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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Win Smith who wrote (2029)	2/12/2004 1:51:58 PM
From: Bill	Respond to of 173976

The politics of personal destruction has two sides. Kerry's penis tracks will kill off the faux Guard scandal starting tonight. hehe

To: Win Smith who wrote (2029)	2/12/2004 2:45:30 PM
From: PartyTime	Respond to of 173976

Cheney's future at stake after leaking of CIA agent's name Julian Borger in Washington Wednesday February 11, 2004 The Guardian Vice President Dick Cheney's political future was at stake yesterday in Washington, where a grand jury investigation was questioning administration officials about his office's role in leaking the name of a CIA operative for political motives. The inquiry has already questioned the president's spokesman and one of his media advisers over the identification of Valerie Plame, which is developing into one of the administration's main headaches in an election year. However, informed sources said last night that three of the five officials who are the real targets of the probe work or worked for Mr Cheney. Until recently, President Bush has insisted that Mr Cheney would be his vice-presidential candidate in the November elections, despite his history of heart trouble. But recent polls conducted by the White House have suggested that growing unpopularity of the taciturn ex-businessman and powerful administration hawk threatens to sink the president. Mr Cheney is already under intense fire from Democrats for his personal role in shaping the case for war against Iraq, frequently visiting the CIA to question assessments that played down Saddam Hussein's arsenal. His former role as head of a giant oil services corporation, Halliburton, is also under scrutiny, as the company is under investigation for bribery when Mr Cheney was in charge and, more recently for war-profiteering in Iraq. But the grand jury investigation into the CIA leak is potentially the most explosive threat to his long-term political survival. The case centres around the leaking to the press in July of the name of Valerie Plame, apparently in response to public questioning of the US case for war against Iraq by her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador. The leaking of an undercover agent's identity is a serious crime under US law. The hearings are leading justice department investigators towards the vice president's office, according to a source familiar with the investigation. "Three of the five people who are targets work or worked in Cheney's office," the source said. He added that members of the defence policy board, a Pentagon advisory group, are also under scrutiny. Sensing the danger to the administration, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman, Terry McCauliffe issued a statement to say: "Now that the FBI is getting closer to finding out who inside the Bush White House put the lives of CIA agents in danger, we hope that President Bush will keep his word and hold accountable those responsible for the White House leak - no matter how high their post." The chief White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, outlined the president's position. "The leak of classified information is a very serious matter," he said A parallel grand jury is looking into the forgery of a document that surfaced in Italy before the war, purporting to show Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Niger. Despite doubts over its authenticity, the document underpinned US and British claims, since proved groundless, that Saddam was reconstituting his nuclear weapons programme. A third grand jury in Washington is looking into allegations that a Halliburton subsidiary paid $180m in bribes to secure lucrative contracts to build a gas plant in Nigeria, at the time Mr Cheney was chief executive, from 1995 to 2000. More recently the corporation has been caught overcharging millions of dollars for the delivery of petrol to the US military in Iraq. The vice president claims to have severed his ties with the controversial company but he continues to receive payments of about $150,000 a year in tax-minimising "deferred compensation" from his time as an executive. guardian.co.uk

To: Win Smith who wrote (2029)	2/12/2004 3:30:49 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 173976

Word is GW has more arrests in his background. One for cocaine in Alabama in 1972 is the rumor. I have no proof, just reporting a rumor. It makes sense though as he refused to take the drug test and that year all the cool rich kids were snorting blow. I remember.

To: Win Smith who wrote (2029)	2/12/2004 4:26:30 PM
From: PartyTime	Respond to of 173976

Pentagon Team on Iran Comes Under Fire By MARC PERELMAN FORWARD STAFF A small Pentagon planning office under fire for its alleged manipulation of intelligence on Iraq is also dealing with other countries in the Persian Gulf, including Iran, raising concerns among critics about the shaping of Bush administration policy in this sensitive region. Defense Department spokesmen acknowledge that a small, four-member team is working on Iran policy within the Pentagon's so-called Office of Special Plans. Critics contend that the office has been distorting intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda in order to strengthen the case for war. A senior Pentagon official told the Forward that the office is "a pure policy-planning shop" and was not engaged in reviewing — much less distorting — intelligence. The furor over the office and its role has emerged as a flashpoint in the larger administration debate over Iran policy, which pits moderates in the State Department against hawks in the Pentagon. The administration is currently reviewing its policy toward Iran amid a flurry of accusations that Tehran is aggressively pursuing a military nuclear program, meddling in neighboring Iraq and harboring Al Qaeda operatives. Neoconservatives inside and outside the administration have been urging an active effort to promote regime change in Tehran. Reports of possible covert operations have surfaced in recent weeks. Several intelligence sources and Iran policy watchers told the Forward that the Office of Special Plans was a key factor in the push for a policy of Iranian regime change. "They are running their own intelligence operation, including covert action, and are using contractors outside the government to do some of the leg work," said a former top CIA official. "Their area of work has been concentrated on Iraq, which is why the intelligence on WMD was so bad, but they have a much broader portfolio. The office is undergoing some scrutiny from inside the government given its poor track record and the lack of 'sanity checking' their products with the intelligence community. A lot of material they produce is not shared with CIA, not coordinated, and finds its way into public policy statements by the likes of Rumsfeld and Cheney." A senior Pentagon official strongly denied the allegations, however. "The Office of Special Plans is a pure policy planning shop and it is not dealing with intelligence," the official told the Forward, stressing that the office was not pushing a hard line on Iran, nor was it conducting any covert operations. In a news briefing on Wednesday, Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy and a prominent neoconservative, rejected allegations that the Pentagon had in any way distorted intelligence information about Iraq. The Office of Special Plans was first described by journalist Seymour Hersh in a recent New Yorker article. Hersh claimed that it had emerged as a rival to both the CIA and the Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency as a main source providing intelligence on Iraq to President Bush. The senior Pentagon official said such press reports were "utterly false and a complete fabrication." The Defense Department has three distinct policy-planning divisions, the official said: one on South Asia, one on the Middle East and one dealing with the Northern Gulf. The latter was renamed "special plans" in October 2002 and had its personnel expanded because it had to deal with an upcoming war against Iraq as well as other issues like terrorism, the official said. The three policy planning divisions are supervised by the deputy undersecretary of defense for special plans and Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, William Luti. The senior official argued that the press was confusing the office with a now-disbanded two-person team set up 18 months ago by Feith to review intelligence on terrorist networks and Iraq. One member of the Iran team, several sources said, is Michael Rubin, an expert who is on the record as favoring regime change in Iran. The other three members are veteran Pentagon Iran hands, some of whom do not share Rubin's views, said a source with close ties to the administration's Iran policymakers. The source said the office was very active in seeking out advice on Iran and was much more up-to-date on issues than the State Department's Iran desk officers. "They are interviewing a lot of people, they are gathering intelligence and willing to support pro-democracy people," the source said. "They want simple stuff like funding satellite TV and radio into Iran and want the U.S. government to send a signal to Iranians that if there is an uprising the U.S. will support them. That is all at the moment." Several sources said the State Department was seeking to improve contacts with Tehran and was skeptical of the neoconservative assessment that the regime was on the verge of collapse. Gregg Sullivan, a spokesman for the State Department's Near East bureau, declined to comment on the issue. A clear illustration of the debate is the shifting attitude of the government toward the Mujaheddin el Khalk, or MEK, an opposition group based in Iraq and supported for years by Saddam Hussein that is listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department. After initially bombing MEK bases in Iraq, the American military proceeded to negotiate a cease-fire, before eventually deciding to disarm the group. Even now, however, some hawks are pressing the administration to engage the group and possibly use it as a proxy against the Tehran regime. "The Office of Special Plans has been willing to reach out to the MEK and use them as a surrogate to pressure Iran," said Larry Johnson, a former CIA and State Department official who has been among those alleging pressure on analysts by Pentagon hawks to skew intelligence on Iraq. The senior Defense Department official strongly denied the allegations, contending that the Office of Special Plans had in fact advocated cracking down on the MEK. He said the ensuing policy confusion was due to other government agencies. State officials also question the clout and democratic credentials of exiled opposition figures like Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late shah who has emerged as an advocate of Iranian secular democracy and a darling of neoconservatives. The source close to Iran policymakers added that the Pentagon was very much in favor of regime change in Iran and enjoyed the support of the vice president's office. He said advocates were hoping to convince the president over the objections of the State Department. Perhaps reflecting the fierceness of the debate, a major White House policy meeting on Iran was postponed last week and will only be held after the president returns from his trip to Europe and the Middle East. forward.com