I have to give credit to Senator John Sununu. He showed up at the Arab American Institute's National Leadership Conference in Dearborn, Michigan this weekend and openly talked about his search for his Palestinian grandfather's home in old Jerusalem.
Sununu also talked about his attempts to hold back the loss of civil liberties -- to a large degree aimed at Arabs and Arab Americans -- embedded in the Patriot Act.
News today that Donald Rumsfeld is the target of a legal complaint filed in France accusing him of masterminding the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo gives Rummy a chance to walk in the shoes of Saddam Hussein. Like Saddam, Rummy insists he did nothing wrong and that he was simply pursuing the best interest of the American people. How you going to make an omelet without breaking some eggs? Right? I doubt if Rummy will wind up on the gallows in France, but the charges against him are real and are serious. And if karma and justice are linked, Rummy will be tried and convicted.
One thing is certain, Rummy is now part of an exclusive but growing club of Amcits who face legal peril in foreign lands because they participated (allegedly) in some kind of torture, disappearance, or other violation of international human rights. That means he won’t be going on any foreign junkets. Once outside the safe confines of the United States he can be snatched up and hauled off to France to face questioning.
Senator Straight Talk is getting a lot of mileage out of a campaign ad trashing Hillary Clinton for supporting a $1 million expenditure for a Woodstock Museum. As you may have heard, it recycles McCain's laugh line from last week's debate event:
Now my friends, I wasn't there. I'm sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event. I was tied up at the time--
"referring," in the words of an AP reporter, "to being held prisoner in North Vietnam" at the time of the Woodstock festival of 1969.
One of the comments about Middle East policy that one hears from Senators, House Members and staff with ever-growing frequency is: "Why are obstructionist hawks so forceful a presence on Capitol Hill when they represent only a minority of the community?”
One can hardly exaggerate how often this question is posed to us -- albeit only by those who feel confident that we will not "blow the whistle" on them by publicizing their doubts about the long-standing U.S. approach to the Middle East.
This week (in the Hebrew calendar) marked the 12th anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. This time the backdrop was an increasingly active and ugly campaign by the Israeli far-right for the release of his assassin, Yigal Amir. Part of that campaign has been the attempt to advance a conspiracy theory regarding the assassination, namely that the Israeli authorities orchestrated it and even that Shimon Peres was responsible. What you may ask has all this to do with the John McCain Presidential campaign?
Here’s what – the McCain campaign has placed official ads on a Kahanist, pro-extremist settler website that promotes the claim that Shimon Peres, Israel’s President, “master-minded” the Rabin assassination!
The House of Representatives, as promised, has passed another bill to expand S-CHIP (although not veto proof), after President Bush’s veto last week. Democratic leaders have made several changes, which respond to the arguments opponents were making last time around: it would not cover children in families making over three times the poverty level ($61,950) or illegal immigrants. As with Senator Kennedy’s proposed amendment to the bankruptcy bill (which was defeated)---Kennedy's amendment would have exempted those whose debts arose from medical expenses from the bill’s “mean’s test”---this bill will expose that opponents don’t really oppose the bill for these reasons. This will give liberals another opportunity to show how undemocratic Republican policies are. To be sure, Americans are liberal: 63%, across party lines, support expanding SCHIP; 86% support reauthorizing it. Democrats now need to create a space where they can advance progressive policies responsibly and fairly. When it comes to taxes, lower isn’t always better.
There is a fascinating debate that has broken out, mostly among liberals, about the nature of the current conservative movement. On one side are those who believe that there's something distinctively awful about this decadent late stage of conservatism, from Bush, Cheney and Tom DeLay to Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and beyond. On the other are those who argue that it's been like this all along, that all the current insanity can be found deep within the theory and practice of conservatism, that there's no alternative right that was basically decent and responsible.
Paul Krugman's new book is a good example of the latter, and another is Greg Anrig's The Conservatives Have No Clothes, which was the subject of a recent TPM Cafe Book Club. I tend to fall more in the camp that believes that there is a difference between Reagan and W., or between William F. Buckley and Ann Coulter, but the rotten-to-the-core faction have some good points. Yesterday, Gary Kamiya in Salon made the case for my faction, the decline-and-fallers: “However much liberal critics (like this writer) might disagree with them, Republican presidents from Ford to Reagan to the elder Bush generally refrained from radically changing American institutions, law and values. They possessed some internal governor that prevented them from going too far, some deeply rooted sense of civic parameters.”
For conservatives, the argument is different: They want to contend that the last six or seven years have nothing to do with conservatism at all.
Friends:
Today is my last day as guest blogger and author in TPM Cafe's Table For One. Thank you all very much for allowing me to share my excitement about my new book, "Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War." I really think the story is crucial to understanding how we got led into such a tragic and unnecessary war. Plus, if you'll permit me, it's a gripping read.
After the book was released last week, I appeared on The Colbert Report and on CNN. The Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times both wrote hugely positive reviews. I was interviewed for an hour on the Diane Rehm show, on NPR, and spoke on about 15 other radio networks and stations. Other newspaper reviews and broadcast interviews are scheduled. The book is now out in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Translations are underway in Germany, Japan and Brazil. Plus the film is in casting!
I consider the Curveball case the defining story of the pre-war intelligence fiasco. It obviously was not the sole reason that America went to war in Iraq. But if you deconstruct the intelligence given to the White House, the Congress, and the public before the war, it's clear that much of it rested on the shoulders of this one man.
Why do I say that? Because the Robb Silberman Commission concluded after investigating the case that Curveball was the principal source for all the pre-war claims about Saddam's biological weapons. Without him, the administration and its allies had no basis for it's frightening assertions about Saddam's supposed germs, toxins and viruses.
We already knew Saddam had no nuclear weapons, and wasn't close to getting them, despite claims to the contrary from Vice President Cheney and Condi Rice.
Here’s an interesting article detailing the ways in which companies structure store gift cards to take advantage of the unwary, or even fail to disclose the fees and conditions that can eat up the card’s value before it is redeemed.
If a terrorist had set fire to Southern California and displaced 500,000 people, President Bush would schedule an "address to the nation" in which he pledged to spare no expense in confronting this new tactic in the so-called Global War on Terror (GWOT). But since it's just a human-assisted natural disaster, we can probably count on him to do too little, too late. The federal response won't be as blatantly irresponsible as his administration was in the case of Hurricane Katrina (there are PR issues to consider, after all), but it is likely to be grossly inadequate nonetheless.
What if climate change, outbreaks of disease, entrenched poverty, and other threats to human life were treated as security issues? Would it help or hurt efforts to address these challenges?
Good morning! This is Day Three of my Curveball blog.
We've enjoyed a fairly spirited discussion the last two days. One very committed writer seems fervently convinced that the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Robb Silberman Commission, the Iraq Survey Group, the so-called Butler Report in the British Parliament, plus my new book CURVEBALL, all missed or covered-up the truth. That "truth," he writes, is that the tiny Office of Special Plans at Don Rumsfeld's Pentagon secretly and knowingly fed Curveball's false information to the Bush White House to hoodwink the nation.
It's an interesting theory. But there is no evidence - zero, nada, zip - to support it. Nor does it make any sense. As I wrote yesterday, Curveball's interrogations in Germany began during the Clinton administration. During the run-up to war, his flawed intelligence was not "stove piped" through secret channels or whispered in someone's ear. It was the OFFICIAL determination of the U.S. intelligence community. That's what makes the case so grotesque and the story so fascinating. Curveball's information was key to the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, the president's 2003 State of the Union speech, Colin Powell's presentation to the U.N. Security Council, threat assessments given to Congress, and hundreds of classified documents and reports.
There was no need to slip this in the back door of the White House. George Tenet presented it to the president, and key members of Congress, on a silver platter, complete with charts, graphs and cartoon drawings. That's the real scandal in this case. It wasn't a dark conspiracy. It was worse - dreadful tradecraft, inept analysis, and spineless leadership that ignored warnings of problems.
Let me give you some examples.
Question: What do mortgage servicers and phone sex have in common? Answer: They both cost $9.99 a minute.
This is just one of the findings Professor Katie Porter documents in a new study of mortgage servicer practices. Most of the things that servicers do never see the light of day. People grumble--and keep on paying. But when homeowners file for bankruptcy, the paperwork is a matter of public record, and it is supposed to show all the charges. And there it is: $9.99 a minute to talk with the mortgage servicer to try to get the mortgage servicer's own mistake corrected.
Bloomberg and the Los Angeles Times just released a new poll showing Hillary leads Barack Obama by 31 points among likely voters -- and as things stand right now has her beating all likely Republicans in the general election.
Giuliani continues to poll strongly pulling 32% of all likely Republican voters. In my book, this is good. I'd like to see Giuliani and Clinton square off because she can beat him given how narrowly he is defining his candidacy. And the fact that David Frum, Norman Podhoretz, and Daniel Pipes are advisors to Giuliani makes folks like me salivate.
I began my TPM Cafe blog yesterday by introducing Curveball as a minor Iraqi refugee who told a few lies to get political asylum in Germany - and instead helped give the Bush administration a pretext for war.
Since then, I've tried to answer your questions about my motives, my sources, my information, and my conclusions. Let me explain something at the outset that might help. I did not write a book about politics or policy. I make no recommendations for intelligence reform, offer no ponderous analysis of international relations, and don't try to psychoanalyze George Bush or Dick Cheney. Others can write those books.
CURVEBALL is a non-fiction spy thriller about real life people who are trained to lie, cheat, and steal. They're like the Sopranos of intelligence. They usually operate behind the curtain of secrecy and anonymity, without any public accountability. Unfortunately, the high-priest mystique of intelligence and national security too often conceals tawdry ambition, frightening ineptitude and weak leadership. The Curveball case was a prime example...
Valerie’s problem is her decency and humanity. She has reasons most Americans don’t know to be really angry with George Bush and George Tenet but she has contained her rage. In a new tasty nugget in her book, Fair Game, she gives some details on the 2004 Al Qaeda threat to kill her. The response of the Administration, or more accurately, the lack of any response, is enough to make the Pope curse. What the Bush Administration failed to do and what George Tenet, CIA Director, failed to do, goes beyond cowardice.
What am I talking about?Thank you for inviting me to blog on TPM Cafe. My name is Bob Drogin, and I am honored to share my new book, CURVEBALL: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man who Caused a War.
I will be happy to answer your questions or respond to your thoughts over the coming week. They can range from the nature of my reporting on intelligence and national security, the bizarre story of ineptitude and fraud that I found in Curveball, and even what it's like to appear as a guest on The Colbert Report, as I did last Tuesday. (hint - he's a wild man.) So let's begin...
Ali Larijani has essentially been fired by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is not letting Larijani leave the negotiating scene yet.
Despite Larijani's blurry status, Iran has announced the "joint will" of Ahmadinejad and Khamenei that Iran's top nuclear negotiator attend talks on Tuesday in Rome with Javier Solana.
Larijani, who has tried to resign on several occasions (one of which after the kidnapping and detainment by the IRGC of fifteen British sailors), reportedly cannot stand working with the reckless Ahmadinejad -- though is on very good terms with Khamenei.
But with the firing, which Larijani learned through news reports rather than directly, Ahmadinejad is challenging Khamenei's authority over Iranian state matters. Ahmadinejad knows that Larijani is an agent of those who actually want to resolve Iran's nuclear situation in a constructive way while Ahmadinejad benefits from the crisis and tension with the US and Europe.
Welcome to Table for One, the guest-blogging section at TPMCafe.
This week we are joined by Bob Drogin, who covers intelligence and national security for the Washington bureau of the Los Angeles Times. Drogin joins us this week to discuss his new book (recently reviewed by TPMMuckraker's Spencer Ackerman), Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man who Caused a War, an account of the tales of an Iraqi refugee, codenamed Curveball, and the rush of the CIA and Bush administration to believe his claims about Saddam Hussein's biological weapons programs.
See earlier Table for One guest-blogs:
Jacob Soboroff, Sam Quinones, Jeffrey Toobin, Ben Naimark-Rowse, Charlie Savage, Congressman Steve Kagen, Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Scott Winship, Robert Hormats, Bill McKibben, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Sen. John Edwards, the ACLU's Anthony Romero, Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Andrew Rasiej, Gov. Tom Vilsack,Gen. Wesley Clark, Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Sen. Russ Feingold.
No, I’m not talking about kids in low and moderate income families – this is Washington. I’m talking about the insurance industry. While the efforts to overturn President Bush’s veto of a compromise bill went down to defeat, the insurance industry had already won its big battle. The compromise bill eliminated the provision of a House passed bill that would have eliminated more than $10 billion a year in overpayments to the private insurers operating in the Medicare Advantage program.
The basic story here is straightforward. The insurance industry is too inefficient to compete head to head with the government in the Medicare program. If they have to compete on a level playing field, the industry loses. They can’t cover their marketing costs, the bloated salaries for CEOs and other high executives, and the dividends to shareholders.
Because I don't really want you to have to read these pieces in the opinion pages du jour: George Will's sentences amount to euthanasia by reading; David Broder's rhapsody about informed choice of doctors misses only the enormous point that you can't choose what you can't pay for; Tom Friedman's applause for hybrid taxis ought to be a condemnation of Detroit and not praise of a mayor who in any case has failed to do anything significant to green New York in terms of building materials and energy generation, while California is showing the real way forward. And the media's inability to report candidly what's really going on in Congress or agencies is reaching new depths.
I know about wireless broadband issues, by study and experience, and so I know Judy Chevalier's piece in the New York Times today is informed, analytically sound, and informative. What a startling contrast to the above. The question begged is:
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