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How a Tiny Alaskan Indian Tribe Got Billions in Pentagon Contracts by Jeffrey St. Clair; Dems and Dives by Alexander Cockburn; Spooky Grants: More on the CIA's Recruitment of Campus Professors by David Price. Remember these stories are available exclusively in the print 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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Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY  Today's Stories March 30, 2005 Jeffrey St.
Clair March 29, 2005 Ralph Nader Gary Leupp Sonia Cardenas Stew Albert Mark Weisbrot Dave Lindorff Carl G. Estabrook
March 28, 2005 Jeremy Scahill Sonali Kolhatkar Sasha Kramer Kevin Zeese Tom Stephens Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Newton Garver Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
March 26 / 27, 2005 Gary Leupp Peter Linebaugh Marc Robert Laura Carlsen Saul Landau
/ Puja Patel Dave Foreman Fred Gardner Jennifer Matsui Dave Lindorff Dharma Adhikari Joshua Frank Patrick Barr Christopher
Brauchli Ramzy Baroud Jackie Corr Ben Tripp Dr. Susan Block Mickey Z. Justin Taylor Richard Joseph Poets' Basement
March 25, 2005 Scott Richard
Lyons Yoshie Furuhashi Pat Williams Mark Engler Rahul Mahajan Lance Selfa Ralph Nader John R. Llewellyn Jo Guldi
March 24, 2005 Joshua Frank Talli Nauman Martin Espada Dave Lindorff Elaine Cassel Jack McCarthy Jack Random Barbara Ferguson Suzan Mazur Dorreen Yellow Bird Andrew Wimmer
and Mark Chmiel
Patrick Bond Mike Whitney Becky White Michael Donnelly Niranjan Ramakrishnan Ashley Smith David Swanson Derrick O'Keefe Paul A. Moore Dalton Walker Patrick Cockburn
March 22, 2005 William Blum Jim Vallette Greg Moses John Farley Ron Jacobs M. Junaid Alam Rep. Cynthia
McKinney Dave Lindorff James Petras
March 21, 2005 John Walsh Werther Mike Stark David Swanson James T. Phillips Mike Ferner Robert Jensen Paul Craig
Roberts Stew Albert Website of
the Day
March 19, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Tom Reeves Saul Landau Alan Maass Ron Jacobs David Green John Blair Steve Greenfield Ben Tripp Mike Roselle Joshua Frank Mark Weisbrot Dave Lindorff Sarah Schaffer Warren Hastings Poets' Basement
March 18, 2005 Dave Zirin Richard Thieme John Walsh David Swanson Ben Terrall David Boyle Dorreen Yellow Bird Mokhiber /
Weissman Greg Moses Website of
the Day
March 17, 2005 Christopher
Brauchli Bill Quigley Brian Cloughley Gary Bass / Adam Hughes Dave Lindorff Jude Wanniski Alexander Billet John Ross Website of the Day
March 16, 2005 Ralph Nader William Cook Kevin Zeese Jackie Corr Alan Maass David R. Kolker Cindy Ellen
Hill Paul Craig
Roberts
March 15, 2005 Gary Leupp Dave Lindorff Greg Moses Hadas Their
/ Katrina Yeaw Alison Weir Matt Koehler Evelyn Pringle Harry Browne
March 14, 2005 Ralph Nader David Miller Stan Cox Mike Roselle David Swanson Simona Sharoni Dave Lindorff Dorreen Yellow Bird Tom Barry Website of the Day
March 12 / 13, 2005 David H. Price Noam Chomsky Laura Carlsen Stan Goff Valentina Nicoli Michael Leonardi Saul Landau
/ Sarah Anderson Joe Bageant Manuel García,
Jr. Greg Moses James J. Brittain Ben Tripp Joshua Frank Fred Gardner Walter Brasch Ramzy Baroud Christopher
Brauchli Michael Donnelly Ron Jacobs Richard Oxman Poets' Basement
March 11, 2005 Jerry Fresia Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff William James
Martin Muqtedar Khan Kathryn Ledebur Mike Whitney Dave Zirin Website of the Day
March 10, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts John Marc Leas, Colleen McLaughlin
and Ashley Smith Larry Birns Michael Donnelly Luis Gomez Jackie Corr Uri Avnery Website of the Day
March 9, 2005 Jeffrey St.
Clair Ward Churchill Robert Fisk Bernice Powell Jackson Mickey Z. Dave Zirin Michael Donnelly James Reiss Vijay Prashad
March 8, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts Robert Fisk Kurt Nimmo Suzan Mazur Evelyn Pringle Giuliana Sgrena Elaine Cassel
March 7, 2005 Dave Zirin Brian Cloughley John Chuckman Mike Whitney Mark Weisbrot Fred Gardner Richard Neville Uri Avnery
March 5 / 6, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Tom Reeves Jenna Orkin Tom Barry Joshua Frank Moshe Adler Jane Stillwater Omar Barghouti / Jacqueline
Sfeir Christopher
Brauchli John Pilger Raúl
Zibechi David Krieger Three Takes on Nepal Surendra R. Devkota Bhishma Karki Joseph Pietri Ben Tripp Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
March 4, 2005 Frederick Hudson
March 3, 2005 Pat Williams Brian Cloughley Dave Lindorff Amira Hass Greg Moses Lynne Landes Nelson P. Valdés John Ross
March 2, 2005 Saul Landau
/ Farrah Hassen Mike Roselle M. Junaid Alam Suzan Mazur Jackson Thoreau Michael Donnelly Jeffrey St.
Clair Website of the Day
March 1, 2005 Scott Richard
Lyons David Lindorff Patrick Cockburn
/ David Enders Ron Jacobs Tanya Garcia Joseph Pietri Kona Lowell Paul Craig
Roberts Website of
the Day
Hot Stories Alexander Cockburn Subcomandante
Marcos Norman Finkelstein Steve Niva Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams Steve
J.B. Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber Wendell
Berry CounterPunch
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Corrie Gore Vidal Francis Boyle
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March 30, 2005 Report on Iraq Intelligence Failures: No One to BlameMove Along, Nothing to Look at HereBy RALPH NADER and KEVIN ZEESE A commission appointed by President Bush to analyze intelligence failures will be releasing its report tomorrow, Thursday, March 31. According to The New York Times the report "includes a searing critique of how the C.I.A. and other agencies never properly assessed Saddam Hussein's political maneuverings or the possibility that he no longer had weapon stockpiles." But despite its criticism the report really served to protect the Bush administration. The Commission, led by Laurence H. Silberman, a senior judge on the United States Court of Appeals, and former Governor and Senator Charles S. Robb of Virginia has operated in secrecy. All the sessions have been closed to the public and media. The nine-member commission, which had a professional staff of more than 60 people, met formally a dozen times at its offices in Arlington, Virginia. Reportedly they met with President Bush at the White House to speak with him and his staff this November after the election. The Commission had formal meetings with most top administration intelligence and foreign policy officials, including interviews with former C.I.A. directors and academic experts on weapons proliferation. However, the Commission did not have subpoena power and did not seek sworn testimony. In addition to the co-chairs the panel includes Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).; Yale President Richard Levin; former Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Charles Vest; former Pentagon officials Henry Rowen and Walter Slocombe; former Deputy CIA Director William Studeman; and former federal appeals court Judge Patricia Wald. The Commission was created by President Bush in response to Chief Weapon's Inspector David Kay's search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Mr. Kay reported to Congress the failure of his 1,500 person inspection team to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and flatly asserted "we got it wrong," as there were no stockpiles of WMD in Iraq. In announcing the creation of the Iraq Commission President Bush stated:
The Executive Order creating the Iraq Commission issued on February 6, 2004 directed: "The Commission shall specifically examine the Intelligence Community's intelligence prior to the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom and compare it with the findings of the Iraq Survey Group and other relevant agencies. . ." Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, the report finds that after Iraq's defeat in the Persian Gulf war in 1991, international inspectors dismantled an active nuclear program - which had not produced a weapon - along with biological agents and chemical weapons. The claims of WMD were based on a series of assumptions by some, not all, of Bush's intelligence agencies, that Iraq reconstituted those programs after inspectors left the country under duress in 1998. The report finds these assumptions were seriously flawed and that it may have been a myth Saddam Hussein fostered to retain an air of power. The report closely reviews
a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq published in 2002.
After the invasion of Iraq portions of the report were released,
including footnotes that expressed dissenting opinions about
WMD reports, including reports that Iraq imported aluminum tubes
for the production of uranium, or possessed mobile biological
weapons laboratories. In addition, to the U.S. being unable to
find WMD, U.N. inspectors were unable to do so. According to
The Times: "The report particularly ridicules the
conclusion that Mr. Hussein's fleet of 'unmanned aerial vehicles,'
which had very limited flying range, posed a major threat. All
of those assertions were repeated by Mr. Bush, Vice President
Dick Cheney and other senior officials in the prelude to the
war. To this day, Mr. Cheney has never backed away from his claim.
. . ."
Laurence McQuillan, of the Iraq Commission staff, told reporters early in the process that the Commission would not be blaming any individuals for intelligence failures, but instead would look to the future. This, of course, was a recipe for a whitewash. Whatever happened to official responsibility a focus of Bush's 20000 presidential campaign rhetoric? Did the Commission ask about White House influence over intelligence estimates? This is not just a simple investigation into inaccurate intelligence; it should have been an investigation into why the United States was misled into a costly quagmire of an congressionally undeclared war and occupation. Joseph Cirincione, a weapons-proliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of "WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications," told The San Francisco Chronicle in January: "The administration is protecting itself by narrowing the inquiry to avoid any investigation of any administration official when we need to understand the causes of one of the greatest intelligence failures in U.S. history." This February, John Dean, President Nixon's White House Counsel, described the Commission as a "sham" because it "simply ignores the very reason he was pressured to create it." He explains "Bush established this commission to quiet the public reaction to Congressional testimony by his weapons inspector David Kay." At the time of his testimony "Kay recommended to Congress that an independent investigation be undertaken of this intelligence failure." Dean points out how Bush removed the issue from the campaign by having the Commission not report until after the election and therefore whenever the failure to find WMD came up during the campaign Bush could say his independent Commission was studying it. And, the Commission's focus was not on misuse of intelligence information or White House influence over reporting of intelligence, but rather how do we improve intelligence for the future. Dean concludes:
Thus, the Iraq Commission will issue its report Thursday on what may be one of the most serious intelligence failures in U.S. history. Of course, it will be critical of intelligence failures, but no one will be blamed. There will be no examination of whether the White House, State Department and Department of Defense manipulated intelligence information or unduly shaped intelligence reporting. President Bush will have escaped a challenging re-election without any serious discussion of the failure to find WMD. At this point Bush can once again proclaim "Mission Accomplished." It is now left to Congress to fully investigate this matter. Certainly, the Commission found massive intelligence failures and overstatements by the administration, now a Congress that was cognizant of its Constitutional authority would at least initiate an impeachment inquiry with full subpoena power, testimony under oath and in public so Americans can determine whether they were merely misled into war or whether they were plunged into an illegal war on a platform on fabrications, deceptions and manipulations. Nothing short of accountability of the Presidency is at stake. * Ralph Nader and Kevin Zeese
direct the 'Stop the War' campaign at DemocracyRising.US. You
can comment on this column on their blog site at www.DemocracyRising.US
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