more proof of the reality of the "war on terror"

[roachboy]

Iraq's Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties Were Disputed Before War
Links Were Cited to Justify U.S. Invasion, Report Says


By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 9, 2006; A01


A declassified report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence revealed that U.S. intelligence analysts were strongly disputing the alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda while senior Bush administration officials were publicly asserting those links to justify invading Iraq.

Far from aligning himself with al-Qaeda and Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Hussein repeatedly rebuffed al-Qaeda's overtures and tried to capture Zarqawi, the report said. Tariq Aziz, the detained former deputy prime minister, has told the FBI that Hussein "only expressed negative sentiments about [Osama] bin Laden."

The report also said exiles from the Iraqi National Congress (INC) tried to influence U.S. policy by providing, through defectors, false information on Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capabilities. After skeptical analysts warned that the group had been penetrated by hostile intelligence services, including Iran's, a 2002 White House directive ordered that U.S. funding for the INC be continued.

The newly declassified intelligence report provided administration critics with fresh ammunition, less than two months before midterm elections and in the middle of President Bush's campaign to refocus the public's attention away from Iraq and toward the threat of terrorism. Senior Senate Democrats immediately seized on the findings, using some of their strongest language yet to say the president continues to willfully and falsely connect Hussein to al-Qaeda.

As recently as Aug. 21, Bush suggested a link between Hussein and Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, who was killed by U.S. forces this summer. But a CIA assessment in October 2005 concluded that Hussein's government "did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates," according to the report.

"The president is still distorting. He's still making statements which are false," said Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), an intelligence committee member.

The partial release of the report came after nearly three years of partisan wrangling over what is to be a five-chapter analysis of the use of prewar intelligence in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The heart of the report -- a detailed comparison of administration statements with the intelligence then available -- is far from release. But the committee voted Thursday to release two chapters, one on the role that Iraqi exiles played in shaping prewar intelligence, the other on the accuracy of the prewar analyses of Hussein's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capabilities and his suspected links to al-Qaeda and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

White House spokesman Tony Snow dismissed the findings as old news. "If we have people who want to re-litigate that, that's fine," he said.

But Republican attempts to paint the findings as a partisan rehash were undercut by intelligence committee members from the GOP. The committee report's conclusions are based on the Democrats' findings because two Republicans -- Sens. Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) and Chuck Hagel (Neb.) -- supported those findings.

"After reviewing thousands of pages of evidence, I voted for the conclusions that most closely reflect the facts in the report," Snowe said in a written statement. "Policy-makers seemingly discounted or dismissed warnings about the veracity of critical intelligence reports that may have served as a basis for going to war."

Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) was emphatic this week that Iraqi exiles did not fundamentally shape the critical assessment of the Iraqi threat in the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate.

But, as Snowe emphasized in her statement, the report concluded that information provided by an INC source was cited in that estimate and in Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's February 2003 speech to the United Nations as corroborating evidence about Iraq's mobile biological weapons program. Those citations came despite two April 2002 CIA assessments, a May 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency fabrication notice and a July 2002 National Intelligence Council warning -- all saying the INC source may have been coached by the exile group into fabricating the information.

Democrats and Republicans agree that analysts and politicians of all political stripes were wrong about the prewar assessments of Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. But the committee report indicates that intelligence analysts were substantially right about Hussein's lack of operational links to al-Qaeda. And Democrats compared the administration's public statements with newly declassified intelligence assessments to build their case that efforts to link Iraq to al-Qaeda were willfully misleading.

In a classified January 2003 report, for instance, the CIA concluded that Hussein "viewed Islamic extremists operating inside Iraq as a threat." But one day after that conclusion was published, Levin noted, Vice President Cheney said the Iraqi government "aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda."

Intelligence reports in June, July and September 2002 all cast doubts on a reported meeting in Prague between Iraqi intelligence agents and Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta. Yet, in a Sept. 8, 2002, appearance on NBC's "Meet The Press," Cheney said the CIA considered the reports on the meeting credible, Levin said.

In February 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that "Iraq is unlikely to have provided bin Laden any useful [chemical and biological weapons] knowledge or assistance." A year later, Bush said: "Iraq has also provided al-Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training."

Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), an intelligence committee member, said it was unfair for Democrats to compare the intelligence assessments in the report with the administration's statements. He said such comparisons go beyond the scope of the chapters released.

But Democrats were unequivocal in asserting that the chapters chronicle an indisputable pattern of deception.

"It is such a blatant misleading of the United States, its people, to prepare them, to position them, to, in fact, make them enthusiastic or feel that it's justified to go to war with Iraq," said Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the committee's vice chairman. "That kind of public manipulation I don't know has any precedent in American history."

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...800777_pf.html

interesting information, this.

as if this was not clear from the outset, here we have even more proof that the war in iraq was launched under false pretenses
and
that the entire logic around which the bush administration has been selling itself to the american people
and
the logic of its more recent manoevers in the campaign running up to november
are all rooted in fabricated information
in logic rooted in false information

how much proof is enough?
at what point does the reality of this massive deception begin to register, even amongst people who support this administration?

what should be done to hold the bush administration to account for this deception?
or does anything go?
is anything and everything permissable?

how does the logic of the "war on terrorism" operate if almost all "facts" linked together via the narrative are false?

[Ch'i]

It still works because people still believe him. I posted these articles in an earlier thread, but find them appropriate for this one.

Washington Post Hussein Link to 9/11 Lingers in Many Minds
By Dana Milbank and Claudia Deane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, September 6, 2003; Page A01


Nearing the second anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, seven in 10 Americans continue to believe that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had a role in the attacks, even though the Bush administration and congressional investigators say they have no evidence of this.

Sixty-nine percent of Americans said they thought it at least likely that Hussein was involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, according to the latest Washington Post poll. That impression, which exists despite the fact that the hijackers were mostly Saudi nationals acting for al Qaeda, is broadly shared by Democrats, Republicans and independents.

Almost two years later, most Americans believe Saddam Hussein, shown in this undated photo, was involved in the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The main reason for the endurance of the apparently groundless belief, experts in public opinion say, is a deep and enduring distrust of Hussein that makes him a likely suspect in anything related to Middle East violence. "It's very easy to picture Saddam as a demon," said John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University and an expert on public opinion and war. "You get a general fuzz going around: People know they don't like al Qaeda, they are horrified by September 11th, they know this guy is a bad guy, and it's not hard to put those things together."

Although that belief came without prompting from Washington, Democrats and some independent experts say Bush exploited the apparent misconception by implying a link between Hussein and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the months before the war with Iraq. "The notion was reinforced by these hints, the discussions that they had about possible links with al Qaeda terrorists," said Andrew Kohut, a pollster who leads the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

The poll's findings are significant because they help to explain why the public continues to support operations in Iraq despite the setbacks and bloodshed there. Americans have more tolerance for war when it is provoked by an attack, particularly one by an all-purpose villain such as Hussein. "That's why attitudes about the decision to go to war are holding up," Kohut said.

Bush's opponents say he encouraged this misconception by linking al Qaeda to Hussein in almost every speech on Iraq. Indeed, administration officials began to hint about a Sept. 11-Hussein link soon after the attacks. In late 2001, Vice President Cheney said it was "pretty well confirmed" that attack mastermind Mohamed Atta met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official.

Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," Cheney was referring to a meeting that Czech officials said took place in Prague in April 2000. That allegation was the most direct connection between Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks. But this summer's congressional report on the attacks states, "The CIA has been unable to establish that [Atta] left the United States or entered Europe in April under his true name or any known alias."

Bush, in his speeches, did not say directly that Hussein was culpable in the Sept. 11 attacks. But he frequently juxtaposed Iraq and al Qaeda in ways that hinted at a link. In a March speech about Iraq's "weapons of terror," Bush said:"If the world fails to confront the threat posed by the Iraqi regime, refusing to use force, even as a last resort, free nations would assume immense and unacceptable risks. The attacks of September the 11th, 2001, showed what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction."

Then, in declaring the end of major combat in Iraq on May 1, Bush linked Iraq and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 -- and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men -- the shock troops of a hateful ideology -- gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions."

Moments later, Bush added: "The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more. In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused and deliberate and proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten the victims of September the 11th -- the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got."

A number of nongovernment officials close to the Bush administration have made the link more directly. Richard N. Perle, who until recently was chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, long argued that there was Iraqi involvement, calling the evidence "overwhelming."

Some Democrats said that although Bush did not make the direct link to the 2001 attacks, his implications helped to turn the public fury over Sept. 11 into support for war against Iraq. "You couldn't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein," said Democratic tactician Donna Brazile. "Every member of the administration did the drumbeat. My mother said if you repeat a lie long enough, it becomes a gospel truth. This one became a gospel hit."

In a speech Aug. 7, former vice president Al Gore cited Hussein's culpability in the attacks as one of the "false impressions" given by a Bush administration making a "systematic effort to manipulate facts in service to a totalistic ideology."

Bush's defenders say the administration's rhetoric was not responsible for the public perception of Hussein's involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. While Hussein and al Qaeda come from different strains of Islam and Hussein's secularism is incompatible with al Qaeda fundamentalism, Americans instinctively lump both foes together as Middle Eastern enemies. "The intellectual argument is there is a war in Iraq and a war on terrorism and you have to separate them, but the public doesn't do that," said Matthew Dowd, a Bush campaign strategist. "They see Middle Eastern terrorism, bad people in the Middle East, all as one big problem."

A number of public-opinion experts agreed that the public automatically blamed Iraq, just as they would have blamed Libya if a similar attack had occurred in the 1980s. There is good evidence for this: On Sept. 13, 2001, a Time/CNN poll found that 78 percent suspected Hussein's involvement -- even though the administration had not made a connection. The belief remained consistent even as evidence to the contrary emerged.

"You can say Bush should be faulted for not correcting every single misapprehension, but that's something different than saying they set out deliberately to deceive," said Duke University political scientist Peter D. Feaver. "Since the facts are all over the place, Americans revert to a judgment: Hussein is a bad guy who would do stuff to us if he could."

Key administration figures have largely abandoned any claim that Iraq was involved in the 2001 attacks. "I'm not sure even now that I would say Iraq had something to do with it," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, a leading hawk on Iraq, said on the Laura Ingraham radio show on Aug. 1.

A top White House official told The Washington Post on July 31: "I don't believe that the evidence was there to suggest that Iraq had played a direct role in 9/11." The official added: "Anything is possible, but we hadn't ruled it in or ruled it out. There wasn't evidence to substantiate that claim."

But the public continues to embrace the connection.

In follow-up interviews, poll respondents were generally unsure why they believed Hussein was behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, often describing it as an instinct that came from news reports and their long-standing views of Hussein. For example, Peter Bankers, 59, a New York film publicist, figures his belief that Hussein was behind the attacks "has probably been fed to me in some PR way," but he doesn't know how. "I think that the whole group of people, those with anti-American feelings, they all kind of cooperated with each other," he said.

Similarly, Kim Morrison, 32, a teacher from Plymouth, Ind., described her belief in Hussein's guilt as a "gut feeling" shaped by television. "From what we've heard from the media, it seems like what they feel is that Saddam and the whole al Qaeda thing are connected," she said.

Deborah Tannen, a Georgetown University professor of linguistics who has studied Bush's rhetoric, said it is impossible to know but "plausible" that Bush's words furthered such public impressions. "Clearly, he's using language to imply a connection between Saddam Hussein and September 11th," she said.

"There is a specific manipulation of language here to imply a connection." Bush, she said, seems to imply that in Iraq "we have gone to war with the terrorists who attacked us."

Tannen said even a gentle implication would be enough to reinforce Americans' feelings about Hussein. "If we like the conclusion, we're much less critical of the logic," she said.

The Post poll, conducted Aug. 7-11, found that 62 percent of Democrats, 80 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of independents suspected a link between Hussein and 9/11. In addition, eight in 10 Americans said it was likely that Hussein had provided assistance to al Qaeda, and a similar proportion suspected he had developed weapons of mass destruction.

BBC News Bush administration on Iraq 9/11 link

Mr Bush has never directly accused the former Iraqi leader of having a hand in the attacks on New York and Washington, but he has repeatedly associated the two in keynote addresses delivered since 11 September. Senior members of his administration have similarly conflated the two.

Bush maintains Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda are connected.

A recent opinion poll suggests that 70% of Americans believe the Iraqi leader was personally involved in the attacks.

Despite his stated rejection of any clear link between Saddam Hussein and the events of that day, Mr Bush continues to assert that the deposed president had ties with al-Qaeda, the terrorist network blamed for the 11 September attacks.

The Bush administration tends to place two things in the same sentence to create the illusion of a link. Its not suprising that the average American holds these view.

[filtherton]

Is there any intellectually honest person who is actually shocked by this?

[Seaver]

Thanks for posting that same 3 year old article Ch'i. That shows that 3 years ago 66% of people believed it.

[filtherton]

Originally Posted by Seaver

Thanks for posting that same 3 year old article Ch'i. That shows that 3 years ago 66% of people believed it.

Well played, sir.

[roachboy]

what is interesting is that this is the senate intellgence committee report from 2003 that is finally reaching the public.
it is also interesting to note that this is a bipartisan report.

it contains little new information, frankly--in tfp land, host has been posting continuous about the role played by chalabi et al in fabricating information amenable to the policy ends ofthe bush administration that had nothing to do with reality on the ground.

critics of the administration have known this from day one.
supporters of the administration have denied this information based seemingly on nothing beyond a sense of ideological loyalty that extends to a bizarre place: faced with a choice between ideology and reality, ideology wins.
this problem is particular to the right.

so now you see this sorry administration attempting to market itself yet again based on a narrative that is worth nothing at all.
you see it hawking itself and its war--which has cost thousands of lives--on the basis of a narrative that is utterly and completely without merit.


i would think there should come a point where conservatives begin to abandon the bush administration in great number, simply in the interest of self-preservation.
has that point arrived?
if it has not, then why not?

the question really then is not about the contents of conservative politics, but about the linkage between conservative politics and this administration.
why would a conservative who is interested in the continued functionality of conservative politics continue to support george w. bush?

[host]

Originally Posted by Seaver

Thanks for posting that same 3 year old article Ch'i. That shows that 3 years ago 66% of people believed it.

Seaver, did you intend your post to be an uncanny, but coincidental clone of the refrain that is reported in the bottom of the following news report...you can go to the bottom of the linked reporting to read it.....

IMO, it seems that

.......White House Press Secretary Tony Snow dismissed the report as "nothing new"......

...is a "piss poor" defense against strong evidence that the US administration knowingly deceived the people of the US and of US allied countries, to engage in a program of "aggressive war", against a sovereign, foreign nation. Justice Robert Jackson, former chief allied prosecutor at Nuremberg, must be rolling over in his grave, if he is aware of what has transpired here......

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/sto...p-379418c.html
Saddam off 9/11 hook

No ties to Qaeda - Senate

BY RICHARD SISK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks or with Al Qaeda despite pre-war claims by President Bush of close links between the terror group and the then-Iraqi dictator, a Senate panel said yesterday.

Nevertheless, two recent polls showed that 43%-46% of Americans continue to believe Saddam was involved in 9/11.

Bush and Vice President Cheney frequently cited Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's presence in Iraq before the war as evidence of a Saddam connection. Cheney several times cited what he called Saddam's "long-established ties to Al Qaeda."

But the Senate Intelligence Committee report found that Saddam never collaborated with Osama Bin Laden or al-Zarqawi.

The report said Saddam "attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture Zarqawi." Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. air strike in June.

As a secular Muslim, Saddam "was distrustful of Al Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime," the report said.

A separate section of the 400-page report said the Bush administration also used bogus claims about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction by the Iraqi National Congress led by Ahmed Chalabi to boost support for the war......

roachboy, the method that I'm going to utilize on this thread, served us well in our effort to drive the "Saddam did have WMD stockpiles, but the US inspectors didn't find them because......" posts, first, down to a minimum, and then off this forum entirely.

I intend to take the key points of your OP article, one by one, and present a trove of news reporting and "evidence" from the administration's own archives on the internet, that will make a defense of what the administration did to influence grassroots support for the "necessity" of it's invasion and occupation of Iraq, about as convincing as the "Saddam had WMD.....we just didn't find them", mantra......

<i>From the OP article:</i>
.......A declassified report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence revealed that U.S. intelligence analysts were strongly disputing the alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda while senior Bush administration officials were publicly asserting those links to justify invading Iraq...........

Threats and Responses: The Qaeda Connection
Section: A
Publication title: New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Jun 18, 2004. pg. A.1
DAVID E. SANGER and ROBIN TONERl, David E. Sanger reported from New York for this article, and Robin Toner from Detroit.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney said yesterday that they remain convinced that Saddam Hussein's government had a long history of ties to Al Qaeda, a day after the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks reported that its review of classified intelligence found no evidence of a ''collaborative relationship'' that linked Iraq to the terrorist organization.

Mr. Bush, responding to a reporter's question about the report after a White House cabinet meeting yesterday morning, said: ''The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and Al Qaeda'' is ''because there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.''

He said: ''This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and Al Qaeda. We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. For example, Iraqi intelligence officers met with bin Laden, the head of Al Qaeda, in the Sudan. There's numerous contacts between the two.''

He repeated that Mr. Hussein was ''a threat'' and ''a sworn enemy to the United States of America.''

Last night Mr. Cheney, who was the administration's most forceful advocate of the Qaeda-Hussein links, was more pointed, repeating in detail his case for those ties and saying that The New York Times's coverage yesterday of the commission's findings ''was outrageous.''

''They do a lot of outrageous things,'' Mr. Cheney, appearing on ''Capital Report'' on CNBC, said of The Times, referring specifically to a four-column front page headline that read ''Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie.'' Mr. Cheney added, ''The press wants to run out and say there's a fundamental split here now between what the president said and what the commission said.''

He said that newspapers, including The Times, had confused the question of whether there was evidence of Iraqi participation in Sept. 11 with the issue of whether a relationship existed between Al Qaeda and Mr. Hussein's government.

Speaking of the commission, he said, ''They did not address the broader question of a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda in other areas, in other ways.'' He said ''the evidence is overwhelming.'' He described the ties and cited numerous links back to the 1990's, including contacts between Osama bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officials.

Senator John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, also jumped into the debate yesterday, saying: ''It is clear that President Bush owes the American people a fundamental explanation about why he rushed to war for a purpose that it now turns out is not supported by the facts. That is the finding of this commission. The war against Al Qaeda is not the war in Iraq, when it began.''

Staff Report 15, released by the commission Wednesday, detailed how a senior Iraqi intelligence officer ''reportedly made three visits to Sudan'' and met with Mr. bin Laden in 1994. At that meeting, the report concluded, Mr. bin Laden sought permission to establish training camps in Iraq and help in obtaining weapons, ''but Iraq apparently never responded.''

''There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda also occurred after bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship,'' the report continued. ''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 Times quoted that section of the report at length on Thursday, along with quotations from Mr. Bush's and Mr. Cheney's statements before and after the Iraq invasion on the questions of links and of evidence of Iraqi involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. Those included Mr. Bush's Sept. 17, 2003, statement: ''No, we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with Sept. 11.''

Mr. Cheney expressed a slightly different view last night, saying, ''We have never been able to prove that there was a connection there on 9/11.'' He went on to cite a Czech intelligence service report that Mohamed Atta, one of the lead hijackers, met a senior Iraqi intelligence official in April 2001. ''That's never been proven,'' he said. ''It's never been refuted.''

The commission report released on Wednesday concluded: ''We do not believe that such a meeting occurred,'' citing phone records and other evidence that Mr. Atta was in Florida at that time, not Prague.

Mr. Cheney returned to the subject of The Times's coverage later in his appearance on CNBC when an anchor, Gloria Borger, began saying, ''But the press is making a distinction between 9/11 and -- -- ''

''No, they're not,'' Mr. Cheney said. ''The New York Times does not. 'The Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Ties,''' he said, quoting the headline. ''That's what it says. That's the vaunted New York Times. Numerous -- I've watched a lot of the coverage on it and the fact of the matter is they don't make a distinction. They fuzz it up. Sometimes it's through ignorance. Sometimes its malicious. But you'll take a statement that's geared specifically to say there's no connection in relations to the 9/11 attack and then say, 'Well, obviously there's no case here.' And then jump over to challenge the president's credibility or my credibility.''

<b>The article in The Times yesterday noted that the White House said Wednesday that it did not see the commission's report as a contradiction of past statements by Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, and the article reported that the White House said the administration had always been careful not to suggest that it had proof of a tie between Mr. Hussein and Sept. 11. Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, was quoted in the article reinforcing those points.

The Times's coverage of the Iraq-Al Qaeda issue was consistent with that of other large newspapers.</b>
<i>Comment inserted by "host": although this NY Times article provides points that support the excerpt above from this thread's OP article, the preceding paragraphs, highlighted in bold, do not seem reliable, in relation to the evidence of Cheney's public comments, posted in the following quote boxes......</i>

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney were not alone in responding yesterday to the commission's findings. Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, also charged that the media had distorted the findings of the commission about links between Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Hussein. He sad the report showed the two men were ''developing a relationship.''

''That relationship could have led to dire consequences for the United States,'' Mr. Hastert said, adding that the two men ''are cut from the same cloth.''

Both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry had expected to focus on the economy yesterday, but the dispute over the 9/11 commission's report overshadowed that effort.

Speaking to reporters in Detroit, Mr. Kerry said that it was Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney who were muddying distinctions. ''The president and the vice president on a number of occasions have asserted very directly to the American people that the war against Al Qaeda is the war in Iraq. And on any number of occasions, the president has made it clear that the front line of the war against Al Qaeda is in Iraq.'' ....

<i>From the OP article:</i>
.....Intelligence reports in June, July and September 2002 all cast doubts on a reported meeting in Prague between Iraqi intelligence agents and Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta. Yet, in a Sept. 8, 2002, appearance on NBC's "Meet The Press," Cheney said the CIA considered the reports on the meeting credible, Levin said.......

<b>The following are <b>the record of Cheney's comments and evidence of the recanting....to Gloria Borger, on June 17, 2004.... of his own record of statements with regard to Atta's "meeting" in Prague</b>, which are available on the whitehouse.gov website:</b>

http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresid...p20011114.html
Interview of the Vice President
by CBS's 60 Minutes II
November 14, 2001

......<b>Gloria Borger: Well, you know that Muhammad Atta the ringleader of the hijackers actually met with Iraqi intelligence.

Vice President Cheney: I know this. In Prague in April of this year as well as earlier. And that information has been made public. The Czechs made that public. Obviously that's an interesting piece of information.</b>

Gloria Borger: Sounds like you have your suspicions?

Vice President Cheney: I can't operate on suspicions. The President and the rest of us who are involved in this effort have to make what we think are the right decisions for the United States and the national security arena and that's what we're doing. And it doesn't do a lot of good for us to speculate. We'd rather operate based on facts and make announcements when we've got announcements to make. .........

http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresid...p20011209.html
December 9, 2001

The Vice President Appears on NBC's Meet the Press

.......RUSSERT: Let me turn to Iraq. When you were last on this program, September 16, five days after the attack on our country, I asked you whether there was any evidence that Iraq was involved in the attack and you said no.

<b>Since that time, a couple of articles have appeared which I want to get you to react to. The first: The Czech interior minister said today that an Iraqi intelligence officer met with Mohammed Atta, one of the ringleaders of the September 11 terrorists attacks on the United States, just five months before the synchronized hijackings and mass killings were carried out..
</b>
........RUSSERT: The plane on the ground in Iraq used to train non-Iraqi hijackers.

Do you still believe there is no evidence that Iraq was involved in September 11?

<b>CHENEY: Well, what we now have that's developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that's been pretty well confirmed, that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack.</b>

Now, what the purpose of that was, what transpired between them, we simply don't know at this point. But that's clearly an avenue that we want to pursue...........

<b>Curiously, on June 17, 2004, VP Cheney seems to have denied his own Nov. and Dec., 2001, publicly televised, videotaped, and officially archived statements:</b>

http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/...404_flash3.htm
CHENEY: CLEAR LINKS BETWEEN SADDAM, AL-QAEDA; CALLS NY TIMES ARTICLE 'OUTRAGEOUS'
Thu Jun 17 2004 19:00:33 ET
...BORGER: Well, let's get to Mohammad Atta for a minute, because you mentioned him as well. You

have said in the past that it was, quote, "pretty well confirmed."

Vice Pres. CHENEY: No, I never said that.

BORGER: OK.

Vice Pres. CHENEY: Never said that. ......

......BORGER: Let me ask you what your response is to the Democratic presidential candidate,

John Kerry, who said upon looking at this 9/11 report that this administration, quote, "misled

America."

Vice Pres. CHENEY: In what respect? I haven't seen that.

BORGER: In terms of the relationship between al-Qaida and Iraq......

<b>More evidence that the MSM press knew what Cheney said to make an intentionally contrived case for a Saddam-Qaeda connection, but feigned ignorance of the extent of the official deception:</b>

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...itroom.01.html
THE SITUATION ROOM
Aired December 15, 2005 - 16:00 ET

...... BUCHANAN: That's a race for the vice president.

BLITZER: We'll see what happens on that front. <b>Yesterday, Paul Begala was standing where you were. He pointed out correctly that the vice president, Dick Cheney, did allege that there was a meeting in Prague between the CIA, between Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of 9/11, and somebody from the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein.

I suggested, "Well, I don't know if the vice president said it as hard and fast as you're saying, Paul Begala." But lo and behold, one Web site Media Matters for America, points out there is a direct quote from the vice president to Gloria Borger saying, "I know this. In Prague in April of this year as well as earlier," and that information has been made public. Paul Begala was right. I was wrong.</b>

BRAZILE: Paul Begala is always right. Wolf, you're always right. You're always right.

BLITZER: So is Bay Buchanan. Thanks to both of you for joining us. ........

<b>Evidence to back the June 17, 2004 Cheney recant to Gloria Borger, of his earlier, deceptive statements, in 2001, about Atta's "meeting" in Prague:</b>

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10036925/
'Hardball with Chris Matthews' for Nov. 11th
Updated: 10:08 a.m. ET Nov 14, 2005

......MATTHEWS: All this week we‘ve been examining the Bush administration‘s claims about Iraq that sold America on the war. We‘ve looked at claims that Saddam was a nuclear threat, that our troops would be greeted as liberators and that administration ally Ahmed Chalabi could be trusted.

All of those claims, of course, were false. Tonight, we offer you a closer look at another key White House argument. The alleged link between Iraq and 9/11. HARDBALL correspondent David Shuster reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID SHUSTER, HARDBALL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just days after the 9/11 attack, Vice President Cheney on “Meet the Press” said the response should be aimed at Osama bin Laden‘s al Qaeda terror organization, not Saddam Hussein‘s Iraq.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Saddam Hussein is bottled up at this point, but clearly we continue to have fairly tough policy where the Iraqis are concerned.

TIM RUSSERT, NBC HOST: Do we have any evidence linking Saddam Hussein or Iraqis to this operation?

CHENEY: No.

SHUSTER: But during that same time period, according to Bob Woodward‘s book, “Bush at War,” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was pushing for military strikes on Iraq. And during cabinet meetings, Cheney quote, expressed deep concern about Saddam and would not rule out going after Iraq at some point.

That point started to come 11 months later, just before 9/11‘s first anniversary. The president and vice president had decided to redirect their war on terror to Baghdad.

So, with the help of the newly-formed White House Iraq group, which consisted of top officials and strategists, the selling of a war on Iraq began and the administration‘s rhetoric about Saddam changed.

Not only did White House hawks tell The New York Times for a front-page Sunday exclusive that Saddam was building a nuclear weapon, and not only did five administration officials that day go on the Sunday television shows to repeat the charge...

CHENEY: That he is in fact, actively and aggressively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

SHUSTER: But the White House started claiming that Iraq and the group responsible for 9/11 were one in the same.

BUSH: The war on terror—you can‘t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.

We‘ve learned that Iraq has trained members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases.

He‘s a threat because he is dealing with al Qaeda.

SHUSTER: In pushing the Saddam/Iraq/9/11 connection, both the president and the vice president made two crucial claims.

First, they alleged there had been a 1994 meeting in Sudan between Osama bin Laden and an Iraqi intelligence official.

BUSH: We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade.

SHUSTER: After the Iraq war began, however, the 9/11 Commission was formed and reported that while Osama bin Laden may have requested Iraqi help, quote, Iraq apparently never responded.

<b>The other crucial pre-war White House claim was that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met in a senior Iraqi intelligence official in the Czech republic in April of 2001.

GLORIA BORGER, CNBC HOST: You have said in the past that it was quote, pretty well confirmed.

CHENEY: No, I never said that.

BORGER: OK, I think that is...

CHENEY: ... I never said that. That‘s absolutely not...</b>

[Ch'i]

Originally Posted by Seaver
Thanks for posting that same 3 year old article Ch'i. That shows that 3 years ago 66% of people believed it.

Actually seven out of ten is 70% last time I checked. I was about to give you some newer information, but host seemed to sum up what I was about to say quite nicely. I hope this isn't your only argument against the Bush administrations tactics.
Oh, and thanks for addressing the issue...

[Willravel]

Originally Posted by Seaver

Thanks for posting that same 3 year old article Ch'i. That shows that 3 years ago 66% of people believed it.

So where are your articles saying that the statistics are now different? I mean honestly, there's no reason to assume they've changed without at least some statistical data. Until that new data emerges, we have to assume that the majority of sheep still follow the shepherd. I'm sure you're not one of the sheep, of course, so please don't read this response as being an attack on you. I'm sure you know that Saddam and Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. The problem is that not everyone has the benifit of understanding. I'm sure you can admit that there are still a lot of people out there that think we've gone to war with Iraq because the WTC fell. I doubt those people voted for Kerry.

[Elphaba]

IIRC, the current percentage of Americans' that still believe there is a link is at a little over 30%, many of those being our soldiers in Iraq.

[Rekna]

time magazine had a poll last week that said something around 39% of Americans still believe Saddam was responsible for 9/11 unfortunatly I already through away the magazine and can't find the exact number or question.

[dc_dux]

Originally Posted by Elphaba

IIRC, the current percentage of Americans' that still believe there is a link is at a little over 30%, many of those being our soldiers in Iraq.

Among the questions in a Zogby poll last week:

Do you agree or disagree that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 terror attacks?
Agree - 46%
Disagree - 50%

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1169

Its not really surprising to me that nearly half of Americans polled still believe this. While Bush et al have finally adminitted no direct connection or even marginal affiliation between Saddam and al Queda, the rhetoric out of the WHite House, Defense Dept and State Dept. is to continue to describe Iraq as the center of the war on terrorism and our response to 9/11 in the same breath.

The good news is that as more and more of the truth emerges about our invasion of Iraq, a growing number of Americans are recognizing the outright lies, or at the very least, information manipluation, coming out of the White for what it is ...a desperate attempt to defend an indefensible failed policy.

[Elphaba]

Originally Posted by roachboy

what is interesting is that this is the senate intellgence committee report from 2003 that is finally reaching the public.
it is also interesting to note that this is a bipartisan report.

Actually, what has been released is only a small segment of the Phase II Senate Intelligence investigation. Robertson once again wanted to delay the committee's full findings beyond this election, as he did in 2004. Fellow committee members balked and so we are given the "everyone knew it anyway" chapter. We have yet to see anything on the methods of intelligence gathering by the Pentagon and how that data was used to advance a war on Iraq.

I think most of us here already know what that section of the report is going to say as well, thanks to host's investigations. My question is whether it will make any difference to the bulk of the American people?

Originally Posted by Rekna

time magazine had a poll last week that said something around 39% of Americans still believe Saddam was responsible for 9/11 unfortunatly I already through away the magazine and can't find the exact number or question.

Thanks, Rekna. I had already tossed my copy as well, but I wanted to make sure I didn't overstate the percentage.

[Rekna]

I found the poll. here are the results

Do you think the Bush Adminstration is using the threat of terrorism or the terrorism alerts for politcal reasons?

Yes 49%
No 45%

Do you think the Bush Administration has a clear and well-thought-out policy to deal with terrorism?

Yes 36%
No 59%

Do you think Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi leader, was personally involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center?

Yes 38%
No 53%

Do you believe the U.S.'s involvement in the war in Iraq is hurting or helping the war on terrorism?

Hurting 54%
Helping 40%

Poll was done by Time/Discovery channel.


Why do so many still believe there is a link? Why does the administration keep hinting at a link? It is a flat out lie but yet they still push it. I want an administration that is honest with me. Is that to much to ask for?

[dc_dux]

This caught my eye.....just another example of how the White House and Defense Dept. continue to callously mispresent the truth:

U.S. Count of Baghdad Deaths Exclude Car Bombs. Mortar Attacks

U.S. officials, seeking a way to measure the results of a program aimed at decreasing violence in Baghdad, aren't counting scores of dead killed in car bombings and mortar attacks as victims of the country's sectarian violence.

In a distinction previously undisclosed, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said Friday that the United States is including in its tabulations of sectarian violence only deaths of individuals killed in drive-by shootings or by torture and execution.

That has allowed U.S. officials to boast that the number of deaths from sectarian violence in Baghdad declined by more than 52 percent in August over July.

But it eliminates from tabulation huge numbers of people whose deaths are certainly part of the ongoing conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Not included, for example, are scores of people who died in a highly coordinated bombing that leveled an entire apartment building in eastern Baghdad, a stronghold of rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. ...

The dispute is an important one. With Baghdad violence reaching record levels in July, U.S. commanders warned that the country was tipping toward civil war. They then ordered 8,000 U.S. troops and 3,000 Iraqis to conduct house-by-house searches of Baghdad's neighborhoods in an effort to root out insurgent gunmen and militia death squads in Operation Together Forward.

The program, which began in earnest Aug. 7, included bringing in thousands of American troops from other parts of Iraq in what was seen by many as a last-ditch effort to head off a civil war that many Iraqis say has already begun.

Within weeks of the kickoff of the Baghdad security plan, the U.S. military's top spokesman, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, boasted that the murder rate in Baghdad had fallen by 46 percent and attributed most of the fall to the new security sweeps.

full article: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...q/15474438.htm

[filtherton]

Originally Posted by dc_dux

This caught my eye.....just another example of how the White House and Defense Dept. continue to callously mispresent the truth:

Yeah, i bet the conservative position is that they're deciding not to focus on the bad things, unlike those cut and run liberals.

[Charlatan]

It was a lie of convenience. It allowed them to market the invasion of Iraq in a way that would seem palatable to Americans.

It was always about how to position the invasion. The American populace doesn't want war, but they will tolerate it if they feel threatened or want revenge... Linking Saddam to WMDs and 9/11 accomplishes both of these items.

Americans do not see themselves as a nation that goes to war for oil (read: stability in the Middle East so that the flow of oil can continue and American oil interests can continue to be profitable).

[filtherton]

Originally Posted by Charlatan

Americans do not see themselves as a nation that goes to war for oil (read: stability in the Middle East so that the flow of oil can continue and American oil interests can continue to be profitable).

Some of us do.

[Elphaba]

Charlatan, what you say is true for a large number of Americans. Those of us that questioned the motives of a preemptive war and continued to argue against the war over the past years have been vilified in so many way. It was always about the oil as you point out, and the US need to not be held hostage by unstable governments for it's oil needs is a discussion worth having.

My objection is that this administration would prefer to take the oil at the point of a gun rather than enter into a relationship of trading partners.

[host]

Originally Posted by filtherton

Some of us do.

I think that the posters on this politics forum, and probably in the "3D" US,
can be pretty much put into one of two "mindsets":

...those who support or see "nothing wrong" with the following goals, and those who would give up their comfortable lives and financial security to prevent these goals from ever fully "taking hold" as the "rules" for news reporting in our country:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Pol...ophy/HL380.cfm

......Imagine, if you will, a future wherein the media willfully support the foreign policy objectives of the United States. A time when the left can no longer rely on the media to promote its socialist agenda to the public. A time when someone, somewhere in the media can be counted on to extol the virtues of morality without qualifications. When Betty Friedan no longer qualifies for "Person of the Week" honors. When Ronald Reagan is cited not as the "Man of the Year," but the "Man of the Century."........

http://www.cjr.org/issues/2002/2/flag-scherer.asp

....For the Media Research Center, the conservative watchdog that authored the report, Hume's dispatch represented yet another success in its campaign to hew reporters to open support for the war. Already the nation's most vocal critic of the media's perceived liberal bias, the center took on a "new and vital mission" in the months following the attacks on Washington and New York........"We are training our guns on any media outlet or any reporter interfering with America's war on terrorism or trying to undermine the authority of President Bush,".........

A self appointed "decider" of what is...or isn't "liberal bias", should have no more influence over the reporting of the media, than a self appointed censor of "pornography" should have. The reason that the SCOTUS has declared attempts to "ban" pornography, unconstitutional, is because no national authority has been recognized to have the infallible judgment to be able to claim to "know it when I see it", accurately, fairly, or uniformly....when it comes down to restricting the rights of adult Americans to view, read or publish "erotic or obscene", media.

Yet many sign on to and support the furtherance of L. Brent Bozell's "research" driven intimidation of the news media, and the isolation that he has influenced, of too many Americans, from the rich and diverse details reported by the vast multimedia of the American news reporting establishment....and they look forward to seperating the "rest of us" from this information stream, ASAP...if we permit them to finish their 19 year agenda.

[Charlatan]

Of course there are people who can see what is happening and do acknowledge that America *is* a nation that goes to war for oil.

Quite frankly, America is in the position that it needs to guarantee its supply of oil. It would be surprising if America never went to war for oil. What I was trying to point out was how the current administration played the game of marketing the invasion of Iraq by playing with the mythos of "America the Good".

[Ch'i]

Originally Posted by host
I think that the posters on this politics forum, and probably in the "3D" US,
can be pretty much put into one of two "mindsets":

...those who support or see "nothing wrong" with the following goals, and those who would give up their comfortable lives and financial security to prevent these goals from ever fully "taking hold" as the "rules" for news reporting in our country:

Very well said, and I'm glad you pointed that out. Its the subtle things being done that really come back to bite us, because they're normally the easiest to evade detection by the general populous. I'd be interested in seeing a poll on what people think, if they know at all, about the articles posted above.

Originally Posted by Charlatan
Of course there are people who can see what is happening and do acknowledge that America *is* a nation that goes to war for oil.

Quite frankly, America is in the position that it needs to guarantee its supply of oil. It would be surprising if America never went to war for oil. What I was trying to point out was how the current administration played the game of marketing the invasion of Iraq by playing with the mythos of "America the Good".

I'm starting to wonder how smart these people really are. I realize this is an oil based economy, but surely even the oil addicts must understand that oil is not going to last forever. Why not, instead of enduring the cost of wars (economy, and casualty wise), spend that time and effort in developing cheap, more efficient solar power, or something of the sort. I have a hard time with the idea that those who make these kinds of policy lack foresight to such a degree. If its gonna stop flowin' then why keep goin'?

I'm also still curious about another thing. The other half of the population who doesn't think their is a 9/11-Hussein connection anymore don't seem very upset about the original deception. Why aren't people, who now understand what happened, up in arms? Is it a case of the "I'm only one person, and no one else seems to be making a big deal out of it"ies? Why was Bush not called on this by someone, or charged with purposfully decieving the American people? Is the conservative grip really that strong? Maybe having believed Bush's 9/11-Hussein link at one point made it more comfortable to hear inside their heads, even after the fact was refuted. I just don't know. I really hate that we need to keep such a close eye on our leaders, its descipicable. And yet they get away with murder. Can people not understand that this is a government wherein we must help maintain? It seems our years of comfort made us blind, or too deaf to hear the call of vigilence anymore. American is a duel monarchy, and one side is slipping away on the oil trail left by the other. To me this is insane, but I guess some people trusted their president when he said "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." I missed the ammendment that says a president can lie without consequence.

Edit: Sorry for the rant, hehe.

[filtherton]

As far as oil goes, it seems to me to be at the very least shortsighted to continue to push for our economy to rely solely on a national resource which is already in increasing demand and for which we must compete with what will undoubtedly be the world's next superpower.

Yeah, we can continue to rely on oil, but when inevitably have to compete with china for our oil it seems rather foolish. Why wouldn't we put all our efforts towards making the need for oil as a fuel obsolete? It would be completely to our advantage to do so.

This attitude that somehow we don't need to worry about it, that if we can just put ourselves in a position to control the oil seems a bit naive to me since if we are willing to go to war for it, the chinese probably are also.

[Charlatan]

It does seem rather foolish to continue to rely on a resource that is largely under the control of foreign powers.

America is the "can do" nation. They built themselves on this great tradition. America needs to declare a (metaphorical) war upon itself and radically alter the course it has taken. Sure, oil may still be plentiful and readily available (compared to other forms of energy). But as China and India take strides to join the industrialized nations oil will become even more in demand than it is now.

America cannot afford to go to war with China or India over oil (it couldn't really afford to go to war in Iraq for oil).

If America were to have a leadership that could cast off the pressure from the Big Oil lobby and make a decision to wean the US from foreign oil (in favour of alternative sources of power) it could happen within a decade. American can do it. It will just take a leader with the vision and the stones to make it happen.

[host]

Two points:

<b>1.)</b> IMO, since the U.S. "borrows" $1 billion every calendar day, to "purchase" 14 million bbls of "petroleum equivalents", and another $1 billion "plus" to buy all of the shit that is imported and stocked on the shelves of it's 3800 Wal-Marts, and to buy the 8 million new vehicles made by foreign companies, and borrows another $1.616 billion, each and every day....to "finance" the federal treasury spending deficit, money that the US government and it's people have no ability (do the math..... $1.4 trillion in new, annual debt to foreigners, every year, at a minimum, going forward....on a base of an existing $13 trillion combined international "balance of payments" debt, and US treasury debt....up from half as much of a trade debt in 2001 ($400 billion to $800 billion, annually, in just four years....and US treasury debt, up from $5.5 trillion in 2001, to $8.3 trillion in just 50 months, an annual deficit spending, increased from no more than ZERO, in fiscal year end, Oct., 2001, to $590 billion annually, NOW!)...to ever pay back.

What is at stake now, is not the access by the US to readily available petroleum and raw material supplies, and a steady flow of imported consumer products, but rather....what is at stake is the continued ability of the US to borrow enough money from foreigners at interest rates that are low enough not to interrupt the status quo.....the US only services the interest payments on it's rising mountain of debt. No principle of the debt has been retired via paying down any portion of the debt, since 2001.

The US will be compelled, by the math....to either take petroleum or other wealth from it's foreign debt holders and suppliers, via the threat of the use of military force against them....or it will have to learn to do WITHOUT. I don't see the latter happening, so.....

.....any discussion about "the oil", must also be a discussion about "the bankruptcy", because that is the inevitable course that the US is currently headed towards. No one even bothers to advance any discussion with "math" that leads to any non-military solution to this consumption fueled, debt crisis.
The US has more than doubled it's military spending since 2001, even when the "off-budget" appropriations, spent on the GWOT "fronts" in the "Stans", and in the M.E., are excluded. Tax cuts have aggravated and accelerated both the federal debt increase and the excessive consumption driven trade imbalance. Ridiculously low interest rates of the last five years in the US, fueled a speculative housing bubble that provided the equivalent of the entire number of new jobs created during that time. The percentage of US GDP attributed to housing, rose from an average 8 percent annually, to 15 percent this years, as for example, California's 36 million residents produced 500,000 realty agents, and of theat number, a third also held realty broker licenses.
One realtor for every 72 Californians, including the children and the retired poor, folks unlikely to be purchasing, or selling homes.

The US is not in danger of experiencing an "oil shortage", just a shortage of paper money that has value enough to purchase much oil, and the common sense required to manage and preserve what value remains in that money. IMO, the investment has been made in the military, and it will be used to directly procure what the dollar will be too weak to buy.

<b>2.)</b>Ch'i, you should know, that the man who singlehandedly determines for a signifigant number of Americans, what is "liberal media", to be marginalized and ridiculed, and intimidated into "towing the party line", and what is "fair and balanced"....is as immersed in the christian religious fundamentalist dogma, as "the party", and too many of it's unwitting and professed to be secular....but fully committed, anyway....supporters of the "party", and unquestioning defenders of the political "dear leaders", who seem fine with the course that the nation is on.....to fiscal ruin.

Here he is, talking the "talk". It's his "monster", and he seems quite comfortable with it. He's not satisfied (and neither is his "chorus") that NBC has put this on national TV, for children, on saturday mornings:

http://www.veggiecurriculum.com/bible.html
....Kids will not only learn important messages from the Bible, they will develop a life-long relationship with the Lord. Jesus wants to have a personal relationship with each of his children. Kids will learn how to connect with him in every aspect of their life!

6 Units, each with 8 Lessons that will plug kids into a powerful relationship with God.......

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&i...Search+the+Web
http://www.mrc.org/BozellColumns/ent...ol20060908.asp
NBC Slices and Dices “Veggie Tales”
by L. Brent Bozell III
September 8, 2006

Just what is this entertainment media obsession with Tom Cruise’s baby pictures? Is there nothing else of interest out there in Hollywood? Actually, there is – and they’re ignoring it, proving just how disconnected the Hollywood press is from the American mainstream.

Maybe you’re familiar with the computer-animated cartoon “Veggie Tales,” a video series targeted at children aged 2 to 8, and which features moral and religious tales hosted by Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber. Beginning in 1993, the series was distributed on VHS tapes, telling biblical stories like the Battle of Jericho, David and Goliath, and the tale of the Good Samaritan. Each show ended with a Bible verse.

And it’s been a marketing phenomenon. Without any broadcasting or syndication on television, “Veggie Tales” has sold more than 50 million “Veggie Tales” DVDs and videotapes – primarily, but quietly, through big chain stores like Target, Wal-Mart, and Family Christian Stores. As their popularity spread, so did “Veggie Tales” T-shirts, plush toys, and other products.

In true Hollywood fashion, the show’s focus on young children and its cutesy vegetable stars made it a frequent target of mockery. The absolute low point came on Comedy Central’s perverse cartoon “Drawn Together,” which satirized the show by having the Larry the Cucumber character go on a murderous rampage, killing nearly all the Comedy Central cartoon’s major characters, shooting most of them bloodily in the head. Behind the killings, a laugh track howled. No one in Hollywood wondered if that might be “offensive,” let along just plain sick.

Eventually, someone in Tinseltown saw the commercial possibilities. Now the news breaks that NBC (as well as NBC-owned Telemundo) will begin showing “Veggie Tales” cartoons on Saturday mornings for the new fall season. Maybe this isn’t Earth-shattering news. In a world of 24/7 cartoon programming on cable and satellite, Saturday morning at the Big Three networks in a forgotten land, and the days where children would get up and watch test patterns on Saturdays in anticipation of cartoons has long passed.

But here is what should be news. The early word from producers is that NBC has grown increasingly fierce about editing something out of “Veggie Tales” – those apparently unacceptable, insensitive references to God and the Bible.

So NBC has taken the very essence of “Veggie Tales” – and ripped it out. It’s like “Gunsmoke,” without the guns, or “Monday Night Football,” without the football.

Think about this corporate mindset. NBC is the network that hired a squad of lawyers to argue that dropping the F-bomb on the Golden Globe Awards isn’t indecent for children, but invoking God is wholly unacceptable. Or, as one e-mailing friend marveled: “So, saying ‘F--- you’ is protected First Amendment speech on NBC but not ‘God bless you.’”

The cartoon’s creator, Phil Vischer, posted on his personal Web log the news of NBC’s increasing creative stranglehold. “At first we were told everything was 'okay' except the Bible verse at the end. Frankly, that news [never] really surprised me, because, heck, we're talking about NBC here. [Would they allow] God on Saturday morning? It didn't seem likely.”

But it grew worse than that edict, Vischer reported: “Since we've started actually producing the episodes, though, NBC has gotten a little more restrictive.” How so? He reported “we’re having to do a little more editing.” How much? So much so that Vischer implied that the God talk is landing on the cutting-room floor. Now he’s merely hoping that people will “maybe wander into Wal-Mart and buy a video with all the God still in.”

This is one of those moments where you understand that networks like NBC are only talking an empty talk and walking an empty walk when it comes to the First Amendment, and “creative integrity,” and so on. They have told parents concerned about their smutty programs like “Will and Grace” that if they’re offended, they have a remote control as an option. The networks have spent millions insisting that we have a V-chip in our TV sets. Change the channel. Block it out.

But when it comes to religious programming – programming that doesn’t even mention Jesus Christ – just watch the hypocrisy. Instead of telling viewers to just change the channel if they don’t like it, or put in a V-chip for Bible verses, they demand to producers that all that outdated old-time religion has to be shredded before broadcast.

It’s truly sad that this anti-religious hypocrisy would emerge. Today, no one in network TV fears what the children are watching – unless it makes them think about God.

Well.....goodness....couldn't Phil Vischer have simply walked away from NBC's money and the benefit to him from network distribution, in defense of christ, over money/commercial success, and saved the busy Mr. Bozell the task of writng his protest column and distributing it to over <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=veggie+tales+nbc&btnmeta%3Dsearch%3Dsearch=Search+the+Web">one hundred thousand links on the internet</a> ?

The guy who wrote the preceding column, <b>has close to half the country believing in "liberal media bias", to the extent that that "half", has to get it's "news", from sources that the rest of us either never heard of, or wouldn't take seriously, if our lives depended on it.....and ironically, they may.</b>

On talk radio around here, the callers and the hosts uniformly "bleat" about the Aljazeerah Constitution ( www.ajc.com ), and the "Taliban" USA Today. This recently took up an entire 3 hours radio "talk" segment:

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51777

.......Liberal bias in the military press?

The bias of the media isn't just at the major television networks and newspapers, but extends further then you might think.

Last week the pro-troop organization <a href="http://www.moveamericaforward.org/">Move America Forward</a>, where I serve as chairman, was informed by two reporters of Air Force Times that they would not accept future PR materials from us.

I was dumbfounded. In the journalism business, it's almost unheard of to ban a group from sending you their news releases; let alone for a military publication to tell a pro-troop nonprofit group that their material would not be accepted.

In a voicemail message to one of our staffers, reporter Bryant Jordan made it clear that he didn't want to be bothered with news releases from "somebody on the right" who "is supporting the troops":

This is Bryant Jordan, Air Force Times, umm look, we're just not interested in getting this stuff, we get stuff all the time, I'm not, just just because we write about the military doesn't mean we're gonna snatch up every column by somebody on the right who's ya know is supporting the troops. (You can listen to the audio clip of Mr. Jordan's message.)

Jordan also wrote e-mails to our staff criticizing Move America Forward and citing material from the Center for Media and Democracy, a left-wing organization described as "a counterculture public relations effort disguised as an independent media organization."

Odd that someone from a military publication would find himself of like mind with such an organization, no?

But you see, Air Force Times and its sister publications Amy Times, Navy Times and Marine Times are not published by the military, <b>but in fact are published by Gannett, the media outfit that owns USA Today and a number of local television stations around the nation.</b>

A long history of liberal bias .......

But....what's this?? http://www.moveamericaforward.org/ is an obviously right wing politcal site ? No.....

Working Together To Help Move America Forward !
Move America Forward is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to preserving our American heritage of freedom and liberty.

The organization was formed in early 2004 by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Kaloogian#False_and_conflicting_endorsements">The Honorable Howard Kaloogian (R-California 1994-2000)</a> and acclaimed radio and television personality, Melanie Morgan (KSFO 560 AM -- San Francisco).
"HOST" comments: <b>Click on the Kaloogian link, he's a f*king nut job!</b>
<b>Kaloogian and Morgan began working together during the Recall Gray Davis movement in California. Kaloogian was Chairman of the Recall Gray Davis Committee and Morgan launched the recall movement on her morning radio show, earning her the title of "Mother of the Recall."

Since then the duo has fought the liberal news media's attack on President Ronald Reagan's legacy via the Defend Reagan Committee and the efforts to undermine support for our troops and the fight against terrorism by the "Blame America First" crowd.</b>

Among the many accomplishments of Move America Forward to date:

* Move America Forward worked in conjunction with RighTalk Radio to lead the "Voices of Soldiers" Truth Tour - with Move America Forward's Co-Chairs (Howard Kaloogian & Melanie Morgan) and MAF Board Member Buzz Patterson leading a delegation of radio talk show hosts to Iraq. <h3>The talk show hosts interviewed thousands of soldiers, providing a forum for them to tell the American people about the accomplishments they are making in Operation Iraqi Freedom and the fight against terrorism.</h3>

People who never heard of L. Brent Bozell, and don't consider themselves to be all that christian centric, probably don't even know how his MRC has filtered their news, and muzzled the working press in the US, and created shaped a patriotic-fundamentalist-christian, media and politcal monolith in the
US that is "on message", tolerates no dissent, and no discernible independent thinking or discussion. It's a perfect marriage of party, Jesus, and patriotism, far superior in it's filtration of information, than an elitist "liberal media", ever could have provided.

Could anyone tell me how you can "buy in" to the "message" of "liberal media bias", and not notice, or not be irritated that everyone in "the media" who says that, also all have the same patriotic, christian-centric, reagan worshipping, "rah-rah", "of course we all know that liberals....and that Clinton....blah blah blah" uh.... talking points?

What a shame, that....after 19 years of Bozell's "hard work", it's all about to implode....the good news is that the impending implosion will be a surprise; the failed Bush presidency, the situations "on the ground", in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and the risks to the stabiltiy of housing prices and jobs and to the purchasing power of the US dollar, are all filtered out by the good work of Mr. Bozell's MRC.org , his Sarah Scaife foundation income stream, the christian right, and the RNC and it's volunteers and contributors, as well as the "reporters" that he the MRC has been able to "hew" to report on behalf of "the party", and "the church".

[Ch'i]

What a shame, that....after 19 years of Bozell's "hard work", it's all about to implode....the good news is that the impending implosion will be a surprise; the failed Bush presidency, the situations "on the ground", in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and the risks to the stabiltiy of housing prices and jobs and to the purchasing power of the US dollar, are all filtered out by the good work of Mr. Bozell's MRC.org , his Sarah Scaife foundation income stream, the christian right, and the RNC and it's volunteers and contributors, as well as the "reporters" that he the MRC has been able to "hew" to report on behalf of "the party", and "the church".

I still don't understand how it can be a surprise to them. Isn't their job to look ahead and decide what is and isn't adventagous?
I found these during some research.

"There is in the nature of government an impatience of control that disposes those invested with power to look with an evil eye upon all external attempts to restrain or direct its operations." Alexander Hamilton - Federalist Papers, 1787.

There are millions of people in this world who fight for their freedom every day. If the people of America cannot stand up and fight for theirs, then maybe they don't deserve it.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org

[host]

This seems like an appropriate thread to post this; especially as the folks "in charge" of our national security were exposed again, making very serious charges against Iran....

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0070110-7.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
January 10, 2007

President's Address to the Nation
The Library

.......Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. <h3>Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran<h3> and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq........

..and again making warlike "noises",

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...articleId=4690
<b>Stepped up US preparations for war against Iran</b>

by Peter Symonds

Global Research, February 5, 2007
WSWS.org

....and again, as in Iraq in 2002, in 2003, and since, failing to back up their claims with facts......

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...home-headlines

<b>U.S. can't prove Iran link to Iraq strife
Despite pledges to show evidence, officials have repeatedly put off presenting their case.</b>
By Maura Reynolds, Times Staff Writer
February 3, 2007

WASHINGTON — Bush administration officials acknowledged Friday that they had yet to compile evidence strong enough to back up publicly their claims that Iran is fomenting violence against U.S. troops in Iraq.

Administration officials have long complained that Iran was supplying Shiite Muslim militants with lethal explosives and other materiel used to kill U.S. military personnel. But despite several pledges to make the evidence public, the administration has twice postponed the release — most recently, a briefing by military officials scheduled for last Tuesday in Baghdad.

<h3>"The truth is, quite frankly, we thought the briefing overstated, and we sent it back to get it narrowed and focused on the facts," national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley said Friday.</h3>

The acknowledgment comes amid shifting administration messages on Iran. After several weeks of saber rattling that included a stiff warning by President Bush and the dispatch of two aircraft carrier strike groups to the Persian Gulf, near Iran, the administration has insisted in recent days that it does not want to escalate tensions or to invade Iran.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates seemed to concede Friday that U.S. officials can't say for sure whether the Iranian government is involved in assisting the attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq.

"I don't know that we know the answer to that question," Gates said.

Earlier this week, U.S. officials acknowledged that they were uncertain about the strength of their evidence and were reluctant to issue potentially questionable data in the wake of the intelligence failures and erroneous assessments that preceded the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

In particular, officials worried about a repetition of former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's February 2003 U.N. appearance to present the U.S. case against Iraq. In that speech, Powell cited evidence that was later discredited.

In rejecting the case compiled against Iran, senior U.S. officials, including Hadley, Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, confirmed Friday that they were concerned about possible inaccuracies.

"I and Secretary Rice and the national security advisor want to make sure that the briefing that is provided is absolutely accurate and is dominated by facts — serial numbers, technology and so on," Gates told reporters at the Pentagon.

Another reason for the delay, as is often the case when releasing intelligence, was that officials were concerned about inadvertently helping adversaries identify the agents or sources that provided the intelligence, Hadley said.

Hadley also said that the administration sought to delay the release of evidence until after a key intelligence report on Iraq was unveiled, so that Americans could place the evidence in the context of the broader conflict.....

Doesn't the following advice to the press, and by extension, to all of us, seem like the best way for the CIC and the US military, to avoid another Vietnam, or another Iraq?

http://niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?...groundid=00156

<b>How the press can prevent another Iraq</b>
COMMENTARY | February 02, 2007

Journalists, and through us the public, have a grave responsibility to not be complicit in another march to war on false pretenses. So what lessons should we have learned from Iraq?
By Dan Froomkin
froomkin@niemanwatchdog.org

Lessons we thought had been learned from Vietnam were forgotten in the rush to invade Iraq. And now, as we cover President Bush’s ratcheting up of the rhetoric against Iran, it’s looking like the lessons we should have learned from Iraq may not have been learned at all. So at the risk of stating the obvious, here are some thoughts about what those lessons were. (Feel free to add more in comments.)

You Can’t Be Too Skeptical of Authority

* Don’t assume anything administration officials tell you is true. In fact, you are probably better off assuming anything they tell you is a lie.

* Demand proof for their every assertion. Assume the proof is a lie. Demand that they prove that their proof is accurate.

* Just because they say it, doesn’t mean it should be make the headlines. <b>The absence of supporting evidence for their assertion -- or a preponderance of evidence that contradicts the assertion -- may be more newsworthy than the assertion itself.</b>

* Don’t print anonymous assertions. Demand that sources make themselves accountable for what they insist is true.

Provocation Alone Does Not Justify War

* War is so serious that even proving the existence of a casus belli isn’t enough. Make officials prove to the public that going to war will make things better.

* Demand to know what happens if the war (or tactical strike) doesn’t go as planned?

* Demand to know what happens if it does? What happens after “victory”?

* Ask them: Isn’t it possible this will make things worse, rather than better?

Be Particularly Skeptical of Secrecy

* Don’t assume that these officials, with their access to secret intelligence, know more than you do.

* Alternately, assume that they do indeed know more than you do – and are trying to keep intelligence that would undermine their arguments secret.

Watch for Rhetorical Traps

* Keep an eye on how advocates of war frame the arguments. Don’t buy into those frames unless you think they’re fair.

* Keep a particular eye out for the no-lose construction. For example: If we can’t find evidence of WMD, that proves Saddam is hiding them.

* Watch out for false denials. In the case of Iran, when administration officials say “nobody is talking about invading Iran,” point out that the much more likely scenario is bombing Iran, and that their answer is therefore a dodge.

Don’t Just Give Voice to the Administration Officials

* Give voice to the skeptics; don’t marginalize and mock them.

* Listen to and quote the people who got it right last time: The intelligence officials, state department officials, war-college instructors and many others who predicted the problem we are now facing, but who were largely ignored.

* Offer the greatest and most guaranteed degree of confidentiality to whisteblowers offering information that contradicts the official government position. (By contrast, don’t offer any confidentiality to administration spinners.)

Look Outside Our Borders

* Pay attention to international opinion.

* Raise the question: What do people in other countries think? Why should we be so different?

* Keep an eye out for how the international press covering this story? Why should we be so different?

Understand the Enemy

* Listen to people on the other side, and report their position.

* Send more reporters into the country we are about to attack and learn about their views, their politics and their culture.

* Don’t allow the population of any country to be demonized. All humans deserve to be humanized.

* Demand to know why the administration won’t open a dialogue with the enemy. Refusing to talk to someone you are threatening to attack should be considered inherently suspect behavior.

Encourage Public Debate

* The nation is not well served when issues of war and peace are not fully debated in public. It’s reasonable for the press to demand that Congress engage in a full, substantial debate.

* Cover the debate exhaustively and substantively.

Write about Motives

* Historically, the real motives for wars aren’t the public motives. Try to report on the motivations of the key advocates for war.

* Don’t assume that the administration is being forthright about its motives.

* If no one in the inner circle will openly discuss their motives, then encourage reasonable speculation about their motives.

Talk to the Military

* Find out what the military is being told to prepare for.

Dan Froomkin is the deputy editor of the Nieman Watchdog Project.
E-mail: froomkin@niemanwatchdog.org