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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Suma who wrote (41130)	4/2/2004 3:46:42 PM
From: T L Comiskey	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Documents Related to Cheney Case Ordered Released Thu Apr 1, 4:25 PM ET Add U.S. National - Reuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge ordered several government agencies to release documents related to an energy policy task force led by Vice President Dick Cheney ( In an opinion released late on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ordered seven government agencies including the Department of Energy (news - web sites), Department of the Interior and Bureau of Land Management (news - web sites) to hand over pertinent documents by June 1. He was ruling on a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch and the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The two groups had sued to force the various departments involved in the energy task force to release documents related to the task force and its deliberations. In particular they had asked for the agencies to release records of the task force's executive director and those of other federal agency employees assigned to carry out the task force's day-to-day operations. Friedman said the agencies had an obligation to release the data. "The court's ruling is a wake-up call to the Bush administration: it's time to come clean about how it is doing the public's business," said Sharon Buccino, an NRDC senior attorney. "Once Congress and the American people finally get the details about what happened at the task force's closed-door meetings, the administration's energy plan will be revealed for what it is -- a payback to corporate polluters," Buccino added. The Justice Department (news - web sites) said it was reviewing the ruling. The lawsuit is a separate one from another case involving Cheney that is now before the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites). The high court agreed in December to hear an appeal from Cheney, who is resisting a judge's order to produce documents about White House contacts with the energy industry in 2001. The environmental group Sierra Club (news - web sites) and Judicial Watch sued in 2001 to find out the names and positions of members of the energy task force led by the vice president that year. They alleged that Cheney, a former energy company executive, drafted energy policy by consulting industry executives. The task force produced a policy paper calling for more oil and gas drilling and a revived nuclear power program.

To: Suma who wrote (41130)	4/2/2004 11:34:33 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Powell Expresses Doubts About Basis for Iraqi Weapons Claim __________________ By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, April 3, 2004 washingtonpost.com Secretary of State Colin L. Powell voiced new doubt yesterday on the administration's assertions of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, saying the description in his U.N. presentation of mobile biological weapons laboratories appears to have been based on faulty sources. Powell, describing the mobile labs as "the most dramatic" element of his Feb. 5, 2003, speech before the U.N. Security Council, said he hoped the recently appointed commission to examine prewar claims of Iraqi weapons "will look into these matters to see whether or not the intelligence agency had a basis for the confidence . . . placed in the intelligence at that time." He also said he has spoken to CIA officials about how suspect information ended up in his speech. Powell made his remarks in response to a question as he briefed reporters on his plane about meetings yesterday at NATO headquarters in Brussels. Powell, who returned to Washington last night, in the past had stressed that all of the facts about Iraq's weapons programs are not known, but Iraq's intentions were clear, and it was necessary to wait for the final report of the inspection team. Powell's 90-minute presentation had offered an overview of U.S. intelligence about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, as the Bush administration was struggling to win approval of a U.N. resolution authorizing military action against Iraq. In his speech, Powell provided extensive descriptions of the biological weapons labs. He also displayed an illustration of a mobile lab that he said was based on an eyewitness account. Powell stressed that the information on the weapons labs was based on multiple sources. But since Saddam Hussein's government was deposed, weapons inspectors in Iraq appear to have found little evidence of such labs, though they did find two trucks that some experts believe were used for producing hydrogen for artillery weather balloons. As recently as January, Vice President Cheney cited the discovery of the trucks as "conclusive" evidence of the mobile labs described by Powell. But CIA Director George J. Tenet later told Congress he warned the vice president not to be so categorical about the discovery. Moreover, in recent weeks news organizations have reported that one of the sources cited by Powell had been cited by U.S. intelligence officials as unreliable even before his presentation. The warning, however, was missed during the preparation of Powell's speech. Another source, who provided the eyewitness description of the labs, had never been interviewed by U.S. intelligence -- which did not even know his real name until after the war, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. After Powell's speech, it also was learned that this source was a relative of a senior official in the Iraqi National Congress, an émigré group that was considered by some U.S. intelligence officials to be a provider of dubious information about Iraq's weapons programs. "Now it appears not to be the case that it was that solid," Powell said yesterday. "But at the time I was preparing that presentation it was presented to me as being solid." Powell, who asked Tenet to sit behind him during the speech to demonstrate CIA backing for the facts cited in it, stressed yesterday that "I'm not the intelligence community." He said that "it was presented to me in the preparation of that as the best intelligence and information that we had." "I made sure, as I said in my presentation, these were multi-sourced," Powell said. "And that was the most dramatic of them, and I made sure it was multi-sourced. Now, if the sources fell apart, then we need to find out how we've gotten ourselves in that position. I've had discussions with the CIA about it." © 2004 The Washington Post Company

To: Suma who wrote (41130)	4/3/2004 5:45:49 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Criticizing America Tech Central Station By Lee Harris Published 04/01/2004 Lee Harris is a TCS contributing editor. He recently wrote for TCS about Haiti and forgetfulness. His new book is Civilization and Its Enemies. Among the people who have generously taken the time and trouble to comment on my book, a few of them appear to be extremely annoyed that I did not criticize America for all the things that it has done wrong -- or, at least, for those enormities that are always sure to make the Top Ten list of anyone who has spent even a few hours in a college or junior college American history course. Why didn't I devote a chapter to the atrocities committed in the Philippines after the Spanish-American war -- one of the sentimental favorites of the any red-blooded Chomsky-ite? Well, let me offer this anecdote as a justification of my omission. A week after my book came out, a friend dragged me to the nearest Border's bookstore. Now what is interesting about this Border's is that it is located in Snellville, Georgia, the town that's celebrated for its boast that "everybody is somebody in Snellville." It is heavily Southern Baptist, and in the last election probably voted for George Bush by an overwhelming majority. In short, it is as American as apple pie and Chevrolet. So we went to this Border's, where my friend, after a good bit of searching, finally discovered the obligatory one copy of my book on the shelf reserved for political science -- facing spine up, of course. <font size=4>Meanwhile I was standing at the front of the store, right where the friendly Border's staff sets out those long tables stacked high with best sellers, among which were prominently displayed piles of Noam Chomsky's most recent recycling of his anti-American diatribe, while next to this was Chalmers Johnson's latest lament about the tawdry depravity of the new American Empire. Though these stacks were nothing compared to the rows of Michael Moore's books that greeted you the moment you stepped through the door. <font size=3> <font size=4> Now I am a firm believer in the usefulness of what Adam Smith called the division of labor.<font size=3> If you are going to make a simple pin, it is far better to divide the complex task of making this pin into a variety of even simpler tasks. This way each worker only needs to do one thing, and he quickly learns to do it very well, with the end result being an immense increase in the productivity of each of the individual workers. Whereas <font size=4>ten pin makers, each working on one pin, can produce 100 pins at the end of an hour, the division of labor multiplies this amount by many times -- and all because each worker sticks to doing what he knows best. Seen in this light, can anyone doubt that Mr. Chomsky excels at telling what a menace America is to the world, or that Chalmers Johnson is a past master at lamenting America's loss of its pristine virtue? After all, simply look at how much practice these men have had sharpening their particular pins.<font size=3> How could a novice like me even hope to compete with them? Not to mention a worker like Michael Moore, always twisting his pin precisely the same way each time. Over and over again, these industrious and skilled workers perform exactly the same simple task -- no wonder they do it so well. This explains too why they are so highly rewarded, both in terms of paychecks and in terms of praise; and it also explains why their wares are so prominently displayed for the public's attention in bookstores -- even in those parts of the world where they are more apt to be lynched than read. But, this being so self-evidently the case, why on earth would anyone expect a humble drone such as me to try to compete with these masters of their craft? They have established a virtual Guild, and, like the Meistersingers of Wagner's opera, they are justifiably proud of their achievement. <font size=4> At same time, there is a down side to all of this<font size=3>, and this too was pointed out by the same Adam Smith who first praised the division of labor. According to Smith, <font size=4>the unvarying performance of the same simple task over and over tends inevitably to create a kind of mental monotony approaching dullness even in the most skillful worker -- indeed, precisely in the most skillful worker. <font size=3> Alas, I fear I have a long way to go before I reach this stage of perfection. And that is why I cannot complain about the obscure corner of the store in which my book was concealed. It is the price I must pay for being a mere amateur, and for being so inept at my one task that I am never quite sure that I have done it right, even after I have done it. Would you buy the pins of such an incompetent pin-maker? <font size=4> Which allows me to address the question with which we began: Why didn't I spend time in my book criticizing America? Well, because there are people who are amply repaid for doing this very thing, and for doing it over and over and over, in exactly the same way each time. And who but a pinhead would try to compete with that? <font size=3> Copyright © 2004 Tech Central Station - www.techcentralstation.com