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The War So Far: a Failure Worse Than Vietnam by Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad "The need for the White House to produce a fantasy picture of Iraq is because it dare not admit that it has engineered one of the greatest disasters in American history. It is worse than Vietnam because the enemy is punier and the original ambitions greater." Get the answers you're looking for in the subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 |
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Otober 27, 2005 Lila Rajiva Ilan Pappe Stuart Hodkinson Cockburn / St. Clair
October 26, 2005 Kathy Kelly Gary Leupp Mike Marqusee Eric Ruder Patrick Cockburn Joshua Frank J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Website of
the Day
October 25, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts Ken Sengupta / Patrick Cockburn Conn Hallinan Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Jackie Corr Robert Day John Sugg
October 24, 2005 Dave Lindorff Michael Donnelly Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Norman Solomon Bill and Kathleen
Christison
October 22 / 23, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Billy Sothern Saul Landau Ralph Nader Behrooz Ghamari Brian Cloughley Diana Barahona Fred Gardner Lee Sustar Patrick Cockburn Laura Carlsen James Petras Joshua Frank Manuel Garcia,
Jr. Michelle Bollinger Missy Comley
Beattie Kona Lowell Ben Tripp Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Website of
the Day
October 21, 2005 Dave Lindorff Winslow T. Wheeler Col. Dan Smith Norman Solomon Madis Senner Michael Donnelly
Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Jeremy Brecher
/ Patrick Cockburn Kevin Zeese Ross Eisenbrey Randy Shields Justine Davidson After Lucas
Cranach Joe Allen
October 19, 2005 Christopher Reed Stephen Soldz Chet Richards Patrick Cockburn Scott Richard
Lyons Ralph Nader Website of
the Day
October 18, 2005 Chet Flippo Ron Jacobs Keeanga-Yamahtta
Taylor Dave Lindorff Virginia Rodino Thomas Healy Ralph Nader Stephen Lendman Patrick Cockburn
October 17, 2005 Peter Linebaugh Norman Solomon Cockburn /
Sengupta Mike Whitney Uri Avnery Harold Pinter Website of
the Day
October 15 / 16, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Neve Gordon Moshe Adler Christopher Brauchli Diane Farsetta Sam Husseini Monica Benderman Mickey Z. Douglas C.
Smyth Lee Sustar Fred Gardner Elizabeth Schulte Joshua Frank David Vest Ben Tripp Poets Basement Website of
the Weekend
October 14, 2005 Farrah Hassen Ron Jacobs Sasha Kramer Katrina Yeaw Nicole Colson Raúl Zibechi Nikolas Kozloff Website of the Day
Jeremy Scahill Jeff Birkenstein Brendan Smith / Jeremy Brecher Stan Cox Anis Memon Gary Leupp Dave Zirin Matthew Koehler Werther Website of
the Day
Omar Waraich William Cook Phil Gasper Dave Lindorff Matt Vidal John Gautreaux Diana Johnstone Mark Weisbrot Brian J. Foley Website of
the Day
October 11, 2005 Roger Morris
/ Steve Schmidt Lila Rajiva Bill Quigley Paul Craig Roberts Dave Lindorff Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Mitchel Cohen Tariq Ali Website of
the Day
October 10, 2005 Cindy and Craig
Corrie Joshua Frank Gideon Levy Alan Wallis Mickey Z. CounterPunch News Service Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
October 8 / 9, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Ralph Nader Jennifer Van Bergen Saul Landau Jeff Halper Lenni Brenner Nikolas Kozloff Brian Cloughley Alice Slater John Gautreaux Fred Gardner Niranjan Ramakrishnan M.G. Piety Tom Gorman Mike Whitney Aseem Shrivastava Ben Tripp Poets' Basement
October 7, 2005 Larry Johnson Will Youmans Dave Lindorff Judith Scherr Russell D. Hoffman Jared Bernstein Jennifer Van
Bergen Website of
the Day
P. Sainath Scott Parkin Paul Craig
Roberts Andréa Schmidt Dave Lindorff Joshua Frank M. Junaid Alam Matthew Koehler Robert Pollin
October 5, 2005 Heather Gray Robert Jensen Ramzy Baroud Col. Dan Smith Dave Zirin Paul Craig Roberts Alan Maass
October 4, 2005 Nikolas Kozloff Mike Roselle Joshua Frank John Chuckman Alan Farago Mickey Z. Christine & Ethan Rose Gary Leupp Website of the Day
October 3, 2005 Vijay Prashad Paul Craig
Roberts Joshua Frank Seth Sandronsky Jeffrey St. Clair
October 1 / 2, 2005 Cockburn
/ St. Clair Dave
Marsh Ralph
Nader Flavia
Alaya Uri
Avnery Chris
Kutalik Greg
Moses Brian
J. Foley Nicole
Colson Ray
McGovern Fred
Gardner Justin
Felux Will
Youmans Mike
Ferner David
Krieger Agustin
Velloso Saul
Landau Ben
Tripp Poets
Basement Website
of the Weekend
September 30, 2005 Mary
Geddry Paul
Craig Roberts Dave
Lindorff Gregory
Wilpert Benjamin
Dangl James
McMurtry T.R.
Johnson
September 29, 2005 Sen.
Russ Feingold Carl
G. Estabrook Ramzy
Baroud Dave
Lindorff Mike
Whitney Jozef
Hand-Boniakowski Gary
Handschumacher Winslow
T. Wheeler
September 28, 2005 Dr.
Eyad Serraj William
A. Cook Liaquat
Ali Khan Mike
Whitney Joshua
Frank CounterPunch
Wire Chris
Genovali Linn
Washington, Jr.
September 27, 2005 Forrest
Hylton Jason
Leopold Jennifer
K. Harbury Ray
McGovern Mike
Ferner Antony
Loewenstein Harry
Browne
September 26, 2005 Rafael
Rodriguez Cruz Joshua
Frank Lamis
Andoni Mike
Marqusee Rep.
Cynthia McKinney Ron
Jacobs Norman
Solomon John
Chuckman Paul
Craig Roberts
September 24 / 25, 2005 Kathy
and Bill Christison Ralph
Nader Saul
Landau Greg
Moses Roger
Burbach Vijay
Prashad Laura
Carlsen Robert
Fisk Dave
Lindorff Kirkpatrick
Sale / Thomas Naylor Maj.
Anthony Milavic Brian
Concannon, Jr.
September 23, 2005 CounterPunch
News Service Diane
Farsetta Robert
Sandels Christopher
Brauchli Alan
Farago Dave
Zirin Maxine
Conant David
Price
September 22, 2005 Smith,
Wood, Leas, and Greenfield Patrick
Cockburn Manuel
Garcia, Jr. Lucia
Dailey Mokhiber
/ Weissman Russell
D. Hoffman Kona
Lowell Jason
Leopold Website
of the Day
September 21, 2005 Jorge
Mariscal Linda
S. Heard Joshua
Frank Eric
Ruder Pierre
Tristam Dave
Lindorff Mike
Ferner Missy
Comley Beattie Jeffrey
St. Clair Website
of the Day
September 20, 2005 Steve
Breyman George
Galloway Patrick
Cockburn M.
Shahid Alam Mike
Whitney Winslow
T. Wheeler Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Paul
Craig Roberts
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October 27, 2005 Forgeries, Lies and Cover-upsThe Scandal isn't the Leak, But the Illegal WarBy SAUL LANDAU
The conspiracy that bubbles around Judith Miller protecting a source -- whose name she couldn't remember -- and Robert Novak using his column to out undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame should soon evaporate. The next step should lead Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald to the heart of the matter: a much more pernicious conspiracy designed to mislead the United States into war with Iraq. The crime to name a covert CIA official pales in comparison with conspiring to lead the nation to war under false pretenses. Novak served as White House mastermind Karl Rove's press poodle. He punished former Ambassador Joseph Wilson by revealing his wife's name and ending her career on Juuly 14, 2003, eight days after Plame's husband revealed in a NY Times op-ed (July 6, 2003) the fraudulence of Bush Administration claims that Iraq had tried to purchase African uranium for its nuclear weapons program. Instead of following the logic of Wilson's story, that the White House had conspired to lead the country into an unjust war, the media focused on the leak of a CIA' official's name. Reporters should have seen the Wilson story as one piece of a larger puzzle. They should have read Wilson's Times op ed and other stories as an opening to look for who had motive to forge a document and plant it, so that the media would get properly "spun" and accept this forged paper as proof of Saddam's perfidy. Now, it begins to emerge that the White House undertook a major effort to mislead and manipulate the media and U.S. public opinion in general in order to get support for an unjust war. In February 2002, the CIA had dispatched Wilson to investigate the claim based on this document that Iraq intended to buy nuclear material. When he returned from Niger, he reported that the evidence lacked credibility, but both Bush and Cheney refused to acknowledge his refutation. So he went public in the NY Times. The unraveling of the Valerie
Plame affair is but a step toward exposing this truly epic scam.
Beyond compromising the identity of a CIA officer, the Bush administration
had carried out what former intelligence official Larry Johnson
called "a classic 'covert action' program against the citizens
of the United States." The fabricator apparently did not expect Wilson to blow the whistle on them and report that the evidence on Saddam's nuclear program lacked credibility. . Nor did they conceive that a loyal public servant such as Wilson with a wife in the Agency would go public. By mid 2002, the Bush campaign to invade Iraq was in full gear. Indeed, memos between Bush and Blair validated what Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski witnessed in the Office of Special Planning. Make up the facts and then report them as "intelligence." "If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of 'intelligence' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam occupation has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense," wrote Kwiatkowski after she retired from the OSP position. July 31, 2003 by the Ohio Beacon Journal She meant that top Rumsfeld aide, Douglas Feith, deliberately altered the methods of intelligence communication that the Pentagon routinely sent to State and CIA. Indeed, Kwiatkowski wrote that she "witnessed several cases of staff officers being told not to contact their counterparts at State or the NSC because that particular decision would be processed through a different channel." Like a virulent virus, the Cheney gang took over the OSP in what State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson called "a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made" (MSNBC Oct 20, 2005). Wilkerson charged them with "undermining democracy" (NY Times Oct 19) when they decided to make a case for war against Iraq, they had to invent stories. One of the scariest scenarios that Bush and Cheney presented to the public involved Saddam's nuclear threat. Apparently, one of Rumsefeld's aides persuaded his Italian intelligence cohorts to make up documents suggesting that Iraq was trying to buy weapons grade uranium form Niger. Despite Wilson's report to
the contrary and the doubt raised by veteran intelligence professionals,
Cheney reiterated the Niger-Iraq connection accusation. On March
24, 2002, he appeared three times on TV shows and repeated that
he knew Iraq was actively pursuing nuclear-weapons production.
On July 8, two days after Wilson revealed the hype over Iraq's nuclear weapons, Miller had a hush hush meeting with a top Cheney aide The still-classified National Intelligence Estimate, Libby told her, 'had firmly concluded that Iraq was seeking nuclear weapons.' According to a Newsweek web exclusive, Oct 19 2005 (Isikoff and Hosenbell), Libby leaked to Miller an NIE report that stated that Iraq planned to by uranium for a nuclear bomb. "My notes show that Mr. Libby consistently steered our conversation back to the administration's nuclear claims," Miller wrote (NY Times October 16, 2005) "His main theme echoed that of other senior officials: that contrary to Mr. Wilson's criticism, the administration had had ample reason to be concerned about Iraq's nuclear capabilities based on the regime's history of weapons development, its use of unconventional weapons and fresh intelligence reports." The intelligence veterans remained skeptical. How could Saddam possibly reconstruct such an effort in the midst of sanctions and bombing and after seven years (1991-98) in which the UN Weapons Inspection team had destroyed almost all of his capacity? Indeed, counterevidence seriously outweighed the report and Cheney's repeated claims. Thanks to the prolonged investigation over the Plame case, some members of the media and the rest of the public have regained their bearings. Some reporters might even recall that right after Novak published Plame's name, Bush promised publicly that he would fire any staff involved. In July, he weakened that threat to: "If someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration." In fact, Bush may have privately reprimanded Karl Rove. But as the prosecutor kept bringing back Rove and Libby to the Grand Jury, rumors began to circulate that Cheney might resign because witnesses would implicate him in the leak scandal and that Bush himself might get tainted because he participated in conversations related to the Plame outing. Ironically, the conspirators lost control of one small piece of the plot to take the nation to war: the leaking of a name to punish a truth-teller and intimidate other potential whistle blowers. Bush continues to act as if none of this concerns him and the justice of his war effort. The next time he says we're going to "stay the course" in Iraq, the Democrats should respond by claiming that Bush wants to stay the course of total failure and pay for it with the lives and maimed bodies of young men and women. As adversity rains on the Republicans, their audacity gradually transforms itself into defensiveness and silence. Frustratingly, the Democrats cannot seem to avail themselves of Bush's deep problems and declining popularity. He fell well below 40% in late October. The Democrats need to agree on a declaration calling the Iraq war wrong. They seem unable to say that Bush misled them into voting for the war and, most importantly, that the nation should immediately withdraw its armed forces. Saul Landau is a fellow of the Institute for Policy
Studies.
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair                      |
