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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (66442)	1/16/2003 5:46:21 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Nadine: I wonder why our ineffective CIA seems to have been unable to 'engineer regime change' in Iraq...We've tried for years. Yet, in other countries around the world we have successfully helped to overthrow governments (without sending in a large number of troops)...I'm not saying I approve of helping to topple leaders BUT sometimes it may be a better alternative then a costly war that does not have broad support. The short answer is: Saddam is too paranoid and too ruthless. He didn't just establish your garden-variety third-world dictatorship; he established a full bore Stalinist police state, where half the population has been hired to spy on the other half, the secret police are everywhere, and the slightest suspicion will make a man and his whole family disappear in the night. Even Stalin didn't take the whole family; that was Saddam's innovation to fit the system onto the Arab tribal mentality. For the full answer, read Ken Pollack. He's CIA, remember?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (66442)	1/16/2003 6:05:50 PM
From: Rollcast...	Respond to of 281500

I wonder why our ineffective CIA seems to have been unable to 'engineer regime change' in Iraq... Email Ron Dellums and Bob Torricelli for the answer. Search "Church Committee" and "Torricelli Principle". We've tried for years. Yet, in other countries around the world we have successfully helped to overthrow governments (without sending in a large number of troops)... Name one since Nicaragua.

To: stockman_scott who wrote (66442)	1/16/2003 6:15:45 PM
From: Rollcast...	Respond to of 281500

The Democrats Anti-Intelligence Bill Source: Front Page Magazine The Democrats' cavalier attitude towards American security in the years preceding September 11 was dramatized in a series of annual amendments to cut intelligence funds sight unseen, which was introduced every year of the Clinton Administration (except 2000) by Independent Bernie Sanders. The Sanders amendment was initially proposed in 1993, after the first al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center. In that year, the Democrat-controlled House Intelligence Committee had voted to reduce President Clinton's own authorization request for the intelligence agencies by 6.75%. But this was insufficient for Sanders. So he introduced an amendment that required a minimum reduction in financial authorization for each individual intelligence agency of at least 10%. Sanders refused to even examine the intelligence budget he proposed to cut: "My job is not to go through the intelligence budget. I have not even looked at it." According to Sanders the reasons for reducing the intelligence budget were that "the Soviet Union no longer exists," and that "massive unemployment, that low wages, that homelessness, that hungry children, that the collapse of our educational system is perhaps an equally strong danger to this Nation, or may be a stronger danger for our national security." Irresponsible? Incomprehensible? Not to between a third and more than half the Democrats in the House who voted in favor of the Sanders amendment over the years. Ninety-seven Democrats in all voted for the Sanders cuts, including House Armed Services Committee chair Ron Dellums and the House Democratic leadership. As the terrorist attacks on America intensified year by year during the 1990s, Sanders steadfastly reintroduced his amendment. In 1995, 1996 and 1997 Barney Frank introduced a similar amendment that would cut the intelligence funds by less, but cut them still. In 1997, 158 Democrats voted for the Frank Amendment. That same year a majority voted for a modified Sanders amendment to cut intelligence funds by 5%. According to a study made by political consultant Terry Cooper, "Dick Gephardt (D-MO), the House Democratic leader, voted to cut on five of the seven amendments on which he was recorded. He appears to have 'taken a walk' on two other votes. David Bonior (D-MI), the number-two Democratic leader who as Whip enforces the party position, voted for every single one of the ten cutting amendments. Chief Deputy Whips John Lewis (D-GA) and Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) voted to cut intelligence funding every time they voted. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), just elected to replace Bonior as Whip when Bonior leaves early in 2002, voted to cut intelligence funding three times, even though she was a member of the Intelligence Committee and should have known better. Two funding cut amendments got the votes of every single member of the elected House Democratic leadership. In all, members of the House Democratic leadership supported the Saunders' and Frank's funding cut amendments 56.9 percent of the time." Many of the Democrats whose committee positions give them immense say over our national security likewise voted for most or all of the funding-cut amendments. Ron Dellums (D-CA), the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee from 1993 through 1997, cast all eight of his votes on funding cut amendments in favor of less intelligence funding. Three persons who chaired or were ranking Democrats on Armed Services subcommittees for part of the 1993-99 period: Pat Schroeder (D-CO), Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) and Marty Meehan (D-MA) also voted for every fund-cutting amendment that was offered during their tenures. Dave Obey (D-WI), the senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee that holds the House's keys to the federal checkbook, voted seven out of eight times to reduce intelligence funding. In 1994, Republican Porter Goss, a former CIA official and member of the House Intelligence Committee, warned that the cuts now proposed in the intelligence budget amounted to 16% of the 1992 budget and were 20% below the 1990 budget. Yet this did not dissuade Dellums, Bonior and 100 or more Democrats from continuing to lay the budgetary ax to America's first line of anti-terrorist defense. Ranking Committee Republican Larry Combest warned that the cuts endangered "critically important and fragile capabilities, such as in the area of human intelligence." In 1998, Osama bin Laden and four radical Islamic groups connected to al-Qaeda issued a fatwa condemning every American man, woman and child, civilian and military included. Sanders responded by enlisting Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio to author an amendment cutting the intelligence authorization again.