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August 31, 2006

Deferring a Fight on HUBRIS

Press releases, ads, bookings--its hard to get any real work done. I did manage yesterday to have a Bloggingheads.tv debate with Byron York of the National Review. But my publicist begged me not to have a full smack-down about HUBRIS because it is not yet in the stores. That was difficult to avoid. York has taken some hard swipes at me and co-author Michael Isikoff. As I noted earlier, he accused me of being a conspiracy theorist (while advancing a fact-free conspiracy theory of his own about Patrick Fitzgerald). Then he claimed that Isikoff and I did not try to interview key characters in our book. (We had.) But I was under orders not to get into all this. York was ready to mix it up, and pointed to the use of the word "conspiracy" in headlines of two pieces I had written. But after a few strong statements on each side, he agreed to defer the fight until the book is out. We moved on to other matters: Katrina, Iraq, George Allen, and the media and JonBenet Ramsey. You can see it here.

In scanning some of the recent comments on the items below, I am struck by how many people feel free to state an opinion on the leak case without knowing the basic facts. (One fact: Karl Rove did not merely confirm the Armitage leak to Novak; he leaked the classified information about Valerie Wilson--while it was still secret--to Matt Cooper.) Thus, I am happy to report that within days--when HUBRIS comes out--anyone who wants to debate the leak in an informed manner will be able to do so, even though the book (as I continue to say) is about so much more than the leak case. Just wait until you see the opening scene of the book.

Posted by David Corn at 12:16 PM

August 30, 2006

HUBRIS Hits WSJ; Do Cons Fear Bush Is Screwing Up their War?

The HUBRIS news continues. Many calls from media outlets. Requests for the book pour in. (We don't have copies yet.) Healthy pre-orders on Amazon.com. It's encouraging. The Wall Street Journal editorialists, though, seem to believe the book's Armitage revelation bolsters the case for a presidential pardon of Scooter Libby. I suggest they hold off making such an argument until they read the whole book. And Byron York attacked once again. I'm going to keep my powder dry until the book comes out next week. In the meantime, life--that is, work--goes on. Below is my latest "Loyal Opposition" column from TomPaine.com.
 
The Bush-Is-An-Idiot Camp Grows
David Corn
August 30, 2006
www.TomPaine.com

The other day I crossed paths with a conservative talk show host. We chatted about current events. He noted that he was quite pissed off at the neocons for suggesting that American blood should be spilled to benefit the Iraqis. Let the Iraqis take care of themselves, he huffed. I asked, Are you in the Bush-is-an-idiot camp?"

This was a reference to a recent segment on Joe Scarborough's MSNBC show during which Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, posed the question, "Is our president an idiot?" After playing a montage of video clips showing Bush at his tongue-tied worst ("Fool me once, shame on you--fool me--you can't get fooled again"), Scarborough said that an former close aide to President Bush had recently told him that Bush is "intellectually shallow and one of the most incurious public figures this man has ever met." Scarborough claimed that Bush is "getting worse instead of better" and that when it comes to presidential stupidity Bush is "in a league by himself." He added, "I don't think he has the intellectual depth."

My conservative interlocutor fidgeted, as he considered how to respond. After a moment or so, he said softly, "Well, he can be moronic."

I have long thought it was not politically wise for Democrats to deride Bush as dumb. And I believed it was wrong to assume--as did many Bush-bashers--that W. was not intelligent. After all, he managed to become president--which is not an easy task (even if Karl Rove is your master strategist). He also managed, against the odds, to change the tax code to benefit folks like him. How stupid is that? But watching Bush grapple with the mess in Iraq--a problem entirely of his own making--it's hard to sidestep the conclusion that his own, let's say, information-processing abilities are profoundly affecting national security, and not for the better.

I am haunted by an exchange that occurred at Bush’s press conference last week. ABC News' Martha Raddatz asked Bush if it was time for "a new strategy in Iraq." That's a reasonable question. The recent surge of violence there--about 10,000 civilian deaths over the course of three months--should give anyone pause, especially the decider-in-chief who thought invading Iraq was a fine idea in the first place. Replying to Raddatz, Bush said, "The strategy is to help the Iraqi people achieve their objectives and their dreams, which is a democratic society. That's the strategy."

Forgive me, if you've heard or read me making this point previously, but that's not a strategy. That's a goal. A strategy is a game plan for achieving a goal.

Bush went on to note that he has changed tactics on the ground--by moving troops from one area to another. This has led to less violence in one area but more in another. This was not responsive to Raddatz's query. Tactics are what you use to make a strategy happen. Bush didn't seem to know the difference between the two.

Raddatz pressed him and said that Bush had not answered her question about his strategy. "Sounded like the question to me," he said.

If the commander in chief cannot talk more articulately about his strategy for winning an elective war he initiated, the problem is serious. It's become a truism tossed about by partisan Democrats looking to score political points, but it actually is true: Bush has little to offer but stay-the-course-ism. And he shows no signs of considering other options. His plan once was rather simply stated: The United States would train Iraqi security forces and when the Iraqis can take over the United States would leave. But as sectarian violence spreads--and the security forces become part of the conflict--that basic plan becomes thinner by the day.

Let's compare Bush with Sen. Joseph Biden, the Delaware Democrat. A few days after Bush's press conference, Biden published an op-ed article in The Washington Post that reiterated a plan for Iraq that he had previously developed with Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. I am not endorsing the plan, but here's what was refreshing about it: It was a plan. It had five points. It was internally consistent. It was an effort to deal with the dilemmas at hand. The Biden-Gelb plan calls for a unified but decentralized Iraq with Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis essentially controlling their own regions. A central government would be in charge of the really important national responsibilities: protecting the country and divvying up the oil revenue. (The Sunnis, who generally live in areas not loaded with oil, would be guaranteed a share of the pot.) The plan has a reconstruction component, which includes a massive jobs program, and calls for withdrawing most U.S. troops by the end of 2007.

It may or may not be the right plan, but it's a plan. After reading the op-ed, I could not help but wonder, why can't Bush describe a plan of his own in such concrete terms?

Bush's partner in his plan-less Iraq project--Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki--doesn't inspire great confidence either, at least not when he's granting an interview to an American cable network through an interpreter. Speaking with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer a few days ago , Maliki said, "The violence is not increasing….We're not in a civil war. In Iraq, we'll never be in a civil war."

It's understandable that the leader of a nation near (or in) civil war would not want to acknowledge in public that his country is on the brink. But to say the violence is not increasing? Americans ought to hope Maliki is not imitating Bush'ss previous practice of insisting progress is under way whatever the reality may be.

But Bush is the problem--at least, our problem--not Maliki. I sense that more and more conservatives are unnerved by Bush's stewardship of the war they wanted. On a television show this past weekend, I asked conservative commentator Linda Chavez and the Weekly Standard’s Matthew Continetti if the absence of any meaty Bush plan for Iraq discomforted them. "It does worry me, David," Chavez responded. "As a supporter of the war in Iraq, it does worry me. I think it worries Matthew, too. I mean, I think everybody recognizes we do not have enough troops. The question isn't pulling troops out. We need more troops, not fewer."

Continetti predicted that more Republicans in Congress might start calling for the same—after the elections and if they retain control of the House. That would be a true profile in courage. Continetti was essentially accusing GOPers of playing political games at the expense of American and Iraqi lives.

In the meantime, the plan-free war continues, and the Bush-backers mainly duck that uncomfortable issue: whether this war is too much for the man who launched it. That does appear to be the big elephant in the room. And it seems that even conservatives and Republicans are finding it difficult to ignore its smell.

Posted by David Corn at 04:06 PM

August 29, 2006

When Hitchens Attacks....

A bunch of emails arrived today from people asking for (or, demanding) a response to Christopher Hitchens' attack in Slate on me and my coauthor Michael Isikoff. I'm going to refrain from taking the bait, as we prepare for next week's release of our book. HUBRIS has plenty in it to discomfort anyone taking his or her cues from my former colleague. Meanwhile, The New York Times has a good piece by Neil Lewis in Wednesday's edition, bouncing off our revelations about Richard Armitage. It nicely mentions HUBRIS. (And a reminder: the book is far more about the fraudulent selling of the war than the leak case.)

Posted by David Corn at 11:38 PM

Beer and Whiskey for Political Junkies

I'm taking a break from pushing HUBRIS to look at some of today's political headlines. Let's see....

Democrats Now Favored to Take Over DeLay's Old Seat
The Texas Republican Party establishment has rallied around a single candidate, Houston City Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, in their unusual write-in campaign to salvage the 22nd Congressional District seat vacated in June by Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader.

But the extreme rarity of successful write-in campaigns for Congress and the presence of a solid Democratic nominee on the ballot in former Rep. Nick Lampson has prompted CQPolitics.com to change its rating on the 22nd District race to Leans Democratic from No Clear Favorite.

Nothing will be more savory for Dems than to regain control of the House with DeLay's seat in their mitts.

Ex-FEMA chief Brown: Administration did not support effective disaster planning

WASHINGTON - Former FEMA Director Michael Brown, who lost his job because of Hurricane Katrina, said Tuesday his biggest regret a year later is that he wasn't candid enough about the lack of a coherent federal response plan.

"There was no plan....Three years ago, we should have done catastrophic planning," Brown said, charging that the Bush administration and his department head, Michael Chertoff, "would not give me the money to do that kind of planning."

As levees broke down at Katrina's strike against New Orleans and people were forced from their homes, Brown said he sought futilely to get the 82nd Airborne Division into the city quickly.

Appearing on NBC's "Today" show, he was asked about positive statements he had made at the time about how Washington would come through for the storm victims, rather than leveling with the country about how bad the situation actually was.

"Those were White House talking points," Brown replied. "And to this day, I think that was my biggest mistake."

How come they're never this candid when they're in office? That's one heckuva an admission, Brownie. Next time--as if there will ever be a next time--tell the public the important stuff when it really matters.

I have picked these news items (the first from Congressional Quarterly, the second from A)) as examples to promote a new website that just opened. It's CampaignNetwork.org and is run by C-SPAN and Congressional Quarterly. (CQ and C-SPAN--that's like a shot of whiskey and a beer for political alcoholics.) The site compiles news and information pertaining to the hot races and issues of 2006. There are videos from C-SPAN of campaign debates (catch up on that Lamont-Lieberman slugfest!) and campaign commercials. There's analysis from CQ. There's a scorecard that keeps tabs on all the congressional races. Right now, CQ is projecting the election will result in 203 Ds and 220 Rs, with 12 races featuring no clear favorite. (In other words, the Democrats will need one heckuva wind at their back to win back the House.)

For political junkies out there--and you know who you are--this site's for you. Check it out. And stay tuned for more HUBRIS news. It will be coming in the week ahead. The book lands in stores late next week. Thanks to readers who have pre-ordered the book already. I know that those of you who visit this site and who have not done so are merely waiting to support your local bookstore.

Posted by David Corn at 04:14 PM

August 28, 2006

Bush-backers, Armitage and HUBRIS

White House defenders are chortling. For some reason, they believe that the news from HUBRIS that Richard Armitage was the original leaker means there was nothing to the CIA leak case.

On the National Review site, Byron York writes

Whatever Armitage's motives, the fact that he was the Novak leaker undermines--destroys, actually--the conspiracy theory of the CIA-leak case.

He notes that the Newsweek story based on HUBRIS says that Armitage had "no apparent intention of harming anyone" and comments:

It's an extraordinary admission coming from Isikoff's co-author Corn, one of the leading conspiracy theorists of the CIA-leak case. "The Plame leak in Novak's column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about the prewar intelligence," Corn and Isikoff write. "The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework." [Note: Actually, I wrote those lines on my blog; they were not part of the Newsweek story.]

Conspiracy theorist--moi? Where have I proposed a conspiracy theory? I have noted from the first that the leak might be evidence of a White House crime. It turns out that Armitage leaked first. But the public record is clear: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby leaked the same classified information prior to the appearance of the Bob Novak column that contained the Armitage leak. And all of these leakers were investigated vigorously by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who also wondered whether a crime might have been committed. (His inquiry followed a CIA request for a criminal investigation.)

As HUBRIS will make clear, Rove's leak (to Robert Novak and Matt Cooper) and Libby's leak (to Judith Miller and Cooper) were part of a campaign to discredit former ambassador Joseph Wilson. That's no conspiracy theory. The available evidence proves this point. The book--which focuses on so much more than the leak case (see the item below)--will have more.

York writes:

But if Fitzgerald was going to indict Libby, then why not Armitage, too?

Fitzgerald indicted Libby for lying to investigators--not for leaking. Obviously, Fitzgerald ultimately concluded that he did not have a case to make against any of the leakers under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (which makes it a crime for a government official to disclose identifying information about a covert CIA officer only if that official knows the officer is undercover). Obviously--again--Fitzgerald believed that he had a strong case against Libby (and the indictment does look strong) on the lying front but that he did not have a case against Armitage. Why is this so hard to understand? (Writing on National Review's The Corner, contributor Andy McCarthy concedes that "the evidence that Libby tried to mislead investigators, at least as it is ddescribed in the indictment, is pretty strong.") York slides right past these obvious points and answers his own question this way:

The answer may lie in the bitter conflict inside the administration over the war in Iraq that is the backdrop to the entire CIA-leak affair. Armitage's allies have made it clear that they believe Armitage is a "good" leaker while Rove, Libby, and others in the White House are "bad" leakers. We do not know what CIA and State Department officials told Fitzgerald during the investigation, but we do know that fevered imaginings about the terrible acts of the neocon cabal were not the exclusive province of left-wing blogs; they were also present inside the State Department and CIA. Fitzgerald may have chosen the course that he did--appearing to premise his investigation on the conspiracy theorists' accusations--because he was pointed in that direction by the White House's enemies inside and outside the administration.

So unnamed anti-neocons schemers at State and the CIA managed to trick Fitzgerald--who by all accounts is an independent, by-the-book prosecutor--into indicting Libby but not Armitage. Who's the conspiracy theorist now?

Let's turn to Clifford May, former GOP spokesman, who writes on The Corner, that people like me believe

it was fine for Wilson to accuse the President of lying on a vital matter of national security. But it was criminal for the White House to challenge that accusation.

HUBRIS will--as I've already promised--detail much about the Wilson imbroglio. The facts will speak for themselves. But is May, a national security hawk, suggesting that it is fine for White House officials, when they battle a policy critic, to leak classified information (disregarding any potential consequences) rather than to counter that critic in an aboveboard and open manner? The White House had the option of presenting a public case against Joe Wilson after he wrote his op-ed article criticizing the Bush administration. It could have sought to declassify information it believed was necessary to present its side of the story. That is not what Rove and Libby did.

On Captain's Quarters, a popular conservative blog, "Captain Ed" writes that our book indicates

that the Department of Justice knew the source of the Plame leak within four months of its occurrence. It also knew that the leak had no malicious intent. Patrick Fitzgerald, who almost certainly knew of it within the first days of his investigation, never attempted to indict the man whom he knew leaked the information. Why, then, has Fitzgerald's mandate continued...?

His mandate continued, in part, because he suspected that Libby had lied to both the FBI and the CIA leak case grand jury and because he also suspected that Rove had not told the truth. Do Captain Ed and his comrades at the National Review believe White House officials should get a pass from a prosecutor who thinks they may have committed perjury? (To his credit, Andy McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor who knows Fitzgerald, does not hold such a view, but he appears to be in the minority in NR-land.) As for malicious intent and the non-Armitage leakers, I again ask those who might be on Captain Ed's ship to read the relevant passages of HUBRIS when it becomes available. We will be charting new waters.

I could go on. But I'll stop here. The Armitage news does not absolve any other leakers. It does make the leak story more complicated--and more dramatic. Read the book, which goes on sale next week, to see how.

Posted by David Corn at 11:09 PM

HUBRIS Reaction

There's been a big reaction to the first wave of news from HUBRIS. Tim Russert pressed Bob Novak yesterday on the Armitage revelation. Novak declined to acknowledge that our book got it right, but he did say it was time for his source to out himself. Many bloggers have covered the news. This morning, my co-author Michael Isikoff was on the Today Show. Tonight, he'll be on Hardball, and I'm scheduled to be on the Special Report on the Fox News Channel. Not surprisingly, there's been a round of attacks from conservatives. I'll be responding to some of that nonsense soon. In the meantime, if you aren't up to speed on the HUBRIS news, read the entry below.

Posted by David Corn at 12:36 PM

August 27, 2006

HUBRIS: The Armitage Leak and What It Means (Plus More Info on the Book)

One mystery solved.

It was Richard Armitage, when he was deputy secretary of state in July 2003, who first disclosed to conservative columnist Robert Novak that the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson was a CIA employee.

A Newsweek article--based on the new book I cowrote with Newsweek correspondent Michael Isikoff, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War--discloses that Armitage passed this classified information to Novak during a July 8, 2003 interview. Though Armitage's role as Novak's primary source has been a subject of speculation, the case is now closed. Our sources for this are three government officials who spoke to us confidentially and who had direct knowledge of Armitage's conversation with Novak. Carl Ford Jr., who was head of the State Department's intelligence branch at the time, told us--on the record--that after Armitage testified before the grand jury investigating the leak case, he told Ford, "I'm afraid I may be the guy that caused the whole thing."

Ford recalls Armitage said he had "slipped up" and had told Novak more that he should have. According to Ford, Armitage was upset that "he was the guy that fucked up."

The unnamed government sources also told us about what happened three months later when Novak wrote a column noting that his original source was "no partisan gunslinger." After reading that October 1 column, Armitage called his boss and long-time friend, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and acknowledged he was Novak's source. Powell, Armitage and William Taft IV, the State Department's top lawyer, frantically conferred about what to do. As Taft told us (on the record), "We decided we were going to tell [the investigators] what we thought had happened." Taft notified the criminal division of the Justice Department--which was then handling the investigation--and FBI agents interviewed Armitage the next day. In that interview, Armitage admitted he had told Novak about Wilson's wife and her employment at the CIA. The Newsweek piece lays all this out.

Colleagues of Armitage told us that Armitage--who is known to be an inveterate gossip--was only conveying a hot tidbit, not aiming to do Joe Wilson harm. Ford says, "My sense from Rich is that it was just chitchat." (When Armitage testified before the Iran-contra grand jury many years earlier, he had described himself as "a terrible gossip." Iran-contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh subsequently accused him of providing "false testimony" to investigators but said that he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Armitage's misstatements had been "deliberate.")

The Plame leak in Novak's column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about the prewar intelligence. The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework. He and Powell were not the leading advocates of war in the administration (even though Powell became the chief pitchman for the case for war when he delivered a high-profile speech at the UN). They were not the political hitmen of the Bush gang. Armitage might have mentioned Wilson's wife merely as gossip. But--as Hubris notes--he also had a bureaucratic interest in passing this information to Novak.

On July 6--two days before Armitage's meeting with Novak--Wilson published an op-ed in The New York Times on July 6, 2003, that revealed that he had been sent by the CIA to Niger to investigate the charge that Iraq had been trying to buy uranium in that impoverished African nation. Wilson wrote that his mission had been triggered by an inquiry to the CIA from Vice President Dick Cheney, who had read an intelligence report about the Niger allegation, and that he (Wilson) had reported back to the CIA that the charge was highly unlikely. Noting that President George W. Bush had referred to this allegation in his 2003 State of the Union speech, Wilson maintained that the administration had used a phoney claim to lead the country to war. His article ignited a firestorm. That meant that the State Department had good reason (political reason, that is) to distance itself from Wilson, a former State Department official. Armitage may well have referred to Wilson's wife and her CIA connection to make the point that State officials--already suspected by the White House of not being team players--had nothing to do with Wilson and his trip.

Whether he had purposefully mentioned this information to Novak or had slipped up, Armitage got the ball rolling--and abetted a White House campaign under way to undermine Wilson. At the time, top White House aides--including Karl Rove and Scooter Libby--were trying to do in Wilson. And they saw his wife's position at the CIA as a piece of ammunition. As John Dickerson wrote in Slate, senior White House aides that week were encouraging him to investigate who had sent Joe Wilson on his trip. They did not tell him they believed Wilson's wife had been involved. But they clearly were trying to push him toward that information.

Shortly after Novak spoke with Armitage, he told Rove that he had heard that Valerie Wilson had been behind her husband's trip to Niger, and Rove said that he knew that, too. So a leak from Armitage (a war skeptic not bent on revenge against Wilson) was confirmed by Rove (a Bush defender trying to take down Wilson). And days later--before the Novak column came out--Rove told Time magazine's Matt Cooper that Wilson's wife was a CIA employee and involved in his trip.

Bush critics have long depicted the Plame leak as a sign of White House thuggery. I happened to be the first journalist to report that the leak in the Novak column might be evidence of a White House crime--a violation of the little-known Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which makes it a crime for a government official to disclose information about an undercover CIA officer (if that government official knew the covert officer was undercover and had obtained information about the officer through official channels). Two days after the leak appeared, I wrote:

Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?

And I stated,

Now there is evidence Bushies used classified information and put the nation's counter-proliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score.

The Armitage leak was not directly a part of the White House's fierce anti-Wilson crusade. But as Hubris notes, it was, in a way, linked to the White House effort, for Amitage had been sent a key memo about Wilson's trip that referred to his wife and her CIA connection, and this memo had been written, according to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, at the request of I. Lewis Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff. Libby had asked for the memo because he was looking to protect his boss from the mounting criticism that Bush and Cheney had misrepresented the WMD intelligence to garner public support for the invasion of Iraq.

The memo included information on Valerie Wilson's role in a meeting at the CIA that led to her husband's trip. This critical memo was--as Hubris discloses--based on notes that were not accurate. (You're going to have to read the book for more on this.) But because of Libby's request, a memo did circulate among State Department officials, including Armitage, that briefly mentioned Wilson's wife.

Armitage's role aside, the public record is without question: senior White House aides wanted to use Valerie Wilson's CIA employment against her husband. Rove leaked the information to Cooper, and Libby confirmed Rove's leak to Cooper. Libby also disclosed information on Wilson's wife to New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

As Hubris also reveals--and is reported in the Newsweek story--Armitage was also the source who told Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003 that Joe Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. Woodward did not reveal he had learned about Wilson's wife until last November, when he released a statement recounting a conversation with a source (whom he did not name). Woodward acknowledged at that time that he had not told his editors about this interview--and that he had recently given a deposition to Fitzgerald about this conversation.

Speculation regarding Woodward's source quickly focused on Armitage. Last week, the Associated Press disclosed State Department records indicating that Woodward had met with Armitage at the State Department on June 13, 2003. In pegging Armitage as Woodward's source, Hubris cites five confidential sources--including government officials and an Armitage confidant.

Woodward came in for some harsh criticism when he and the Post revealed that he had been the first reporter told about Wilson's wife by a Bush administration official. During Fitzgerald's investigation, Woodward had repeatedly appeared on television and radio talk shows and dismissed the CIA leak probe without noting that he had a keen personal interest in the matter: his good source, Richard Armitage, was likely a target of Fitzgerald. Woodward was under no obligation to disclose a confidential source and what that source had told him. But he also was under no obligation to go on television and criticize an investigation while withholding relevant information about his involvement in the affair.

Fitzgerald, as Hubris notes, investigated Armitage twice--once for the Novak leak; then again for not initially telling investigators about his conversation with Woodward. Each time, Fitzgerald decided not to prosecute Armitage. Abiding by the rules governing grand jury investigations, Fitzgerald said nothing publicly about Armitage's role in the leak.

The outing of Armitage does change the contours of the leak case. The initial leaker was not plotting vengeance. He and Powell had not been gung-ho supporters of the war. Yet Bush backers cannot claim the leak was merely an innocent slip. Rove confirmed the classified information to Novak and then leaked it himself as part of an effort to undermine a White House critic. Afterward, the White House falsely insisted that neither Rove nor Libby had been involved in the leak and vowed that anyone who had participated in it would be bounced from the administration. Yet when Isikoff and Newsweek in July 2005 revealed a Matt Cooper email showing that Rove had leaked to Cooper, the White House refused to acknowledge this damning evidence, declined to comment on the case, and did not dismiss Rove. To date, the president has not addressed Rove's role in the leak. It remains a story of ugly and unethical politics, stonewalling, and lies.

A NOTE OF SELF-PROMOTION: Hubris covers much more than the leak case. It reveals behind-the-scene battles at the White House, the CIA, the State Department, and Capitol Hill that occurred in the year before the invasion of Iraq. It discloses secrets about the CIA's prewar plans for Iraq. It chronicles how Bush and Cheney reacted to the failure to find WMDs in Iraq. It details how Bush and other aides neglected serious planning for the post-invasion period. It recounts how the unproven theories of a little-known academic who was convinced Saddam Hussein was behind all acts of terrorism throughout the world influenced Bush administration officials. It reports what went wrong inside The New York Times regarding its prewar coverage of Iraq's WMDs. It shows precisely how the intelligence agencies screwed up and how the Bush administration misused the faulty and flimsy (and fraudulent) intelligence. The book, a narrative of insider intrigue, also relates episodes in which intelligence analysts and experts made the right calls about Iraq's WMDs but lost the turf battles.

And there's more, including:

* how and why the CIA blew the call on the Niger forgeries

* why US intelligence officials suspected Iranian intelligence was trying to influence US decisionmaking through the Iraqi National Congress

* why members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who doubted the case for war were afraid to challenge the prewar intelligence

* how Cheney and his aides sifted through raw intelligence desperately trying to find evidence to justify the Iraq invasion

* how Karl Rove barely managed to escape indictment with a shaky argument.

And there's more beyond that. In other words, this is not a book on the leak case. It includes the leak episode because the leak came about partly due to the White House need to keep its disingenuous sales campaign going after the invasion. Feel free to see for yourself. The book goes on sale September 8. Its Amazon.com page can be found here.

Posted by David Corn at 09:46 AM

August 26, 2006

From HUBRIS: Armitage Was the Leaker

The first piece of HUBRIS news has hit. Richard Armitage was the original leaker in the Plame case. The details are in a Newsweek story based on the book. Click here. I'll have more to say about this here and elsewhere on Sunday morning.

Posted by David Corn at 11:55 PM

August 25, 2006

Latest on HUBRIS

The official on-sale date has been set: September 8. The publisher has moved up the release, which was originally October 3. And look for some news from the book this weekend. I'll say more about that when I can.

Posted by David Corn at 09:43 PM

HUBRIS, the New Book: A Tease, a Plea

It's coming. My new book. The title: HUBRIS: THE INSIDE STORY OF SPIN, SCANDAL, AND THE SELLING OF THE IRAQ WAR. I cowrote it with Newsweek correspondent Michael Isikoff. The publisher is Crown. Here's the jacket copy:

Filled with explosive revelations, HUBRIS is a gripping narrative that takes the reader behind the scenes at the Bush White House, CIA, Pentagon, State Department, and Congress to disclose the controversial decisions and turf battles that occurred in the highest circles and most covert corners of the administration as officials planned and marketed the invasion of Iraq-and then sought to defend the war. HUBRIS connects the dots between George W. Bush's determination to get rid of Saddam Hussein, the role of neoconservatives in pushing the case for war, the manipulations of Iraqi exiles, and the outing of a CIA officer that led to the indictment of a top White House official. Written by veteran reporters Michael Isikoff and David Corn, it's the insider tale of how Bush took the country to war using faulty and fraudulent intelligence.

Among the book's startling disclosures:

....Sorry, I cannot say just yet. But there will be several. You will know about some of them very soon. In the meantime, I would like to make a request of the visitors to this site: buy the book. Isikoff and I need your support. This site has good traffic. (I know who you are!) If many of you purchase the book when it becomes available--I'll get you the on-sale date soon--it will help launch it. I am asking for your help. Blogs are supposed to be interactive, with writers and readers forging the sort of dynamic relationship that did not generally exist in the days of the static Old Media. Well, dear readers, I hope in return for what I provide on this site--information, amusement, views for you to embrace or hate, and a forum for those of you who want to vent or debate--you can back me up on this book. (Anyone who wants to order it right away, can click here for the book's Amazon.com page.)

I'll be revealing more about its contents in the days ahead--but not too much. Unlike this website, I can't give away all the good stuff for free.

Posted by David Corn at 12:07 AM

August 24, 2006

The Iran Report: Read It Closely

The GOP-controlled House intelligence committee has released a report on Iran that's getting a lot of coverage in the news, with the anti-Iran hawks embracing it as a call for taking strong action against Tehran. But the report's summary says:

The U.S. Intelligence Community believes that Tehran probably has not yet produced or acquired the fissile material (weapons-grade nuclear fuel) needed to produce a nuclear weapon; Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte has stated that Iran will not be “in a position to have a nuclear weapon” until “sometime between the beginning of the next decade and the middle of the next decade”

That suggests that the United States and other nations need not rush off a cliff in responding to the latest developments.

The report also states that, according to US intelligence agencies:

* Iran likely has an offensive chemical weapons research and development capability.

* Iran probably has an offensive biological weapons program.

Note the qualifiers: likely and probably. In other words, could be. Then again....But the report goes on to note that there is reason to worry about the state of intelligence on Iran:

There is a great deal about Iran that we do not know. It would be irresponsible to list the specific intelligence gaps in an unclassified paper, as identifying our specific shortcomings would provide critical insights to the Iranian government. Suffice it to say, however, that the United States lacks critical information needed for analysts to make many of their judgments with confidence about Iran and there are many significant information gaps. A special concern is major gaps in our knowledge of Iranian nuclear, biological, and chemical programs.

Yet these agencies know that it is "likely" Iran has chemical weapons program, that it "probably" has a biological program, and that it is years away from developing a bomb. How can anyone who has not seen the intelligence assess this situation? The report continues:

US policymakers and intelligence officials believe, without exception, that the United States must collect more and better intelligence on a wide range of Iranian issues--its political dynamics, economic health, support for terrorism, the nature of its involvement in Iraq, the status of its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons efforts, and many more topics of interest. The national security community must dedicate the personnel and resources necessary to better assess Iran's plans, capabilities and intentions, and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) must identify, establish, and report on intelligence goals and performance metrics to measure progress on critical fronts.

Does this mean that years after the president declared Iran was part of the Axis of Evil, the intelligence community has not dedicated sufficient personnel and resources to gathering intelligence on Iran? If so, shouldn't heads rolled?

To its credit, the report does refer to experts who do not buy into the current Iran hysteria:

Tehran's willingness to endure international condemnation, isolation, and economic disruptions in order to carry out nuclear activities covertly indicates Iran is developing nuclear weapons. It is worth noting, however, that some outside experts hold another view and believe that senior Iranian leaders are divided on whether to proceed with a nuclear weapons program, and contend that some Iranian officials argue that Iran should pursue nuclear research within the guidelines of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) so Iran can maintain international trade links. These outside experts hold that until the leadership's intentions and decisions are known, it is difficult to assert with confidence that Iran is actually pursuing nuclear weapons.

That is, who knows? (The report also states, "The extent to which Iran directed the July/August 2006 Hezbollah attacks against Israel is unknown, as are possible Iranian objectives for provoking hostilities with Israel at this point in time.") Though the report is mostly hawkish in tone, it is a reminder that the what-to-do-about-Iran debate is driven more by assumptions than by facts and that all responsible participants in this discourse ought to proceed cautiously in determining the best policy to adopt.

Posted by David Corn at 12:08 PM

August 23, 2006

If You Can't Fix One City, How Can You Save the Planet?

When George W. Bush spoke at Jackson Square in New Orleans on September 15 last year, he said:

When communities are rebuilt, they must be even better and stronger than before the storm. Within the Gulf region are some of the most beautiful and historic places in America. As all of us saw on television, there's also some deep, persistent poverty in this region, as well. That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday, and let us rise above the legacy of inequality."

Does anyone believe that the reconstruction in the Gulf Coast is meeting this standard? It's clear that's not happening. A report released today by Gulf Reconstruction Watch--which analyzed 200 indicators in 13 categories--concludes that there has been many problems with the reconstruction, let alone with the mission to transform New Orleans into a beacon of economic justice. The report notes, "The conclusion is unavoidable and devastating: One year later, New Orleans and the Gulf region still face basic, fundamental barriers to renewal. Further, lack of federal leadership and misplaced priorities are preventing the region from achieving a vibrant future." Get a PDF copy of the 100-page report here. By the way, Spike Lee's HBO documentary on Katrina--which aired this week--effectively noted that the recovery has been way slow. The film also could have made more of the point that the reconstruction of the levee system should be more extensive. Compared to the high-tech and impressive Dutch anti-flooding system shown in the film, the new levees in New Orleans look like plywood barriers held together by Elmer's glue.

NOT WORRIED ENOUGH? The new issue of Scientific American has another why-you-really-should-believe-global-warming-may-bring-about-the-end-of-the-world-as we-know-it set of articles. The alarm-sounding introduction to the special issue notes:

Preventing the transformation of the earth's atmosphere from greenhouse to unconstrained hothouse represents arguably the most imposing scientific and technical challenge that humanity has ever faced. Sustained marshaling of cross-border engineering and political resources over the course of a century or more to check the rise of carbon emissions makes a moon mission or a Manhattan Project appear comparatively straightforward.

Climate change compels a massive restructuring of the world's energy economy....

Perhaps a solar cell breakthrough will usher in the photovoltaic age, allowing both a steel plant and a cell phone user to derive all needed watts from a single source. But if that does not happen--and it probably won't--many technologies (biofuels, solar, hydrogen and nuclear) will be required to achieve a low-carbon energy supply. All these approaches are profiled by leading experts in this special issue, as are more radical ideas, such as solar power plants in outer space and fusion generators, which may come into play should today's seers prove myopic 50 years hence.

Planning in 50- or 100-year increments is perhaps an impossible dream. The slim hope for keeping atmospheric carbon below 500 ppm [parts per million] hinges on aggressive programs of energy efficiency instituted by national governments. To go beyond what climate specialists call the "business as usual" scenario, the U.S. must follow Europe and even some of its own state governments in instituting new policies that affix a price on carbon--whether in the form of a tax on emissions or in a cap-and-trade system (emission allowances that are capped in aggregate at a certain level and then traded in open markets). These steps can furnish the breathing space to establish the defense-scale research programs needed to cultivate fossil fuel alternatives. The current federal policy vacuum has prompted a group of eastern states to develop their own cap-and-trade program under the banner of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Fifty-year time frames are planning horizons for futurists, not pragmatic policymakers. Maybe a miraculous new energy technology will simultaneously solve our energy and climate problems during that time, but another scenario is at least as likely: a perceived failure of Kyoto or international bickering over climate questions could foster the burning of abundant coal for electricity and synthetic fuels for transportation, both without meaningful checks on carbon emissions.

A steady chorus of skeptics continues to cast doubt on the massive peer--reviewed scientific literature that forms the cornerstone for a consensus on global warming. "They call it pollution; we call it life," intones a Competitive Enterprise Institute advertisement on the merits of carbon dioxide. Uncertainties about the extent and pace of warming will undoubtedly persist. But the consequences of inaction could be worse than the feared economic damage that has bred overcaution. If we wait for an ice cap to vanish, it will simply be too late.

It's discouraging. If the Bush administration cannot oversee an effective reconstruction of one American city, how can it do what Scientific American and others believe is absolutely necessary to safeguard the atmosphere and the planet? It can't. Which is why we may come to see Katrina as the warm-up for the troubled future to come.

We now return to the latest on the JonBenet Ramsey case....

Posted by David Corn at 11:45 AM

August 22, 2006

Reich to Dems: Cool It

Interesting piece at www.tompaine.com today by Robert Reich, the former labor secretary who not too long ago ran unsuccessfully for governor in Massachusetts. He's bullish on Democratic prospects this fall. I'm not so certain the Dems will win the House. But for the sake of argument, I'll grant him the assumption they will. He then goes on to say to the Democrats:

You'll be sorely tempted to showcase the Bush administration in all its lurid awfulness. Imagine an endless parade of witnesses offering shocking details of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, torture camps, payoffs to Halliburton, Defense Department usurpations, Iraq's descent into civil war, and other cover-ups, deceptions, data manipulations, suppressions of science, crass incompetencies, and outright corruption. Out of all of these hearings would come a bill of particulars so damning that every 2008 Democratic candidate running for everything from Indianapolis City Council to president will be swept into office on a riptide of public outrage.

After all, didn't House Republicans during the Clinton years wreak all the damage they could even when there wasn't much to complain about? Recall Dan Burton, the Indiana Republican who, while chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, issued truckloads of White House subpoenas along with a sulphurous geyser of unsupported accusations. Why shouldn't Henry Waxman, who will fill the same shoes, give as good as the Clinton White House got? Imagine how John Dingell, who will run the House Energy and Commerce Committee, could expose the intimacies between the Bushies and Big Oil; what John Conyers, in command of the House Judiciary Committee, could reveal about Bush's trouncing of Americans’ civil liberties; or the job Barney Frank, at Financial Services, could do on the administration's nefarious links to Wall Street. Hell, why not try to impeach Bush?

Warning: Resist all such temptation.

His reasoning: such mucking about won't go over well with the public as 2008 approaches. Bush is already low in the polls and won't be on the ballot next time. Instead of bashing away, Reich says, Democrats ought to "use the two years instead to lay the groundwork for a new Democratic agenda. Bring in expert witnesses. Put new ideas on the table. Frame the central issues boldly. Don't get caught up in arid policy-wonkdom."

I've not been a fan of potential impeachment hearings, either--for the same political reasons. My hunch is that such action would not help bring about change in the government. But I think that policymeister Reich goes too far in arguing that the House Dems--should they manage to win control of their body--could dramatically reframe the political/policy debate for 2008. If they hold hearings on trade policy or health care matters, I doubt--regrettably--that such sessions will capture the imagination of the electorate (let alone draw much media coverage). It surely wouldn't hurt the Dems. But the presidential race will--as always--be dominated by the candidates and (if things don't change) one issue: the war in Iraq. And though Reich gives the Dems advice on how to handle Iraq--"Instead of framing the central foreign-policy question as whether we should have invaded Iraq, make it how to partition Iraq into Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish zones while America gets out"--I'm dubious the party can come up with a core policy approach to Bush's mess in Mesopotamia.

Reich does have a point. The Dems should not go overboard with Bush payback. But a few investigations into the abuses and excesses of the Bush years (say, the corruption in contracting in Iraq) would be justified and warranted. Yet Dems should realize that congressional hearings on policy matters (as important as they can be) are not likely, as Reich notes, to "help America dream again."

Posted by David Corn at 12:09 PM

August 21, 2006

At Press Conference, Bush Stays the Course

From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

George W. Bush keeps trying to rally popular support for his war in Iraq. But he has little to offer other than stay-the course-ism. He cannot point to progress in Iraq. Nor can he point to a plan that would seem promising. Thus, he is left only with rhetoric--the same rhetoric.

That was on display during a presidential press conference at the White House on Monday. Here's a selective run-down.

One reporter asked,

More than 3,500 Iraqis were killed last month, the highest civilian monthly toll since the war began. Are you disappointed with the lack of progress by Iraq's unity government in bringing together the sectarian and ethnic groups?

Bush replied,

No, I am aware that extremists and terrorists are doing everything they can to prevent Iraq's democracy from growing stronger. That's what I'm aware of.

He could not bring himself to say he is disappointed by the government's inability to curb the sectarian violence? That was an odd way to defend his actions in Iraq. Bush did go on to say,

And, therefore, we have a plan to help them -- "them," the Iraqis -- achieve their objectives. Part of the plan is political; that is the help the Maliki government work on reconciliation and to work on rehabilitating the community. The other part is, of course, security. And I have given our commanders all the flexibility they need to adjust tactics to be able to help the Iraqi government defeat those who want to thwart the ambitions of the people. And that includes a very robust security plan for Baghdad.

A question: when would it be fair to judge the plan's success? The plan has supposedly already been implemented. Yet the death count is rising in Iraq. A sharp-eyed (or sharp-eared) reporter should have asked, "If the death count goes up next month, will that mean the plan is a failure? And how should Americans (and Iraqis) evaluate whether the plan is working?" Or as Donald Rumsfeld might say, what are the operative metrics?

Bush repeatedly said that it would be disastrous for the United States to disengage from Iraq. He claimed,

It will embolden those who are trying to thwart the ambitions of reformers. In this case, it would give the terrorists and extremists an additional tool besides safe haven, and that is revenues from oil sales.

Regarding the "reformers"--and Bush noted this included reformers throughout the region--the US invasion of Iraq and the recent (and partially still ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah) has undercut the reformers of the Middle East, or so say many such reformers. These reformers report they are on thinner ice because of US policies. Bush's actions, according to the grunts of Middle East reform, have not emboldened them. As for turning Iraq into a safe haven for terrorists and extremists, Bush has already accomplished that. An American journalist who had recently returned from Baghdad told me a few weeks ago that neighborhoods within a mile or so of the Green Zone in Baghdad are totally under the control of insurgents. Whole swaths of Iraq are beyond the authority of the Iraqi government. These areas can be safe havens for all sorts of miscreants. And it's fear-mongering to suggest that if the United States were to withdraw that anti-American jihadists will control the state and be enriched by oil revenues. Last time I checked, the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds all had an interest in Iraq. These groups are unlikely to turn the nation over to the few jihadist terrorists operating within Iraq.

One exchange did not inspire confidence. A reporter asked,

Mr. President, I'd like to go back to Iraq. You've continually cited the elections, the new government, its progress in Iraq, and yet the violence has gotten worse in certain areas. You've had to go to Baghdad again. Is it not time for a new strategy? And if not, why not?

Bush responded,

You've covered the Pentagon, you know that the Pentagon is constantly adjusting tactics because they have the flexibility from the White House to do so.

The reporter--who was not asking about tactics--interrupted:

I'm talking about strategy.

Bush then said:

The strategy is to help the Iraqi people achieve their objectives and their dreams, which is a democratic society. That's the strategy.

Actually, that's not a strategy. That's a goal. A commander in chief should know the difference. A strategy is how one goes about--in a general way--accomplishing goals. Tactics are how one implements the strategy. After Bush talked about giving military commanders in Iraq the "flexibility" to "change tactics on the ground," this interesting back-and-forth occurred:

Q: Sir, that's not really the question. The strategy --

THE PRESIDENT: Sounded like the question to me.

Q: You keep -- you keep saying that you don't want to leave. But is your strategy to win working? Even if you don't want to leave? You've gone into Baghdad before, these things have happened before.

THE PRESIDENT: If I didn't think it would work, I would change -- our commanders would recommend changing the strategy. They believe it will work.

Seems as if Bush was saying that his commanders are in charge of the strategy. But isn't that his job?

Later on came this exchange:

Q: But are you frustrated, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Frustrated? Sometimes I'm frustrated. Rarely surprised. Sometimes I'm happy. This is -- but war is not a time of joy. These aren't joyous times. These are challenging times, and they're difficult times, and they're straining the psyche of our country.

To recap: he is not "disappointed" (see above), but he is occasionally "frustrated." Yet hardly "surprised." Wait a moment. Does that mean he invaded Iraq realizing that the war there would turn into an ugly sectarian conflict that would bog down US troops for over three years? If so, why didn't he say something before the invasion about this? Or, better yet, why didn't he and the Pentagon prepare for such an eventuality? Citizens should hope he was damn surprised by what has happened in Iraq--even though that would not make him any less culpable.

Bush repeatedly acknowledged there is a legitimate debate whether the United States should disengage from Iraq. He noted,

I will never question the patriotism of somebody who disagrees with me.

This statement is--how should we put it?--not as accurate as it could be. Campaigning for congressional Republicans in 2002 Bush said that Senate Democrats were "more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people." That certainly is not how one would describe a patriot. More recently, Bush's own Republican Party accused the Democrats of plotting to weaken the country. After a federal judge ruled that Bush's warrantless wiretapping program was unconstitutional, the GOP sent out an email headlined, "Liberal Judge Backs Dem Agenda To Weaken National Security." Accusing someone of having a gameplan to "weaken national security" is indeed questioning their patriotism. Has Bush decried this Republican National Committee tactic? Not in public.

The press conference allowed for a brief exploration of Bush's rationale for invading Iraq. One journalist inquired,

A lot of the consequences you mentioned for pulling out [such as chaos in Iraq, terrorist running amok, etc.] seem like maybe they never would have been there if we hadn't gone in. How do you square all of that?

Bush fired back:

I square it because, imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who would -- who had relations with Zarqawi. Imagine what the world would be like with him in power. The idea is to try to help change the Middle East.

Well, as both Charles Duelfer and David Kay--administration-appointed WMD hunters--reported, Saddam did not have any serious capacity to produce WMDs. None. He had no weapons and no serious production capability. So, yes, one would have to "imagine" such a threat. As for Saddam's relations with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (now deceased), there is no evidence that Saddam had anything to do with him before the war. As Colin Powell noted in his disastrous UN speech, Zarqawi at the time was operating out of northern Iraq, which was territory not under Baghdad's control. Once more, a healthy dose of imagination is required to follow Bush's argument.

The president continued:

You know, I've heard this theory about everything was just fine until we arrived, and kind of "we're going to stir up the hornet's nest" theory. It just doesn't hold water, as far as I'm concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.

That led to this point-counterpoint:

Q: What did Iraq have to do with that?

THE PRESIDENT: What did Iraq have to do with what?

Q: The attack on the World Trade Center?

THE PRESIDENT: Nothing, except for it's part of -- and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a -- the lesson of September the 11th is, take threats before they fully materialize....Nobody has ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.

Not exactly. Dick Cheney and other hawks in the administration repeatedly said that there was a connection between Iraq and 9/11, citing an unconfirmed, single-source intelligence report that 9/11 ringleader Mohamad Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague five months before the attack. Yet the FBI and the CIA (and later the 9/11 Commission) had concluded that there was no evidence to substantiate this report and that the meeting likely did not happen. True, Bush officials did not claim that Saddam had "ordered" the attack, but they did suggest that Baghdad had participated in the attack--even when there was no evidence to support that assertion.

So over three years after Bush ordered US troops into Iraq, he is still claiming that Saddam was something of a WMD threat and he is refusing to acknowledge that his administration did attempt to link Saddam to the 9/11 attack--all while professing he has a strategy (or is it a set of tactics?) to win in Iraq. This is not the sort of stuff that will hearten a nation. Bush remains lost in Iraq, with the rest of the country (and the world) held hostage by the mistakes and miscalculations he will not concede.

Posted by David Corn at 03:28 PM

August 20, 2006

New Thread

Too many comments below. So here's a new thread for you DIYers.

Posted by David Corn at 11:39 AM

August 18, 2006

A Good Idea from Israel

One of my favorite military analysts is Anthony Cordesman, who holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He's no dove, but he's been one of the more perceptive and penetrating analysts of the mess in Iraq from the beginning. He just put out a report called "Preliminary 'Lessons' of the Israeli-Hezbollah War," and this study contains some interesting observations. What caught my eye was his comparison of the Israeli reaction to mistakes and failures to what tends to happen in the United States. Here it is:

One key lesson that the US badly needs to learn from Israel is the Israeli rush towards accountability. Israeli experts inside and outside of government did not agree on the extent to which the government and the IDF mismanaged the war, but none claimed that it had gone smoothly or well. Most experts outside of government felt that the problems were serious enough to force a new commission or set of commissions to examine what had gone wrong and to establish the facts....

What is interesting about the Israeli approach, however, is the assumption by so many Israeli experts that that major problems and reverses need immediate official examination and that criticism begins from the top down. Patriotism and the pressures of war call for every effort to be made to win, not for support of the political leadership and military command until the war is over.

The US, in contrast, is usually slow to criticize and then tends to focus on the President n a partisan basis. It does not have a tradition of independent commissions and total transparency (all of the relevant cabinet and command meetings in Israel are videotaped). Worse, the US military tends to investigate and punish from the bottom up. At least since Pearl Harbor (where the search for scapegoats was as much a motive as the search for truth), the US has not acted on the principle that top-level and senior officers and civilian officials must be held accountable for all failures, and that the key lessons of war include a ruthless and unbiased examination of grand strategy and policymaking.

Did you know that Israeli cabinet and military command meetings are taped? Now that's a great idea. Imagine if Bush's prewar meetings were recorded and investigators (or the public) had access to this material. How different the world might be.

Posted by David Corn at 10:29 AM

August 17, 2006

Saying No to King George

From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

In ruling on Thursday that the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program is unconstitutional and must be halted, U.S. district Judge Anna Diggs Taylor slammed the White House on several critical fronts.

For months, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and other administration aides have been defending--even championing--what they call the "terrorist surveillance program," under which the National Security Agency can intercept communications that involve an American citizen or resident without a warrant if one party to the communication is overseas and suspected of being linked to anti-American terrorists). They have maintained that the president has the authority as commander in chief to authorize such surveillance. Though the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) generally forbids wiretapping without warrants, the White House has contended that Bush is not bound by the limitations of that law. This claim--arising from the Bush administration's view of expansive (even supreme) presidential power--set up a constitutional clash. And in the first round of the legal battle, Judge Taylor has knocked out the White House argument.

In her decision, she accused the administration of dishonestly arguing that the lawsuit filed by the ACLU and others (including journalists, researchers and lawyers) against the NSA wiretapping should be dismissed because it would expose state secrets:

It is undisputed that Defendants have publicly admitted to the following: (1) the TSP [Terrorist Surveillance Program] exists; (2) it operates without warrants; (3) it targets communications where one party to the communication is outside the United States, and the government has a reasonable basis to conclude that one party to the communication is a member of al Qaeda, affiliated with al Qaeda, or a member of an organization affiliated with al Qaeda, or working in support of al Qaeda. As the Government has on many occasions confirmed the veracity of these allegations, the state secrets privilege does not apply to this information.

She added:

Defendants assert that they cannot defend this case without the exposure of state secrets. This court disagrees. The Bush Administration has repeatedly told the general public that there is a valid basis in law for the TSP. Further, Defendants have contended that the President has the authority under the AUMF [legislation authorizing Bush to use military force against Iraq] and the Constitution to authorize the continued use of the TSP. Defendants [the Bush administration] have supported these arguments without revealing or relying on any classified information. Indeed, the court has reviewed the classified information and is of the opinion that this information is not necessary to any viable defense to the TSP....Consequently, the court finds Defendants’ argument that they cannot defend this case without the use of classified information to be disingenuous and without merit.

In other words, Bush cannot hide behind an it's-classified defense. (Taylor did say that the administration could do so in a related matter--the data-mining of phone records by the NSA. That's because not enough information has been publicly released about this covert program.)

The judge reserved her sharpest words for slicing and dicing the administration's contention that Bush had the authority to ignore FISA and, in essence, act outside (or above) that law. And she cited a favorite Supreme Court case of conservatives to make this point: Clinton v. Jones. In that case, the justices ruled that Clinton could be sued for sexual harassment by Paula Jones. Taylor wrote:

It was never the intent of the Framers to give the President such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights. The three separate branches of government were developed as a check and balance for one another. It is within the court’s duty to ensure that power is never "condense[d]...into a single branch of government." Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507, 536 (2004) (plurality opinion). We must always be mindful that "[w]hen the President takes official action, the Court has the authority to determine whether he has acted within the law." Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681, 703 (1997). "It remains one of the most vital functions of this Court to police with care the separation of the governing powers....When structure fails, liberty is always in peril." Public Citizen v. U.S. Dept. of Justice, 491 U.S. 440, 468 (1989) (Kennedy, J., concurring).

Though pundits, partisans and legislators have debated the legality of the warrantless wiretapping program, Taylor rendered a clear verdict:

The wiretapping program here in litigation...has undisputedly been implemented without regard to FISA and...in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Bush, as president, she added, has no extraconstitutional powers:

The President of the United States, a creature of the same Constitution which gave us these Amendments, has undisputedly violated the Fourth in failing to procure judicial orders as required by FISA, and accordingly has violated the First Amendment Rights of these Plaintiffs as well....In this case, the President has acted, undisputedly, as FISA forbids. FISA is the expressed statutory policy of our Congress. The presidential power, therefore, was exercised at its lowest ebb and cannot be sustained.

She noted:

The Government appears to argue here that, pursuant to the penumbra of Constitutional language in Article II, and particularly because the President is designated Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, he has been granted the inherent power to violate not only the laws of the
Congress but the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, itself.

We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all "inherent powers" must derive from that Constitution.

Once again, a court has told Bush that he is not all-powerful. He cannot create military tribunals on his own. He cannot detain American citizens as enemy combatants without affording them some elements of due process. Taylor's decision will probably be appealed by the Bush administration, and the case will wind its way toward the Supreme Court. But this decision reaffirms--and puts into practice--the bedrock principle that a president's power does not trump the workings of a republican government, even when it comes to war. Weeks before he took office in 2001, Bush quipped, "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." Democracy, though, is not easy. And a commander in chief has to abide by the rules, as various courts have now ruled. The administration's King George approach to governance has taken another blow. But it's royally unlikely this president is going to accept the decision and give up his claim to the throne.

Posted by David Corn at 03:49 PM

Follow Us Home?

I'm going to go out on a line here and make a prediction: the JonBenet Ramsey case--back in the news because a suspect in the ten-year-old murder case has been apprehended in Thailand--is going to fetch far more coverage on the cable news stations than the ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq. Just a hunch. Speaking of which (and I mean the lethal chaos in Iraq)....

"If we leave [Iraq] before the mission is complete, if we withdraw, the enemy will follow us home." That's how President Bush on Wednesday justified keeping US troops in Iraq. It was a variation of an old argument: we're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here. But there's a problem. Who's the them? The violence in Iraq these days is mostly caused by sectarian extremists. And experts and analysts have long have said that Islamic jihadists comprise a small slice of the insurgency. So if the United States disengages from Iraq, are Sunni and Shia extremists going to chase American soldiers back to the United States and start blowing up churches in Cincinnati? As for the jihadists, the recently thwarted London airliner plot shows they are already trying to do harm to Americans (and others) and clearly are not hindered because America has one hundred and thirty-thousand troops in Iraq.

So if Bush doesn't understand the enemy in Iraq, how can he understand the war? That's a rhetorical question. Don't feel compelled to answer it. This follow-us-home rhetoric is nothing more than desperate fear-mongering--yet another sign that the war in Iraq is increasingly hard to justify.

Posted by David Corn at 11:32 AM

August 16, 2006

Better Saddam Than Dead?

From my "Loyal Opposition" column at TomPaine.com....
 
Better Saddam Than Dead
David Corn
August 16, 2006
www.TomPaine.com

Better dead than Red. During the Cold War, that was the rallying cry of the diehard anti-communists, many of whom never had to face the choice. During those years, hundreds of millions of people--in the Soviet Union, in China and elsewhere--did not adhere to such an extreme slogan. They may not have fancied living in lands without freedoms, but they believed it was preferable to reside under repression than to die trying to topple tyranny.

There have always been brave souls--the rebels of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the members of Solidarity in Poland, the dissidents of the Soviet Union, the champions of Tiananmen Square--willing to sacrifice their own existence to achieve freedom for their fellow citizens. But let's face it; most of us would rather be red--or any other color--than dead. And that's hardly an irrational choice, for even in a dictatorship, one is often free to enjoy family and friends and some of the mundane pleasures of life.

Which brings us to Iraq. The chaos and mayhem there has reached (or surpassed) a point when it may not be unsound to say that Iraqis were better off under Saddam Hussein. Think of it this way: in the years since George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed. The most recent statistics are staggering. In May and June, according to the United Nations, six thousand Iraqis were slain. Recently, the health ministry noted that 1,850 Baghdad residents were killed in July alone and 3,438 civilians were killed throughout the country. That is, in a three-month period, about 10,000 Iraqis have lost their lives in the troubles the invasion—and the poorly planned occupation—gave birth to. Yet despite these harrowing numbers, President Bush, according to The New York Times, is befuddled by the lack of public support among Iraqis for the American mission in their country.

As we all are aware, pre-invasion Iraq was a nasty place in terms of human rights and political freedoms. But in the years prior to the invasion, there was not this level of slaughter. Amnesty International's 2002 report notes that "scores of people, including possible prisoners of conscience and armed forces officers suspected of planning to overthrow the government, were executed." Scores of suspected government opponents were arrested, and their fates and whereabouts were unknown.

Scores of people killed--that's what now happens on a daily, rather than annual, basis. Of course, there were brutal and horrific acts of mass murder during Saddam Hussein's reign. The Anfal campaign of the late 1980s--which included chemical weapons attacks on Kurdish villages--led to the deaths of tens of thousands and the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands. Saddam's repression of the Shiite rebellion of 199--which came at the end of the first Persian Gulf war after President George H.W. Bush called on Iraqis to overthrow the dictator and then did nothing to support the uprising--resulted in about 30,000 Shiite deaths. Since the invasion, the discovery of mass graves has reminded the world of these atrocities.

But the United States took no action at the time of these nightmares to stop the killings. And in the years since the Gulf War, a weakened Saddam had not repeated such genocidal acts. That is hardly praise. But let's be blunt: Far many more Iraqis have died due to the war Bush started than were killed by Saddam in the years prior to the invasion. The total number of civilian Iraqi deaths may well be more than 100,000. (The equivalent loss for the United States would be more than 1 million people.) This is much more than the recent death counts in Lebanon and Israel--which spark justifiable outrage on each side.

I imagine that hardheaded advocates of the war will say that such is the price of liberty, that eggs must be broken. Yet here's the rub: The Iraqi people did not decide that such a cost was worth bearing. They had it imposed upon them. In the examples of anti-communist rebellions cited above, freedom fighters in those countries were willing to take the risk and put their own lives at stake. They could determine if they wished to be dead rather than red. In Iraq, there was no such indigenous calculation. People in another country decided they knew what was best for Iraqis. And they then botched the job.

The Saddam regime is gone; that's true. But given what has taken its place, it would not be an irrational choice for many Iraqis to prefer the Iraq of 2002 rather than the Iraq of 2006. Think about it. Most Iraqis before the invasion--like most citizens in most repressive states--managed to get by. They may not have had freedoms, but they had their friends and relatives. They still fell in love, had sex, had families, played with their kids, followed sports. The lucky ones--like the lucky ones in all countries--had meaningful work. Now millions of Iraqis have lost a loved one. And in return, they have a country that is unstable and on the brink of collapse, and their daily lives are marked by crime and deep uncertainty involving life and death. It's a different sort of terror than what George W. Bush speaks of.

Is it better to be free in an environment of violent chaos than safe in circumstances without freedom? I'm not arrogant enough to say that I know the answer. I might well choose a life without political freedoms rather than lose my wife or children. Live free or die, they say in New Hampshire. But how many people really believe that? In any event, that choice should be left to those who are actually willing to die to make the point. The 100,000 or so dead Iraqis cannot tell us what they would prefer.

Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and the other supporters of this war are responsible for the consequences of their actions--or they ought to be. One result is that tens of thousands of Iraqis are now dead who would not have been had the invasion not happened. Given that Bush hails the preciousness of each life when the subject is embryonic stem-cell research, I wonder why the Iraq war is not judged--and acknowledged--an abysmal failure by its creators. Do they not believe Iraqi lives are as valuable as frozen embryos?

Before the war, Bush and his aides said the primary rationale for the war was neutralizing a direct WMD threat to the United States. That turned out to be bogus. They also claimed that bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq would have a positive effect on the entire Middle East. Strike that, too. Additionally, they claimed the war would save the Iraqi people. Instead, it has created a hell for many Iraqis. The carnage that has come about due to Bush's invasion is unforgivable. In defending the war, Bush often points to the fact that a brutal dictator has been removed from power. But so profound is Bush's failure in Iraq that there is increasing merit to the argument that this single positive achievement was not worth the cost.

Let's ask all the dead Iraqis what they think.

Posted by David Corn at 01:13 PM

August 15, 2006

New Thread

No posting today. It's a lazy, hazy day of August. Post away yourselves in the comments section. Be back tomorrow.

Posted by David Corn at 05:03 PM

August 14, 2006

On the Run

Is the ceasefire holding? Did George W. Bush convince you with his "I believe in freedom" remarks at today's press conference that he has a grip on the Iraq war and the Middle East crisis? In any event, I'm on the run. Coming back (to a computer near you) soon.

Posted by David Corn at 09:34 PM

August 13, 2006

Progress?

You might have seen the below news item. I just did:

ISTANBUL, Aug 10, 2006 (AFP) - Iraq needs one to two years to rebuild its security forces, Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi said here Thursday despite predictions they would be fully operational by the end of the year.

Hashemi said remarks by President Jalal Talabani that the country's army and police would take full charge of security in the country by the end of 2006 were premature.

"It is still early to say that. I do not believe that security will be perfect by the end of the year," Hashemi, on a private visit to Turkey, told the CNN Turk news channel when asked about Talabani's remarks last week.

"The biggest challenge is the reconstruction of the security forces. The problem is that we do not have professional forces," he said. "It will take one to two years to reconstruct those forces, to train and arm them."

I guess a lot more progress has been achieved since Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney said two years ago that much had been done by that point to create a new Iraqi security force. Question: when are US leaders going to be as candid as Iraqi leaders on the situation in Iraq?

By the way, that's a rhetorical question.

Posted by David Corn at 08:58 PM

August 12, 2006

Connections

From today's Washington Post:

U.S. and European officials described Pakistan yesterday as the hub of a plot to down transatlantic flights, saying the young British men allegedly behind the planned attacks drew financial and logistical support from sponsors operating in Karachi and Lahore.

At least 17 suspects in British custody for the aviation plot have family ties to Pakistan, and several had traveled there in recent months to seek instructions and confer with unknown conspirators, intelligence officials said yesterday, discussing several elements of the investigation on the condition of anonymity.
Pakistan's government, portraying itself as a reliable ally against terrorism, said it had made at least seven arrests connected to the plot but insisted that the conspiracy was centered in neighboring Afghanistan. Two of the men in custody there were British citizens.

Officials emphasized that they were not certain the alleged conspiracy had been entirely broken up. "There is serious concern about potential operatives still out there plotting," a senior U.S. administration official said. "There are people we are still concerned about and people we want arrested and questions we need answered."

One U.S. law enforcement official said British authorities and the FBI were investigating whether some of the suspects attended training camps in Pakistan. "The Pakistan connection is the big focus now," said one intelligence source. "Everything is coming out of there."

As of now, there's far more of a connection between Pakistan and the latest terror plot than there was between Iraq and 9/11. Time to invade?

Posted by David Corn at 10:33 PM

Terror and Iraq: The Missing Link

A lot's going on. The terror plot. Joe Lieberman--following in the steps of Dick Cheney (see below)--trying to exploit this news politically. More chaos in Iraq. The war in Israel and Lebanon. (Is the United States really supplying more cluster bombs to the Israelis?) But I was climbing on dunes today, swimming a freshwater pond, and taking the kids to a Shakespeare show. But I will say this: I am hard-pressed to see how the war in Iraq has anything to do with the (I hope) thwarted airliner-bombing plot. Unless, of course, one wants to argue that the United States and Britain are even more despised by jihadists because of the Iraq invasion. Given that the plotters apparently had ties to Pakistan, not any Middle East nation, the US actions in Iraq seem unlikely to slow down such scheming. But I am sure Dick Cheney can explain why such a view is wrong.

Posted by David Corn at 12:02 AM

August 10, 2006

Cheney's Latest Low Blow

Just posted the below in my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

Mayhem in Iraq. Global warming on the warpath. National debt to the moon. There's much to moan about. But it's the little things that sometimes can tick one off the most. For instance, in the news today of Ned Lamont's win over Joe Lieberman, there was the remark from Dick Cheney that suggested al Qaeda was buoyed by Lieberman's defeat. The veep said that anti-American terrorists are "betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task. And when they see the Democratic Party reject one of its own, a man they selected to be their vice presidential nominee just a few short years ago, it would seem to say a lot about the state the party is in today."

Two points. First, it was Cheney's boss, George W. Bush, who ran for the presidency in 2000 vowing to change the tone of partisan political discourse in Washington. I know that's a promise that was never kept. But what a nasty shot from Cheney. Neither he nor Bush seem to realize that even though they are GOP partisans they are still president and the vice president of the entire nation and actually have a higher standard to meet than the usual political hacks (including those in their own employ). Yet they show no interest in doing so. Again, nothing new about that.

Second, the disruption of the latest suspected terrorist plot--the one to blow up airliners heading to the United States from London--illustrates that the evildoers are probably not developing their plans based on the outcome of primary elections in the Nutmeg State. Moreover, American policy should not be held hostage to what America's enemies want or don't want. The debate is over what's best for the United States (and the rest of the world). To suggest one path or another would hearten the "terrorists" is to avoid a serious discussion. But what else would you expect from a fellow who still believes he was right to say a year ago that the Iraqi insurgency was in its "last throes"?

Posted by David Corn at 10:42 PM

August 09, 2006

Can Lamont Win the Next One?

I'm a bit far away from the Lamont-Lieberman story. Not geographically, but spiritually. On vacation and still sleep-deprived from finishing a book (while on vacation). But I do wonder how Ned Lamont can win if Joe Lieberman stays in the race. The math is pretty daunting. One of my Nation colleagues sent me a note saying that he believes Lieberman--despite his vow to stay in the race--will eventually be forced out by Democratic poohbahs. But there is a history of Northeastern senators stubbornly staying beyond their welcome. A liberal New York Republican, Jacob Javits, lost the primary election to Alfonse D'Amato in 1980 and then ran as an independent and split the liberal vote (drawing votes from Democratic candidate Elizabeth Holtzman). This allowed conservative D'Amato to win. In Connecticut, Senator Lowell Weicker had a history as a crusty maverick. After being defeated by Lieberman in 1988, he came back and as an independent beat the GOP and Democratic candidates for governor. These are not exact parallels. I only suggest that a stubborn Lieberman can do a world of harm to Lamont (which is probably most on his mind at the moment) and might even be able to win (if Republicans and indies in the state want to stick it to Lamont). In the meantime, see what I wrote a month ago about the possible meaning of the Connecticut race for Hillary Clinton and other Democrats eying the White House--click here. I think it still holds up. Back to the beach....

Posted by David Corn at 11:17 PM

August 08, 2006

I Can See Clearly Now?

Galleys for the new book are done! Finally. Well, sort of. One more short look at them will come in ten days. But it's basically over. So have I missed anything in the papers the past few days? Let me know. In the meantime, I'm going to the beach. Will be back soon--maybe.

Posted by David Corn at 03:14 PM

August 07, 2006

If This Is Progress....

I'm still crashing on the galleys--and will be for another day or two. Thus, the news flies by me without much regard (from me). But I did spot the front-page story By Dexter Filkins in The New York Times yesterday that appeared under the headline, "Baghdad's Chaos Disrupts Plans to Cut U.S. Force." It began:

Over the past year, as American commanders pushed Iraqi forces to take over responsibility for this violent capital, Baghdad became a markedly more dangerous place.

Now the Americans are being forced to call in more of their own troops to bring the city under control.

The failure of the Iraqis to halt the slide into chaos in Baghdad undercuts the central premise of the American project here: that Iraqi forces can be trained and equipped to secure their own country, allowing the Americans to go home.

A review of previously unreleased statistics on American and Iraqi patrols suggests that as Americans handed over responsibilities to the Iraqis, violence in Baghdad increased.

Now here's a game you can play at home: find the most recent instances that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld said that "progress" was being made in Iraq. Post the citations in the comments section below.

Posted by David Corn at 08:20 AM

August 05, 2006

Fret on Your Own (But Read About the Neocons)

Not only am I still on vacation (sort of); I now have to review the galleys of my forthcoming book within the next few days. So please forgive the lack of blogging on my part and fret among yourselves in the comment section below.

But I did--thanks to a friend--see a rather interesting piece in Haaretz on Friday: a plea from an Israeli to other Israelis to break with the neocons of the United States. In this piece, Daniel Levy, who helped negotiate the Oslo agreement, essentially argues that Washington's neocons are bad for the Jews (of Israel). Two key paragraphs:

Finding themselves somewhat bogged down in the Iraqi quagmire, the neoconservatives are reveling in the latest crisis, displaying their customary hubris in re-seizing the initiative. The U.S. press and blogosphere is awash with neocon-inspired calls for indefinite shooting, no talking and extension of hostilities to Syria and Iran, with Gingrich calling this a third world war to "defend civilization."

Disentangling Israeli interests from the rubble of neocon "creative destruction" in the Middle East has become an urgent challenge for Israeli policy-makers. An America that seeks to reshape the region through an unsophisticated mixture of bombs and ballots, devoid of local contextual understanding, alliance-building or redressing of grievances, ultimately undermines both itself and Israel. The sight this week of Secretary of State Rice homeward bound, unable to touch down in any Arab capital, should have a sobering effect in Washington and Jerusalem.

Read the rest here.

Posted by David Corn at 12:40 AM

August 04, 2006

No Comment

Still vacationing--or vacating--but I did notice this.

From the front page of Wednesday's New York Times:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 2--The camouflaged Iraqi commandos who kidnapped 20 people from a pair of central Baghdad offices this week used Interior Ministry vehicles and left little trace of their true identities.

Were they legitimate officers? Members of a Shiite or Sunni death squad? Or criminals in counterfeit uniforms bought at the market?
Majid Hamid, 41, a Sunni human rights worker whose brother was kidnapped and killed by men in uniform four months ago, said he doubted that the answer would ever be known. Now, he said, the authorities normally trusted to investigate may be responsible for the crime.

"Whenever I see uniforms now, I figure they must be militias," Mr. Hamid said in a recent interview. "I immediately try to avoid them. If I have my gun, I know I need to be ready to use it."

Such is the attitude of Iraqis in this capital shellshocked and made fearful by violence that seems to be committed almost daily by men dressed as those who are supposed to protect and serve. The audacious kidnapping on Monday was just the latest case of men using the signals of law and safety--a uniform, a vehicle with blue lights, a patch on the sleeve--to attack and abduct.

Everywhere Iraqis in uniform go, from ice cream shops to checkpoints, people now flee. The mottled mix of green, blue and khaki camouflage, along with the blue shirts of the local police, have all blurred into a flag for alarm. "En eles," Iraqis in Baghdad now say when a friend has been taken; in traditional Arabic it means chewed up, but in the streets it has come to mean taken by mysterious men without explanation.

From a CNN interview with Dick Cheney on June 22, 2006:

We've got a quarter of a million Iraqis now in UNIFORM, equipped, trained, in the fight.

Emphasis added. And let me add one comment--as a public service--so no one gets the impression that Cheney knows what he's talking about. In February, the Pentagon disclosed that not a single Iraqi battalion was able to function on its own. That's hardly "in the fight."

Posted by David Corn at 12:14 AM

August 02, 2006

New Thread

I did the gig at the Payomet Theater tonight. Will report on it later. (Boy, are my arms tired.) In the meantime, start a new conversation below.

Posted by David Corn at 11:51 PM

RNC Overkill and Jack Murtha

Several times in recent years, Bush has said that he believes it is appropriate and healthy for the citizens of this country to debate what should be done in Iraq, and he has called for what he has termed responsible discourse. But his own Republican Party apparently did not get the memo. The other day I received an email from the GOP deriding Representative Jack Murtha, the hawkish House Democrat who has turned against the war and who now calls for withdrawing US troops from the mess in Iraq. The email was hardly "responsible" debate. Noting that Murtha intends to campaign for 41 House Democratic candidates, it mocked his "cut-and-run tour."

This has become the GOP's mantra. If a Democrat questions the mission in Iraq and calls for even the consideration of disengagement, he or she is blasted by GOPers for wanting to "cut and run." Again and again, it's cut-and-run, cut-and-run. This is in the line of the tax-and-spend charge that Republicans used to hurl at Democrats.

In this email, the Republican National Committee accuses Murtha of having "compared Americans to Saddam Hussein." This is mean-spirited silliness. The basis for the charge is that Murtha said on the House floor that 900,000 people fled Iraq when it was ruled by Saddam and that the same number of Iraqis have left the country since the invasion. So, you see, he's really equating Americans with Saddam. Really.

The email also excoriates Murtha for having voted for the first Persian Gulf War and for the legislation granting George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq before changing his mind and calling for redeploying US troops out of Iraq. And the email claims he is "just another liberal Democrat who supports higher taxes."

The email is yet more evidence of Republican hypocrisy. But--more important--it's a sign that the RNC is scared of Murtha and his 41-city tour. Otherwise, why bother with the absurd overkill? The war gets worse by the day. Bush says and does nothing to inspire confidence. He barely recognizes the challenge of dealing with the rising sectarian conflict in Iraq. Yet the Republicans, following a Rove-ian strategy, have embraced the war (a potential liability) as an asset, adhering to stay-the-coursism, as they decry cut-and-runners. Will this work as a political strategy? We'll have to wait for the election results. But one thing's for sure: it's not, by any stretch, responsible debate.

Posted by David Corn at 12:10 AM