 2002, expressed doubt about:

Iraq's efforts to acquire aluminum tubes [which are] central to the argument that Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear-weapons program. . . . INR is not persuaded that the tubes in question are intended for use as centrifuge rotors . . . in Iraq's nuclear-weapons program.
But, according to Wilkerson:

The French came in in the middle of my deliberations at the CIA and said, we have just spun aluminum tubes, and by God, we did it to this rpm, et cetera, et cetera, and it was all, you know, proof positive that the aluminum tubes were not for mortar casings or artillery casings, they were for centrifuges. Otherwise, why would you have such exquisite instruments?

In short, and whether or not it included the secret heart of Hans Blix, "the consensus of the intelligence community," as Mr. Wilkerson puts it, "was overwhelming" in the period leading up to the invasion of Iraq that Saddam definitely had an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, and that he was also in all probability well on the way to rebuilding the nuclear capability that the Israelis had damaged by bombing the Osirak reactor in 1981.

Additional confirmation of this latter point comes from Kenneth Pollack, who served in the National Security Council under Clinton. "In the late spring of 2002," Pollack has written:

I participated in a Washington meeting about Iraqi WMD. Those present included nearly twenty former inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), the force established in 1991 to oversee the elimination of WMD in Iraq. One of the senior people put a question to the group: did anyone in the room doubt that Iraq was currently operating a secret centrifuge plant? No one did. Three people added that they believed Iraq was also operating a secret calutron plant (a facility for separating uranium isotopes).
No wonder, then, that another conclusion the NIE of 2002 reached with "high confidence" was that "Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once it acquires sufficient weapons-grade fissile material." (Hard as it is to believe, let alone to reconcile with his general position, Joseph C. Wilson IV, in a speech he delivered three months after the invasion at the Education for Peace in Iraq Center, offhandedly made the following remark: "I remain of the view that we will find biological and chemical weapons and we may well find something that indicates that Saddam's regime maintained an interest in nuclear weapons.")

But the consensus on which Mr. Bush relied was not born in his own administration. In fact, it was first fully formed in the Clinton administration. Here is Bill Clinton himself, speaking in 1998:

If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons-of-mass-destruction program.

Here is his Secretary of State Madeline Albright, also speaking in 1998:

Iraq is a long way from [the USA], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risk that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.

Here is Sandy Berger, Clinton's National Security Adviser, who chimed in at the same time with this flat-out assertion about Saddam:

He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983.

Finally, Mr. Clinton's secretary of defense, William Cohen, was so sure Saddam had stockpiles of WMD that he remained "absolutely convinced" of it even after our failure to find them in the wake of the invasion in March 2003.

Nor did leading Democrats in Congress entertain any doubts on this score. A few months after Mr. Clinton and his people made the statements I have just quoted, a group of Democratic senators, including such liberals as Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, and John Kerry, urged the President "to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons-of-mass-destruction programs."

Nancy Pelosi, the future leader of the Democrats in the House, and then a member of the House Intelligence Committee, added her voice to the chorus:

Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons-of-mass-destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region, and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.

This Democratic drumbeat continued and even intensified when Mr. Bush succeeded Mr. Clinton in 2001, and it featured many who would later pretend to have been deceived by the Bush White House. In a letter to the new president, a group of senators led by Bob Graham declared:

There is no doubt that . . . Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical, and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf war status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies.

Sen. Carl Levin also reaffirmed for Mr. Bush's benefit what he had told Mr. Clinton some years earlier:

Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations, and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed, speaking in October 2002:

In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical- and biological-weapons stock, his missile-delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaeda members.

Senator Jay Rockefeller, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, agreed as well:

There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. . . . We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction.

Even more striking were the sentiments of Bush's opponents in his two campaigns for the presidency. Thus Al Gore in September 2002:

We know that [Saddam] has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.

And here is Mr. Gore again, in that same year:

Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter, and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.

Now to John Kerry, also speaking in 2002:

I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force--if necessary--to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.

Perhaps most startling of all, given the rhetoric that they would later employ against Mr. Bush after the invasion of Iraq, are statements made by Sens. Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd, also in 2002:
Kennedy: "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."

Byrd: "The last U.N. weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical- and biological-warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons."

Liberal politicians like these were seconded by the mainstream media, in whose columns a very different tune would later be sung. For example, throughout the last two years of the Clinton administration, editorials in the New York Times repeatedly insisted that "without further outside intervention, Iraq should be able to rebuild weapons and missile plants within a year [and] future military attacks may be required to diminish the arsenal again."

The Times was also skeptical of negotiations, pointing out that it was "hard to negotiate with a tyrant who has no intention of honoring his commitments and who sees nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons as his country's salvation."

So, too, the Washington Post, which greeted the inauguration of George W. Bush in January 2001 with this admonition:

Of all the booby traps left behind by the Clinton administration, none is more dangerous--or more urgent--than the situation in Iraq. Over the last year, Mr. Clinton and his team quietly avoided dealing with, or calling attention to, the almost complete unraveling of a decade's efforts to isolate the regime of Saddam Hussein and prevent it from rebuilding its weapons of mass destruction. That leaves President Bush to confront a dismaying panorama in the Persian Gulf [where] intelligence photos . . . show the reconstruction of factories long suspected of producing chemical and biological weapons.

All this should surely suffice to prove far beyond any even unreasonable doubt that Mr. Bush was telling what he believed to be the truth about Saddam's stockpile of WMD. It also disposes of the fallback charge that Mr. Bush lied by exaggerating or hyping the intelligence presented to him. Why on earth would he have done so when the intelligence itself was so compelling that it convinced everyone who had direct access to it, and when hardly anyone in the world believed that Saddam had, as he claimed, complied with the 16 resolutions of the Security Council demanding that he get rid of his weapons of mass destruction?

Another fallback charge is that Mr. Bush, operating mainly through Mr. Cheney, somehow forced the CIA into telling him what he wanted to hear. Yet in its report of 2004, the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, while criticizing the CIA for relying on what in hindsight looked like weak or faulty intelligence, stated that it "did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence, or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons-of-mass-destruction capabilities.

The March 2005 report of the equally bipartisan Robb-Silberman commission, which investigated intelligence failures on Iraq, reached the same conclusion, finding "no evidence of political pressure to influence the intelligence community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. . . . Analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments."

Still, even many who believed that Saddam did possess WMD, and was ruthless enough to use them, accused Mr. Bush of telling a different sort of lie by characterizing the risk as "imminent." But this, too, is false: Mr. Bush consistently rejected imminence as a justification for war. Thus, in the State of the Union address he delivered only three months after 9/11, Mr. Bush declared that he would "not wait on events while dangers gather" and that he would "not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer." Then, in a speech at West Point six months later, he reiterated the same point: "If we wait for threats to materialize, we will have waited too long." And as if that were not clear enough, he went out of his way in his State of the Union address in 2003 (that is, three months before the invasion), to bring up the word "imminent" itself precisely in order to repudiate it:

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

What of the related charge that it was still another "lie" to suggest, as Mr. Bush and his people did, that a connection could be traced between Saddam Hussein and the al Qaeda terrorists who had attacked us on 9/11? This charge was also rejected by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Contrary to how its findings were summarized in the mainstream media, the committee's report explicitly concluded that al Qaeda did in fact have a cooperative, if informal, relationship with Iraqi agents working under Saddam. The report of the bipartisan 9/11 commission came to the same conclusion, as did a comparably independent British investigation conducted by Lord Butler, which pointed to "meetings . . . between senior Iraqi representatives and senior al-Qaeda operatives."

Which brings us to Joseph C. Wilson, IV and what to my mind wins the palm for the most disgraceful instance of all.

The story begins with the notorious 16 words inserted--after, be it noted, much vetting by the CIA and the State Department--into Bush's 2003 State of the Union address:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

This is the "lie" Mr. Wilson bragged of having "debunked" after being sent by the CIA to Niger in 2002 to check out the intelligence it had received to that effect. Mr. Wilson would later angrily deny that his wife had recommended him for this mission, and would do his best to spread the impression that choosing him had been the vice president's idea. But Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, through whom Mr. Wilson first planted this impression, was eventually forced to admit that "Cheney apparently didn't know that Wilson had been dispatched." (By the time Mr. Kristof grudgingly issued this retraction, Mr. Wilson himself, in characteristically shameless fashion, was denying that he had ever "said the vice president sent me or ordered me sent.") And as for his wife's supposed nonrole in his mission, here is what Valerie Plame Wilson wrote in a memo to her boss at the CIA:

My husband has good relations with the PM [the prime minister of Niger] and the former minister of mines . . ., both of whom could possibly shed li