Neocon Iran Policy Committee tied to disgraced Iraqi National Congress

Ali Gharib And Eli Clifton
Lobelog - Jim Lobe blog
September 10th, 2010

The Iran Policy Committee (IPC), the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), and the Iraqi National Congress (INC) are connected in more ways than just a neocon modus operandi of taking exile groups with little or no domestic legitimacy, using their (faulty) intelligence to build a case for war, and promoting them to spearhead regime change in Middle Eastern countries.

On the heels of claims by the MEK and its most staunch U.S. supporters of a covert Iranian nuclear facility, a LobeLog investigation has revealed a host of intimate ties between the IPC and the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the Iraqi exile opposition group headed by the now-disgraced dissident Ahmad Chalabi.

The INC was a cause célèbre among neoconservatives for more than a decade before the U.S.-led invasion of 2003. Once neoconservatives took positions of power in George W. Bush’s administration, much of the faulty intelligence they used to build a case for war with Iraq came from Chalabi and his group.

LobeLog has discovered that, through 2006, IPC shared an address, accountants, and some staff with multiple organizations that either fronted for or had direct ties to the INC, even sharing staff members with those groups. Some of those ties have continued through today. Many of the contacts revolve around former International Republican Institute and Freedom House director Bruce McColm, who serves as IPC “Empowerment Committee Chairman.”

Both the groups McColm runs, the International Decision Strategies and its non-profit arm, the Institute for Democratic Strategies, share offices and staff at a quaint, two-story, cream-colored building at 911 Duke St. in Arlington, Virginia.

A name plate by the door reads with the initials of both organizations: IDS.

The 911 Duke St. address also serves as the home of Bartel & Associates, the accountants for the IPC and who are listed as the “person who possesses the books of the organization” on every 990 filed since the hawkish group’s inception in 2005. Bartel & Associates founder, Margaret Bartel, also serves as a vice-president of McColm’s Institute for Democratic Strategies and started working in 2001 managing the accounts of the INC. According to Ken Silverstein and Walter Roche, Jr., in the Los Angeles Times, this included “funds for its prewar intelligence program on Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.”

The address for McColm and Bartel’s groups — 911 Duke St. — is the same address that housed IPC for at least its first year of operation. IPC is best known for its support for regime change in Iran. The group calls for a mix of U.S. military might and an opposition insurgency led by exiled Iranian dissidents. The exile Iranian group of choice is, of course, the MEK, which is listed by the U.S State Department as a “foreign terrorist organization” (and its political front, the National Council for Resistance in Iran, or NCRI).

Does this plan sound familiar? It should — it’s the same one employed after 9/11 in the run up to the Iraq war. The plan must have been easy to transfer from Iraq to Iran, especially considering how much of the INC’s business went down at the little house with blue trim at 911 Duke St.

In addition to Bruce McColm’s for profit group, International Decision Strategies, which lists the INC as a past client, the two-story house at 911 Duke St. also housed at least two groups with direct links to Ahmad Chalabi and the INC.

One is the Iraqui [sic] National Congress Support Foundation, which was registered and receiving mail in care of Chalabi at 911 Duke St. (The group appears to have made less than $25,000 per year, which meant it didn’t have to file tax forms required of tax exempt non-profits.)

The other group housed at 911 Duke St. from at least 2003 until 2005 was Boxwood Inc., a organization run by top Chalabi aide Francis Brooke, and where Margaret Bartel was director and later vice president. Boxwood, according to Silverstein and Roche, was a “firm set up to receive U.S. funds for the intelligence program of the Iraqi National Congress.” Boxwood’s corporate registration, which clearly shows the 911 Duke St. address, can be viewed here (PDF).

In the New Yorker, in 2004, Jane Mayer reported that Boxwood president Francis Brooke and his family lived for free in a “million-dollar brick row house in Georgetown… which is owned by Levantine Holdings, a Chalabi family corporation based in Luxembourg.” Only a week later, foreign policy reporter Laura Rozen confirmed ownership of the building, publishing documentation on her War and Piece blog.

It appears that many of the same people who misled the U.S. into a disastrous war with Iraq are now attempting to do the same in Iran. And they’re doing it with very much the same game plan, and even doing it from the same little town house at 911 Duke St. in Arlington, Virginia.

Israeli spies wooing U.S. Muslims, sources say

By Jeff Stein
The Washington Post
September 2, 2010; 1:58 PM ET

The CIA took an internal poll not long ago about friendly foreign intelligence agencies.

The question, mostly directed to employees of the clandestine service branch, was: Which are the best allies among friendly spy services, in terms of liaison with the CIA, and which are the worst? In other words, who acts like, well, friends?

“Israel came in dead last,” a recently retired CIA official told me the other day.

Not only that, he added, throwing up his hands and rising from his chair, “the Israelis are number three, with China number one and Russia number two,” in terms of how aggressive they are in their operations on U.S. soil.

Israel’s undercover operations here, including missions to steal U.S. secrets, are hardly a secret at the FBI, CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. From time to time, in fact, the FBI has called Israeli officials on the carpet to complain about a particularly brazen effort to collect classified or other sensitive information, in particular U.S. technical and industrial secrets.

The most notorious operation employed Jonathan Pollard, the naval intelligence analyst convicted in 1987 and sentenced to life in prison for stealing tens of thousands of classified documents for Israel.

One of Israel’s major interests, of course, is keeping track of Muslims who might be allied with Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, or Iran-backed Hezbollah, based in Lebanon.

As tensions with Iran escalate, according to former CIA officer Philip Giraldi, “Israeli agents have become more aggressive in targeting Muslims living in the United States as well as in operating against critics.”

“There have been a number of cases reported to the FBI about Mossad officers who have approached leaders in Arab-American communities and have falsely represented themselves as ‘U.S. intelligence,’ ” Giraldi wrote recently in American Conservative magazine.

“Because few Muslims would assist an Israeli, this is done to increase the likelihood that the target will cooperate. It’s referred to as a ‘false flag’ operation.”

Giraldi’s piece continued, “Mossad officers sought to recruit Arab-Americans as sources willing to inform on their associates and neighbors. The approaches, which took place in New York and New Jersey, were reportedly handled clumsily, making the targets of the operation suspicious.”

“These Arab-Americans turned down the requests for cooperation,” Giraldi added,”and some of the contacts were eventually reported to the FBI, which has determined that at least two of the Mossad officers are, ironically, Israeli Arabs operating out of Israel’s mission to the United Nations in New York under cover as consular assistants.”

“Oh, sure, they do that,” the other former CIA official said, waving a dismissing hand, when I asked about Giraldi’s story. “They’re all over the place.”

The FBI did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

But a retired senior FBI counterintelligence official told SpyTalk, "They have always been extremely aggressive, and seem to feel they can operate whenever and wherever they want, in spite of being called on the carpet more than any other country by probably a factor of three times as often."

A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy, which routinely denies accounts of Mossad operations on U.S. soil, could not be immediately reached for comment.

The former CIA official, who discussed such sensitive matters only on the condition of anonymity, echoed the views of other U.S. intelligence sources I’ve talked to over the years about Israeli operations in the United States.

They don’t begrudge the Jewish state’s interest in keeping track of its potential or real enemies, including here -- indeed, they often say Israel is America’s best friend in the Middle East.

Which, they say, makes Mossad’s impersonation of U.S. intelligence agents all the more galling.

Petraeus condemns Fla. church's plan to burn Korans

By David Nakamura and Javed Hamdard
The Washington Post
Tuesday, September 7, 2010; 3:16 PM

KABUL - Gen. David H. Petraeus on Tuesday denounced plans by a Florida church to burn copies of the Koran this weekend, saying the demonstration could "endanger troops" and damage the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan.

"It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems," Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, said in a statement. "Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community."

The White House also condemned the Florida church's plan, with press secretary Robert Gibbs reiterating Petraeus's contention that U.S. forces could be put in harm's way as a result. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley called the proposed demonstration "un-American" and said it was "inconsistent with the values of religious tolerance and religious freedom."

(On Faith: How to counter image of arrogance?)

Habibullah, a religious leader who organized a protest Monday morning in eastern Kabul to decry the Florida church's plan, said throngs of angry men chanted, "Death to America!" and "Death to Obama!"

He said some of the protesters pelted a passing U.S. military convoy with stones.

"I stopped them," said Habibullah, who uses one name. "Otherwise they would have burned the convoy."

The Dove World Outreach Center, a 50-member evangelical Christian church in Gainesville, Fla., announced plans to burn the Islamic holy books on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. At the Kabul protest, residents burned an effigy of Dove World pastor Terry Jones.

"I am very concerned by the potential repercussions of the possible Koran burning," Petraeus said. "Even the rumor that it might take place has sparked demonstrations such as the one that took place in Kabul yesterday. Were the actual burning to take place, the safety of our soldiers and civilians would be put in jeopardy and accomplishment of the mission would be made more difficult."

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen backed that warning Tuesday. He said that any burning of Korans would strongly contradict "all the values we stand for and fight for."

In Florida, Jones rejected the warnings and said his church plans to go through with its "International Burn a Koran Day."

Jones said he agrees with Petraeus that burning copies of the Koran could provoke violent opposition, but he argued that the United States should stop apologizing for its actions and bowing to kings, the Associated Press reported. He apparently referred to a London summit meeting in April 2009 when President Obama greeted Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah II, now 86, by clasping his hand and bowing.

Jones told CNN that "we have firmly made up our mind" to carry out the Koran burnings, "but at the same time, we are definitely praying about it." He said his group is "weighing the situation." He added: "Our message is a message of warning to the radical element of Islam."

The 58-year-old pastor told AP he has received more than 100 death threats and has started wearing a pistol strapped to his hip.

NATO forces are in the midst of a surge of troop levels in Afghanistan to root out Taliban insurgents in increasingly dangerous areas in the south and east. At least 500 foreign troops have been killed in the country this year, compared with 512 in 2009, the highest annual toll in the nine-year-old war.

"Images of the burning of a Koran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan - and around the world - to inflame public opinion and incite violence," Petraeus said. "Such images could, in fact, be used as were the photos from [Abu Ghraib]. And this would, again, put our troopers and civilians in jeopardy and undermine our efforts to accomplish the critical mission here in Afghanistan." Petraeus referred to the prison in Iraq that gained notoriety when the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. guards was revealed in 2004.

In a separate statement denouncing the Florida church's plan to burn Korans, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said: "The United States government in no way condones such acts of disrespect against the religion of Islam, and is deeply concerned about deliberate attempts to offend members of religious or ethnic groups."

It said Obama made clear in a June 2009 speech in Cairo that he considers it part of his presidential responsibility to "fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they occur."

The statement added: "Americans from all religious and ethnic backgrounds reject the offensive initiative by this small group in Florida. A great number of American voices are protesting the hurtful statements made by this organization. Numerous interfaith and religious groups in America are actively working to counter this kind of ignorance and misinformation that is offensive to so many people in the U.S. and around the world."

The embassy recalled that Obama's envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Rashad Hussain, visited Afghanistan a few days ago to convey a "message of friendship, cooperation and mutual understanding between the U.S. and Muslim communities all around the world."

Enayatullah Balegh, an imam at the Pol-e-Khishti mosque in Kabul, said Afghan religious leaders hope the United States government will find a way to bar the church from burning the holy book.

"If they decide to burn the holy Koran, I will announce jihad against these Christians and infidels," he said Tuesday. "We will defend the holy Koran."

Hamdard is a special correspondent.

Are Mubarak's Gas Sales to Israel Partly to Blame?

September 2, 2010
Are Mubarak's Gas Sales to Israel Partly to Blame?
The Politics of Power Cuts in Egypt

By MOHAMED WAKED
CounterPunch

Egypt has been suffering from an exceptionally hot summer, with record temperatures observed all over the country. The “terrible heat wave” mantra, thus, grew to become what is probably the most pressing issue in Egypt today. The advent of Ramadan obviously could only but emphasize this problem more, as people now have to fast through long and exceptionally hot summer days.

Naturally none of this is unique to Egypt: the entire region suffers the same heat wave. But unlike its neighbours Egypt has been suffering also from long, systematic, nationwide power cuts. Facing sudden shortages in the country’s electric generation capacity, the authorities began to reduce demand by cutting power off entire neighborhoods and cities for a while everyday: an hour if you’re lucky, 8-10 when you’re not. In several cases the cuts spanned entire cities and governorates for whole days. The fact that these outages combined all too often with water cuts highlighted the state’s failure—the latter resulting mostly from cutting the electric power that runs the water network, and to a lesser extent from accidental pipeline breaks. In either case, these cuts intertwined to undermine the already precarious legitimacy of the state.

Meanwhile, wildfires suddenly erupted in Russia and destroyed large tracts of its wheat crop, prompting the Russian government to halt its wheat exports. This bore grave consequences for Egypt, as years of twisted agricultural policies have already made it the world’s largest importer of wheat, and is especially dependant on Russian wheat. With only four months’ supply on its hands, the government hastily went shopping for other sources. Although they finally landed on alternative suppliers, by the time they had done so speculators had already taken advantage of a growing “wheat crisis” to raise the prices of un-subsidized bread, sometimes by 50%. The wheat crisis then led to a bread crisis, and that, in turn, revived the infamous bread queues, which already claimed one man dead. The “wheat crisis” also pushed the prices of other food items up, all merging to exacerbate the already heavily strained Ramadan budget.

It is difficult to understate the social resonance of this failure in a state that prides itself on its supposed infrastructural “achievements.” State pedagogy never tires from preaching that Hosni Mubarak’s wisdom has averted the useless wars that other Arabs never avoid. This, the story goes, is what allowed Egypt to focus on building itself and attain the many infrastructural “achievements” that we now supposedly enjoy. In this narrative Mubarak’s wisdom manifests itself mostly, if not solely, in his “great” infrastructure developments. In addition to justifying the state’s position vis-à-vis the Arab-Israeli conflict, this story has also become a central justification for the “wise” dictatorship that governs Egypt.

If anything, the regime’s historical brag about its infrastructure “accomplishments” to justify its colonial alliances only accentuates it current failure, which people now locate in its electricity failures. The irony here comes out most vividly on comparing Egypt to its neighbours. Evidently the same month-long “heat wave” resulted in record electricity demands in other countries in the region too. Yet, the only other cases that suffered from comparably substantial problems—actually, much more severe—are Iraq and Gaza, both under occupation. Needless to say, the current electricity situation in Iraq and Palestine is the product of decades long of systematic and deliberate efforts to destroy them by the strongest colonial forces on the face of this planet. By contrast, Egypt is a “strategic” ally, in fact doll, of the very forces that continue to destroy Palestine and Iraq. Ironically, Egypt joined this alliance for exactly the same type of “gains” that are now so scandalously failing; more ironically, to avoid the fate of Palestine and Iraq. In this way, the Egyptian regime appears to have attained its current electricity failure against every bit of colonial justification that it has been preaching for decades.

Ramadan is a month of high consumption. It witnesses the biggest sales of most food and recreational products. It’s also the time when people are fasting and impatient. They generally work less, rest in the afternoons, have iftar (break the fast) with their extended families, watch TV a lot, go out after iftar—all with great intensity. Besides, it’s also an expensive month, as middle-class families support much higher consumption behaviours. But suddenly they are required to fast without electric power amidst the melting heat and rising prices. On the domestic side that meant no cooling facitilies, TVs, and often no water too. That makes a very different and certainly difficult Ramadan. Understandably, then, these outages drove middle-class people nuts. Their immense anger and disappointment evolved directly from the bodily discomforts that they now have to suffer, which means that the state cannot just sweet-talk it away. It is no wonder thus that the failure remained front-page material in the press and TV shows for weeks now, as a sign of Egypt’s return to the so-called “middle ages.” Such deterioration also became the main topic for extended families’ chats over iftar, always cursing the state. Moreover, it provoked people to take the street, sometimes sitting in and stopping traffic by force.

The economic loss that resulted from these cuts is yet another colossal aspect of our failure story. Unfortunately we don’t know its full extent yet: the media has been too obsessed with the social anger part of the story to give it the attention it deserves. Nevertheless, the sporadic coverage that we have suggests that these cuts forced perhaps tens of thousands of economic enterprises to shutdown for long durations, sometime with grave consequences to their production machinery. One report said that in the neighborhood of Shubra alone 1200 factories were forced to shutdown for three hours in only one day. The governor of Shubra has put the shutdown losses of these factories at 200 million pounds (a bit less than $40 million) for that one day. Another report said that two weeks of these cuts have cost the Aluminum factory of Naga Hmadi alone a loss of almost 400 million pounds ($80 million). It is hence safe to say that we are talking here about a gigantic national loss on a multi-billion dollar scale.

The government’s first explanation for this failure blamed it on increased consumption: the heat caused a sudden unwieldy rise in demand for electric power that surpassed the national generation capacity. This increased demand was, in turn, blamed on air-conditioners to build sympathy with the state’s dilemma by associating the root of the problem to extravagant behaviour. But these arguments –which ultimately condemn state planning- didn’t sell well. The state also made sure to drop its favourite population line along the way, which basically blames population increase for eating up all of the country’s natural resources. Egyptians are here to blame because they have too many children. Again, this decades-old argument doesn’t hold water. Egypt’s population growth is relatively small compared to most countries in the region, and more importantly lies well below its GDP—the “extra” people should have been easily more than covered.

The state’s original storyline only provoked the press to search for more-convincing explanations for this mess. In one case the Shorouk reported that the factories of the steel magnate Ahmad Ezz alone consume 17% the country’s electricity subsidies. Surely you can imagine the resonance of discovering that Ezz, Gamal Mubarak’s right hand and possibly business partner, consumes the biggest share of the electricity that has suddenly been denied to everyone. It means that Ezz’ growth is somehow implicated in causing this mess, not population growth as they claim.

On 17 August, the Holding Company for Electricity issued a statement that put an end to this speculation: the collapse resulted from a big shortage in the gas delivered to the electric generation units. According to the statement, most of Egypt’s power stations are designed to operate with natural gas as primary fuel and diesel as reserve fuel. Until recently they operated at 98 percent gas, as they should. But the ministry of petroleum gradually held back their gas until it dropped to 76%. This forced them to operate with the suboptimal diesel much more than they should, which reduced their generation efficiency below national demand. Using diesel also clogs their gas-based fuel injection system frequently, resulting in many breakdowns. It’s quite certain too that using diesel instead of gas has reduced the lifetime of their generation equipment; they probably destroyed a good part of their assets’ life and worth. While no one talks about this last point, the damage to the power generation machinery is probably to be measured in billions of dollars.

This is how the Ministry of Electricity finally cleared its name, which only begged the question, why is the ministry of petroleum withholding the needed gas? (Note that we are talking about home pumped gas here). A senior official in the ministry of electricity then explained that the ministry of petroleum started withholding their gas when it started exporting gas to Israel. In other words, Egypt has been withholding the gas marked for electric generation to give it Israel, to the extent that it compromised its electricity system, economy, and the welfare of its people so much. Such was obviously very embarrassing news. Thus Mubarak responded by holding an emergency meeting with the ministers of electricity and petroleum the very next morning. He instructed them to solve this problem at once without touching Egypt’s “international obligations” and “the needs of the Egyptian citizen.” This is another way of saying: solve it without touching Israel’s gas deliveries—“how?” is the question.

The following day the ministry of irrigation started releasing 35 million cubic-meters of water more than scheduled for that time of the year from Lake Nasser. That way they’d generate more electricity from the High Dam without consuming gas. But this also means depleting Egypt’ strategic water reserve. Such is a very sad development given the grave sacrifices that went into saving this water. One immediately recalls the 1956 tripartite war that Britain, France, and Israel launched on Egypt when Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal to build the High Dam that now saves this water; the massive national resources that went into building it; the forced migration of the Nubian villages to make space for the lake; and more. Put succinctly, every drop of this water came at a huge national cost. In light of this, dispensing with it to avoid withholding Israel’s gas share is a big insult to Egypt’s national history—not only because of the cost that went into saving it, but also because of the party that it’s being wasted for.

More recently, for almost a year now Egypt has been facing a big rebellion from Nile basin countries, which demand redistributing the Nile water in ways that will highly reduce Egypt’s share of it. They have actually set up a treaty for that end that Egypt and Sudan refused to sign. Granting their legitimate needs, this rebellion came with much Israeli intervention and influence. So soon after signing this treaty we see Israel offering to help Egypt overcome the rebellion that it instigated, in exchange for a share of Egypt’s water. In other words, Israel has been manipulating Nile basin countries to blackmail Egypt for a cut of its water. In response to Israel’s offer President Mubarak declared, “The Nile will never leave Egypt.” This was generally portrayed as a strong response by a regime that values and defends its water. Meanwhile, the regime began to invest more in reviving its image as the guardian of this water. Hence, they started boasting about the water savings that they made by, for example, cutting down rice plantation (high water consumption crop). Then, by twist of sad irony, we see the same state very willing to waste the very water that Israel is trying to kidnap to stay exporting gas to Israel.

And there is more to this sad irony. At first, the ministry of irrigation tried not to waste the water in this way. So they opened the High Dam to release the extra water but closed the Aswan Reservoir-Dam to collect the same water behind it. This raised the water level between the two dams to a level that could have compromised the High Dam’s turbines. It took some serious emergency work to readjust the water to a safe level again. Since then we stopped hearing about attempts to save the water.

Seeking to reduce to the gravity of the scandal, the minister of petroleum tried to market an alternative explanation for this crisis. He proposed that gas deliveries to the power stations dropped because the heat reduced the efficiency of gas the pumping stations. It was the joke of town, of course, because the same heat failed to affect the pumping to Israel. The following day the press said that the ministry of petroleum finally decided to increase its gas deliveries to the power stations by reducing the quantities marked for the private sector and export to Jordan. Although Jordan pays much more for the gas, Israel remained untouchable. Nonetheless, at the end they didn’t even honour this solution, as the ministry of electricity stated that the gas never came. So we are now back to square one: electricity cuts and their associated costs are still on. Sadly this is how far Egypt is willing to avoid even reducing its gas exports to Israel.

Noteworthy here is that Egypt is not so determined to export its gas to Israel because of some profit incentive: ditching highly subsidized local sales for foreign currency market prices. To the contrary, Egypt loses a lot of money on its gas sales to Israel. Initially the 2005 gas treaty between Egypt and Israel required Egypt to supply Israel with 200 million feet of gas daily for the following15 years at a price that “ranges between 70 cents and $1.5 per BTU (British thermal unit),” to be fixed throughout the treaty’s lifetime. So we’re selling this gas at a tiny fraction of its market price, which ranges between $8-$12 per BTU. To be exact, the government refuses to declare its selling prices to date. We know about them from leaked documents and the famous court case that former ambassador Ibrahim Yusri filed to cancel this capitulation treaty, which exposed much of its dirty linen.

Yusri based his case on roughly two main points. The first was that Egypt was selling its gas at a much lower than market price, adding up to an annual subsidy to Israel of roughly $5 billion. Shocking as it may sound, the government signed this deal at the time when it was reducing energy subsidies in Egypt. Yusri’s second point was that Egypt’s gas reserves are too limited to accommodate such exports without compromising local needs in the imminent future. We now know that he was right on this point too. In the end, the Administrative court upheld the state’s right to export gas to Israel but ruled the treaty illegal on the basis of its ridiculous pricing mechanism, but the state never honour the ruling. Where Egypt to end up importing gas to cover its growing local needs, it will shamefully buy it at about $10 a BTU to sell it to Israel at $1.5, or even 70 cents.

There’s one more feature of this agreement that analysts seldom stop at. The Egyptian side had initially designed it as a business deal between a private company created for this purpose and its Israeli clients, but former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon refused to have it unless the Egyptian government guaranteed it in person. The Egyptian government rejected this at first but eventually succumbed to Sharon’s conditions. As such, “honouring” this treaty is now the direct responsibility of the Egyptian state, not the export company. This might partly explain why the regime is willing to accept all of the costs above to avoid touching Israel’s gas share; remember that we are talking about a regime that has a long history of dealing with its colonial treaties in very legalistic ways.

The opposition here offered many explanations as to why the Egyptian regime fell so low, which range from corruption to all sorts of conspiracy theories. Two of them are worth noting here. The first sees the treaty as part of a general Egyptian strategy to heat up Egypt’s cold relationship with Israel in order to improve its ties with Washington. Remember that they signed it in 2005. Hence, it was probably envisioned as an idea for the first time in maybe 2004, or late 2003—that is, at the peak of Bush’s belligerence in the region, which forced most Arab regimes to appease Washington in everyway possible. Recall, for example, how the Saudis donated $50 million for the London Zoo to bring London on its side, or more seriously, their Arab Peace Initiative—both coming months after September 11. In this vein, this treaty and its siblings become gifts of good intentions from a scared client-regime to avert the wrath of its irrational overlord.

The second explanation focuses more on developments within Egypt. Back then, Gamal Mubarak had just emerged as a power to be reckoned with, forming with his clique of business tycoons what the press dubbed the “new guards,” which replaced the symbols of the “old guards” –Hosni Mubarak’s “men”- within most of the influential institutions (except the security apparatus.) It was his “new guards” that negotiated and signed the capitulation treaties that were sealed with Israel then, including our gas treaty. To be exact, these treaties were among the very first things that they undertook. Their network of business friends and acquaintances also happen to be the main, if not sole, beneficiaries of warmer relations with Israel. This is quite clear in the main beneficiaries of the QIZ treaty, signed a year before the gas agreement. Seen as such, these treaties become Gamal Mubarak’s dowry for Presidency—paid to Israel to appease Washington, and also to serve his camp with new business opportunities. Such is currently the most widespread interpretation for this treaty among Egyptian opposition. And there is no reason why it cannot be harmonised with the previous one.

It’s thus ironic to see Gamal Mubarak’s fans launching his first succession campaign at the backdrop of the power cuts. The more we knew about the scandalous outcomes of this treaty, the more Gamal Mubarak Presidency campaigns we got. We now have at least three of them, all competing with each other. Roughly one came out when the power cuts was about increased consumption, another when they were linked to Israel, and a third when the Nile water was wasted.

This campaign has been thus far enigmatic; no one knows who lies behind it. The one name that was mentioned as its donor is Ibrahim Kamel. Although Kamel denied these reports, he remains its main symbol. He is the only party official (a senior member in the Policies Committee of the ruling party: the platform that Gamal Mubarak heads and uses to wield political power in Egypt), actually the only official of any sort, to declare that Gamal Mubarak will be the ruling party’s nominee for the next elections. He declared it in a press interview weeks before launching the first campaign; then reiterated it in a talk-show two weeks after it was launched. Thus, whether he funded it or not he remains its main symbol.

Kamel is a billionaire who operates in many industries, also Gamal Mubarak’s business partner. Moreover, he is the main businessman dealing with Israel in Egypt. His dealings go well beyond the known trade-based normalisation to investing in Israeli firms and partnering with Israeli businessmen in Egypt. In short, he’s an icon of normalization and has benefited personally from Egypt’s relations with Israel.

Thus, the dowry story makes a full circle: the emergence of the Gamal Mubarak camp leads to striking several deals with Israel; the business members of this camp benefit from these deals; eventually the gas deal blows its cover and causes extreme hardship in Egypt; while the camp that benefits most from deals with Israel is pushing for Gamal Mubarak’s presidency; then the hardship caused by this collapse occupies the minds of the people to the extent that they cannot follow any circles. Thus ends the circle.

The Egyptian regime has obviously gone very far for the love of Israel here—and guess what? It worked as it was designed to. Israel has just attained record electricity use levels because the “heat wave” that wreaked havoc on Egypt pushed Israel’s electricity consumption up too. In their case the increased demand went smoothly without any of the loss and agony that Egypt experienced. Clearly that is to be expected from a country with such secured fuel supply—so secured that no one dares touch it. Still, there were a few gas issues that Israel pondered on during our story period. For reasons that I don’t quite know, the Israeli government wanted to raise the retail price of natural gas. This angered some Israelis who took the street to protest the price hike. Outrageous as this may sound, they protested this endeavour by waiving Egyptian flags. It’s unclear why they did so, for the Egyptian press sufficed with publishing their photos while waving the flags. Nevertheless, it shows that our flag has become a symbol of cheap gas in the Israel—very cheap, I must add.

Mohamed Waked is an anthropologist and PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam. He can be reached at: mohamed.waked@gmail.com.

The CIA to UNICEF

CounterPunch Weekend Edition
September 3 - 5, 2010
Big Aid Has a Very Dirty Secret

By THOMAS MOUNTAIN

Former National Security Advisor in the Clinton White House and failed nominee to head the CIA, Anthony “Tony” Lake is now Executive Director of the United Nations Children Fund, UNICEF.

Having a background in Western intelligence is a requirement to run a Big Aid “familia”. Every head of any of the major international aid agencies comes vetted by years of loyal service up to and including being a “made man” (or woman in today's equal opportunity offender circles) like Tony Lake.

What are Tony Lake’s qualifications to run the number one children's relief works in the world? Maybe his silence during the Rwandan genocide, when as National Security Advisor to President Clinton he admitted knowing about and “regretted” not doing something when hundreds of thousands of women and children were hacked to death in central Africa. Then there were the million and a half women and children in Eritrea who had to flee for their lives in the face of the Ethiopian invasion in 2000, something Tony Lake was intimately involved in helping instigate and direct.

Tony Lake was nominated to be the Director of the CIA as a parting gift for his loyal role as consigliere in the Clinton White House, a gift taken from him when reports of corruption derailed his nomination.
War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and least of all just plain corruption, Tony Lake has done it all, even admitting to going on the payroll after leaving the White House as an agent for the Ethiopian Government, they of ethnic cleansing and genocide infamy.

Tony Lake was an officer of the Obama for President ship and resumed his role as consigliere pre-election to the president to be. He was listed as senior foreign policy advisor to Obama and was one of the last of the inner circle to be rewarded for his foresight.

From CIA to UNICEF? The charge that every person who has headed a major western aid agency has an intelligence background has been proven time and time again. It may have taken some serious digging, some dogged investigation, but the fact remains that everyone of those supposed humanitarians that has been investigated has turned out to be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

BIg Aid was created as a nefarious tool for dirty doings in the Third World by the powers that be in the west and only trusted capos from the inner circle are allowed to plan and implement their crimes. Of course some good works have to be done, or no one would allow them into their countries. Its only from the inside that they can be really effective in buying off or if that doesn't work, “neutralizing” those in power.

Whether it’s the World Health Organization suppressing news of the breakthrough in malaria mortality prevention, to the World Food Program trying to destroy food security/self sufficiency, to Tony Lake taking over UNICEF, the word to the wise is beware enemies bearing gifts. Big Aid has a very dirty secret and the whole world needs to know about it.

Thomas Mountain lives in Eritrea and can be reached at thomascmountain@yahoo.com

The Consequences of Muslim-Bashing

September 3 - 5, 2010

Chronicle of a Hate Crime Foretold

By JOHN COX

The inevitable finally occurred last week: On August 24, an American Muslim taxi driver was violently attacked and nearly killed by a fellow New Yorker who was influenced by the hateful rhetoric and vicious propaganda that has flourished recently. Ahmed Sharif, who was born in Bangladesh and has lived in the United States for twenty-five years, picked up 21-year-old Michael Enright, who, after a few innocuous comments, established that his driver was Muslim and began taunting his religion.

“As the cab inched up Third Avenue and reached 39th Street [in Manhattan], Mr. Sharif said in a phone interview, Mr. Enright suddenly began cursing at him and shouting ‘This is the checkpoint’ and ‘I have to bring you down’,” the New York Times reported. “‘He was talking like he was a soldier,’ Mr. Sharif said. He withdrew a Leatherman knife, Mr. Sharif said, and, reaching through the opening in the plastic divider, slashed Mr. Sharif’s throat. When Mr. Sharif turned, he said, Mr. Enright stabbed him in his face, on his arm and on his thumbs. Mr. Sharif said he told him: ‘I beg of you, don’t kill me. I worked so hard, I have a family’.”

Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and Fox News bear considerable responsibility for this attack and for any other hate crimes committed against Muslims in the immediate future. If you continuously shout that “Islam equals Nazism” and “all Muslims are responsible for 9/11,” which has been the explicit message of the leaders of the campaign against the Park51 community center, someone like Mr. Enright will eventually translate your rhetoric into action.

While Gingrich and Fox lead the charge, lesser-known local politicians are conveying the anti-Islam message to their communities. Allen West, who is running for Congress in Broward County, Florida, “told a group of supporters that ‘Islam is not a religion’ but rather ‘a vicious enemy’ that was “infiltrating” the United States.” Elsewhere in Florida—not far from the site of a planned Quran-burning on September 11—Congressional candidate Ron McNeil “told a group of high school and middle school students last week that Islam’s plan ‘is to destroy our way of life’.”

The recent controversy over the Manhattan community center has brought to the surface and intensified our society’s deep-seated bigotry toward Muslims. A few myths and facts about the Park51 Community Center, also known as the Cordoba House or, inaccurately, as the “ground zero mosque”:

Myths 1 and 2 are captured in the label “ground zero mosque.” The proposed building is not a mosque. “The Community Center will feature recreational programs and services for all community members regardless of religious affiliation or faith,” explained the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in an August 23 statement. It will be, “in fact, an interfaith Center.” And it is located two long city blocks (roughly the length of two football fields) from the former WTC, and is not even visible from the site of the 9/11 attacks. As Clyde Haberman wrote in the New York Times this week, only exaggerating slightly for comic effect, “Two blocks is equivalent to several miles in other cities or in the suburbs. Your dry cleaner moves two blocks, and it’s so long, pal. He’ll never see you again. He might as well have relocated to Yonkers.”

The presence, another block away, of the “New York Dolls Gentleman’s Club”—which I suppose should be called “The Ground Zero Strip Club,” if we’re going to persist in calling Park51 the “ground zero mosque”—hardly upholds the sacredness of the site, but has provoked no hysteria.

These facts have been widely reported over the last week or so, yet this controversy is still described as the “ground zero mosque” issue in the news media, even by supporters of Park51’s constitutional rights.

Myth #3: “Muslims have not condemned the attacks”: This is quite false. “American Muslims utterly condemn” the “vicious and cowardly acts,” declared the Islamic Society of North America a few hours after the attacks. “No political cause could ever be justified by such immoral acts.” This was among the first of a long list of condemnations issued by Muslim organizations and individuals. The Council on American Islamic Relations has compiled a 68-page collection of Muslim repudiations of terrorism.

Myth #4: “Cordoba House,” which Park51 was officially called until very recently, invokes the memory of “Muslim conquerors, who symbolized their victory over the Christian Spaniards by transforming a church there into the world’s third-largest mosque,” announced Newt Gingrich. Dr. Gingrich has a doctorate in History, and should know better. Córdoba is seen by most knowledgeable people as a symbol not of Muslim conquest and triumphalism, but of the relative tolerance, inter-religious harmony, and profound cultural achievements of Islamic Spain. As Carl Pyrdum wrote in an astute commentary for the History News Network, the Córdoba mosque (or Mezquita), a marvelous and inspiring work of architecture, “far from ‘symboliz[ing] their victory’ … was held up by Muslim historians a symbol of peaceful coexistence with the Christians.” It was Christian conquerors in the 13th century, not the earlier Umayyad dynasty, who appropriated the building “in an aggressive erasure of history and statement of faith,” as Edward Said noted.

Myth #5: The big, unstated myth that underlies the hysteria: “Muslims are collectively guilty for 9/11, and Islam is a violent, un-American religion.” Some commentators, such as Mark Williams, until recently a prominent Tea Party leader, are explicit in their bigotry (Williams stated that the Cordoba House would be a "temple to terrorists" where Muslims would “worship their monkey god”). Others are more subtle, but there is no escaping the implication, in all this hysteria over Park51, that all Muslims are responsible for 9/11. Why else would an Islamic center (in reality, a multi-faith center run by Muslims) provoke such a furor? The fact is that twenty Islamist zealots, with the assistance of a few others, were responsible for September 11. The rest of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims, and the Islamic faith itself, had nothing to do with it.

Citizens of the United States have congratulated themselves far too much for transcending racism. The election of President Obama, for example, was seized upon by many over-optimistic (or, in some cases, cynical and calculating) people as proof that we now live in a “post-racial” society. Thanks to the courageous efforts of civil-rights campaigners and activists of previous generations, this society did indeed become a more civilized place over the last fifty years. But the cancer of racism and ethnic bigotry—this country’s original sin—never vanished, and over the last two years we have slid dangerously backward. Bigotry against Muslims, and also against African Americans and Latinos, can now be expressed more openly and loudly than in many years.

Professor Gingrich, Glenn Beck, and Bill O’Reilly—who are only the most persistent within the deafening chorus of anti-Muslim hate speech—owe an answer to Talat Hamdani, whose son was one of several dozen Muslims killed in 9/11. “Why are we paying the price? Why are we being ostracized?” asked Hamdani of an Associated Press reporter. “America was founded on the grounds of religious freedom,” and opposition to the cultural center “is un-American. It’s unethical. And it is wrong.”

John Cox is an assistant professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, where he teaches courses in European history, the Holocaust, and Islamic civilizations. Dr. Cox is the author of Circles of Resistance, a book on German-Jewish anti-Nazi activism recently published by Peter Lang.

Obama's Ridiculous Mid-East Summit

Weekend Edition
September 3 - 5, 2010
CounterPunch Diary

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

It has been impossible to read the agenda for the Oval Office summit between Obama, Netanyahu and Abbas without laughing out loud at the absurdity of its pretensions. The American plan was that President Obama would inform Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, representing the Palestinian Authority, that this is make-or -break time for a peaceful settlement. The US wants an agreement within a year, with the stipulations in this agreement to be phased in over a decade.

At issue: the illegal Jewish settlements, the status of East Jerusalem, the treatment of Palestinian refugees and final borders between Israel and a Palestinian state.

The man greeting Netanyahu and Abbas was no longer the icon of change who aroused the world with his address to Muslims in Cairo and who tasked former US Senator George Mitchell with setting the stage for a just settlement of issues that have remained unsettled for more than half a century.

Obama is now in poor political shape. The economy is spiraling down. The midterm elections loom as a possible bloodbath for Democrats in which they may lose at least one, if not both, houses in Congress. As the Israel lobby knows well, the Democrats crave Jewish money and Jewish votes. When it comes to Israel ‘s interests the US Congress jumps to the Lobby’s commands. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech , laden with honorifics for Netanyahu, could be construed as a fund-raising appeal for her next lunge at the Democratic presidential nomination.

Gone was any notion of twisting Netanyahu’s arm, or trying to, as when the Administration criticized one illegal Jewish settlement four months ago and when vice president Biden relayed in Tel Aviv Gen. Petraeus’ concerns that Israel’s obduracy was imperiling US security interests in the region.

The lobby struck back, with political threats. By July, Dana Milbanke of the Washington Post described with unusual frankness Netanyahu’s next visit to Washington:

“A blue-and-white Israeli flag hung from Blair House. Across Pennsylvania Avenue, the Stars and Stripes was in its usual place atop the White House. But to capture the real significance of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit with President Obama, White House officials might have instead flown the white flag of surrender.”

And with the September summit Israeli delightedly pointed to Obama's withdrawal of a demand that Israel freeze Jewish colonies on Palestinian land. Instead he urged "restraint". "The prime minister is satisfied because his main position that negotiations should be without preconditions was accepted," Netanyahu's spokesman Nir Hefetz told Army Radio from New York. Netanyahu himself, who has rejected demands for a settlement freeze, was quoted telling a newspaper: "I understand English -- 'restraint' and 'freeze' are two different words." As for the status of Jerusalem, and the issue of Palestiniamn refugees, Netanyahu adamantly refuses to discuss them.

Simultaneously, hours before the handshakes, Jewish settlers said they were forthwith starting work on buildings in at least 80 settlements, breaking the partial government freeze that ends on September 26.

The tenor of Israeli politics today is one of fanatic rejectionism of any halt to settlements, any serious concession on borders, beyond a Palestinian “state” in small chunks, hemmed in by Israel’s highways and fences, with water diverted and communication between the various fragments of Palestinian territory under rigorous Israeli control and constant harassment. East Jerusalem as the proposed capital of a Palestinisan state is under incessant invasion of new Jewish housing projects.

The Israeli press reports that Netanyahu has yet to evolve a negotiating position. His foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman refused to attend the summit and thinks Netanyahu should have simply told Obama that construction will continue without any restrictions at all after the present official moratorium ends on September 26.

For his part, Abbas is no longer president of the Palestinian Authority, which has no democratic mandate among the vast majority of Palestinians. They voted for Hamas and regard Abbas as a quisling, who exists solely by the favor of US money, Pentagon security advisors and Israeli support. Hamas expressed its opinion of the meeting by killing four Israeli settlers. (Half a million illegal Jewish settlers have been the most conspicuous consequence of the “peace process.”)

Tactically, Netanyahu has an easy hand to play. He can proclaim Israel’s hopes for peace, yet warn that Israel’s security interests are paramount. He can lecture Obama on Israel’s primal fears of obliteration, yet not be too reticent in indicating that Israel can obliterate its enemies and is quite prepared to do so. Israel’s nuclear arsenal hover spectrally over the proceedings.

When the moratorium expires in three weeks he will allow settlements to go forward, which in turn will prompt Abbas to threaten to act upon his commitment to abandon the talks if this occurs, a scheduled duty, as Jeffrey Blankfort predicted here on our site last week. Israel will continue its rightward lunge, with dissent increasingly purged in an increasingly vicious political environment. The Obama Plan will join all the other diplomatic ruins in the desert of dry bones -- the most conspicuous feature of all maps attempting to depict the search for a “just solution” in the Middle East.

Why is Obama even making the effort? As Blankfort says,

“Every US president since Nixon has made an effort to end Israel's occupation for US strategic reasons, and every one of them has run up against the Lobby and, in the end, proved unable or unwilling to spend the political capital that would be required to enforce their will on Israel. In every instance Congress has stood on Israel's side and never more so than during the Obama administration. The three presidents that did challenge Israel, Ford, Carter, and Bush Sr., were eventually forced to retreat and were turned out at the polls.”

Now why, given this history, did Obama try his hand? Blankfort suspects that there was pressure from the US's European allies to do so because

“the continuance of the I-P conflict jeopardizes their security and society far more than it does that of the US and there have long been calls for the EU to activate its own ‘peace initiative’ and it would be likely to do so if the US withdrew from the field. This is the last thing that either Israel or the Lobby wants so that is why we see the Lobby elements in every administration, currently Ross, Emanuel, et al, making the push for Obama's involvement even though they know it is bound to fail.”

Obama’s recent remodel of the Oval Office features a very cheesy carpet featuring uplifting quotations around its edge : F.D.R.’s “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”; Martin Luther King Jr.’s “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice”; Lincoln’s “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” and so forth. When Palestinians are scheduled for a rare visit, they should roll the carpet up, and bring out one with the Star of David right in the middle, and stitched round the edge, “Attention Palestinians! Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”

Obama and Martin Luther King

Last week, discussing Glenn Beck’s rally in Washington DC, I remarked here that “In 1963 King was on the same tack as another man professing confidence in the American system to engender justice out of an innate, individually virtuous moral tropism to do the right thing -- Barack Obama in 2008. King was wrong then, just like Obama is two generations later. It’s a matter of class war, not individual character traits.”

A CounterPuncher swiftly wrote:

“I like your striking of the King-Obama parallel. The feel-good crap I despised in King's early speeches is exactly what turned my stomach in Obama's speeches. Though I must say Obama is a far worse sellout than King. All King did was succumb to pussy. Obama's lusts are both more boring and more disgusting: he yearns only for new ways to sell out to Wall Street, the Israel Lobby, the military-industrial lobby, big oil, big drug peddlers, agribusiness monopolists and anybody else with enough billions to bid for a sizable chunk of the U.S. government.”

Coming Next Week in Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter

A Special CounterPunch Report: Nancy Scheper-Hughes: “The Body of the Terrorist: Bio-Piracy and the Spoils of War”

Be sure to get this extraordinary account of trafficking in body parts, including disturbing questions about the treatment of Rachel Corrie’s corpse.

PSAs Challenge Bigotry, Church's Quran-Burning Event

Source: PR Newswire, August 31, 2010

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Los Angeles is responding to a wave of anti-Muslim bigotry sweeping the U.S. by running public service announcements aimed at helping defuse the growing hatred. Two of the three spots remind the public that many of the first responders at the World Trade Center site on 9-11 were, in fact, Muslims. These two spots conclude with the line, "9/11 happened to all of us." The third PSA features Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders describing the "Golden Rule" as their faiths define it, and ends by saying "We have more in common than we think." The third PSA is designed to demonstrate the commonalities between faiths and challenge people who seek to divide Americans along religious lines, like the member of the church in Florida who plan to burn Qurans on September 11. The PSAs will be disseminated to TV stations and through social media sites.

Hightower: If You Don't Fight for the Middle Class, Kiss It Good-Bye

By Jim Hightower, AlterNet
Posted on September 4, 2010, Printed on September 6, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/148047/

America's corporate chieftains must love poor people, for they're doing all they can to create millions more of them.

They're knocking down wages, offshoring everything from manufacturing jobs to high tech, reducing full-time work to part-time, downsizing our workplaces, busting unions, cutting health care coverage and canceling pensions -- while also lobbying in Washington to privatize Social Security, eliminate job safety protections, restrict unemployment benefits, kill job-creating programs and increase corporate control of our elections.

It's said that the poor and the rich will always be among us. But nowhere is it written that the middle-class will always be there. In fact, it is a very recent creation in our society (and an unavailable dream for most people in the world). America's great middle class literally arose with the rise of labor unions and populist political movements in the 1800s, finally culminating in democratic economic reforms implemented from the 1930s into the 1960s.

Social Security, wage AND hour laws, collective bargaining rights, unemployment compensation, the GI Bill, the interstate highway program, civil rights laws, Medicare, Head Start -- and more -- provided the national framework necessary to sustain a middle class for the American Majority.

This essential framework was not "given" to us by corporate executives and politicians -- indeed, they sputtered, spewed and fought every piece of it tooth and nail. Rather, it came from union-led grassroots movements, organizing for structural change.

This Labor Day, we see corporate executives and their politicians relentlessly dismantling that framework, piece by piece -- and we see the middle class disappearing and poverty rising with each dismantled piece. But as labor icon Joe Hill said just before he was executed by Utah authorities for his unionizing activities, "Don't mourn, organize." It's time for working families to organize again for the revitalization of the middle class.

Who'll take a stand these days for restoring America's founding ethic of the common good?

You won't get this leadership from Washington -- and damned sure not from those in the corporate suites who're ruthlessly pushing an ethic of uncommon greed, saying to the middle class, "Adios, chumps."

Instead, look to places like Williamson, a town in upstate New York. This is apple country, home to a sprawling Mott's apple processing plant. Generations of families have worked at this plant, and there had not been a labor dispute in over 50 years. But the Mott family is long gone -- and so is the sense of shared purpose that had unified owners and workers.

In 2008, Mott's became a subsidiary of Dr. Pepper Snapple, a giant Texas conglomerate that also owns 7Up, Hawaiian Punch and dozens of other brands. DPS, as it's known, is doing very well, having banked a record profit of half-a-billion dollars last year. But its honchos apparently missed that basic kindergarten lesson about sharing. Indeed, the new owners introduced themselves to the area by eliminating the company's annual summer picnic, the children's Christmas party and other community-building touches.

Then, this March, DPS bosses abruptly demanded pay cuts averaging about $3,000 per worker, while also slashing pensions and hiking employee costs for health care. Why? Because they asserted that Mott's 300 workers were paid more than others in the area and should simply lower their standard of living accordingly. This from a corporation that paid its CEO $6.5 million last year! Adding insult to injury, the plant manager called workers "a commodity like soybeans" that can easily be replaced. Take the cuts -- or else, demanded DPS.

The workers chose "else." As we celebrate Labor Day at the beach or at backyard barbeques, they are on a strike for middle-class survival that's now in its fourth month.

This is not just about them, but about what kind of country America will be. If DPS succeeds in knocking down these skilled, experienced, loyal workers, other profitable corporations will follow. The Mott workers are taking a courageous stand for the middle class and our country's commitment to economic justice. To stand with them, go to www.ufcw.org.

Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the new book, "Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow." (Wiley, March 2008) He publishes the monthly "Hightower Lowdown," co-edited by Phillip Frazer.

9 Shameless Warmongers Who Call Fox News Home

By , Media Matters for America
Posted on September 5, 2010, Printed on September 6, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/148086/

During the run-up to the Iraq war, some of the worst purveyors of misinformation about Iraq had a home at Fox News, and their ranks have swelled considerably since then. Media Matters takes a look at the track record of wrong predictions and shoddy analysis about the war in Iraq by many of Fox News’ contributors and analysts.

1. Karl Rove

White House Iraq Group was formed to “set [messaging] strategy” for going to war with Iraq. The Washington Post reported in 2003 (accessed via Nexis) that the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) was formed in August 2002 “to set strategy for each stage of the confrontation with Baghdad. A senior official who participated in its work called it ‘an internal working group, like many formed for priority issues, to make sure each part of the White House was fulfilling its responsibilities.’ ” Part of the WHIG’s mission, according to the Post, was to decide “what to demand of the United Nations in the president’s Sept. 12 [2002] address to the General Assembly, when to take the issue to Congress, and how to frame the conflict with Iraq in the midterm election campaign that began in earnest after Labor Day.” Rove was a regular participant in this group.

WHIG promoted view that Saddam “had weapons of mass destruction and was seeking more.” The Los Angeles Times reported on August 25, 2005, (accessed via Nexis) that the WHIG “promoted the view that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was seeking more”:

The group consisted of Rove, Libby, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, and Mary Matalin, Cheney’s media advisor. All are believed to have been questioned in the leak case; papers and e-mails about the group were subpoenaed.

Before the war, this Iraq group promoted the view that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was seeking more. In September 2002, the White House embraced a British report asserting that “Iraq has sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

The Washington Post further reported that WHIG “assigned Communications Director James R. Wilkinson to prepare a white paper for public release, describing the ‘grave and gathering danger’ of Iraq’s allegedly ‘reconstituted’ nuclear program.” From the October 30, 2005, article (accessed via Nexis):

By summer 2002, the White House Iraq Group assigned Communications Director James R. Wilkinson to prepare a white paper for public release, describing the “grave and gathering danger” of Iraq’s allegedly “reconstituted” nuclear weapons program. Wilkinson gave prominent place to the claim that Iraq “sought uranium oxide, an essential ingredient in the enrichment process, from Africa.” That claim, along with repeated use of the “mushroom cloud” image by top officials beginning in September, became the emotional heart of the case against Iraq.

Rove repeatedly politicized national security issues, including the war in Iraq, and actively encouraged GOP to campaign on the issue. Think Progress has documented Rove’s repeated politicization of the Iraq war and his encouragement that Republicans campaign on the issue in 2002, which included (emphasis in original):

In January 2002, Rove told conservatives, “Americans trust the Republicans to do a better job of keeping our communities and our families safe…We can also go to the country on this issue because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America’s military might and thereby protecting America.”

[...]

In June 2002, Rove was giving PowerPoint presentations candidates [sic] advising them to “focus on the war” in their fall campaigns.

In September 2002, Time reported that when friends asked whether Bush planned to invade Iraq, Rove was been [sic] known to reply, “Let me put it this way: If you want to see Baghdad, you’d better visit soon.”

In addition, according to an April 5, 2003, New York Times article (accessed via Nexis), Rove worked “busily … to shape perceptions of Mr. Bush as a wartime leader and to prepare for the re-election campaign that will start as soon as the war ends.” The Times quoted Rove as saying, “The president is leading the coalition of the willing, and is determined that Iraq will be disarmed of its weapons of mass destruction and that the cruel dictator’s regime will be ended.” From the New York Times:

The White House portrays Karl Rove, President Bush’s most influential political adviser, as playing no role in military decisions that are shaping the Bush presidency.

But more than two weeks after the war began, Mr. Rove is busily working to shape perceptions of Mr. Bush as a wartime leader and to prepare for the re-election campaign that will start as soon as the war ends.

Tonight, Mr. Rove traveled here to tend to the Republican troops at the Texas Night fund-raising celebration of the Kent County Republican Committee.

“The president is leading the coalition of the willing, and is determined that Iraq will be disarmed of its weapons of mass destruction and that the cruel dictator’s regime will be ended,” Mr. Rove declared after taking the stage to chants of “U.S.A.!” in a cavernous hanger filled with the local party faithful wearing Texas-style cowboy boots, hats and bandanas.

Beyond courting Republicans at party events, Mr. Rove has in recent days been counseling Congressional Republicans and conservative groups on how to advance their domestic agenda even while attention is on Iraq.

This week, he held forth at a lunch with conservative commentators and journalists. Some participants had backed the administration on Iraq when it faced criticism that the war plan provided insufficient force and that it had been overly optimistic about Iraqi resistance.

Rove is currently a Fox News contributor, as well as Wall Street Journal and Newsweek columnist

2. Charles Krauthammer

Krauthammer predicted invasion of Iraq would lead to spread of democracy throughout Middle East. In a February 1, 2002, Washington Post column (accessed via Nexis), Krauthammer predicted that an invasion of Iraq would lead to the spread of democracy throughout the Middle East, saying:

Iran is not a ready candidate for the blunt instrument of American power, because it is in the grips of a revolution from below. We can best accelerate that revolution by the power of example and success: Overthrowing neighboring radical regimes shows the fragility of dictatorship, challenges the mullahs’ mandate from heaven and thus encourages disaffected Iranians to rise. First, Afghanistan to the east. Next, Iraq to the west.

Krauthammer in June 2004: “[I]t’s the beginning of the end of the bad news.” On the June 1, 2004,edition of Special Report, Krauthammer said: “[I]t’s the beginning of the end of the bad news. I mean, we’re going to have lots of attacks, but the political process is under way.”

In addition, in a March 7, 2005, Time column, Krauthammer wrote:

Two years ago, shortly before the invasion of Iraq, I argued in these pages that forcefully deposing Saddam Hussein was, more than anything, about America “coming ashore” to effect a “pan-Arab reformation” — a dangerous, “risky and, yes, arrogant” but necessary attempt to change the very culture of the Middle East, to open its doors to democracy and modernity.

The Administration went ahead with this great project knowing it would be hostage to history. History has begun to speak. Elections in Afghanistan, a historic first. Elections in Iraq, a historic first. Free Palestinian elections producing a moderate leadership, two historic firsts. Municipal elections in Saudi Arabia, men only, but still a first. In Egypt, demonstrations for democracy — unheard of in decades — prompting the dictator to announce free contested presidential elections, a historic first.

And now, of course, the most romantic flowering of the spirit America went into the region to foster: the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, in which unarmed civilians, Christian and Muslim alike, brought down the puppet government installed by Syria. There is even the beginning of a breeze in Damascus. More than 140 Syrian intellectuals have signed a public statement defying their government by opposing its occupation of Lebanon.

Krauthammer is a political analyst for Fox News, and a regular member of Special Report with Bret Baier’s “All Star Panel.”

3. Fred Barnes

Barnes: “[W]inning the war in Iraq” is “going to be easy.” On the January 18, 2003, edition of Fox News’ The Beltway Boys (accessed via Nexis), Barnes said: “[L]ook, the problem is not winning the war in Iraq. That’s going to be easy. The problem right now is Hans Blix, the United Nations inspector in chief in Iraq, who seems to think his job is containment. You know, he says these inspections are a form of containment, and he wants to keep the inspectors there as long as possible, it seems to me, and has even said so.”

Barnes in April 2003: “[I]t gets easier now. … When you see those statues topple…you know that’s victory.” On the April 10, 2003, edition of Fox News’ Special Report, Barnes said: “[T]he good news is contrary to what you hear in the media, it gets easier now. The war was the hard part. The hard part was putting together a coalition, getting 300,000 troops over there and all their equipment and winning. And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but it is not as hard as winning a war. … Hezbollah is a part of the war on terrorism. Syria harbors terrorists in the Biqa Valley, Hezbollah and so on. The Saudis export terrorism in terms of Wahabi Islam, and things can be done to crack down on that. It doesn’t mean sending troops into Riyadh or into Damascus or things like that. But certainly the U.S. now has leverage that it didn’t have before winning this triumph in Iraq. … [L]ook, it is clear what victory in the war is. When you see those statues topple and you know that’s victory.”

Barnes: Terrorists in Iraq are hitting “soft targets.” On the October 27, 2003, edition of Special Report, Barnes said, “But these terrorists are hitting soft targets. I mean, the U.N., the hotel, the Red Cross — these are relatively soft targets. And I think they have a bad strategy. What do they gain from killing a lot of Red Cross personnel and a lot of U.N. personnel? I don’t think they warm the hearts of Iraqis. They certainly don’t build up more support in Europe or the United States. It is a last-ditch — I think it is a desperate effort by these terrorists. It’s not representative of a significant guerrilla force that’s fighting the United States there.”

Barnes: Obama not “strong on national security” because he opposed war “when the entire world believed” Saddam had WMDs. On the October 6, 2007, edition of The Beltway Boys, Barnes claimed that then-Sen. Barack Obama was “not in quite as strong a position on the war in Iraq as he really thinks he is.” He explained that when Obama delivered his 2002 speech against going to war with Iraq, “it was back in a time when the entire world believed Saddam Hussein in Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that he would probably be willing to use them himself at some time or pass them along to terrorists who would use them. And yet, Barack Obama was against going to the war at that point.” According to Barnes: “I don’t think that shows that he is very strong on national security, which he needs to be.”

4. Bill Kristol

Kristol: “American and alliance forces will be welcomed in Baghdad as liberators.” In testimony delivered February 7, 2002, before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Kristol said:

[A]s in Kabul but also as in the Kurdish and Shi’ite regions of Iraq in 1991, America and alliance forces will be welcomed in Baghdad as liberators. Indeed, reconstructing Iraq may prove to be a less difficult task than the challenge of building a viable state in Afghanistan.

The political, strategic and moral rewards would also be even greater. A friendly, free, and oil-producing Iraq would leave Iran isolated and Syria cowed; the Palestinians more willing to negotiate seriously with Israel; and Saudi Arabia with less leverage over policymakers here and in Europe. Removing Saddam Hussein and his henchmen from power presents a genuine opportunity — one President Bush sees clearly — to transform the political landscape of the Middle East.

Kristol in April 2003: “The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively and honorably.” In an April 28, 2003, Weekly Standard column, Kristol wrote:

The United States committed itself to defeating terror around the world. We committed ourselves to reshaping the Middle East, so the region would no longer be a hotbed of terrorism, extremism, anti-Americanism, and weapons of mass destruction. The first two battles of this new era are now over. The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively and honorably. But these are only two battles. We are only at the end of the beginning in the war on terror and terrorist states.

Kristol: “[A]lmost no evidence” that “the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni.” And on the April 1, 2003, broadcast of WHYY’s Fresh Air, Kristol said, “There’s been a certain amount of pop sociology in America … that the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There’s almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq’s always been very secular.”

Kristol began working for Fox News as a political commentator in 1996, and he continues to serve as a regular contributor to the network.

5. Stephen Hayes

Hayes repeatedly advanced falsehood that Al Qaeda and Iraq were linked. Media Matters has identified instances in which Hayes advanced falsehoods and distortions to defend attempts by Vice President Dick Cheney and others in the Bush administration to link Al Qaeda and Iraq. For example, on the December 9, 2005, edition of MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, Hayes defended Cheney’s December 2001 claim that 9-11 hijacker Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague. According to Hayes: “If you look at the front page of The New York Times in the days surrounding the vice president’s claim, The New York Times was actually reporting the same thing.” But as Media Matters noted, even after the Times and numerous other news outlets subsequentlyreported in May 2002 that the FBI and CIA “had firmly concluded that no meeting had occured,” Cheney continued to raise the possibility that such a meeting took place.

Hayes “has made a career out of pretending Saddam and Al Qaeda were in league.” Hayes has repeatedly claimed on TV, in The Weekly Standard, and in his book The Connection: How al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America, that Iraq was connected to Al Qaeda. Spencer Ackerman wrote that Hayes “has made a career out of pretending Saddam and Al Qaeda were in league to attack the United States”:

Hayes, in the Standard, has made a career out of pretending Saddam and Al Qaeda were in league to attack the United States. He published a book – tellingly wafer-thin and with large type in its hardcover edition – called “The Connection.” One infamous piece even suggested that Saddam might have aided the 9/11 attack. Hayes can be relied on to provide a farrago of speciousness every time new information emerges refuting his deceptive thesis. Unsurprisingly, [former Vice President Dick] Cheney has repeatedly praised Hayes’s work, telling Fox News, “I think Steve Hayes has done an effective job in his article of laying out a lot of those connections.”

Pentagon called Hayes’ assertion that “a top secret U.S. government memorandum” concluded that Saddam and bin Laden had an “operational relationship” “inaccurate.” In an article in The Weekly Standard’s November 24, 2003, issue, Hayes asserted that “a top secret U.S. government memorandum” — which Hayes identified as a memorandum produced by former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith — concluded that Saddam and bin Laden “had an operational relationship.” Hayes wrote of the memo: “Much of the evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources.” In a January 9, 2004, interview with Denver’s Rocky Mountain News, Cheney cited Hayes’ article, claiming that “[i]t goes through and lays out in some detail, based on an assessment that was done by the Department of Defense and was forwarded to the Senate Intelligence Committee some weeks ago.” Cheney added: “That’s your best source of information.” Following the publication of Hayes’ article, the Pentagon released a statement asserting that “[n]ews reports” about the memo “are inaccurate” and that the portion of the memo to which Hayes’ article referred “was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, and it drew no conclusions.”

Hayes is a regular Fox News contributor, who often appears as a panelist on Fox News’ Special Report.

6. Judith Miller

Miller’s series of articles on the now-debunked claim that Saddam had WMDs forced NY Times to apologize for its coverage. As Franklin Foer wrote for New York magazine:

During the winter of 2001 and throughout 2002, Miller produced a series of stunning stories about Saddam Hussein’s ambition and capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, based largely on information provided by [Ahmad Chalabi] and his allies — almost all of which have turned out to be stunningly inaccurate.

Indeed, although the Times did not identify Miller by name, it did publish an editor’s note in May 2004 apologizing for its coverage of the existence of WMDs in Iraq, particularly articles based on the assertions of Chalabi and other Iraqi defectors:

But we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge.

The problematic articles varied in authorship and subject matter, but many shared a common feature. They depended at least in part on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on “regime change” in Iraq, people whose credibility has come under increasing public debate in recent weeks. (The most prominent of the anti-Saddam campaigners, Ahmad Chalabi, has been named as an occasional source in Times articles since at least 1991, and has introduced reporters to other exiles. He became a favorite of hard-liners within the Bush administration and a paid broker of information from Iraqi exiles, until his payments were cut off last week.) Complicating matters for journalists, the accounts of these exiles were often eagerly confirmed by United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq. Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources. So did many news organizations — in particular, this one.

Judith Miller now appears regularly as a Fox News contributor, including frequent appearances to offer media criticism on Fox’s Fox News Watch.

7. John Bolton

Bolton: “The existence of Iraq’s [biological weapons] program is beyond dispute.” According to a November 20, 2001, Washington Post article (accessed via Nexis), Bolton — then the Bush administration’s undersecretary for arms control and international security — said at a biological weapons conference: “The United States strongly suspects that Iraq has taken advantage of three years of no U.N. inspections to improve all phases of its offensive biological weapons program. … The existence of Iraq’s program is beyond dispute.” From the Post:

John Bolton, undersecretary for arms control and international security, speaking at a biological weapons conference in Geneva on Monday, said the existence of a germ-warfare program in Iraq is “beyond dispute” and added that the United States strongly suspects North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran and Sudan of pursuing such weapons.

“The United States strongly suspects that Iraq has taken advantage of three years of no U.N. inspections to improve all phases of its offensive biological weapons program,” Bolton said. “The existence of Iraq’s program is beyond dispute.”

Bolton’s comments come in the context of stepped-up U.S. anxiety about biological weapons and the willingness of America’s foes to use them. Many members of the Bush administration favor making Iraq the next target in the U.S. war on terrorism, alleging that one of the key hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks met with Iraqi intelligence agents and that Saddam has the means and willingness to launch an attack on the United States.

“Beyond al-Qaeda, the most serious concern is Iraq,” Bolton said. “Iraq’s biological-weapons program remains a serious threat to international security.”

Bolton: “We have very convincing evidence that Iraq maintains an extensive program for the production … of weapons of mass destruction.” The Chicago Tribune reported on January 25, 2003, (accessed via Nexis) that Bolton said “that the United States has evidence of Iraq’s maintenance of weapons of mass destruction that will be disclosed at an ‘appropriate time.’ ” The Tribune further reported that Bolton said, “We have very convincing evidence that Iraq maintains an extensive program for the production … of weapons of mass destruction.”

Bolton is currently a Fox News contributor, as well as a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute

8. Newt Gingrich

Gingrich in 2001: “We know today that Saddam Hussein is willing to accept any level of sanctions to keep his program for weapons of mass destruction running.” In November 2001, Gingrich asserted that Iraq had a WMDs program, writing, “We know today that Saddam Hussein is willing to accept any level of sanctions to keep his program for weapons of mass destruction running.” He further wrote:

We are a serious nation, and the message should be simple if this is to be a serious war: Saddam will stop his efforts and close down all programs to create weapons of mass destruction. He will expel all terrorists from Iraqi soil, or we will substitute a new government in Iraq. We must insist on change, because we now have vivid proof in New York and Washington of the future if we do not.

Gingrich: “[W]e have a real obligation to take Iraq head on, because in the end, that’s one of the centers of really big danger in terms of nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare.” On the December 5, 2001, edition of Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes (accessed via Nexis), Gingrich stated: “I do believe in the next 60 days we have a real obligation to take Iraq head on, because in the end, that’s one of the centers of really big danger in terms of nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare.” From Hannity & Colmes:

GINGRICH: No, it’s not a cowboy-type attitude. It’s a direct attitude of a powerful country saying that in the first place, I believe that in the end the regime of Saddam Hussein cannot survive, that these are people who — Saddam Hussein is trying to get nuclear weapons, he’s trying to get biological weapons, he’s trying to get chemical weapons. The president himself has said this man is very evil and very dangerous. President Clinton said he was evil and dangerous. Former secretary of state Albright described him as being like Hitler.

Now, there’s a point here when I think you ought to take these things seriously. I think it ought to be the policy of the American government to help the Iraqi people replace the current dictatorship with a government that is more interested in economic trade than in weapons of mass destruction.

So whether Iraq wants to start the fight or whether we go and deliver an ultimatum, I do believe in the next 60 days we have a real obligation to take Iraq head on, because in the end, that’s one of the centers of really big danger in terms of nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare.

Gingrich: “I think history will record that a remarkably strong president happened to be in office at a juncture where weapons of mass destruction and terrorism rewrote all the rules of engagement in international relations.” A March 9, 2003, Washington Post article (accessed via Nexis) reported:

Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and a student of history, maintained that Bush’s apparent serenity on the eve of a world-reordering war is part of his managerial style.

“When he was a younger man and owner of a baseball team [the Texas Rangers], he picked the manager and coaches and then sat in the stands,” Gingrich said.

But Gingrich said the hesitation in stating the full extent of Bush’s world vision is “confusing” foreign countries. “The most powerful nation in the world must be understandable, not merely formidable,” he said. And what Bush needs to convey to the world is how much bigger than Iraq the coming war will be.

“I think history will record that a remarkably strong president happened to be in office at a juncture where weapons of mass destruction and terrorism rewrote all the rules of engagement in international relations,” Gingrich said. “It will record that the president moved beyond old institutions and developed a new set of alliances.”

Gingrich has been a political contributor to Fox News since 1999.

9. Dick Morris

Morris: “[T]he key, let us all remember, is to attack Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein before he acquires weapons of mass destruction.” In an April 17, 2002, column in The Hill (accessed via Nexis), Morris wrote: “The Arab nations demand U.S. action partially to achieve their own ends vis-a-vis Israel, but also precisely to ensnare the United States before it can move against Iraq. They are masters at the game of sucking you into the desert and running you around with shuttle diplomacy until you drop. All the while, Saddam Hussein’s scientists build his bomb. The clock is running. Will the United States act before Iraq completes its deadly work?” He further stated: “[T]he key, let us all remember, is to attack Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein before he acquires weapons of mass destruction. This will likely involve a large mobilization of American might and the deployment of several hundred thousand American troops.”

Morris suggested Iraq was “developing an atomic bomb [that] they’re going to use against us or Israel.” On the July 25, 2002, edition of Fox News’ The Big Story (accessed via Nexis), Morris advocated for war in Iraq, suggesting that the United States would find “laboratories for enriching uranium” and stating of Bush, “It’s very clear he’s made the case” to invade Iraq. From The Big Story:

JOHN GIBSON (host): [Bush] has had the — a notion has been put forward that he has to take care of other things first. Has to be a Middle East peace, the economy has to get back in shape. Should he say, We’ll work on those things, but I’ve got to go ahead with this other thing?

MORRIS: Yes, he should. And those things are really both for — both false. The notion that he has to solve a 50-year-old problem in the Middle East before he can stop somebody from developing an atomic bomb they’re going to use against us or Israel is ludicrous. It’s put there by the moderate Arab countries to try to stop him from ever doing anything.

And I can’t think of anything better for the stock market than to get it the heck off the A-section of the newspaper and back in the C-section where it belongs. If there were just negative earnings reports and stuff, the market wouldn’t be going this crazy.

It’s that — it’s — it’s even pushed the Roman Catholic priest scandal off the front pages.

And the point is, we have only one front page in every newspaper at any given time. And if it’s all going to be about Iraq, it’s not going to be about the stock market, which will help the market.

GIBSON: Oh, yes, but are you saying that to — that the president should — that the president can say, Look, I’m going to start this thing now, I’m going to start this campaign, I’m going to move troops, we’re going to get going, and that he, he can set aside the, the grumbling, the mumbling that he is starting a war to save his political problems?

MORRIS: Yes, sure he can, because no Democrat is going to dare say that. If some Democrat gets out there and says, You’re starting this war because of the election, he’ll kill them. He’ll say, I’m starting the war. When this guy used poison gas and when I invade him, I’ll find five laboratories for enriching uranium.

Look, if George Bush announced on Labor Day, Hey, I’ve made a discovery, Uganda is developing weapons of mass destruction and we’re going to attack it, OK, that’s wagging the dog. But this guy has been talking about Iraq for a year now. Eighty-five percent of the country wants him to invade. It’s very clear he’s made the case. What he’s done so far is procrastinate, for two reasons.

Legitimately, he felt he wanted to do some work in Israel and world opinion. But the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) — illegitimately. But legitimately, it was that you don’t fight a war in the desert in the summer. It’s hot, particularly in those chemical uniforms. You ever been in one of them? It’s hot.

And the point is, you fight a war in the winter in the desert. Duh? January and February. And it takes you about six months to do the troop buildup, so it starts in September.

Morris: “Once our guys go in there, and women go in there, they’re going to find weapons and labs that 80 inspectors can’t find, but 100,000 soldiers can.” On December 8, 2002, edition Fox News’ Fox Wire (accessed via Nexis), Morris said: “Seventy-nine percent of the American people think Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. Sixty-two percent think he’s planning to use it on us. And Bush is the judge and the jury. Once our guys go in there, and women go in there, they’re going to find weapons and labs that 80 inspectors can’t find, but 100,000 soldiers can.” He further stated that “if I were Bush, what I would do right now is I would say, look. You’re lying. You’re lying through your teeth. And unless you tell the truth by January 1, I’m going to attack on January 2.” Later during the segment, Morris said that Saddam is “a bad guy that wants to get nuclear weapons. He’s a bad guy that has chemical and biological weapons. And he is fully as much of a threat as al Qaeda is.”

Morris ridiculed Democrats who wanted “more evidence” of WMDs, saying if “we find out after we’ve gone in there” that Iraq “was three months away from an atom bomb,” Democrats “can forget about 2004.” On the January 28, 2003, edition of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor (accessed via Nexis), Morris stated that “once we win in Iraq, the Europeans will be lining up to the Mediterranean to be part of that peacekeeping force.” He further stated that ” the Democratic Party is telling the United States, wait, get more evidence. Get more information. And we find out after we’ve gone in there that this guy was three months away from an atomic bomb, the Democratic Party can forget about 2004.”

Morris: “I honestly believe that if you had 5,000 or 10,000 dead in this war, the American people would say, well, it just shows he had weapons of mass destruction, it just shows how important this was.” On the March 31, 2003, edition of Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes, co-host Alan Colmes asked Morris, “What is the number allowable, because that’s the word that’s used, casualties, before you think there is a greater dissent on the part of the American public?” Morris responded: “I honestly believe, Alan, that there is no ceiling. I honestly believe that if you had 5,000 or 10,000 dead in this war, the American people would say, well, it just shows he had weapons of mass destruction, it just shows how important this was.” He later stated, “I think the American people have endless patience with this thing.” From Hannity & Colmes:

COLMES: What is the number allowable, because that’s the word that’s used, casualties, before you think there is a greater dissent on the part of the American public?

MORRIS: I honestly believe, Alan, that there is no ceiling. I honestly believe that if you had 5,000 or 10,000 dead in this war, the American people would say, well, it just shows he had weapons of mass destruction, it just shows how important this was.

This is a defensive war. The American people feel that we are being threatened, and this isn’t like Bosnia or Kosovo, where we’re doing it for the good of the world. We are, but we’re also doing it to defend ourselves.

And I think the American people have endless patience with this thing.

In May 2003, Morris stated that “we won the war” in Iraq. On the May 28, 2003, edition of Hannity & Colmes (accessed via Nexis), Morris stated: “[W]e removed this enormous cause of destabilization in removing Saddam. The Iraqis have moved. The Syrians have moved. The Saudis are cooperating in this investigation in a way they didn’t in Khobar Towers. Yasser Arafat is out on his butt and Abbas is now in charge. And all of that, coincidentally, happened after we won the war.”

Morris serves as a political analyst for Fox News.