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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Done, gone. who wrote (583371)	6/16/2004 9:32:22 AM
From: PROLIFE	Respond to of 769670

PSS.......I can see why you will not respond...LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLL.......why make a BIGGR fool out of yourself?????

To: Done, gone. who wrote (583371)	6/16/2004 9:44:29 AM
From: Done, gone.	Respond to of 769670

Is the US clever enough to rule the world? By Ian Williams Asia Times Jun 17, 2004 Will the Iraq debacle cure, or at least ameliorate, the megalomania that has infected the foreign policy of the United States? During the Cold War, the US often tended toward a position of primus inter pares, first among equals, with its allies. However, the past two years have seen both the culmination and, in Iraq, the catastrophic failure of a trend toward being solus sine paribus, alone without equals. The rest of the world is aware that the US is not equal to the task of ruling the world. In the light of Iraq, is Washington aware? That the administration of President George W Bush even made the attempt is a demonstration that being a military and economic giant does not necessarily translate into diplomatic or intellectual acuity. We should also point out that this administration is not alone in its hubris; it took a unilateralist trend well established during the two administrations of president Bill Clinton and pursued it to a reductio ad absurdum et tragediam, reduced to absurdity and tragedy. The overdose of Latin is a partial tribute to the imperial role model that set the standards - of decline and fall as well as triumphalism. Former United Nations secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who unsuccessfully tried to teach US secretary of state Madeleine Albright the art of statecraft, once noted that neither the Roman Empire nor the US had any patience for diplomacy, which is "perceived by an imperial power as a waste of time and prestige and a sign of weakness". However, as the Goths, Huns and Vandals, among others, demonstrated soon enough, this was a dangerous misperception for the Romans and is currently proving equally dangerous for the Americans. Even if Bush is defeated for the chaos and casualties that his unilateralism has wrought, a John Kerry administration is at best likely to revert to the Clintonian norm of remaining unilateral in its formation of foreign policy, albeit with a more cosmopolitan and sophisticated attempt at multilateral execution. There is no doubt that, short of some science-fiction-style cataclysm of the kind that Hollywood is so good at showing, the US is, and will remain, a world power. Whether it will be the world power, capable of independent unilateral action regardless of the views of the rest of the world, is another story completely. Regardless of the opinions of the rest of the world, we really have to question whether such an ambition is even consonant with the views of most Americans, especially in view of the sacrifices such ambitions may entail. We are used to a certain cynicism in world affairs, in which national interest often tempers morality. For example, while then French foreign minister (now Interior Minister) Dominique de Villepin's UN speech against the proposed Anglo-American invasion of Iraq was in the best traditions of Cartesian logic, we would need to be very naive indeed not to accept that the interests of Total-Elf-Aquitaine had much to do with French policy on the subject. Indeed, it would be good if France had practiced in Bosnia, Rwanda, or Western Sahara and West Africa the lofty principles that it was recommending to the US and Britain on this occasion. However, no one would accuse either the Bush or even the Clinton administration of Cartesian logic in its recent policy formulations. Indeed, what makes recent US foreign policy so anomalous is how often it is in violation of any rational national interest, let alone of abstract moral and legal principles. In this less than perfect world, real powers with real problems will occasionally bend and stretch the rules, but this administration has gone further. It has challenged the rules themselves, and denied their normative power. The doctrine of preemptive strikes and unilateral action, and the scorn for the United Nations and its Charter, represented a fundamental threat to the very global order that the US did so much to bring about in 1945. In 1990, George Bush Sr spoke of a New World Order, which he presented as a revival and continuation of the 1945 settlement that the Cold War suspended. By 2003, Bush Jr was presiding over a Hobbesian disorder, in which his ideologues were telling the world that rules did not apply to the US, and in fact only applied to others when Washington deemed it appropriate. This scofflaw tendency applies not only to existing normative rules but, in a profoundly disruptive and self-defeating way, to new and developing international conventions and normative rules that the rest of the world considers essential to cope with the growing challenges, military, social, economic and environmental, that threaten global prosperity and even survival. For example, a small group of conservative ideologues has succeeded in delaying the US signature of the Law of the Sea. It is a hopeful sign that among the factions that want it ratified are Senator Richard Lugar, the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, and the US Navy. The distressing thing is that a small group of fundamentalists obsessed with sovereignty can stall participation in a treaty that is so self-evidently in the interests of the US. It reinforces the messages sent by the refusal to honor the Kyoto conventions, to sign the landmines treaty, and to control the small-arms trade. Similarly, the US has expended huge diplomatic capital across the world to sabotage the International Criminal Court. All across the world, US envoys bullied small countries into signing bilateral treaties protecting Americans from a non-existent threat - in the process getting a very bad lesson in international ethics. One of the major problems with US foreign-policy formulation is that the democratic process of checks and balances does not function effectively, not least because far too many Americans have neither the information about nor the interest in what happens elsewhere, which leaves the field open to obsessive interest groups. Indeed, there is a satirical dictionary definition of "war" as "God's way of teaching Americans geography". Sadly, it has much truth in it, except that it seems that with the current teaching aids of Fox TV, MSNBC and talk radio, the curriculum does not get beyond Geography 101. It does not bode well for democratic debate of foreign policy, and leaves the field open even more to the lobbyists and fundamentalists. That is why, for example, while it may seem to much of the Arab world that the invasion of Iraq was an imperial enterprise, we should bear in mind that to most Americans, and certainly to a majority of those reservists drafted to staff the prisons of Abu Ghraib, this was an exercise in self-defense, payback for September 11, 2001. They would not have supported an overtly imperial agenda. Sadly, not only ordinary Americans are geographically challenged. In many ways, the ideologues of unlimited US hegemony who contrived the Iraq invasion had as little awareness of the realities of the world as those many Americans misled by a potent combination of White House spin and cable-TV collusion. In the end, the USA is indeed powerful, but in reality, it could not exercise the sole hegemony that the more visionary planners in the Pentagon imagined. Imperial over-reach Despite spending as much on defense as the next 10 largest military powers, the US armed forces are hard-pressed to maintain the occupation of Iraq, let alone to attack other countries such as Syria and Iran that seemed to be very seriously in the sights of the Pentagon planners a year ago. One of the more obvious lessons was that military power could not be effective without "soft" moral factors, such as diplomacy, which in turn are helped by moral legitimacy. In over-reaching, the US has shown its weaknesses. US abilities to wage conventional war across the globe depend on willing allies abroad and a public at home prepared to make sacrifices. All those military bases are on sufferance from other countries, which have often imposed restrictions on their use for purposes that they disagree with. The Turks and Saudis, for example, severely disrupted US plans to attack Iraq when they refused to host the invasion forces. Money, and credit, said Daniel Defoe, are "the sinews of war". Paradoxically, in relation to the rest of the world, the US is economically weaker than at any time since the end of World War II. The combination of ideologically motivated tax-cutting and increasing military spending has made the US more vulnerable than ever before. Domestically, it is politically impossible for a US administration to increase taxes. In a little-reported report it published on the US budget at the beginning of January, the International Monetary Fund hints at a rapidly undeveloping country, whose fiscal irresponsibility is compounded by a political immaturity that tends to ignore geopolitical and economic reality. Ironically, the globalization that some have denounced as an instrument of US global domination has actually made the United States more vulnerable than ever before. Once a relatively autarkic, self-contained trade system, the US economy is now integrated into world trade systems. One simple basis of the "Bush boom" is that China is recycling its US$100 billion-plus trade surplus with the United States back into dollars, and especially into Treasury bonds. Almost half of US Treasury bonds are now owned by Asian countries. Among Asian countries, the Pentagon dreamers have identified China as the major future threat. Yet if Taiwan, for example, became a major crisis, those Chinese T-bonds could do more damage than H-bombs. All Chinese Prime Minister Hu Jintao has to do is shout "sell" down the phone in order to devastate the US economy more than any Chinese nuclear strike. The US refusal to take the measures necessary to reduce its oil consumption has also made it extremely vulnerable to creeping measures of readjustment, such as a decision by oil states to price their product in euros rather than dollars. There are very good economic and political arguments for them to do just that: why take payment in a depreciating currency from a country such as the US where your holdings are vulnerable to strange tort actions and arbitrary political decisions? In that light, the mystery is really why the oil states still accept dollars. Globalization, even as it makes the US more vulnerable, also gives it some measure of protection, since anyone who pulls the plug on the dollar would get very wet himself in the resulting splash. Nevertheless, even with that qualification, the fact is you cannot be a solo superpower on borrowed money. Apart from military and economic power, there is a power of leadership. Opinion polls worldwide show that almost no other country in the world would elect George W Bush. At one time, the US had high moral stature, certainly in much of the world, although we should remember the trend represented even by Franklin Roosevelt, an undoubted hero, who is on record as calling Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza a "son of a bitch" but excusing him as "our son of a bitch". Going further, there has been a strong and increasing tendency in US thought toward Manichaean binary thinking, to see the world in terms of absolute good and evil, indeed, one might say, cowboys and Indians. Allegedly in the Levant they say that "my enemies' enemy is my friend", but in the US they take it a stage farther and consider that my enemy's enemy must necessarily be morally superior, a saint. There is also an adage about knowing people by the company they keep. Support for the Saudi and Uzbek regimes, let alone Israeli practices, does not cover the US with glory. Above all, to attack Iraq, allegedly for its violation of UN resolutions, in defiance of the wishes of most UN members and the UN Charter is a sin for which the US is now paying penance as it implores the international community to relieve it of its burden there. It will take a long time for Washington to regain international credibility. Can anything be done? At the time of the tragic and murderous attacks on New York's World Trade Center, the one consolation was that it would focus the American public on what its government was doing abroad in their name. After all, perhaps for the first time since the British burned the White House in 1813, Americans had foreign policy happening to themselves, rather than it being something that their rulers inflicted on others. Sadly, that was clearly not the case. There was little or no public debate on the origins of al-Qaeda, no realization that expedient and ad hoc US policies had brought about and indeed financed the organization, that it was a US ally, Pakistan, that with general US support had put the Taliban in power in Afghanistan. The rest of the world was much more aware of that, and despite that, it was the soon-to-be-hated French who quickly moved the resolution in the Security Council expressing solidarity for September 11, shortly followed by another that in effect provided legal cover for the US to attack Afghanistan in "self-defense". The rest of the world watched with puzzlement as the US gave up on Afghanistan and finding Osama bin Laden while the American public were, almost subliminally, persuaded that the battleground for the "war on terror" should be Iraq. It took not much more than a year for the Bush administration to boil away nearly all the unprecedented international support it had immediately after the September 11 attack. Of course, there are different trends in US foreign policy, with the State Department, which has the unenviable task of explaining it to the rest of the world, much more able to see the benefits for the US from a general support of a normative global structure of law and order, and a predisposition to go along with it principle. Indeed, it is more likely to recall that the US was the main sponsor of the United Nations and in its drafting of the Charter, and throughout the decades, from Korea to Suez, has invoked its authority whenever it can - and sometimes, as in Iraq, when it really could not. It is not surprising that for past few years, the leaders of the United Nations and most of the major powers have had as the first item in their bedtime prayers a plea that Secretary of State Colin Powell would stay on at the State Department, and much of their diplomacy has been directed at boosting his position inside the Bush administration. It is not always successful, since the Pentagon-Powell dualism sometimes looked like a planned good-cop-bad-cop routine. On the other hand, the State Department's attempts to keep some vestiges of multilateralist faith have occasionally been pathetically touching, like the attempt to pull together a list of states that supported the "coalition", most of whom were so vulnerable and weak that initially the department was too embarrassed to name them. However, we should take the attempt as a signal that even in the darkest days of triumphal unilateralism from the Pentagon civilians, there was a flicker, or at least a smolder, of multilateralism in the State Department. The conundrum is that the US needs counterbalancing, as traditional political theory would suggest, but the question is whether that can be achieved without reverting to some form of antagonistic great power system. However, it is possible if we take into account one of the Anglo-Saxon inventions in domestic politics: the concept of a "loyal opposition". We often forget that for most of history, and across much of the globe even now, this is an oxymoron. Sadly, that is also true of some sections of the US body politic who have shown difficulty in accepting opposition at home or abroad as anything but starkest treachery. Last year's rabid francophobia was very embarrassing to any sophisticated American. However, a loyal opposition is still a useful concept. If it stood together, the European Union is big enough to insist on a hearing in Washington, and even more so if it teams with Russia and China, although it has to beware of expediency in joining with, let us say, incompletely democratic societies. In conjunction with countries such as India, and many states in Latin America, it could indeed assemble a loyal opposition. In this connection, perhaps the British were almost as important as Prime Minister Tony Blair thinks they are. Harold Macmillan had fond paternalistic hopes of London playing the role of Athens to Washington's Rome, perhaps forgetting that the Athenians who taught the Romans were often literally slaves. However, for some years now the British have indeed played a special role with the US. It has been surprising how little contumely the British have attracted over the years for their role as amanuensis for successive US administrations - like Colin Powell, they have functioned at once as a bridge and a fudge between the more outrageous US wants and the realities of the world and norms of international law. Other countries I suspect saw it as on a par with cleaning sewers: it's a dirty job, but someone has to do it, and much better someone else than us. It also has to be said that the British have done a reasonable job of it most of the time. Their constructive engagement as a reliably loyal ally did indeed give them an occasional hand on the steering wheel, as Tony Blair said. It seems fairly certain that President Bush would not have gone to the UN at all if were not for the British prime minister's blandishments. Nevertheless, in the end it became clear that what Blair thought was the steering wheel in a car was just the whistle on a runaway locomotive. All he could do was warn that the train was rattling down the tracks and would not stop until it hit Iraq. Confronted with the realities of the US style of occupying Iraq, and the reaction of the occupied, the British have reverted to their former role. In the various drafts of the resolution to end the Iraq occupation, they have been assiduously supporting a much more sovereign sovereignty for Iraq, even as they draft the successive resolutions. The British invented the special relationship for their own reasons, once they realized that the empire thing was a dead duck. As they put it at the time, the British foreign minister in the 1945 Labour government wanted the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to keep "the Americans in, the Germans down, and the Russians out". I would question whether that historical basis still exists, and would urge the Europeans, particularly the French and Germans, to work hard on the British, to suborn and turn the British Trojan Horse so that instead of being a source of unilateralist US infiltration into the EU, it takes multilateralism into Washington. That is always assuming that Blair survives his election and that Kerry overlooks the British prime minister's somewhat promiscuously rapid switch from Clinton to Bush. Will things change if Bush loses? Returning to the point at the beginning, the present US policy has much continuity with the previous administration's. Remember the conversation between Madeleine Albright and her British counterpart, Robin Cook, over Kosovo, in which Cook cited problems "with our lawyers" over using force in the absence of UN endorsement. Albright's response was, "Get new lawyers." Certainly, a Kerry policy has to be an improvement over Bush's - but it may be a more marginal improvement than most of us would wish. There is the dreadful possibility that his fudging on foreign policy, his support for Ariel Sharon, is not just a cynical electoral maneuver, it may be the real thing. However, no amount of internal argument or external exhortation can do as much to change US policy as has now been done by the over-reachers in the Pentagon, whose hubris has reduced the US to begging for international help to get out of the hole they dug in Iraq. Ironically, our best hope for a change of policy is the effect of the cold shower of reality on their fevered apocalyptic visions. Whoever is elected has to pay the bills for this war, for the tax cuts, for the energy policy and all the other enormities of this administration. In the world councils where it will need help and indulgence, the next president is going to need a lot of forbearance and indulgence from other countries, since bullying has failed so egregiously. The real battle is to get that message across to US legislators, opinion formers and indeed the electorate to maintain a continuing interest in foreign policy, what it does to others and, most tellingly, what the cost will be to them. Since the US is a world power, this is a global task, an essential task for everyone in the world. Stop pandering. Be firm but friendly. Real allies do not applaud your every move. They shout "Stop!" when you want to run over a cliff edge. Next time Gerhard Schroeder offers a US president advice, the latter should listen. atimes.com __________________________________________ P.S. The above is posted by me for information purposes only. I have zero intention of discussing it with anyone on this thread. Ergo, comment to your heart's content but do not expect me to respond - I will not.

To: Done, gone. who wrote (583371)	6/16/2004 11:18:46 AM
From: Done, gone.	Respond to of 769670

Al Qaeda Originally Envisioned Plot With 10 Jets 9/11 Panel Finds No Collaboration Between Iraq, Al Qaeda By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, June 16, 2004; 11:00 AM The terrorist attacks carried out on Sept. 11, 2001, were originally envisioned as an even more spectacular assault involving 10 jetliners on the east and west coasts, but the plan was scaled back and was nearly derailed on several occasions by setbacks and squabbling among senior al Qaeda officials, according to a new report released this morning. The date for the attacks was uncertain until weeks before they were carried out, and there is evidence as late as Sept. 9, 2001, that ringleader Mohamed Atta had not decided whether the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania would target the U.S. Capitol or the White House, according to the report, which was issued by the independent commission probing the Sept. 11 attacks. One of the hijacking pilots apparently came close to abandoning the plot altogether, the panel found. In an overview of al Qaeda released in a separate report earlier this morning, the commission also found "no credible evidence" that al Qaeda collaborated with Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq on the Sept. 11 strikes or any other attacks on the United States. The commission's astonishingly detailed report on the planning for Sept. 11 -- which relies heavily on the previously classified interrogations of senior al Qaeda operatives in U.S. custody -- portrays al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as deeply involved in planning the strikes, choosing the hijackers himself and consistently pushing to have the attacks carried out earlier than they eventually were. Bin Laden's fervor persisted despite heated opposition from many of his closest aides, who urged him to abandon the plot as it neared its completion in the summer of 2001, the report says. Bin Laden "thought that an attack against the United States would reap al Qaeda a recruiting and fundraising bonanza," the report says. "In his thinking, the more al Qaeda did, the more support it would gain. Although he faced opposition from many of his most senior advisers . . . bin Laden effectively overruled their objections, and the attacks went forward." The commission's report represents by far the most detailed and authoritative public account of the Sept. 11 attacks since the 19 al Qaeda hijackers commandeered four jetliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania countryside that day. It also comes as one of the last documents to be issued by the 10-member bipartisan panel before the release next month of its final report, which is likely to span some 500 pages. The panel also cited numerous pieces of FBI evidence in concluding that Atta never met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague on April 9, 2001, as Vice President Cheney and some other Bush administration officials have alleged. "Based on the evidence available -- including investigation by Czech and U.S. authorities plus detainee reporting -- we do not believe that such a meeting occurred," the report said. But most of the report centers on the planning and deliberations for the Sept. 11 plot, which began with a proposal in 1996 to bin Laden by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who would eventually oversee the plot and whose statements to his U.S. interrogators form a crucial part of the commission's report. Another U.S. detainee, Sept. 11 financier and would-be hijacker Ramzi Binalshibh, also figures prominently in the account. The report traces the emergence of the hijackers, beginning with longtime jihad fighters Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar and including the formation of a hijacking cell in Hamburg, Germany. Bin Laden approved a plan in 1999 that called for hijacking airliners in both the United States and Southeast Asia, but the latter part was soon dropped for logistical reasons. In addition to the targets that were hit on Sept. 11, Mohammed initially proposed crashing hijacked planes into the CIA and FBI headquarters, unidentified nuclear power plants and the tallest buildings in California and Washington state," the report says. "The centerpiece of his original proposal was the tenth plane, which he would have piloted himself," it says. Instead of crashing it in a suicide attack, Mohammed would have killed very adult male passenger on the plane, contacted the media from the air and landed the aircraft at a U.S. airport. Then he would have made a speech denouncing U.S. policies in the Middle East before releasing all the women and children, the report says. When bin Laden finally approved the operation, he personally scrapped the idea of using one of the hijacked planes to make a public statement, the report says. Commission staff also identify at least nine, and as many as 10, potential hijackers who were at one point drafted for inclusion in the attacks but either backed out or were removed by senior al Qaeda officials. Al Qaeda had envisioned between 25 and 26 hijackers total, for as many as seven hijackers on each plane, according to Mohammed. Contrary to the popular depiction of the plotters as disciplined and unerring, the commission's investigators indicate that the plan was beset with problems. "Given the catastrophic results of the 9/11 attacks, it is tempting to depict the plot as a set plan executed to near perfection," the report says. "This would be a mistake. The 9/11 conspirators confronted operational difficulties, internal disagreements, and even dissenting opinions within the leadership of al Qaeda. In the end, the plot proved sufficiently flexible to adapt and evolve as challenges arose." The commission staff found that "internal disagreement among the 9/11 plotters may have posed the greatest potential vulnerability for the plot." The clearest example is a serious rift that developed between Atta, whom bin Laden had designated as the "emir" of the plot, and Ziad Jarrah, one of the other trained pilots. Jarrah was more gregarious and seemingly westernized than his compatriots, and he pined for his girlfriend. He had married her in an Islamic ceremony not recognized by German law, and he called her on an almost daily basis. The breaking point appears to have come in July 2001, when Jarrah was taken to the Miami airport by Atta and issued a one-way ticket to Germany. Although Jarrah would rejoin the plot in the next month, the panel concludes that Mohammed "may have been preparing another al Qaeda operative, Zacarias Moussaoui, to take Jarrah's place" and that he was intended "as a potential substitute pilot." Moussaoui, who was arrested in Minnesota in August 2001, is charged as a conspirator in the Sept. 11 plot. The panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also portrays an ongoing high-level debate among bin Laden, Mohammed, Atta and others over the scope and timing of the attacks. Bin Laden, the report says, "had been pressuring KSM [Mohammed] for months to advance the attack date," even asking that the attacks occur as early as mid-2000 after Ariel Sharon caused an outcry by visiting a contested holy site in Jerusalem. According to Mohammed, bin Laden later pushed for dates of May 12, 2001 -- the seven-month anniversary of the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen -- and then for June or July, to coincide with a visit by Sharon to Washington. "In both instances," the report said, Mohammed "insisted that the hijacker teams were not yet ready. Other al Qaeda detainees also confirm that the 9/11 attacks were delayed during the summer of 2001, despite bin Laden's wishes." The final date was likely influenced in part by the targets chosen, investigators also found. An electronic communication between Atta and Binalshibh showed that Atta finally selected a date after the first week in September "so that the United States Congress would be in session." Bin Laden strongly favored targeting the White House, and Binalshibh urged Atta to agree. But Atta was concerned that the presidential mansion was too difficult to hit, and backed the U.S. Capitol instead. The matter appears to have been unresolved as late as two days before the attack. The panel's report appears to generally side with FBI investigators on the question of knowing accomplices within the United States, ruling out, for example, any terrorist connections to a Saudi national who helped two of the hijackers in San Diego. The panel also found no evidence that the Saudi royal family or government aided the plot. But the commission raises questions about a handful of other individuals and says its investigation is continuing. The public hearings being held today feature testimony from FBI investigators, a Justice Department prosecutor and a CIA officer about the history of al Qaeda and the makings of the Sept. 11 plot. In a staff report and testimony tomorrow, the commission will examine the nation's poorly prepared air defenses on Sept. 11. The commission staff report issued earlier today says that although Osama bin Laden briefly explored the idea of forging ties with Iraq in the mid-1990s, the terrorist leader was hostile to Hussein's secular government, and Iraq never responded to requests for help in providing training camps or weapons, the panel's report says. The findings come in the wake of statements Monday by Vice President Cheney that Iraq had "long-established ties" with al Qaeda, and comments by President Bush yesterday backing up that assertion. The Sept. 11 panel, which opened its last two-day round of hearings this morning, said in a report on al Qaeda's history that the government of Sudan, which gave sanctuary to al Qaeda from 1991 to 1996, persuaded bin Laden to cease supporting anti-Hussein forces and "arranged for contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda." But the contacts did not result in any cooperation, the panel said. "There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan [in 1996], but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship," the report says. "Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." The conclusions provide the latest example of how the Sept. 11 commission has become a political irritant for the Bush administration. The 10-member bipartisan commission, initially opposed by the White House, has frequently feuded with the government over access to documents and witnesses and has issued findings sharply critical of the Bush administration's focus on terrorism prior to the Sept. 11 attacks. The initial 12-page report is a broad examination of the history of al Qaeda and bin Laden, who for years went unnoticed or underestimated by U.S. intelligence officials. The report says that bin Laden was intent on carrying out attacks on the United States as early as 1992, viewing America as "the head of the snake" because of its support for Israel and Arab regimes he considered corrupt. But U.S. officials were not aware of these plans, or knowledgeable about any details of his organization, until four years later, the report says. Although al Qaeda evidently never built a relationship with Iraq, the terrorist group may have become involved with Iran, and may have participated in the June 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers apartment complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, that killed 19 Americans and injured 372 others, the panel found. Investigators concluded that the Khobar Towers attack was carried out by a Saudi Shiite Hezbollah group with assistance from Iran. Initially, because of the historical hostility between bin Laden's extremist brand of Sunni Islam and Shiites, analysts had discounted cooperation between the two. "Later intelligence, however, showed far greater potential for collaboration between Hezbollah and al Qaeda than many had previously thought," the report says. It describes contacts between al Qaeda and Iran, including a visit to Iran and Lebanon by a small group of al Qaeda operatives for training in explosives, intelligence and security. "We have seen strong but indirect evidence that [bin Laden's] organization did in fact play some as yet unknown role in the Khobar attack," the report says. As al Qaeda developed, its terrorist training camps in Afghanistan provided fertile ground for its operatives "to think creatively about ways to commit mass murder," it says. Among the ideas that were raised: taking over a nuclear missile launcher in Russia and forcing Russian scientists to fire a nuclear missile at the United States, carrying out mustard gas or cyanide attacks against Jewish areas in Iran, spreading poison gas through the air conditioning system of a targeted building and hijacking an aircraft and crashing it into an airport terminal or nearby city. In 1998, the suicide truck bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania -- which killed 224 people and injured more than 5,000 combined -- marked a new departure in that "they were planned, directed and executed by al Qaeda, under the direct supervision of bin Laden and his chief aides," the report says. But a January 2000 attempt to attack a U.S. warship, the USS The Sullivans, failed because the boat to be used in the suicide attack was overloaded with explosives and sank, the report says. Ten months later, a similar attack was executed successfully against the USS Cole in Yemen. "Contrary to popular understanding," the report says, "bin Laden did not fund al Qaeda through a personal fortune and a network of businesses," and he never received a $300 million inheritance. He actually received about $1 million a year over about 24 years as an inheritance, a significant sum but not enough to fund a global terrorist network. "Instead, al Qaeda relied primarily on a fundraising network developed over time," the report says. It says the CIA estimates that al Qaeda spent $30 million a year, with the largest outlays ($10 million to $20 million annually) going to fund the Taliban. "Actual terrorist operations were relatively cheap," it says. Since the Sept. 11 attacks and the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan, "al Qaeda's funding has decreased significantly," the report says. But the group's expenditures have decreased as well, and "it remains relatively easy for al Qaeda to find the relatively small sums required to fund terrorist operations," the report warns. Now, the organization is far more decentralized, with operational commanders and cell leaders making the decisions that were previously made by bin Laden, the panel found. Yet, al Qaeda remains interested in carrying out chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attacks against the United States, the report says. Although an attempt to purchase uranium in 1994 failed -- the material proved to be fake -- "al Qaeda continues to pursue its strategic objective of obtaining a nuclear weapon," according to the report. By any means possible, it warns, "al Qaeda is actively striving to attack the United States and inflict mass casualties." Staff writer William Branigin contributed to this report. © 2004 The Washington Post Company washingtonpost.com _________________________________________________ The commission's report: washingtonpost.com _________________________________________________ P.S. I posted the above for information purposes only. I have zero intention of discussing it with anyone on this thread. Ergo, comment to your heart's content but do not expect me to respond - I will not.

To: Done, gone. who wrote (583371)	6/16/2004 11:24:04 AM
From: Srexley	Respond to of 769670

"comment to your heart's content but do not expect me to respond - I will not." Didn't even read it. But like your leftist attitude. Funny.

To: Done, gone. who wrote (583371)	6/17/2004 8:30:37 AM
From: Done, gone.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Committee of Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change Releases Statement on Need to Replace Bush Administration <snip> Following are opening remarks by spokesperson Phyllis Oakley, former assistant secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, in advance of the official statement of the Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change: Opening Remarks (Prelude to the Official Statement of the Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change) Spokesperson Phyllis Oakley, Former Asst. Sec of State for Intelligence and Research Deep concern about the current state of our nation's international relations compels us, 27 men and women who have served the United States in senior diplomatic, national security, and Military positions, to speak out and call for a fundamental change in the United States' approach to foreign policy. Let me note that we did not seek large numbers of supporters for our statement -- we have assembled a varied and representative group of like-minded former senior career officials. Since news of the statement came out, we have been besieged by calls from friends and colleagues around the world who have offered support and encouragement. This is very gratifying. Before reading the statement, I would add that to be involved in an act that will be seen by many as political if not partisan is for many of us a new experience. As career government officials, we have served loyally both Republican and Democratic administrations. We have not only worked overseas; we have also held positions of major responsibility in the Department of State, Department of Defense, National Security Council, and at the United Nations. For many of us, such an overt step is very hard to do and we have made our decisions after deep reflection. We believe we have as good an understanding as any of our citizens of basic American interests. Over nearly half a century we have worked energetically in all regions of the world, often in very difficult circumstances, to build piece by piece a structure of respect and influence for the United States that has served our county very well over the last 60 years. Today we see that structure crumbling under an administration blinded by ideology and a callous indifference to the realities of the world around it. Never before have so many of us felt the need for a major change in the direction of our foreign policy. We will be among the first to recognize that the nation currently faces unprecedented threats. We recognize too that the Bush administration is now reaching out to allies. But everything we have heard from friends abroad on every continent suggests to us that the lack of confidence in the present administration in Washington is so profound that a whole new team is needed to repair the damage. Repair it we must, we believe, as the future security and well being of the United States depends on it. I would like to introduce the others with me this morning, and then read the statement. Afterwards we will be happy to take questions, which will be answered on an individual basis. --- DIPLOMATS AND MILITARY COMMANDERS FOR CHANGE The undersigned have held positions of responsibility for the planning and execution of American foreign and defense policy. Collectively, we have served every president since Harry S. Truman. Some of us are Democrats, some are Republicans or Independents, many voted for George W. Bush. But we all believe that current Administration policies have failed in the primary responsibilities of preserving national security and providing world leadership. Serious issues are at stake. We need a change. From the outset, President George W. Bush adopted an overbearing approach to America's role in the world, relying upon military might and righteousness, insensitive to the concerns of traditional friends and allies, and disdainful of the United Nations. Instead of building upon America's great economic and moral strength to lead other nations in a coordinated campaign to address the causes of terrorism and to stifle its resources, the Administration, motivated more by ideology than by reasoned analysis, struck out on its own. It led the United States into an ill-planned and costly war from which exit is uncertain. It justified the invasion of Iraq by manipulation of uncertain intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, and by a cynical campaign to persuade the public that Saddam Hussein was linked to Al Qaeda and the attacks of September 11. The evidence did not support this argument. Our security has been weakened. While American airmen and women, marines, soldiers and sailors have performed gallantly, our armed forces were not prepared for military occupation and nation building. Public opinion polls throughout the world report hostility toward us. Muslim youth are turning to anti-American terrorism. Never in the two and a quarter centuries of our history has the United States been so isolated among the nations, so broadly feared and distrusted. No loyal American would question our ultimate right to act alone in our national interest; but responsible leadership would not turn to unilateral military action before diplomacy had been thoroughly explored. The United States suffers from close identification with autocratic regimes in the Muslim world, and from the perception of unquestioning support for the policies and actions of the present Israeli Government. To enhance credibility with Islamic peoples we must pursue courageous, energetic and balanced efforts to establish peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and policies that encourage responsible democratic reforms. We face profound challenges in the 21st Century: proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, unequal distribution of wealth and the fruits of globalization, terrorism, environmental degradation, population growth in the developing world, HIV/AIDS, ethnic and religious confrontations. Such problems can not be resolved by military force, nor by the sole remaining superpower alone; they demand patient, coordinated global effort under the leadership of the United States. The Bush Administration has shown that it does not grasp these circumstances of the new era, and is not able to rise to the responsibilities of world leadership in either style or substance. It is time for a change. --- THE STATEMENT PROJECT Designations of Signatories (in alphabetical order) The Signatories to this Statement are retired, but held the following positions during their careers in service to the United States Government. 1. The Honorable Avis T. Bohlen; Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, 1999; Ambassador to Bulgaria, 1996; District of Columbia 2. Admiral William J. Crowe, USN, Ret.; Chairman, President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Committee, 1993; Ambassador to the Court of Saint James, 1993; Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1985; Commander in Chief, United States Pacific Command; Oklahoma 3. The Honorable Jeffrey S. Davidow; Ambassador to Mexico, 1998; Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, 1996; Ambassador to Venezuela, 1993; Ambassador to Zambia, 1988; Virginia 4. The Honorable William A. DePree; Ambassador to Bangladesh, 1987; Director of State Department Management Operations, 1983; Ambassador to Mozambique, 1976; Michigan 5. The Honorable Donald B. Easum; Ambassador to Nigeria, 1975; Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, 1974; Ambassador to Upper Volta, 1971; Virginia 6. The Honorable Charles W. Freeman, Jr.; Assistant Secretary of Defense, International Security Affairs, 1993; Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 1989; Rhode Island 7. The Honorable William C. Harrop; Ambassador to Israel, 1991; Ambassador to Zaire, 1987; Inspector General of the State Department and Foreign Service, 1983; Ambassador to Kenya and Seychelles, 1980; Ambassador to Guinea, 1975; New Jersey 8. The Honorable Arthur A. Hartman; Ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1981; Ambassador to France, 1977; Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, 1973; New Jersey 9. General Joseph P. Hoar, USMC, Ret.; Commander in Chief, United States Central Command, 1991; Deputy Chief of Staff, Marine Corps, 1990; Commanding General, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, 1987; Massachusetts 10. The Honorable H. Allen Holmes; Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, 1993; Ambassador at Large for Burdensharing, 1989; Assistant Secretary of State for Politico- Military Affairs, 1986; Ambassador to Portugal, 1982; Kansas 11. The Honorable Robert V. Keeley; Ambassador to Greece, 1985; Ambassador to Zimbabwe, 1980; Ambassador to Mauritius, 1976; Florida 12. The Honorable Samuel W. Lewis; Director of State Department Policy and Planning, 1993; Ambassador to Israel, 1977; Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, 1975; Texas 13. The Honorable Princeton N. Lyman; Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, 1997; Ambassador to South Africa, 1992; Director, Bureau of Refugee Programs, 1989; Ambassador to Nigeria, 1986; Maryland 14. The Honorable Jack F. Matlock, Jr.; Ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1987; Director for European and Soviet Affairs, National Security Council, 1983; Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, 1981; Florida 15. The Honorable Donald F. McHenry; Ambassador and U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, 1979; Illinois 16. General Merrill A. (Tony) McPeak, USAF, Ret.; Chief of Staff, United States Air Force, 1990; Commander in Chief, Pacific Air Forces, 1988; Commander, 12th Air Force and U.S. Southern Command Air Forces, 1987; Oregon 17. The Honorable George E. Moose; Representative, United Nations European Office, 1997; Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, 1993; Ambassador to Senegal, 1988; Director, State Department Bureau of Management Operations, 1987; Ambassador to Benin, 1983; Colorado 18. The Honorable David D. Newsom; Secretary of State ad interim, 1981; Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, 1978; Ambassador to the Philippines, 1977; Ambassador to Indonesia, 1973; Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, 1969; Ambassador to Libya, 1965; California 19. The Honorable Phyllis E. Oakley; Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, 1997; Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration, 1994; Nebraska 20. The Honorable Robert Oakley; Special Envoy for Somalia, 1992; Ambassador to Pakistan, 1988; Ambassador to Somalia, 1982; Ambassador to Zaire, 1979; Louisiana 21. The Honorable James D. Phillips; Diplomat-in-Residence, the Carter Center of Emory University, 1994; Ambassador to the Republic of Congo, 1990; Ambassador to Burundi, 1986; Kansas 22. The Honorable John E. Reinhardt; Director of the United States Information Agency, 1977; Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, 1975; Ambassador to Nigeria, 1971; Maryland 23. General William Y. Smith, USAF, Ret.; Chief of Staff for Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, 1979; Assistant to the Chairman, Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1975; Director of National Security Affairs, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, 1974; Arkansas 24. The Honorable Ronald I. Spiers; Under Secretary General of the United Nations for Political Affairs, 1989; Under Secretary of State for Management, 1983; Ambassador to Pakistan, 1981; Director, State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, 1980; Ambassador to Turkey, 1977; Ambassador to The Bahamas, 1973; Director, State Department Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs, 1969; Vermont 25. The Honorable Michael E. Sterner; Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, 1974; New York 26. Admiral Stansfield Turner, USN, Ret.; Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, 1977; Commander in Chief, Allied Forces Southern Europe (NATO), 1975; Commander, U.S. Second Fleet, 1974; Illinois 27. The Honorable Alexander F. Watson; Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, 1993; Ambassador to Brazil, 1992; Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, 1989; Ambassador to Peru, 1986; Maryland releases.usnewswire.com _______________________________________ P.S. I posted the above for information purposes only. I have zero intention of discussing it with anyone on this thread. Ergo, comment to your heart's content but do not expect me to respond - I will not.