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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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November 15, 2005 Leah Caldwell Tom Andre
November 14, 2005 Diana Johnstone Paul Craig Roberts Conn Hallinan Joshua Frank Christopher
Reed
November 11 / 13, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Gwyneth Leech Elmas Mallo Michael Neumann Saul Landau Sam Husseini Brian Cloughley Ron Jacobs Lila Rajiva Michael Donnelly Joe Allen Roland Sheppard Justin E.H.
Smith Ben Tripp St. Clair /
Vest Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
November 10, 2005 Peterside,
Ogon, Watts and Zalik Pat Williams Steve Higgs Jimmy Massey Lucson Pierre-Charles Anthony Newkirk Lawrence R.
Velvel Website of the Day November 9, 2005 Gary Leupp Tariq Ali Chris Floyd Elaine Cassel Joshua Frank Alison Weir Diana Johnstone
Paul Craig
Roberts Roger Burbach Ron Jacobs Ralph Nader Jim McGrath David Bloom Stan Goff
November 7, 2005 Dick Reavis Jason Leopold Dave Lindorff Eli Stephens David Swanson M. Junaid Alam Matt Reichel Naima Bouteldja Jeff Halper Website of the Day
November 5 / 6, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Lawrence R.
Velvel Diana Johnstone Roosa / Nevins Niranjan Ramakrishnan John Ross Mike Whitney Mark Engler Juliano Mer-Khamis Ron Jacobs Jill S. Farrell Missy Comley
Beattie Mitchel Cohen Evelyn J. Pringle Reza Fiyouzat Charles Sullivan Zachary Richard Ben Tripp St. Clair / Vest
November 4, 2005 Jeffrey St.
Clair Dave Lindorff Phillip Cryan Christopher Brauchli William S.
Lind Daryl G. Kimball George Beres Peter Montague
November 3, 2005 James Petras Saul Landau Rep. Cynthia McKinney Michael Dickinson Joshua Frank Remi Kanazi Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day
November 2, 2005 Cockburn /
St. Clair Robert Oscar Lopez John Walsh Brian J. Foley Ramzy Baroud M. Junaid Alam Todd Chretien Bruce K. Gagnon Website of the Day
November 1, 2005 Ron Jacobs Gary Leupp John Ross Bill Quigley Joseph Nevins Dave Lindorff Linda S. Heard Heather Gray Michael Dickinson Jeffrey St. Clair
October 31, 2005 Elaine Cassel Mark Weisbrot Mike Whitney Norman Solomon Farooq Sulehria Nicole Colson Madis Senner Paul Craig
Roberts
Cockburn /
St. Clair Peter Linebaugh Tim Wise John Chuckman Steven Higgs Brian Cloughley M. Shahid Alam Nikki Robinson Ralph Nader Joe DeRaymond Joshua Frank Laura Santina Fred Gardner Michael Dickinson Ron Jacobs Dr. Susan Block Vanessa S. Jones Jeffrey St.
Clair Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
October 28, 2005 Jared Bernstein Virginia Tilley Phil Gasper Jennifer Matsui Manual Garcia,
Jr. Monica Benderman Jason Leopold Dave Lindorff
Saul Landau Stuart Hodkinson Ingmar Lee Lila Rajiva Ilan Pappe Niranjan Ramakrishnan Michael Donnelly Ron Jacobs 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
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November 15, 2005 In 2001, Tenet Said Iraq Posed No ThreatSecret CIA Testimony Undermines Bush, AgainBy JASON LEOPOLD President George W. Bush's attempt Friday to silence critics who say his administration manipulated prewar intelligence on Iraq is undercut by congressional testimony given in February 2001 by former CIA Director George Tenet, who said that Iraq posed no immediate threat to the United States or other countries in the Middle East. Details of Tenet's testimony have not been reported before. Since a criminal indictment was handed up last month against Vice President Dick Cheney's former Chief of Staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for his role in allegedly leaking the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to reporters in an attempt to muzzle criticism of the administration's rationale for war, questions have resurfaced in the halls of Congress about whether the president and his close advisers manipulated intelligence in an effort to dupe lawmakers and the American public into believing Saddam Hussein was a grave threat. The White House insists that such a suggestion is ludicrous and wholly political. It has launched a full-scale public relations effort to restate its case for war by saying Democrats saw the same intelligence as their Republican counterparts prior to the March 2003 invasion. But as a bipartisan investigation into prewar intelligence heats up, some key Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), have unearthed unreported evidence that indicates Congress was misled. This evidence includes Tenet's testimony before Congress, dissenting views from the scientific community and statements made by members of the administration in early 2001. Tenet told Congress in February 2001 that Iraq was "probably" pursuing chemical and biological weapons programs but that the CIA had no direct evidence that Iraq had actually obtained such weapons. However, such caveats as "may" and "probably" were removed from intelligence reports by key members of the Bush administration immediately after 9/11 when discussing Iraq. "We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since (Operation) Desert Fox to reconstitute its WMD programs," Tenet said in an agency report to Congress Feb. 7, 2001. "Moreover, the automated video monitoring systems installed by the UN at known and suspect WMD facilities in Iraq are still not operating. Having lost this on-the-ground access, it is more difficult for the UN or the U.S. to accurately assess the current state of Iraq's WMD programs." In fact, more than two dozen pieces of testimony and interviews of top officials in the Bush administration, including those given by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz prior to 9-11, show that the U.S. never believed Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to anyone other than his own people. Powell said the U.S. had successfully "contained" Iraq in the years since the first Gulf War. Further, he said that because of economic sanctions, Iraq was unable to obtain WMD. "We have been able to keep weapons from going into Iraq," Powell said during a Feb. 11, 2001 interview with "Face the Nation." "We have been able to keep the sanctions in place to the extent that items that might support weapons of mass destruction development have had some controls." "It's been quite a success for ten years," he added. During a meeting with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer in February 2001, Powell said the UN, the U.S. and its allies "have succeeded in containing Saddam Hussein and his ambitions." Saddam's "forces are about one-third their original size. They don't really possess the capability to attack their neighbors the way they did ten years ago," Powell said. Powell added that Iraq was "not threatening America." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld seemed to agree with Powell's assessment. In a Feb. 12, 2001 interview with the Fox News Channel, Rumsfeld said, "Iraq is probably not a nuclear threat at the present time." Ironically, just five days before Rumsfeld's Fox News interview, Tenet told Congress that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qa'ida terrorist network remained the single greatest threat to U.S. interests. Tenet eerily describes in the report a scenario that six months later would become a grim reality. "Terrorists are also becoming more operationally adept and more technically sophisticated in order to defeat counter-terrorism measures," the former CIA director said. "For example, as we have increased security around government and military facilities, terrorists are seeking out "softer" targets that provide opportunities for mass casualties." "Osama bin Laden and his global network of lieutenants and associates remain the most immediate and serious threat," he added. Between 1998 and early 2002, the CIA's reports on the so-called terror threat offered no details on what types of chemical and biological weapons Iraq had obtained. After 9/11, however, these reports radically changed. In October 2002, the agency issued another report, this time alleging Iraq had vast supply of chemical and biological weapons. Much of that information turned out to be based on forged documents and unreliable Iraqi exiles. The October 2002 CIA report stated that Iraq had been stockpiling sarin, mustard gas, VX and numerous other chemical weapons. This was in stark contrast to Tenet's earlier reports which said the agency had no evidence to support such claims. And unlike testimony Tenet gave a year earlier, in which he said the CIA had no direct evidence of Iraq's WMD programs, Tenet said the intelligence information in the 2002 report was rock solid. "It comes to us from credible and reliable sources," Tenet said during a 2003 CIA briefing. "Much of it is corroborated by multiple sources." The intelligence sources turned out to be Iraqi exiles supplied by then-head of the Iraqi National Congress Ahmed Chalabi, who was paid $330,000 a month by the Pentagon to provide intelligence on Iraq. The exiles' credibility and the veracity of their reports came under scrutiny by the CIA but these reports were championed as smoking gun proof by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other members of the Bush administration. Unanswered questions remain. Democrats are increasingly suggesting that the Administration may have known their intelligence was bad. Sen. Levin's office directed RAW STORY to a statement the senator released Friday, claiming that the administration's assertion that al-Qaeda was providing Iraq with chemical and biological weapons training was based on bogus evidence and a source who knowingly lied about al-Qaeda's ties to Iraq. The Michigan Democrat also released a newly declassified report from the Defense Intelligence Agency to back up his allegations that the Bush administration misled the public. "The CIA's unclassified statement at the time was that the reporting was 'credible,' a statement the Administration used repeatedly," he said. "What the Administration omitted was the second half of the CIA statement: that the source was not in a position to know whether any training had taken place." That issue, along with other reports, is now the cornerstone of the bipartisan investigation into prewar intelligence. Levin's office said the senator is going to provide the committee investigating prewar intelligence with reports from experts who warned officials in the Bush administration before the Iraq war that intelligence reports showing Iraq was stockpiling chemical and biological weapons were unreliable. Jason Leopold has written about corporate malfeasance
for The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The Nation,
The San Francisco Chronicle, and numerous other national and
international publications. He is the author of the explosive
memoir, News Junkie, to be released in the spring of 2006 by
Process/Feral House Books. Visit Leopold's website at www.jasonleopold.com
for updates.
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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          Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.               |
