Coming
Soon!
From Common Courage Press
Recent
Stories
June
26, 2003
Paul
de Rooij
Ambient Death in Palestine
Uri
Avnery
The Best Show in Town
June 25, 2003
Bruce
Jackson
Buffalo Cops Wage War on Pedal Pushers
Mickey
Z.
The New Dark Ages
David Lindorff
Indonesia's War on Journalists
Dan
Bacher
Butterflies and Farmworkers Confront USDA and Riot Cops
Adam Federman
"Success is Not the Issue Here"
Elaine
Cassel
"Ain't No Justice": Fed Judge Quits, Assails Sentencing
Guidelines
Bill Kauffman
My America vs. the Empire
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25
Website
of the Day
You Are Being Watched:
Elevator Moods
June
24, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Supreme Indemnity
Holocaust Denial at the High Court
Roya
Monajem
A Message from Tehran: Is It Worth
It to Risk One's Life?
John
Chuckman
The Real Clash of Civilizations
David Lindorff
WMD Damage Control at the Times
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/24
June
23, 2003
Marc
Pritzke
Washington Lied: an Interview with
Ray McGovern
Conn
Hallinan
The Consistency of Sharon
Wayne Madsen
Commercials, Disney & Amistad
Edward
Said
The Meaning of Rachel Corrie
Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/23
June
21 / 22, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
My Life as a Rabbi
William
A. Cook
The Scourge of Hopelessness
Standard
Schaefer
The Wages of Terror: an Interview with R.T. Naylor
Ron Jacobs
US Prisons as Strategic Hamlets
Harry
Browne
The Pitstop Ploughshares
Lawrence
Magnuson
WMD: The Most Dangerous Game
Harold
Gould
Saddam and the WMD Mystery
David Krieger
10 Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Avia
Pasternak
The Unholy Alliance in the Occupied Territories
CounterPunch
Summer Reading:
Our Favorite Novels
Todd Chretien
Return to Sender: Todd Gitlin, the Duke of Condescension
Maria
Tomchick
Danny Goldberg's Imaginary Kids
Adam Engel
The Fat Man in Little Boy
Poets'
Basement
Guthrie, Albert & Hamod
June 20, 2003
Walter
Brasch
Down on Our Knees
Robert
Meeropol
The Son of the Rosenbergs on His Parents Death and Bush's America
Russell
Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Grannies and Baby Bells
Norman
Madarasz
Pierre Bourgault: the Life of a
Quebec Radical
Gary
Leupp
Bush on "Revisionist Historians"
Steve
Perry
Bush's Lies
Marathon: the Finale
June
19, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Bush Plays the Racial Profiling Card:
It's a Smokescreen
Brian
Cloughley
Punch-and-Judy in the West Wing:
The Powell-Rice Show
David Lindorff
What's Next?
Mark
Jacobs
A Serious Conversation: a Former Foreign Service Officer on Diplomacy
in the Age of Bush
Alfredo
Castro
Bloodbath in Colombia: The Army and the Death Squads
Saul
Landau
Lying, Flag Waving and Redefining
Conservative Values
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log, 6/19
June
18, 2003
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
Elaine
Cassel
Dark Star Chambers: Secret Trials,
Nameless Defendents, Veiled Threats to Defense Lawyers
Col.
Daniel Smith
Iraq's WMDs: Integrity, Ethics and
Intelligence
Chris
Fagen
Ignoring the World's Bloodiest War
Rick
Fantasia and Kim Voss
Bush's Low Intensity War on Labor
Sam
Hamod
Theater of Deception: Bush, Sharon,
Abbas
M.
Shahid Alam
Illuminating Tom Friedman
Jon
Brown
Greens & Dems: a Reply to Publius
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log, 6/18
June
17, 2003
Dr.
Susan Block
Sex, Lies and WMDs
Elaine
Cassel
Scalia, the Rumsfeld of the Supremes
Roger Burbach
Brazil Under Lula
Dan
Bacher
The WTO's War on Salmon
Peter
Phillips and Jason Spencer
Entertainment Media 2003
Nuclear
Age Peace Foundation
The Challenge of Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century
Wayne Madsen
Outting Ashcroft's Latest Hypocrisy
Larry
Kearney
Starlight
Steve
Perry
The Bush Administration
Lies Marathon, Day 3
June
16, 2003
Frida
Berrigan
Death in Aceh: US Weapon Aid the
Repression
Publius
Candidate Dem and Citizen Green
Tarif
Abboushi
Roadmap or Roadkill?
Rep. John
Conyers
Bush's Deceptions about Iraq Threaten Democracy at Home
Julian
Samuel
A Review of Pilger's The New Rulers of the World
Uri
Avnery
The Children of Death
Steve
Perry
Bush's Lies,
Part 2
June
14 / 15, 2003
Edward
Said
A Roadmap to What and Where?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pryor Unrestraint: Killer Bill Pryor's
Mad Quest for the Federal Bench
David Lindorff
Rumsfeld v. Belgium
Jennifer
Loewenstein
Suicide's Most Willing Accomplice
Lee Sustar
US Tax System: Rigged for the Rich
Ben
Tripp
Of Dissidents and Dissonance
William
S. Lind
Lies, Damned Lies and Military Intelligence
Joanne
Mariner
Rebellious Judges
Gila Svirsky
A Macabre Alliance
Mickey
Z.
Where We Are
Chris Floyd
Metaphysics as a Guide to Murder
Noah
Leavitt
Peru as Our Crystal Ball?
Yves Engler
and Bianca Mugyenyi
The G8 and Africa
Dr.
Gerry Lower
Dear Rudy, Let's Get Those Damned Liberals
Ted Dace
A Review of Kovel's The Enemy of Nature
Adam
Engel
Midnight at the Apocalyptic Pancake
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Greeder, Albert, and O'Hayer
Website
of the Weekend
AEI: Starts Wars; Creates
Poverty
June
13, 2003
David
Vest
Bush
Roadmap to What?
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Reloaded?
John
Chuckman
The Man Who Wasn't There
Jason Leopold
Six Months Before War White House Silenced Critics of WMD Intelligence
Michael
Leon
Missing Weapons, Shrinking Bush and the Media
Negar Azimi
Ashcroft's Cruel Version of America
Saul
Landau
Shiite Happens
Hammond
Guthrie
Then and Now
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/13
June
12, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Intel-gate Row in Britain: a Chronology
Ahmad Faruqui
The Tragic Legacy of the Six Day
War
Wayne
Madsen
Unfit for Office: Time for Rumsfeld to Resign
Laura Carlsen
Hunger and Security
Tarif
Abboushi
Warm and Fuzzy in Aqaba
Ray
McGovern
Deceived into War: Reflections of
a Former CIA Analyst
Steve
Perry
Counting Bush's
Lies, part 2
Hot Stories
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
June
26, 2003
This is No Game
Road
of Cover-Up is a Road to Ruin
By Senator ROBERT BYRD
Last fall, the White House released a national
security strategy that called for an end to the doctrines of
deterrence and containment that have been a hallmark of American
foreign policy for more than half a century.
This new national security strategy is
based upon pre-emptive war against those who might threaten our
security.
Such a strategy of striking first against
possible dangers is heavily reliant upon interpretation of accurate
and timely intelligence. If we are going to hit first, based
on perceived dangers, the perceptions had better be accurate.
If our intelligence is faulty, we may launch pre-emptive wars
against countries that do not pose a real threat against us.
Or we may overlook countries that do pose real threats to our
security, allowing us no chance to pursue diplomatic solutions
to stop a crisis before it escalates to war. In either case lives
could be needlessly lost. In other words, we had better be certain
that we can discern the imminent threats from the false alarms.
Ninety-six days ago [as of June 24],
President Bush announced that he had initiated a war to "disarm
Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger."
The President told the world: "Our nation enters this conflict
reluctantly--yet, our purpose is sure. The people of the United
States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy
of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of
mass murder." [Address to the Nation, 3/19/03]
The President has since announced that
major combat operations concluded on May 1. He said: "Major
combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq,
the United States and our allies have prevailed." Since
then, the United States has been recognized by the international
community as the occupying power in Iraq. And yet, we have not
found any evidence that would confirm the officially stated reason
that our country was sent to war; namely, that Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction constituted a grave threat to the United
States.
We have heard a lot about revisionist
history from the White House of late in answer to those who question
whether there was a real threat from Iraq. But, it is the President
who appears to me to be intent on revising history. There is
an abundance of clear and unmistakable evidence that the Administration
sought to portray Iraq as a direct and deadly threat to the American
people. But there is a great difference between the hand-picked
intelligence that was presented by the Administration to Congress
and the American people when compared against what we have actually
discovered in Iraq. This Congress and the people who sent us
here are entitled to an explanation from the Administration.
On January 28, 2003, President Bush said
in his State of the Union Address: "The British government
has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities
of uranium from Africa." [State of the Union, 1/28/03, pg.
7] Yet, according to news reports, the CIA knew that this claim
was false as early as March 2002. In addition, the International
Atomic Energy Agency has since discredited this allegation.
On February 5, Secretary of State Colin
Powell told the United Nations Security Council: "Our conservative
estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and
500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000
battlefield rockets." [Remarks to UN Security Council, 2/5/03,
pg. 12] The truth is, to date we have not found any of this material,
nor those thousands of rockets loaded with chemical weapons.
On February 8, President Bush told the
nation: "We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein
recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons--the
very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have." [Radio
Address, 2/8/03] We are all relieved that such weapons were not
used, but it has not yet been explained why the Iraqi army did
not use them. Did the Iraqi army flee their positions before
chemical weapons could be used? If so, why were the weapons not
left behind? Or is it that the army was never issued chemical
weapons? We need answers.
On March 16, the Sunday before the war
began, in an interview with Tim Russert, Vice President Cheney
said that Iraqis want "to get rid of Saddam Hussein and
they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come
to do that." He added, "...the vast majority of them
would turn on [Saddam Hussein] in in a minute if, in fact, they
thought they could do so safely." [Meet the Press, 3/16/03,
pg. 6] But in fact, today Iraqi cities remain in disorder, our
troops are under attack, our occupation government lives and
works in fortified compounds, and we are still trying to determine
the fate of the ousted, murderous dictator.
On March 30, Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld, during the height of the war, said of the search for
weapons of mass destruction: "We know where they are. They're
in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south,
and north somewhat." [This Week, 3/30/03, pg. 8] But Baghdad
fell to our troops on April 9, and Tikrit on April 14, and the
intelligence Secretary Rumsfeld spoke about has not led us to
any weapons of mass destruction.
Whether or not intelligence reports were
bent, stretched, or massaged to make Iraq look like an imminent
threat to the United States, it is clear that the Administration's
rhetoric played upon the well-founded fear of the American public
about future acts of terrorism. But, upon close examination,
many of these statements have nothing to do with intelligence,
because they are at root just sound bites based on conjecture.
They are designed to prey on public fear.
The face of Osama bin Laden morphed into
that of Saddam Hussein. President Bush carefully blurred these
images in his State of the Union Address. Listen to this quote
from his State of the Union Address: "Imagine those 19 hijackers
with other weapons and other plans--this time armed by Saddam
Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped
into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have
ever known." [State of the Union, 1/28/03, pg. 7] Judging
by this speech, not only is the President confusing al Qaeda
and Iraq, but he also appears to give a vote of no-confidence
to our homeland security efforts. Isn't the White House, the
brains behind the Department of Homeland Security? Isn't the
Administration supposed to be stopping those vials, canisters,
and crates from entering our country, rather than trying to scare
our fellow citizens half to death about them?
Not only did the Administration warn
about more hijackers carrying deadly chemicals, the White House
even went so far as to suggest that the time it would take for
U.N. inspectors to find solid, 'smoking gun' evidence of Saddam's
illegal weapons would put the U.S. at greater risk of a nuclear
attack from Iraq. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice was
quoted as saying on September 9, 2002, by the Los Angeles Times,
"We don't want the 'smoking gun' to be a mushroom cloud."
[Los Angeles Times, "Threat by Iraq Grows, U.S. Says,"
9/9/02] Talk about hype! Mushroom clouds? Where is the evidence
for this? There isn't any.
On September 26, 2002, just two weeks
before Congress voted on a resolution to allow the President
to invade Iraq, and six weeks before the mid-term elections,
President Bush himself built the case that Iraq was plotting
to attack the United States. After meeting with members of Congress
on that date, the President said: "The danger to our country
is grave. The danger to our country is growing. The Iraqi regime
possesses biological and chemical weapons.... The regime is seeking
a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material, could build one within
a year."
These are the President's words. He said
that Saddam Hussein is "seeking a nuclear bomb." Have
we found any evidence to date of this chilling allegation? No.
But, President Bush continued on that
autumn day: "The dangers we face will only worsen from month
to month and from year to year. To ignore these threats is to
encourage them. And when they have fully materialized it may
be too late to protect ourselves and our friends and our allies.
By then the Iraqi dictator would have the means to terrorize
and dominate the region. Each passing day could be the one on
which the Iraqi regime gives anthrax or VX--nerve gas--or some
day a nuclear weapon to a terrorist ally." [Rose Garden
Remarks, 9/26/02]
And yet, seven weeks after declaring
victory in the war against Iraq, we have seen nary a shred of
evidence to support his claims of grave dangers, chemical weapons,
links to al Qaeda, or nuclear weapons.
Just days before a vote on a resolution
that handed the President unprecedented war powers, President
Bush stepped up the scare tactics. On October 7, just four days
before the October 11 vote in the Senate on the war resolution,
the President stated: "We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda
terrorist network share a common enemy--the United States of
America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts
that go back a decade." President Bush continued: "We've
learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making
and poisons and deadly gasses.... Alliance with terrorists could
allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any
fingerprints."
President Bush also elaborated on claims
of Iraq's nuclear program when he said: "The evidence indicates
that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam
Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists,
a group he calls his 'nuclear mujahideen'--his nuclear holy warriors....
If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount
of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball,
it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year." [Cincinnati
Museum Center, 10/7/02, pg. 3-4]
This is the kind of pumped up intelligence
and outrageous rhetoric that were given to the American people
to justify war with Iraq. This is the same kind of hyped evidence
that was given to Congress to sway its vote for war on October
11, 2002.
We hear some voices say, but why should
we care? After all, the United States won the war, didn't it?
Saddam Hussein is no more; he is either dead or on the run. What
does it matter if reality does not reveal the same grim picture
that was so carefully painted before the war? So what if the
menacing characterizations that conjured up visions of mushroom
clouds and American cities threatened with deadly germs and chemicals
were overdone? So what?
Our sons and daughters who serve in uniform
answered a call to duty. They were sent to the hot sands of the
Middle East to fight in a war that has already cost the lives
of 194 Americans, thousands of innocent civilians, and unknown
numbers of Iraqi soldiers. Our troops are still at risk. Hardly
a day goes by that there is not another attack on the troops
who are trying to restore order to a country teetering on the
brink of anarchy. When are they coming home?
The President told the American people
that we were compelled to go to war to secure our country from
a grave threat. Are we any safer today than we were on March
18, 2003? Our nation has been committed to rebuilding a country
ravaged by war and tyranny, and the cost of that task is being
paid in blood and treasure every day.
It is in the compelling national interest
to examine what we were told about the threat from Iraq. It is
in the compelling national interest to know if the intelligence
was faulty. It is in the compelling national interest to know
if the intelligence was distorted.
Congress must face this issue squarely.
Congress should begin immediately an investigation into the intelligence
that was presented to the American people about the pre-war estimates
of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and the way in which
that intelligence might have been misused. This is no time for
a timid Congress. We have a responsibility to act in the national
interest and protect the American people. We must get to the
bottom of this matter.
Although some timorous steps have been
taken in the past few days to begin a review of this intelligence--I
must watch my terms carefully, for I may be tempted to use the
words "investigation" or "inquiry" to describe
this review, and those are terms which I am told are not supposed
to be used--the proposed measures appear to fall short of what
the situation requires. We are already shading our terms about
how to describe the proposed review of intelligence: cherry-picking
words to give the American people the impression that the government
is fully in control of the situation, and that there is no reason
to ask tough questions. This is the same problem that got us
into this controversy about slanted intelligence reports. Word
games. Lots and lots of word games.
Well, this is no game. For the first
time in our history, the United States has gone to war because
of intelligence reports claiming that a country posed a threat
to our nation. Congress should not be content to use standard
operating procedures to look into this extraordinary matter.
We should accept no substitute for a full, bipartisan investigation
by Congress into the issue of our pre-war intelligence on the
threat from Iraq and its use.
The purpose of such an investigation
is not to play pre-election year politics, nor is it to engage
in what some might call "revisionist history." Rather
it is to get at the truth. The longer questions are allowed to
fester about what our intelligence knew about Iraq, and when
they knew it, the greater the risk that the people--the American
people whom we are elected to serve--will lose confidence in
our government.
This looming crisis of trust is not limited
to the public. Many of my colleagues were willing to trust the
Administration and vote to authorize war against Iraq. Many members
of this body trusted so much that they gave the President sweeping
authority to commence war. As President Reagan famously said,
"Trust, but verify." Despite my opposition, the Senate
voted to blindly trust the President with unprecedented power
to declare war. While the reconstruction continues, so do the
questions, and it is time to verify.
I have served the people of West Virginia
in Congress for half a century. I have witnessed deceit and scandal,
cover up and aftermath. I have seen Presidents of both parties
who once enjoyed great popularity among the people leave office
in disgrace because they misled the American people. I say to
this Administration: do not circle the wagons. Do not discourage
the seeking of truth in these matters.
The American people have questions that
need to be answered about why we went to war with Iraq. To attempt
to deny the relevance of these questions is to trivialize the
people's trust.
The business of intelligence is secretive
by necessity, but our government is open by design. We must be
straight with the American people. Congress has the obligation
to investigate the use of intelligence information by the Administration,
in the open, so that the American people can see that those who
exercise power, especially the awesome power of preemptive war,
must be held accountable. We must not go down the road of cover-up.
That is the road to ruin.
Senator Robert C. Byrd represents West
Virginia.
Weekend
Edition Features
Alexander
Cockburn
My Life as a Rabbi
William
A. Cook
The Scourge of Hopelessness
Standard
Schaefer
The Wages of Terror: an Interview with R.T. Naylor
Ron Jacobs
US Prisons as Strategic Hamlets
Harry
Browne
The Pitstop Ploughshares
Lawrence
Magnuson
WMD: The Most Dangerous Game
Harold
Gould
Saddam and the WMD Mystery
David Krieger
10 Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Avia
Pasternak
The Unholy Alliance in the Occupied Territories
CounterPunch
Summer Reading:
Our Favorite Novels
Todd Chretien
Return to Sender: Todd Gitlin, the Duke of Condescension
Maria
Tomchick
Danny Goldberg's Imaginary Kids
Adam Engel
The Fat Man in Little Boy
Poets'
Basement
Guthrie, Albert & Hamod
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|