Sir! No Sir! Exposing and Debunking Military Lies from Vietnam to Iraq

Screaming to Hear Yourself Scream - Responses to Center for Public Integrity's report "Iraq: The War Card" I (The Free Republic)

This and the following posts (Screaming to Hear Yourself Scream II, Screaming to Hear Yourself Scream III) guage the Reading the responses to the Center for Public Integrity's report Iraq: The War Card, on three bulletin boards - Alternet, The Free Republic and Military.com. Reading these one gets the sad and distinct impression that not only was there was more than one report published by the Center for Public Integrity, these were not read beyond the precis published in the press. Consequently, on both sides, these discussions have nothing to do with the report's causes, contents or consequences and everything to do with the ideological blinkers of the participants.
Because the controllers of chat rooms demand adherence to their version on the truth, the resulting discussions devolve into an exercise in ideological purity. Consequently what passes for debate and/or discussion has long since devolved into a predictable set of meta-accusations and deninciations, that plug the study into pre-existing parameters that have nothing to do with the sudy's contents or the consequences of its findings. This is intellectually lazy and obscene.
What is missing from each of these discussions are the consequences of the decision, by this Administration to construct a specific version of the truth, which it then used to justify sending 150,000 U. S. Servicemen into Iraq. No one, be he or she liberal or conservative ever discuss this report through the prism of the war and how the evidence provided may affect those ordered to execute the Administration's policy over the last five years.

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The following coments were posted to The Free Republic bulletin boards, January 26th, 2008
These posts were not given titles.

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In December of 2004, the Center’s board of directors choose a successor, television journalist Roberta Baskin. Baskin came to the Center after directing consumer investigations for ABC News’s 20/20 and serving as Washington correspondent for PBS’s NOW with Bill Moyers.

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ridiculous....... even at worse “false” is only proven after the fact...... the point here is to drive the idea of “lies”.....

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Does the study mention that the statements were also made by both Clintons, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Madeline Albright, Joe Biden, etc."

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The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.
This is just more political absurdity. The admission is made right inside the "study", that it's purpose is to get more democrats elected in the 2008 elections.

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The 'Center for Public Integrity' has none, and the 'Fund for Independence in Journalism' isn't. They are both mouthpieces for the hard-left portion of the DNC.

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When does the study of the statements of the Democrats and all the credible intelligence sources of the world come out?

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This has been discussed over the past few days on FR. What this article you posted does not reveal is that the “independent” journalism organizations are funded by George Soros and are not exactly “independent” after all. Do a simple google search and you will find out plenty about the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism

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Nothing like good ol’ Soros funded “Center for Public Integrity” and “Fund for Independence in Journalism”.

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These two win the award for Doublespeak of the Day.

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I got an e-mail about this from a high school acquaintance. I e-mailed back that most of the statements being called lies were also made by the previous administration, and many of the countries around the world.

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When I read drivel like this, it always occurs to me that there seems to be a dearth of "studies" conducted by "independent" conservative groups.
I typically attribute that to the usual MSM bias, but it does make one pause to wonder where the conservative equivalents of these so-called "think tanks" are, and why their "studies" never hit the front page.

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There never was a war that was built on truth. Someone always tells a lie, and others believe it.

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We know Saddam Hussein and his regime had WMDs and that they had used them both against Iran and against their own people. Apparently, they had no nuclear weapons...but we also know he wanted them.
To say that the Hussein regime had the chemical and biological weapons programs earlier and that they had eliminated them all before our invasion is not credible. It is much more likely that he either hid thgem, or remove them from the country. Those types of wepaons (cehmical wepaons) were found. In either case, the facts remain, and are indisputable, Huseein had and used WMDs in the past aginst his enemies and his own people and was a proven threat to the region.

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Huseein's regime had regular contacts with Al Quida operatives. Whether he actively particpated in the planning of 911 is irrelevent to the that he did communicate with them.

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Finally, also without dispute is that Hussein regularly and blatantly violated the terms of the caese fire and peace that he capitualted to after Desert storm. For over 10 years. We were justified in taking him down on that basis alone. And the world is far better for it.

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Added to this his thumbing his nose at the resolutions regarding his WMD programs that led to the actual invasion.

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The left is insane with envy and anger at Bush because he successfully ended the tyranny...and particularly that he ended the pet food for oil programs that so many socialist governments (and I bet, truth be known, leftisists in this country) were benefitting from. The left just hates Bush irrationally and they will (like many of the enviro-whacko "findings" and reports) will stretch the truth themsleves to try and "prove" to the rest of us how bad Bush is.

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Well, I am glad Bush went into Iraq and took Hussein down. He has taken the fight to the enemy in their back yard and the Islamic radicals MUST fight us there and they know it. Hence, they are not able to attack here, and tens, perhaps hundreds, of thosuands of them are being killed in the process. At the same time, Bush, with his policy, has effectively encircled the largest state sponsor of terror, Iran. This is something that also infuriates the left...precisely because Bush has been successful in these aims when they forecasted doom and gloom and defeat...and are still doing so.

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The Bush doctrine has also sent a much needed message to the rest of the tin-horn dictators and terorrists around the world, and has helped influence (IMHO) the election of much more conservative governments in Germany and France.

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People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

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If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

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If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

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What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

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If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

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The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

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Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

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In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

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-this version is credited to Mother Teresa

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Bush led with 259 false statements... That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements
What's wrong with this statement?

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Idiots can't even write intelligent hit pieces.

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The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

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Bill Moyers pack of liars

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The 'Center for Public Integrity' has none, and the 'Fund for Independence in Journalism' isn't. They are both mouthpieces for the hard-left portion of the DNC.
We 'ran' them the last time this story was posted. They both have a Soros affiliation.

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The study consists of starting with the premise that the statements were false, then counting them. It provides no information whatsoever as to the truth or falsity of the statements.

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George Soros made his billions by wrecking Economys and then Cashing in , “ A biblical money-Changer”

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Now America’s Economy is on the rocks, and Soros is calling for investment in China’s economy, anyone see a link?

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Soros is no friend of any American, and any Think Tank funded by Him cannot be telling the truth.

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Soros Hates America.

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What this article you posted does not reveal is that the “independent” journalism organizations are funded by George Soros and are not exactly “independent” after all.
Yep. FR thread from last week below.

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George Soros Funded Study Says Bush Lied

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"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study."

The statement demonstrates two areas of supreme intellectual dishonesty on the left.

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The issue of WMDs is not what was or was not found, but what was the intelligence consensus on the subject. To have accepted that intelligence consensus, and acting on it, was neither a matter of deception or a lie.

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The issue of Al Queda and Saddam is one where the left, and the 9/11 Commission as well, simply choose to cherry-pick the evidence and pretend that a lack of a Saddam-Osama meeting is proof of a lack of cooperation.

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“”I got an e-mail about this from a high school acquaintance””

Same here - somewhat gleefully. I sent a reply that Soros had funded the study and she wrote back that she didn’t know that! I also said that obviously nearly everyone in the free world was lying at the time! Facts that don’t fit aren’t brought up.

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WMD’s - I like to make the anology that obviously Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman weren’t murdered since no murder weapon was ever found.

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Wow. Just wow. Nothing like good Ole’ agenda-driven journalism.
Or the fact that George Soros heavily funded both to generate this lie.
Notwithstanding he also funded the Lancet project that claimed the deaths of nearly a half a million Iraqis by U.S. Forces.
Just gotta love it when the NeoComm’s get caught generating blatant lies.

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The people who authored this study are either liars themselves or extraordinarily stupid. Did Bush retroactively manipulate intelligence in both the U.S. and abroad?

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A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations .. with axes to grind

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agenda, yup. driving a late 1930s German model I’d say,,

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“It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida,” according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. “In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003.”

>>>>>No it’s not and there’s no way to know that.

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Just another transparent Soros project. Nothing to see here.

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You mean like the vast right wing conspiracy described the Clinton lies BEFORE the hypocrats discovered they lied about Obamalamadingdong?

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They remind me of the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic Republic of East Germany.

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When I get into arguments about the start of the war, the distinction between a statement that is later proven false and a deliberate lie often is the problem.

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"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," ... "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

Quite correct.
The problem is that relating "erroneous information" is only "lying" if you know it is erroneous. I have seen nothing that would confirm that somehow Bush and Cheney had better data than the CIA and the rest of the world's intelligence agencies back in 2003. Plus - do we have absolute evidence that the WMDs were not taken form Iraq in the days and weeks leading up to the war? There is a lot of evidence that says they were. In that case the basic premise of this so called "Study" would itself be wrong and therefore meaningless. In fact, it is simply another, probably Soros sponsored, piece of garbage propaganda.

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An added note: This is so typical of the Libs. They invent what amounts to a lie ("Bush Lied) then they repeat this lie daily in their MSM outlets until it becomes material for the history books. It then enters the history books and becomes Liberal Gospel, not to be challenged for accuracy. Global Warming is the most recent example of this technique. It is effective and the Libs are master craftsman when it comes to it's implementation.

“When I get into arguments about the start of the war, the distinction between a statement that is later proven false and a deliberate lie often is the problem.”

That is precisely the problem. Between stories that Saddam deliberately created the impression he had WMD’s, and satellite pictures of convoys of trucks driving from Iraq into Syria just before the invasion, and a lack of desire to investigate these possibilities for political reasons, the whole matter is a big jumble.

Winter Soldier Hearing - Here Come the Conservatives Part 1 (Iraq Veterans To Testify at Their Own 'Winter Soldier' (Treason Alert: CODE RED!))

For some reason the idea that GIs and veterans may want to testify about what they did in Iraq seems to upset a lot of Conservatives. As is so often the case, with Conservatives, supporting the troops is a perfect mirror of supporting the unborn. You demand these young men and women fight your battles for you, because "Islamofacism" is somehow out to destroy our way of life, but when the troops return home and attempt to exercise their most basic democratic right, it is an act of treason. While this response is the expected one, it is still very sad because the young men and women deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan are supposedly defending the American Way of Life, including your right to insult and demean them.

This and the preceding post (Winter Soldier Hearing - Here Come the Conservatives Part 2)were originally posted to the Free Republic, January 24, 2008

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On three frigid days in early 1971, more than 100 Vietnam veterans gathered at a Detroit hotel to indict the most contentious American war of the 20th century. In measured tones, occasionally quivering with emotion, they described what the war had done to them as much as what the war had done to the country. The veterans talked about abuses made routine, like throwing prisoners out of helicopters, torturing Viet Cong detainees or mutilating enemy corpses. Many had never told their stories before. Sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, they called their investigation the Winter Soldier project, after a line from Thomas Paine’s famous denunciation of “the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot [who] will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country.”
Vietnam, by 1971, was the most domestically divisive U.S. conflict since the Civil War. Yet the public displayed little desire to hear from those who prosecuted the war about what was done in its name. What little press coverage Winter Soldier received was largely hostile. A short, un-bylined New York Times story portrayed “young veterans of the Vietnam war quietly [telling] of their ‘war crimes.’”
But while the investigation itself may have made little immediate impact, its disclosures would reverberate for decades. “We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals,” a 27-year old Navy veteran, John Kerry, told the Senate about what Winter Soldier uncovered. The bitterness that testimony sowed in other Vietnam veterans, who felt betrayed by Winter Soldier, stayed alive through 2004, when the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth falsely maligned Kerry’s service record as payback. Now, with another intractable conflict proving to be another defining moment in American history, some veterans of the Iraq war intend to take up the Winter Soldier banner. On March 13, Iraq Veterans Against the War, an organization inspired by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, will convene at the National Labor College just outside of Washington to say, in so many words, that it’s all happening again.
“What’s happening now is no different than over the past five years,” said Geoff Millard, 27, the president of the group’s Washington chapter. “It’s the result of systematic problems in the way we fight an occupation. It’s not that we’re going to outline these huge atrocities. It’s how the systematic nature of occupation is oppression.” This time around, Winter Soldier will have what its predecessor didn’t: digital video to back up the charges.
The critique that the Winter Soldier investigation presents is both subtle and incendiary. Throughout the course of the war, the public has become agonizingly familiar with its excesses, most notably the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the deliberate killing of civilians at Haditha. Winter Soldier, according to the veterans’ group, won’t expose the next big Iraq scandal. What it will do instead is argue, through testimony from soldiers and Marines who fought the war, that standard military behavior in Iraq can look more like Abu Ghraib or Haditha than the public perceives.
“I do believe that the profession of soldiering is fundamentally an honorable one,” said Perry O’Brien, 25, an Afghanistan veteran and key leader of Winter Soldier. “But the disconnect between the [soldiers’] code and what soldiers are asked to do in the war is the source of a tremendous amount of guilt that many of us carry around. Kids grow up wanting to be GI Joe and save lives. But military policy is dictating that people do terrible things, things that violate their conscience, and then have the psychological burden of carrying that around, because the military says you can’t talk about it. Soldiers live with it and die with it.”
Organizers estimate that perhaps 45 to 55 Iraq veterans, and some from Afghanistan, will testify to such “terrible things” at Winter Soldier. Liam Madden, 23, a Marine veteran of Iraq who’s now a student at Northeastern University, came up with the idea for a second Winter Soldier in late 2006 with his fellow IVAW members Aaron Hughes in Chicago and Fernando Braga in New York. “The people I’ve talked to who are testifying are going to talk about their experiences in Iraq, how they’re put in positions to harm the people of Iraq and harm the image of America because of the position they’re put in, and the complete injustice involved in that,” Madden said. “Other people will talk about how a run-of-the-mill day in Iraq is. It adds up to a checkpoint here, a house raid there, a house raid there, a house raid there, to a population of Iraqis who can’t tolerate you any longer.”
The project’s interview and verification committees are just getting started. But glimpses of the expected testimony are beginning to emerge. One of the early interviewees, a medic, told IVAW about treating a two-year old shot in the thigh by U.S. soldiers, and witnessing “the mutilation of the dead,” according to Jose Vasquez, 33, a former Army sergeant who heads Winter Soldier’s verification team. The public should expect to hear about “unnecessary killing of noncombatants on the battlefield,” said Vasquez, an anthropology graduate student at the City University of New York. (Vasquez himself filed as a conscientious objector after finding himself unable to participate in the Iraq war.) Indeed, a frequent theme among group members in interviews has been the intensity of manning checkpoints, where Iraqi civilians can die for simply not approaching a checkpoint slowly enough to reassure an apprehensive soldier who doesn’t speak their language.
Yet the organizers of Winter Soldier will consider the event a failure if it appears to blame soldiers and Marines for the war. Yet the organizers of Winter Soldier will consider the event a failure if it appears to blame soldiers and Marines for the war. “Imagine you’re out on a convoy and you get hit by an IED,” Millard said. “And the SOP [Standard Operating Procedure] is you fire in that direction of that fire that came in. That’s indiscriminate. Civilians get killed in that. It’s not the soldier’s fault. It’s not the civilian’s fault. It’s the occupation’s fault.” Millard, a recently-discharged Army National Guardsman from upstate New York, served in Iraq as a general’s assistant in Tikrit from October 2004 to October 2005. His job involved briefing senior officers on daily violent incidents and it led Millard to renounce the war as beneath the dignity of his comrades. “The common U.S. soldier is not a bloodthirsty animal,” he said. “The problem is the occupation of Iraq itself.”
For Pete Hegseth, 27, the executive director of the pro-war Vets For Freedom, the distinction that Mallard’s group seeks to draw is untenable. Hegseth served with the 101st Airborne Division from 2005 to 2006 in Baghdad and Samarra. Winter Soldier, to him,will treat the honor of U.S. service personnel as collateral damage in the organization’s attempt to stop the war. “I’d ask, ‘Is what you saw U.S. policy, or is it an unfortunate occurrence?’ Let’s be real here,” Hegseth said. “Did your company commander tell you to shoot women and children, or to maximize casualties? No! We don’t do that. To talk about systematic brutality is essentially indicting the military as being complicit in war crimes.”
Worse, Hegseth feared, will be the impact Winter Soldier has on U.S. troops currently in Iraq. “They’re making a concerted effort to make claims about atrocities,” he said. “We live in a satellite world, where information is disseminated immediately. We’re connected. Every single mud hut, home or apartment in Iraq has a satellite dish, and they hear what goes on in our country. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know it would be something that people who don’t like us in Iraq beam around the Muslim world. It could be turned against the troops on the battlefield.”
Hegseth said he didn’t want to overstate his case, but the investigation could have real consequences. “What I’m not going to do is say because they do this there’ll be more attacks, but I don’t think it would do anything to improve sentiment toward the American soldier on a foreign battlefield.”
But why do women and children get killed? Because of the systemic problems within the occupation, which is why we want to bring the occupation to an end. Millard doesn’t dismiss Hegseth out of hand. “I would totally agree that there aren’t first sergeants who get up—and if there are, they’re extremely rare—that would ever get up and say, ‘We’re gonna kill women and children today.’ No!” Millard said. “But why do women and children get killed? Because of the systemic problems within the occupation, which is why we want to bring the occupation to an end.” He’s less sanguine about the idea that Winter Soldier will get U.S. troops killed. “You know what endangers our soldiers? Having them in Iraq,” he said. “I’m pretty sure no soldiers are going to die at Winter Soldier. I’m not a fortune teller, but I’m pretty damn sure we’re not gonna kill any U.S. soldiers. But I’m pretty sure on that date, U.S. soldiers are gonna get killed in Iraq.”
Another telegraphed critique is that Winter Soldier’s presenters will lie about their service. It’s a reprise of a long and bitter controversy surrounding the first Winter Soldier. In a 2004 National Review cover story, Mac Owens, a professor at the Naval War College and a Vietnam veteran, called the investigation “a lie.” More recently, Rush Limbaugh referred to antiwar veterans as “phony soldiers.” That’s something Iraq Veterans Against the War has already faced. Last year, Jesse Adam Macbeth, 23, lied about killing civilians in Iraq in a video that appeared on YouTube and referred viewers to Iraq Veteran’s Against the War’s website.
That’s where Vasquez’s verification process comes in. First, the group will keep on file in its Philadelphia national office a copy of each testifier’s military service record, known as a DD-214 form. After interviewing the potential testifier, Vasquez’s committee—made up of a team of twelve veterans around the country—will reach out to members of his or her unit for corroboration. A network of journalists currently in Iraq will reach out to Iraqi civilians in the relevant cities and towns for independent eyewitness accounts. Finally, IVAW will file Freedom of Information Act requests with the Pentagon for relevant corroborating or refuting information, assisted by a task force of the National Lawyers Guild to expedite the process. “We’re laying our credibility on the line,” Vasquez acknowledged.
And while media coverage of Winter Soldier may not be any more attentive or sympathetic than in 1971, this time there are some technological work-arounds. Iraq Veterans Against the War plans to host live streaming video of the conference on its website, where archived footage of direct testimony will remain. What’s more, during the testimony itself, Winter Soldier will have an advantage that its Vietnam-era predecessor didn’t: digital video. Practically every soldier in Iraq packed a camera or a video recorder or a camera-enabled phone, and several are bringing what they recorded to Winter Soldier. It will be much harder to ignore testimony backed by video—especially if those videos go viral on YouTube. “We’re already starting to receive a fair amount of footage and photographs corroborating these stories,” O’Brien said. “It will be very different for the right wing to say we’re lying [at the second Winter Soldier investigation]. These photographs exist.”
The attacks on their credibility may be guaranteed, but the group draws strength from a sense of veterans’ espirit d’corps. Its DC office, in the working-class northwest Washington neighborhood of Petworth, is a brown brick rowhouse that doubles as Millard’s home. The study, kept polished and immaculate, resembles a Tactical Operations Center, with humming computers topping neat rows of desks. Downstairs are air mattresses and bedding for vets in need of a place to crash, weights and a punching bag for their workouts, and nearly every Nirvana CD to aid their catharsis.
Millard, like many soldiers, switches from intensity to self-depricating humor in the same sentence. His tattoos, peeking out from his black IVAW hoodie, mark him as the punk rock kid he was growing up in Buffalo, N.Y. And the unity that the hardcore scene preaches is evident in his attitude toward his fellow veterans, no matter their politics. Vets for Freedom, he says, should tell their own service stories. “I think the American public should hear their experiences as well, not just IVAW. We’re the ones just happening to take the initiative to tell the American people, because we feel they don’t get these stories,” he said. “I think the American people need to hear the experience of not just us but all veterans, from veterans themselves.” As Millard spoke, an Iraq vet, who had arrived unannounced on his doorstep at four that morning, was upstairs napping.
For Iraq Veterans Against the War, there is more at stake than just its reputation, veterans’ dignity, or ending the war. On the table at Winter Soldier, as they see it, is the transformation of both military culture and the relationship of veterans to American democracy. “We joined this incredibly honorable profession, driven by this code of honor, yet what we do needs to remain hidden,” O’Brien said. “It’s a necessary evil, supposedly, that needs to be hidden from the rest of America,” he continued. “Winter Soldier One was a direct confrontation with this idea that what soldiers do needs to remain hidden. It established a tradition – it happened once, with Winter Soldier [in 1971], and if it happens again, it’s a tradition. Obviously, none of us want future wars. But if they happen, we need to have soldiers come back and tell their stories.”

Winter Soldier Hearing - Here Come the Conservatives Part 2 (responses to the article Iraq Veterans To Testify at Their Own 'Winter Soldier' (Treason Alert: CODE RED!))

These were all posted on January 24, 2008 on a thread titled Iraq Veterans to Testify at Their Own 'Winter Soldier' (Treason Alert: CODE RED!)

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We must stop this treason from taking place.

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The author should be tried for treason.

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Jesse MacBeth gave IVAW a DD-214 too. And IVAW can't deny that he was a member because an IVAW staffer Braxton was able to produce it for investigative journalists.
IVAW is a kangaroo court, no defense of the troops allowed, no opportunity for the accused to confront the accuser, unless of course we all show up and demand a voice.
If they claim war crimes, they need to name the names, who pulled the trigger and do that under oath.
Winter Soldier from the 60's was not under oath and they said things like, "We did this, we did that..." so the only people we know for sure are War Criminals are the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
I want and person who testifies to provide a signed SF-180 releasing their military records to corroborate their "testimony."

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IVAW was modelled after the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and is mentored by old VVAW farts like Bill Davis, David Cline, Bill Perry and John Grant.
There's not a damn thing that they haven't copied from the VVAW history form the 60's. All one can say is that their re-enactments have been poor shadows of the 60's, gaining no where near the crowds or support the VVAW did.

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Veterans For Peace is the rock that the Vietnam Veterans Against the War cockroaches hide under because they know they are despised by other veterans.

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But why do women and children get killed?
Because the cowardly terrorists we're fighting use them as shields.

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Let the Left have its “show hearings”. They will be opposed by Vets for Freedom and others.
However, what needs to be explained is that this is a copycat of John Kerry and fraudulent Viet Vet Al Hubbard’s Vietnam Veterans Against the War’s “Wintersoldier Hearings”.
Many of the so-called atrocities could not have physically happen, and Kerry conveniently forgot to tell people that he indiscriminately killed Vietnamese civilians and covered it up.
Also, having the marxist-created National Lawyers Guild involved in this propaganda operation only confirms that it is both anti-American and far-left.
Reportedly older reds from VVAW helped in setting up this newer version of their organization/hearings.
One thing to watch for is the time of service of the “witnesses”. Things that were chaotic in 2003 & 2004 were not chaotic afterwards.
Some accidental killings of civilians occurred because the civilians refused to obey military commands to stop for a car check. My son saw the results of this where a man (with a weapon) tried to run to US checkpoints and even after receiving warning shots to stop, continued to drive at a high speed at them. The driver’s family was not seen in the car until it had been shot and stopped. A tragedy, but one that could have been prevented by some common sense on the part of the driver. He chose to get his family and himself killed for some unknown reason.
Was he a terrorist, or just plain stupid? No one knows.
Also, these so-called “hearings” come in tandem with Rep. Dennis the nut Kucinich (D-Oh) call yesterday for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney (so what else is new?).
Other hard-core reds and leftists in Congress will come out in support of these hearings just as Fulbright and his crew of war-saboteurs did during Vietnam.
Appropriate steps will be taken to expose these leftist and duped IVAW “witnesses”, organizers and supporters.
That’s where Vasquez’s verification process comes in. First, the group will keep on file in its Philadelphia national office a copy of each testifier’s military service record, known as a DD-214 form. After interviewing the potential testifier, Vasquez’s committee—made up of a team of twelve veterans around the country—will reach out to members of his or her unit for corroboration. A network of journalists currently in Iraq will reach out to Iraqi civilians in the relevant cities and towns for independent eyewitness accounts. Finally, IVAW will file Freedom of Information Act requests with the Pentagon for relevant corroborating or refuting information, assisted by a task force of the National Lawyers Guild to expedite the process. “We’re laying our credibility on the line,” Vasquez acknowledged.
Basically, they are outlining a slicker way to deceive.
Hypothetical scenario: a post IED-detonation firefight in Iraq results in a female civilian being killed in the crossfire.
the group will keep on file in its Philadelphia national office a copy of each testifier’s military service record, known as a DD-214 form
They will find an IVAW shill with a military service record who can plausibly claim to have been in Iraq at the time and who is willing to tell a fanciful story about the incident.
Vasquez’s committee—made up of a team of twelve veterans around the country—will reach out to members of his or her unit for corroboration
They will find one person from his unit who will say that the IVAW shill was in their unit at the time specified. Maybe the contact will also say that he had heard about the incident or was there for it.
That other veteran may not agree with or even know what the IVAW shill's recollection is, but that won't matter.
A network of journalists currently in Iraq will reach out to Iraqi civilians in the relevant cities and towns for independent eyewitness accounts.
Journalists in Iraq will contact local terrorist sympathizers and get their fanciful version of what occurred.
Finally, IVAW will file Freedom of Information Act requests with the Pentagon for relevant corroborating or refuting information
They will get paperwork from the DoD that will tersely document the incident.
Then the IVAW shill will get up on stage and say "I heard my fellow soldiers tell me of a firefight in which a soldier was ordered to shoot an unarmed woman - the officer kept shouting: 'Get her! Kill her!' until someone blew her away. I later found out that she liked to make origami puppets for sick children in the local hospital and dreamed of being a talk show host. Those dreams are now gone forever."
And when questioned, IVAW will produce a DoD form referring to the incident, a DD-214 form showing the IVAW shill to have been present in Iraq on that day, a partial, edited transcript of another soldier attesting that the DD-214 form is accurate, and finally some long colorful accounts of all the lurid details in the IVAW shill's testimony from local Iraqi terrorist sympathizers.
even though this dossier would not stand up to any minute scrutiny, it looks and sounds impressive to a journalist, it gives any journalist more than enough plausible deniability, and it allows IVAW to say: "This is all documented by the US government and eyewitnesses!"

---

The SF-180 is much more informative. Demanding a copy of unit orders for the period in question is good as well. It’s common internet knowledge which “patches” have been deployed where through Iraqi Freedom.

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” ... Many had never told their stories before. “
Many had never heard their stories before they were given to them in the motel room the night before by the people sitting on this Kangaroo Court. In fact, most of them never were in the plasces they described, and that can be proved. See “Stolen Valor” by BJ Burkett.

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And this one won’t be any different. They need to check SF-180’s, not DD-214s.

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Reportedly older reds from VVAW helped in setting up this newer version of their organization/hearings.
They definitely are.

Where is the outrage 7 - Surprises: Bush & The Surge & Weasel Words

This response to the Center for Public Integrity's Report was originally posted to the Disaffected and it Feels So Good Blog on January 24, 2008. Finally some one else is pissed.

Surprise, The Bush Regime used 935 falsehoods and lies to build up support among the American populace for the Iraq War.
And after the lies brought us into War the Bush Regime bullied everyone who questioned them over the past 5 years with "Give us Just another 6 month". Surprise, Petraeus is asking for... ANOTHER 6 MONTHS!
And now, surprise, the Bush Regime is planning on using weasel words to ensure the US is stuck in Iraq for generations, by sidestepping the word treaty in order to sidestep Congress.
Remember the weasel words concerning the fate of US bases in Iraq? Let's call them Enduring instead of Permanent. Surprise, enduring means permanent.
I don't know if the Surge has actually produced a fundamental paradigm shift in the 4GW battlefield of Iraq, the history of insurgent wars would tend to indicate the guerilla forces are laying low until the extra US troops go home and operations against American forces aren't as dangerous. At which time, the insurgents will step up their attacks once more.
What I do know is obscene amounts of money have been transferred to the Warmongers running this Government. If you're eagerly awaiting your $600 rebate the Warfare State has effectively deluded you into being happy with crumbs while it gobbles down BILLIONS daily.

Where is the outrage 6 - Oh Shit! The Bad Old Wolfowitz is Back to Huff and to Puff and Blow Iran off the Face of this Poor Planet. Thanks George for Caring so Much!!!

Somedays it seems impossible for the mountain of bull shit to get any higher. Other days one hopes the day of reckoning is at hand, and the members of the Administration who brought us the war in a nice shiny package would finally be brought to account. This week was rank with bull shit, and the mountain got higher. On Tuesday, the Center for Public Integrity published its richly detailed and rigorously sourced study of the Administration's public posturing toward Iraq, from September 11 2001 to September 11 2003. The Administration, in what may have been a pure coincidence, selected the unemployed former World Bank President and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was appointed by Bush, to advise him on a wide range of issues including arms control, North Korea and most unsettling, Iran.
Here are a few gems, from the former Deputy Defense Secretary courtesy of the Center for Public Integrity's database. In these, he shows clarity of thought and an ability to sift through intelligence reports to manufacture evidence supporting Bush's efforts to invade Iran:

Press Briefing, 11-21-01 Question: Mr. Secretary, could you bring us up to date on to what extent the United States believes that the Iraqis have rebuilt their weapons of mass destruction since the United Nations' inspections ceased and tell us also, you know, how great our concern about that is?
Wolfowitz: One of the basic problems with the end of the inspections is that we're left to guess about a great deal that we were on the trail of before. But there is not only every reason to assume that they are continuing aggressively in all those programs, but we see a good deal of evidence—chemical, biological, and even nuclear—that the Iraqis are working both with their indigenous capabilities and acquiring what they can illicitly in the international market.

Interview With San Francisco Chronicle, 2-23-02Wolfowitz: There is so much excitement over Iraq, and the president has said some things very, very clearly and I don't want to start embellishing on what he said. What he has said and what I think people need to think a little harder about is that in effect we've got regimes that are open in their hostility towards the United States, that support terrorism and then pursue weapons of mass destruction. That combination of hostile terrorism and weapons of mass destruction is something that is so deadly that you can't afford to wait until you catch them doing it to deal with the problem. ... So you can't wait until you have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that somebody did something in the past, you know that people are planning to do something against you in the future and that they're developing incredibly destructive weapons to do it with and that's not tolerable.

CNN, 3-16-02Wolfowitz: We have countries that have declared, and declare regularly, their hostility to the United States, countries that are involved with terrorists, countries that are developing weapons of mass destruction. That is the most noxious brew possible, and it makes the possibility of an event in which tens of thousands or millions of Americans are killed, something that would make September 11th pale in comparison. That is out there. We have to do something about it.

Fox News, 5-25-02 Rita Cosby: How close do you think they are to developing weapons of mass destruction if they are not stopped?
Wolfowitz: Oh, I think the Iraqis have some already and there was not much doubt about that when the U.N. inspectors were kicked out four or five years ago. They are working on more, and the longer we wait the longer it takes, the more such weapons they'll have.

Fox News, 7-9-02 Wolfowitz: What the president talked about in the State of the Union message was countries, and Iraq is one of them, that have weapons of mass destruction, that is chemical, biological, and possibly nuclear weapons, that are working on getting more of those weapons, that have as a matter of national policy been supporting terrorists, and are hostile to the United States. That's a deadly mixture that we can't continue living with indefinitely.
Greta Van Susteren: Does he have a delivery system to get those deadly weapons here to the United States?
Wolfowitz: Well, one delivery system are terrorists, and we learned that on September 11th. You don't have to have a long-range missile necessarily to deliver a deadly weapon, especially if it's powdered anthrax, for example. That doesn't need a long-range missile.

Remarks by Paul Wolfowitz,10-16-02 Wolfowitz: Iraq is part of the global war on terrorism because Iraq represents one of the first and best opportunities to begin building what President Bush has referred to as a better world beyond the war on terrorism. If Saddam Hussein is a danger and a support to terrorists and an encouragement to terrorist regimes, conversely his demise will open opportunities for governments and institutions to emerge in the Muslim world that are respectful of fundamental human dignity and freedom and that abhor the killing of innocents as an instrument of national policy.
Some ask, why act now? Why not wait until the threat is imminent?
In some ways the answer is very simple. As Senator Joseph Lieberman put it recently, "I have felt for more than a decade now," the Senator said, "that every additional day that Saddam Hussein is in power in Iraq is an additional day of danger for the Iraqi people, for his neighbors in the region, particularly for the people and military of the United States and indeed for the people of the world."
Indeed, the more time passes the more time Saddam Hussein has to develop his deadly weapons and to acquire more. The more time he has to plant sleeper agents in the United States and other friendly countries or to supply deadly weapons to terrorists he can then disown, the greater the danger.

Remarks by Paul Wolfowitz, 10-18-02 Wolfowitz: There clearly are some common characteristics between the Iraqi ... North Korean ... and ... the Iranian regime. And the common characteristics have to do with possessing or developing weapons of mass destruction and consorting with terrorists.

Interview with Paul Wolfowitz, 1-28-03 Question: A lot of people in Britain and also the United States are still skeptical about this. They still want to see more evidence. More evidence of Iraq's weapons capacity and also links to terrorism. Will there be more evidence?
Wolfowitz: There is already an enormous amount of evidence and I suppose some people will never be convinced by any amount of evidence. There is more, and depending on how people calculate the risks of revealing it. Some of this evidence comes from people who risk their lives to give it to us and I'm not sure it can be revealed in a way to put somebody's name on it. Some of it comes from special means that we may decide are okay to sacrifice. But the evidence—even just quite public and open—that the U.N. declared five years ago on the stocks of anthrax and botulinum toxin and ricin, which is now the weapon of choice of the terrorists in London apparently. Saddam had these large quantities five years ago. The U.N. provided the evidence that he had them, and he hasn't even seen fit to come clean on those. It's an astonishing pattern of complete non-cooperation.

Interview with Paul Wolfowitz, 2-6-03 Question: Secretary of State [Colin] Powell made some very telling points in his dramatic presentation at the U.N. yesterday. But did he make the case for war?
Wolfowitz: I think he made the case for being seriously concerned about the danger posed by Saddam Hussein. I think the American people, for the first time, had a kind of overview of the issues that have been troubling the president, now going back to the State of the Union message last year.
Our hope still is to persuade Saddam Hussein, or at least the people around him, that Iraq should disarm peacefully and that that would be a much better outcome than our having to use force. But the decision really rests with Baghdad at this point.

Interview with ITV, 2-17-03 Question: The U.N. weapons inspectors have said, "We can achieve disarmament." It looks that way. It is possible, if we're given more time." Why not? Why not give them the time they need?
Wolfowitz: The inspectors can't achieve disarmament. The inspectors could verify if Saddam Hussein were disarming.
Question: But they said, "Give us more time. We can discover more of what he has, and urge him to get rid of it. Just time; give us the time."
Wolfowitz: Sir Trevor, the point—the inspectors are not there to comb through a country the size of France and dig into every hidden tunnel and every apartment house to find documents, to find weapons of mass destruction. The inspectors are there like auditors, to verify that the accounting that's been given is full and honest and complete. And we all know, including the inspectors, that the accounting that's been given is 12,000 pages of lies and deceptions. We all know that Saddam Hussein is actively moving his things and hiding them from these inspectors. There are ten hiders, or twenty hiders and monitors, for every inspector. It's a losing game if it's up to the inspectors. It is up to Saddam Hussein to disarm, and he's so far from disarming. He's threatening the scientists with threats of death and torture if they so much as tell us the truth.

Town hall meeting with Iraqi-American community, 2-23-03. Wolfowitz: President Bush is clearly in the final stages of determining whether there can be a peaceful solution to the threat posed by Saddam Hussein or whether the use of force will be necessary. The president confronts some difficult decisions in the coming days and weeks and I know you all join me in praying for him and for his continued courage in confronting the serious threat posed by a dictator who possesses weapons of mass terror and who supports terrorists.

Interview with Newsweek, 3-12-03 Question: I want to ask you, it is complicated, you know how complicated it's going to be. Huge challenges. I wonder what you worry about, what keeps you up at night as you're possibly poised on this enterprise. You mentioned score settling, all of the ethnic problems. What do you think are the biggest challenges? What concerns you the most about this?
Wolfowitz: I still think the thing that worries me the most is the use of chemical and biological weapons. We're quite sure he has them. We know he's used them. We don't think he'd have any qualms about doing so. We put a lot of effort into both military actions that can prevent him and what's called psychological operations that can discourage people from carrying out his orders because he can't do these things by himself.

Interview with KABC-TV, 3-23-03 Question: Since '91 you've been feeling that Saddam Hussein should be out of there. Does it matter to you if he's dead or alive? Would you rather he be alive to capture him?
Wolfowitz: It's not his personality that is at issue, it's his regime. His regime is on its way out already. I think it's probably up to the Iraqi people to decide what they want to do with him if he's still alive.
I would also say, my own views have evolved. I didn't realize in 1991 just how dangerous this man would be. I didn't realize just how stubborn he would be. I didn't expect that he would sacrifice 100 to 200 billion dollars in oil revenues just to hang onto his chemical and biological weapons. I didn't realize he'd developed links to a terrorist organization like Al Qaeda.
September 11th, frankly, I think for all of us, changed the assessment of how dangerous this regime was, how long we could afford to continue living with that danger.
President Bush is very aware that war is an ugly, brutal business. He took every possible step—including that last 48 hours—to let the regime leave to try to avoid the bloodshed that we're seeing now. But I don't think he's ever had any doubt that the cost of inaction, the bloodshed that would result from inaction in the long run would be much more serious, and I think he's right in that judgment.

He makes me want to crawl out of my skin and scream, WHY!!! and WHAT DID WE EVER DO!!! It is nice to know, during this recession, that the President has offered a helping hand to the to the unemployed. Unfortunately, this one has already lied about Iran and North Korea and as he seems to embrace preemptive war as a mode of defense he does not seem to have counseled the President to pursue diplomacy and arms control instead of lashing out as he is want to do.

As I have said before, he makes me want to crawl out of my skin and scream, WHY!!! and WHAT DID WE EVER DO!!!

Where is the outrage 6 - Oh Shit! The Bad Old Wolfowitz is Back to Huff and to Puff and Blow Iran off the Face of this Poor Planet. Thanks George for Caring so Much!!!

Somedays it seems impossible for the mountain of bull shit to get any higher. Other days one hopes the day of reckoning is at hand, and the members of the Administration who brought us the war in a nice shiny package would finally be brought to account. This week was rank with bull shit, and the mountain got higher. On Tuesday, the Center for Public Integrity published its richly detailed and rigorously sourced study of the Administration's public posturing toward Iraq, from September 11 2001 to September 11 2003. The Administration, in what may have been a pure coincidence, selected the unemployed former World Bank President and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was appointed by Bush, to advise him on a wide range of issues including arms control, North Korea and most unsettling, Iran.
Here are a few gems, from the former Deputy Defense Secretary courtesy of the Center for Public Integrity's database. In these, he shows clarity of thought and an ability to sift through intelligence reports to manufacture evidence supporting Bush's efforts to invade Iran:

Press Briefing, 11-21-01 Question: Mr. Secretary, could you bring us up to date on to what extent the United States believes that the Iraqis have rebuilt their weapons of mass destruction since the United Nations' inspections ceased and tell us also, you know, how great our concern about that is?
Wolfowitz: One of the basic problems with the end of the inspections is that we're left to guess about a great deal that we were on the trail of before. But there is not only every reason to assume that they are continuing aggressively in all those programs, but we see a good deal of evidence—chemical, biological, and even nuclear—that the Iraqis are working both with their indigenous capabilities and acquiring what they can illicitly in the international market.

Interview With San Francisco Chronicle, 2-23-02Wolfowitz: There is so much excitement over Iraq, and the president has said some things very, very clearly and I don't want to start embellishing on what he said. What he has said and what I think people need to think a little harder about is that in effect we've got regimes that are open in their hostility towards the United States, that support terrorism and then pursue weapons of mass destruction. That combination of hostile terrorism and weapons of mass destruction is something that is so deadly that you can't afford to wait until you catch them doing it to deal with the problem. ... So you can't wait until you have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that somebody did something in the past, you know that people are planning to do something against you in the future and that they're developing incredibly destructive weapons to do it with and that's not tolerable.

CNN, 3-16-02Wolfowitz: We have countries that have declared, and declare regularly, their hostility to the United States, countries that are involved with terrorists, countries that are developing weapons of mass destruction. That is the most noxious brew possible, and it makes the possibility of an event in which tens of thousands or millions of Americans are killed, something that would make September 11th pale in comparison. That is out there. We have to do something about it.

Fox News, 5-25-02 Rita Cosby: How close do you think they are to developing weapons of mass destruction if they are not stopped?
Wolfowitz: Oh, I think the Iraqis have some already and there was not much doubt about that when the U.N. inspectors were kicked out four or five years ago. They are working on more, and the longer we wait the longer it takes, the more such weapons they'll have.

Fox News, 7-9-02 Wolfowitz: What the president talked about in the State of the Union message was countries, and Iraq is one of them, that have weapons of mass destruction, that is chemical, biological, and possibly nuclear weapons, that are working on getting more of those weapons, that have as a matter of national policy been supporting terrorists, and are hostile to the United States. That's a deadly mixture that we can't continue living with indefinitely.
Greta Van Susteren: Does he have a delivery system to get those deadly weapons here to the United States?
Wolfowitz: Well, one delivery system are terrorists, and we learned that on September 11th. You don't have to have a long-range missile necessarily to deliver a deadly weapon, especially if it's powdered anthrax, for example. That doesn't need a long-range missile.

Remarks by Paul Wolfowitz,10-16-02 Wolfowitz: Iraq is part of the global war on terrorism because Iraq represents one of the first and best opportunities to begin building what President Bush has referred to as a better world beyond the war on terrorism. If Saddam Hussein is a danger and a support to terrorists and an encouragement to terrorist regimes, conversely his demise will open opportunities for governments and institutions to emerge in the Muslim world that are respectful of fundamental human dignity and freedom and that abhor the killing of innocents as an instrument of national policy.
Some ask, why act now? Why not wait until the threat is imminent?
In some ways the answer is very simple. As Senator Joseph Lieberman put it recently, "I have felt for more than a decade now," the Senator said, "that every additional day that Saddam Hussein is in power in Iraq is an additional day of danger for the Iraqi people, for his neighbors in the region, particularly for the people and military of the United States and indeed for the people of the world."
Indeed, the more time passes the more time Saddam Hussein has to develop his deadly weapons and to acquire more. The more time he has to plant sleeper agents in the United States and other friendly countries or to supply deadly weapons to terrorists he can then disown, the greater the danger.

Remarks by Paul Wolfowitz, 10-18-02 Wolfowitz: There clearly are some common characteristics between the Iraqi ... North Korean ... and ... the Iranian regime. And the common characteristics have to do with possessing or developing weapons of mass destruction and consorting with terrorists.

Interview with Paul Wolfowitz, 1-28-03 Question: A lot of people in Britain and also the United States are still skeptical about this. They still want to see more evidence. More evidence of Iraq's weapons capacity and also links to terrorism. Will there be more evidence?
Wolfowitz: There is already an enormous amount of evidence and I suppose some people will never be convinced by any amount of evidence. There is more, and depending on how people calculate the risks of revealing it. Some of this evidence comes from people who risk their lives to give it to us and I'm not sure it can be revealed in a way to put somebody's name on it. Some of it comes from special means that we may decide are okay to sacrifice. But the evidence—even just quite public and open—that the U.N. declared five years ago on the stocks of anthrax and botulinum toxin and ricin, which is now the weapon of choice of the terrorists in London apparently. Saddam had these large quantities five years ago. The U.N. provided the evidence that he had them, and he hasn't even seen fit to come clean on those. It's an astonishing pattern of complete non-cooperation.

Interview with Paul Wolfowitz, 2-6-03 Question: Secretary of State [Colin] Powell made some very telling points in his dramatic presentation at the U.N. yesterday. But did he make the case for war?
Wolfowitz: I think he made the case for being seriously concerned about the danger posed by Saddam Hussein. I think the American people, for the first time, had a kind of overview of the issues that have been troubling the president, now going back to the State of the Union message last year.
Our hope still is to persuade Saddam Hussein, or at least the people around him, that Iraq should disarm peacefully and that that would be a much better outcome than our having to use force. But the decision really rests with Baghdad at this point.

Interview with ITV, 2-17-03 Question: The U.N. weapons inspectors have said, "We can achieve disarmament." It looks that way. It is possible, if we're given more time." Why not? Why not give them the time they need?
Wolfowitz: The inspectors can't achieve disarmament. The inspectors could verify if Saddam Hussein were disarming.
Question: But they said, "Give us more time. We can discover more of what he has, and urge him to get rid of it. Just time; give us the time."
Wolfowitz: Sir Trevor, the point—the inspectors are not there to comb through a country the size of France and dig into every hidden tunnel and every apartment house to find documents, to find weapons of mass destruction. The inspectors are there like auditors, to verify that the accounting that's been given is full and honest and complete. And we all know, including the inspectors, that the accounting that's been given is 12,000 pages of lies and deceptions. We all know that Saddam Hussein is actively moving his things and hiding them from these inspectors. There are ten hiders, or twenty hiders and monitors, for every inspector. It's a losing game if it's up to the inspectors. It is up to Saddam Hussein to disarm, and he's so far from disarming. He's threatening the scientists with threats of death and torture if they so much as tell us the truth.

Town hall meeting with Iraqi-American community, 2-23-03. Wolfowitz: President Bush is clearly in the final stages of determining whether there can be a peaceful solution to the threat posed by Saddam Hussein or whether the use of force will be necessary. The president confronts some difficult decisions in the coming days and weeks and I know you all join me in praying for him and for his continued courage in confronting the serious threat posed by a dictator who possesses weapons of mass terror and who supports terrorists.

Interview with Newsweek, 3-12-03 Question: I want to ask you, it is complicated, you know how complicated it's going to be. Huge challenges. I wonder what you worry about, what keeps you up at night as you're possibly poised on this enterprise. You mentioned score settling, all of the ethnic problems. What do you think are the biggest challenges? What concerns you the most about this?
Wolfowitz: I still think the thing that worries me the most is the use of chemical and biological weapons. We're quite sure he has them. We know he's used them. We don't think he'd have any qualms about doing so. We put a lot of effort into both military actions that can prevent him and what's called psychological operations that can discourage people from carrying out his orders because he can't do these things by himself.

Interview with KABC-TV, 3-23-03 Question: Since '91 you've been feeling that Saddam Hussein should be out of there. Does it matter to you if he's dead or alive? Would you rather he be alive to capture him?
Wolfowitz: It's not his personality that is at issue, it's his regime. His regime is on its way out already. I think it's probably up to the Iraqi people to decide what they want to do with him if he's still alive.
I would also say, my own views have evolved. I didn't realize in 1991 just how dangerous this man would be. I didn't realize just how stubborn he would be. I didn't expect that he would sacrifice 100 to 200 billion dollars in oil revenues just to hang onto his chemical and biological weapons. I didn't realize he'd developed links to a terrorist organization like Al Qaeda.
September 11th, frankly, I think for all of us, changed the assessment of how dangerous this regime was, how long we could afford to continue living with that danger.
President Bush is very aware that war is an ugly, brutal business. He took every possible step—including that last 48 hours—to let the regime leave to try to avoid the bloodshed that we're seeing now. But I don't think he's ever had any doubt that the cost of inaction, the bloodshed that would result from inaction in the long run would be much more serious, and I think he's right in that judgment.

He makes me want to crawl out of my skin and scream, WHY!!! and WHAT DID WE EVER DO!!! It is nice to know, during this recession, that the President has offered a helping hand to the to the unemployed. Unfortunately, this one has already lied about Iran and North Korea and as he seems to embrace preemptive war as a mode of defense he does not seem to have counseled the President to pursue diplomacy and arms control instead of lashing out as he is want to do.

As I have said before, he makes me want to crawl out of my skin and scream, WHY!!! and WHAT DID WE EVER DO!!!

Where is the outrage 4 - US Military Breaks Ranks Part 1, A salvo at the White House

This article and Where is the Outrage 5 (see post below) illustrate how the culture of disinformation and outright falsehoods, outlined that propelled the invasion of Iraq for George Bush's political expediency and gain, is effecting military preparedness as well as constraining its ability to effectively adopt new tactics in as conditions change on the ground in Iraq. While the administration, and their allies in Congress and the mainstream media strut around praising "the surge," active duty officers caution "the American public should not be fooled: the relative quiet in Iraq ... does not mean the "surge" has worked, or that the problems facing the US military have somehow magically gone away. Quite the opposite. For while the American public is consumed by the campaign for the presidency, the American military is not. Instead, they are as obsessed now, in January of 2008, with the war in Iraq as they were then, in 2003 - except that now, many military officers admit, the host of problems they face may, in fact, be much more intractable." (Mark Perry, 2008)
The fact that senior officers in the Marine Corps are so critical of the surge, at a time when it would serve their career interests to attach themselves to it and in some cases willing to violate Article 88 of the UCMJ without attempting to hide who they are suggests these officers have had enough.
Their critique of the White House, and State Department, boils down to believing neither has ever, and still doesn't have, a clue about what is going on in Iraq. At every turn, they argue their efforts to negotiate agreements with Sunni leaders have been stifled by the White House, when Condoleeza Rice was National Security Advisor, and by the White House and State Department once Condoleeza Rice had been confirmed as Secretary of State.

There's ... a huge chasm between how the White House ... and ... we ... view Iraq. The White House would like to have you believe the 'surge' has worked, that we somehow defeated the insurgency. That's just ludicrous. ... [T]hat's happened because of our shift in strategy - the 'surge' had nothing to do with it. (Mark Perry, 2008)

US Military Breaks Ranks, A salvo at the White House

By Mark Perry (originally published in the January 23 edition of Asia Times Online)

For military officers in the Pentagon's E-Ring (where the most important defense issues are decided), the shift in the public mood has been nearly miraculous: last September, on the eve of General David Petraeus' Congressional testimony on the George W Bush administration's 'surge' strategy, the American electorate was consumed by the war in Iraq.
Now, just four months later, that same electorate has shifted its attention to the 2008 elections. Public polls reflect the shift. Iraq no longer tops the list of issues of concern to Americans - its place having been usurped over worries about the economy - and is competing for attention with healthcare and immigration. (The "war on terror" is a poor seventh - a stunning turnabout from the two years following September 11, 2001.) But the perceptible fall-off in public attention from foreign policy to domestic issues is hardly a palliative for Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or America's highest-ranking combatant commanders, all of whom continue to deal with the continuing uncertain military situation Iraq.
The fact that the Iraq war has been pushed off the front pages of America's newspapers has given the US military a seeming respite from the almost endless spate of disastrous stories coming out of the Middle East, as well as the almost endless round of embarrassing questions from the press about what they intend to do about it.
But military officers say that the American public should not be fooled: the relative quiet in Iraq - and it is, after all, only a "relative quiet" - does not mean the "surge" has worked, or that the problems facing the US military have somehow magically gone away. Quite the opposite. For while the American public is consumed by the campaign for the presidency, the American military is not. Instead, they are as obsessed now, in January of 2008, with the war in Iraq as they were then, in 2003 - except that now, many military officers admit, the host of problems they face may, in fact, be much more intractable.
First contact
"Don't let the quiet fool you," a senior defense official says. "There's still a huge chasm between how the White House views Iraq and how we [in the Pentagon] view Iraq. The White House would like to have you believe the 'surge' has worked, that we somehow defeated the insurgency. That's just ludicrous. There's increasing quiet in Iraq, but that's happened because of our shift in strategy - the 'surge' had nothing to do with it."
In part, the roots of the disagreement between the Pentagon and White House over what is really happening in Iraq is historical. Senior military officers contend that the seeming fall-off in in-country violence not only has nothing to do with the increase in US force levels, but that the dampening of the insurgency that took hold last summer could have and would have taken place much earlier, within months of America's April 2003 occupation of Baghdad.
Moreover, these officers contend, the insurgency might not have put down roots in the country after the fall of Baghdad if it had not been for the White House and State Department - which undermined military efforts to strike deals with a number of Iraq's most disaffected tribal leaders. These officers point out that the first contact between high-level Pentagon officials and the nascent insurgency took place in Amman, Jordan, in August of 2003 - but senior Bush administration officials killed the talks.
A second round of meetings, this time with leaders of some of al-Anbar province's tribal chiefs, took place in November of 2004, but again senior administration officials refused to build on the contacts that were made. "We made the right contacts, we said the right things, we listened closely, we put a plan in place that would have saved a lot of time and trouble," a senior Pentagon official says. "And every time we were ready to go forward, the White House said 'no'."
At the center of these early talks was a group of Iraqis led by Sheikh Talal al-Gaood, a Sunni businessman with close ties to Anbar's tribal leaders. Gaood, who died of a heart ailment in March of 2006, was a passionate Iraqi patriot who feared growing al-Qaeda influence in his country. Speaking over coffee from his office in Amman in 2005, Gaood was enraged by the "endless mistakes" of the US leadership. "You [Americans] face a Wahhabi threat that you cannot even begin to fathom," he said at the time, and he derided White House "propaganda" about the role of Syria in fueling the insurgency.
Gaood, looking every bit the former Ba'athist - complete with suspenders and Saddam Hussein-like mustache was particularly critical of what he called "the so-called counter-insurgency experts among Washington policymakers who think they know Iraq but don't." As he argued: "The guys who come through here, very educated, come in their brown robes and say they are going to Iraq to kill the Americans. They are not Syrians. They are Wahhabis. They are from Saudi Arabia. But if you talk to American officials, it is like they don't exist."
That might have been true for civilian policymakers, but it wasn't true for the military - who were beginning to take heavy casualties from armed insurgents in Sunni areas. Throughout 2004 and 2005, a group of senior US military officers, including high-ranking US Marine Corps commanders, attempted to expand their ties in western Iraq through Gaood and the network of leaders he provided them.
But these commanders continued to run into opposition to their program from then-National Security Council director Condoleezza Rice, who maintained her opposition to their program after she became secretary of state. L Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, who had suspended the Ba'ath army and was intent to cleanse Iraq of its Ba'athist influence, also opposed the program through all of 2004. "Bremer was just nuts about any meetings with any insurgents, any Ba'athists, anyone he didn't approve," a Pentagon official notes, "and Condi backed him up".
By the end of 2005, Rice's opposition to any opening to the Sunni leadership in Iraq became almost obsessive, according to currently serving senior military officers. In one incident, now notorious in military circles, Rice "just went completely crazy" when she learned that a marine colonel had dispatched combat helicopters to help a "a Sunni sheikh" in Fallujah fight what the sheikh called an "imminent al-Qaeda threat".
As a senior Pentagon official now relates: "The Sunni leader literally picked up the telephone one day and called the ranking colonel at the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF)and pleaded with him, 'I need help and I need it now. Al-Qaeda is killing my tribe'." The marine colonel in question was John Coleman, the chief of staff to the same unit that had gone into Fallujah to fight the insurgency after the killing of four US security contractors in April of 2004.
"Rice was just enraged with Coleman and with the marines," a senior Pentagon officials say. "She said, 'you have to stop all of that right now and you can't do it unless you have State Department permission and the permission of the Iraqi government'. Well, the marines weren't about to do that. They were taking a lot of casualties and they were fed up. And they just concluded that it was their war and not hers," a senior Pentagon civilian recently noted. "So they just ignored her and went ahead anyway."
In the wake of his marines-to-the-rescue efforts, Coleman and the 1st MEF began a program of cooperation with Fallujah's leaders, making a broad range of contacts with local officials who were fearful of al-Qaeda's influence in their city. The marine commanders in the 1st MEF were under no illusions, a Pentagon official now says - they were "engaged in talks with the insurgents, people who had been killing American soldiers since the fall of Baghdad".
The tipping point
Coleman's action might well have ended his career, if it had not been for then-secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, whose lack of respect for Rice bordered on the neurotic, and Coleman's commanding officer, Marine Lieutenant General James T Conway. Conway, an oversize Arkansan who sports a carpet of combat ribbons, was not only a Coleman partisan, he had been angered by orders to send his marines into Fallujah in April of 2004 to take on the city's insurgents, a point he made clear to the Washington Post's Rajiv Chandrasekaran, five months after the attack: "When we were told to attack Fallujah, I think we certainly increased the level of animosity that existed," Conway said.
Conway told Chandrasekaran he preferred engagement with Fallujah's leaders to confrontation, but that he was bound to follow orders - which had come down to his superior, army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, from the White House. Conway protested to Sanchez that going into Fallujah "with guns blazing" was the worst thing his marines could do, but Sanchez would hear none of it. "I have my orders, and now you have yours," Sanchez pointedly said.
Months later, Conway was still seething: "We felt like we had a method that we wanted to apply to Fallujah: that we ought to probably let the situation settle before we appeared to be attacking out of revenge. Would our system have been better? Would we have been able to bring over the people of Fallujah with our methods? You'll never know that for sure, but at the time we certainly thought so."
The tight circle of Pentagon civilians around Rumsfeld (inherited and largely kept intact by Robert Gates), which had been pushing for an opening to Anbar's tribal leaders (who had been talking to Gaood in Amman, and through him to some of Anbar's tribal leaders) now cite the Coleman incident as perhaps the key "tipping point" in the military's shift in strategy in Iraq.
But it was a group of military commanders, working on the ground, who eventually took the lead, using the Fallujah effort as their model. After dispatching a marine combat team to help Fallujah's tribal leaders fight al-Qaeda, similar efforts sprang up among army units patrolling in Tel Afar and in Ramadi where, five months after Coleman's Fallujah initiative, American military officers began tentative approaches to the Rishawi tribe.
By September, the Americans and Ramadi's Sheikh Abdul Sattar abu Risha had come to an agreement - and the nascent Anbar Salvation Council, a grouping of 25 tribes, had been formed to fight al-Qaeda. The killing of Risha in a car bomb attack in September of 2007 was a clear setback for the strategy of recruiting tribal leaders to end the insurgency and turn their guns on al-Qaeda, but by then the strategy had spread to enough provinces, Pentagon officials say, that Risha's murder actually solidified the growing anti-al-Qaeda front.
The strategy had even taken hold in Babil province, the heavily fought-over area south of Baghdad - in "the Triangle of Death" - where contacts with the insurgency were put in the hands of the 501st Parachute Regiment. Since at least September of last year, according to published reports, officers of the 501st have been cooperating with Babil's Sunni tribal leaders to drive what American officers describe as "extremist elements" - insurgents affiliated with al-Qaeda - that had become rooted in the province.
In fact, the first contact with the tribal leaders of Babil took place five months before the first payments were made, in May of 2007. At first the leaders were even more hesitant to sign up with the Americans than their co-religionists to the north, in part because of pressures brought against them by the Shi'ite-dominated government - which mistrusted the Awakening Council movement.
Then too, Babil province was in the hands of Shi'ite political leadership, who were even less enamored of the American initiative than the Shi'ite leadership in Baghdad. But the Americans pushed hard for the alliance, telling Babil's Sunni leaders that the Baghdad government was incapable of providing them with local security, or effectively fighting off the al-Qaeda's threat.
Babil's leaders were inevitably convinced - in part because their hatred of al-Qaeda (and their mistrust of the Shi'ite-run government) ran so deep. But for the Americans, the new alliance came with a price. During September of 2007 alone, US military officers dispensed well over US$200,000 to Babil's tribal leaders, including $370 for each provincial policeman hired by Babil's Janabi tribe, a potent and influential force in southern and western Iraq.
The payments were and are a source of unease for American military officers, who fought the Janabis for two years in the province - and who lost American soldiers in attacks led by Janabi insurgents. "They used to want to kill me, now they want to sign a contract with me," a senior officer of the 501st told the Times of London. "It's hard to get your head around, but it is working."
The Mansour bombing
But the price has not only been paid by the Americans. The negotiations between US military officers and insurgents in Babil carried out during the late spring and early summer of 2007 were a source of increasing sensitivity inside the Iraqi government and were denounced both inside Iraqi religious circles and inside the Hawza - the institutions that constitute the centers of learning in the Shi'ite religion - where an expansion of the Anbar strategy war particularly controversial.
"The imams denounced this. They even talked against it during Friday prayers. For them, this was just another American attempt to subdue Iraq. It was one thing for the Americans to recruit Sunnis to the awakening - that's fine. But it is another thing entirely to do this in Shi'ite areas, which are more independent, and have a history of being subverted by outsiders," an Iraq government official said at the time.
Senior American military officers were warned by Iraqi officials that they were playing with fire in the areas south of Baghdad, but the American pleaded that, to prove its worth, the program needed to go forward outside of Anbar. This was particularly true in those areas not dominated by Sunnis. As a part of the effort to highlight the success of the Anbar initiative, the Americans called for a meeting of the Awakening Councils with Iraqi government officials on June 25 at the Mansour Melia Hotel in Baghdad.
But just hours before the meeting was to convene, a suicide bomber penetrated three levels of security and killed 12 Iraqis, including six members of the Anbar Salvation Council. The blast was so powerful that it blew the doors off the Mansour's heavily enforced dining room and caved in the dining room ceiling.
The Mansour bombing was a political catastrophe for the US and its new Sunni allies. Among the dead was Sheik Abdul-Aziz al-Fahdawi of the Fahad tribe, Sheik Tariq Saleh al-Assafi and Colonel Fadil al-Nimrawi, both from the al-Bu Nimr tribe, and Iraqi General Aziz al-Yasari and Sheik Husayn Sha'lan al-Khaza'i of the Khaza'a tribe. Also killed was Sheik Fassal al-Gaood, a former Anbar governor and the successor to Talal al-Gaood - the man who had first approached US military leaders in Amman in 2004.
Gaood's loss was deeply felt at the Pentagon, where civilian officials had been pressing for an opening to the insurgency since the fall of Baghdad. "This was a blow," a Pentagon official confirms. "We knew both men [Talal and Fassal] and admired their courage." Worse yet, while "Muslim extremists" were blamed for the murders, senior US officials suspected a range of suspects, including Iraqi government security officials who had been less than cooperative with the US military in promoting the Anbar initiative.

These suspicions were highlighted by reports that the meeting at the Mansour was called so that the Anbar officials could discuss expanding the "Awakening of the Tribes" into Shi'ite areas. Now that initiative seemed endangered. "The bombing was as clear a message as we could get," a Pentagon official later speculated. "While everyone's attention was focused on how this hurt us in Anbar, the real message was that we should end our efforts in the south."

The coda to the Mansour bombing was a triumphant broadside from US military officers that they would remain undeterred by "these despicable terrorist acts". In fact, senior military strategists began to tread more lightly, particularly in Shi'ite areas. According to a senior Iraqi official with ties into the nation's complex tribal network, in the wake of bombing the US military began to "sketch out and think through" inter-sectarian tribal relationships.

Babil was the key, where the emerging strategy was to focus on recruiting respected Iraqi leaders with close tribal ties to those leading the Awakening movement in Anbar. In Babil, military officers began to refocus their efforts on the Janabi tribe, according to a Janabi family member with access to the tribe's decision-making. The choice of the Janabis was purposeful - even insightful.

The Janabis are nearly ubiquitous in a large crescent of the country running from an area south of Baghdad in an arc to the west and north. For the Americans, the recruitment of the Janabis was crucial - since some Janabis are Sunni and some Shi'ite. Additionally, high-profile Sunni and Shi'ite Janabis served both in Saddam's government and as leaders in the anti-American insurgency.

Recruiting the powerful tribe to the side of the American military, even in the face Iraqi government opposition, became a key not only to "turning Iraqi guns on the real culprits", as one serving officer notes, but to "stitching together a political front that is based on something other than wishful thinking".

A senior Iraqi observer with ties to the tribal network confirms this view: "The Janabis in the south have strong links to those in the north, tribal links, but you should know some are motivated by sectarian concerns and some are simply extremists." The question remains, of course: what happens when the American money dries up? "The answer to that question is simple," this Iraqi says. And then he laughs: "When the money goes, they go."

Where is the outrage 3 - Guess What, the Administration does not give a shit.

The following, which is excepted from the January 23 White House press briefing, illustrates how this administration continues to occupy the same positions, use the same excuses and evade the same contradictions that enabled them to present 935 false claims and accusations, without any evidence between September 11 2001 and September 11, 2003.

UNNAMED JOURNALIST: Any reaction to the study out from the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism, when they did what they called a count of hundreds of false statements made by the president and top administration officials regarding the threat posed by Iraq. And they counted during the two years after 9/11.
DANA PERINO (White House Press Secretary): I hardly think that the study is worth spending time on. It is so flawed, in terms of taking anything into context or including -- they only looked at members of the administration, rather than looking at members of Congress or people around the world. Because, as you'll remember, we were part of a broad coalition of countries that deposed the dictator based on a collective understanding of the intelligence. And the other thing that that study fails to do is to say that after realizing that there was no WMD, as we thought as a collective body that there was, that this White House, the president set about to make reforms in the intelligence community to make sure that it doesn't happen again.(Dana Perino, White House press conference, January 23 2008)

Where is the outrage part 2 - 'We Are Haunted By a War Begun Under False Pretences'

To understand the breadth and scope of the report published by the Center for Public Integrity [CPI], I am reproducing an inteview, published January 24, 2008 by IPS, with the organizations founder (found via Lexis Nexis)

Interview with Chuck Lewis, founder of the Centre for Public Integrity;
Q&A: 'We Are Haunted By a War Begun Under False Pretences'

Eight key players in the George W. Bush administration, including the president himself, made at least 935 false statements in the run-up to and aftermath of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
These are some of the findings of a mammoth report just released by the Centre for Public Integrity, directed by founder Chuck Lewis.
Lewis asked his researchers to track every utterance by the top U.S. officials made from Sep. 11, 2001 through Sep. 11, 2003, regarding Iraq, 'weapons of mass destruction', and the alleged link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. These officials include President Bush, ice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and former White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.
What this report proves is remarkable, even though it is now a matter of public record that there were no WMD in Iraq and that the attacks against the U.S. in 2001 had no connection to Saddam Hussein.
Lewis concludes in a statement: 'Clearly, this Iraq chronology calls into question the repeated assertions of Bush administration officials that they were merely the unwitting victims of bad intelligence. More broadly, consider the timeless words of the late historian and Librarian of Congress, Daniel Boorstin, in his classic 1961 work, 'The Image': 'We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in place of reality.' America went to war nearly five years ago after an orchestrated campaign of false statements by the nation's top officials, a war begun under the illusion of an imminent national security threat. We are haunted by a war begun, in other words, under false pretences.'
Lewis spoke with IPS's Editor in Chief Miren Gutierrez about what he says is 'an unprecedented, 380,000-word, online searchable, public and private Iraq war chronology, the public statements interlaced with the internal knowledge, discussions, doubts, and dissent known at the time. What they said publicly juxtaposed against what they knew internally.'
IPS: You have tagged how many false statements were made by these top officials over the two years. How many exactly? Can you make any comparisons?
CL: We found 935 false statements... Bush made the most statements; McClellan the fewest. No one has ever done this for any other U.S. war, to my knowledge, a public and private chronology of what they said versus what they knew internally. There is no comparison to the past.
IPS: What do these statements tell us about their timing? Was it an orchestrated, systematic operation? How do you know?
CL: The statements were made most heavily in the weeks leading up to the Congressional resolution and midterm elections, and spiked up twice as high in volume between January and March. 935 false statements, 532 different occasions... Yes, it was a systematic operation. We know it now because the saturation of statements, officials, all saying essentially the same thing, 935 times, always on message. It could not possibly be inadvertent or coincidental.
IPS: Separately, you have gathered material from more than 25 government, whistleblower and journalist-reported books about this subject, published between 9/11 and the end of 2007. Do any clear patterns emerge from that exercise? Is there any consensus?
CL: The most disturbing pattern is that questions were raised internally, at the White House, Pentagon, State Department and intelligence community, about these officials' statements and their ambitions for war, and most important, about the intelligence being asserted. There were dissonant views suggesting various key parts of the 'evidence' were a hoax or simply inconclusive. Repeatedly the top officials were told not to say things in their speeches, repeatedly they said them anyway. The biggest news to me is that the 'consensus' was anything but unanimous, as the White House would like everyone to believe. Certain pro-war intelligence was exaggerated and overstated, and cross current intelligence suggesting there was no imminent national security threat to the U.S. or other nations was ignored. All of this can be found searching and reading through the 380,000-word public and private Iraq war chronology.
IPS: Bush's government had made lots of noises about Iran's nuclear programme. However, a December 2007 U.S. intelligence report concluded that Iran halted work toward a nuclear weapon in 2003, and is unlikely to be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb until 2010 to 2015. Can you spot any similarities with the situation right before the invasion of Iraq?
CL: The human intelligence sources cited by Powell in his U.N. speech were not reliable, doubts had been expressed inside the administration, especially the intelligence agencies. But on with the show anyway... In the weeks before the Congressional Iraq vote, Bush and Cheney made flat declarations we now know were false about the WMD threat in Iraq -- and no National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) had been done by the CIA in years, because it was not seen as a hotspot or front-burner problem. And the White House had not requested an NIE... Intelligence information in this and other past administrations is a commodity to be marshaled for political policy outcomes.
IPS: The report is part of a book on which you are working about 'truth, power, the state of journalism today'. What is the state of U.S. journalism after the war in Iraq? Why has this war been different for journalism from other wars in the past?
CL: Not good, emaciated economically, thousands of reporters and editors fired since 2000, still too easily misled, not sufficiently sceptical of officialdom, of government, of power. This war based on false pretences played out over 18 months, before our eyes, with all the world to see, with nearly all of the U.S. news media stenographically repeating what the Bush administration had said, amplifying the misinformation with little scepticism or original reporting. In the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964, the false pretences about the U.S. being fired upon first (the opposite was true), the Congressional lockstep response to a president's request for war legislation and fawning, uncritical media coverage, between 'attacks' and war legislation signed into law, took exactly one week. Journalism didn't have a chance -- that war was remote, out on the water, often at night, no reporters nearby, solely reliant on the White House and Pentagon, coordinating their messages...
IPS: All this has happened a few years ago. Why is it relevant now?
CL: Because the full story of why the U.S. went to war has still not been fully told, memoirs and presidential legacies and mythologies will only grow over time. What we need are facts, who said what, when, what did they actually know before they spoke. This chronology sets that down in one place, accessible and updatable for years to come. And it is relevant because presidents make flawed, human decisions that affect the nation and the world, not to mention thousands upon thousands of lives, and there must be, in a democracy, independent accountability and factual scrutiny about what is true, was true, will always be true. What the world needs most, though, is real-time truth, not years later. Maybe, because of this debacle of the past five years, reporters and citizens will become more sceptical and discerning of politicians and those in power.
(© 2008 NoticiasFinancieras - IPS - All rights reserved)

Where is the outrage part 1

On January 23, the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund For Independent Journalism coauthored a report titled The War Card: Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War, that they had worked on for the last two and a half years. The authors goal was simple, to explore whether the Bush Administration had committed American troops to the Iraqi quagmire under false pretenses. To unravel this:

Over the past two and a half years, researchers at the Fund for Independence in Journalism have sought to document every public statement made by eight top Bush administration officials from September 11, 2001, to September 11, 2003, regarding (1) Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction and (2) Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Although both had been frequently cited as rationales for the U.S. war in Iraq, by 2005 it was known that these assertions had not, in fact, been true.
The centerpiece of this project is an exhaustive, searchable, and robustly indexed database of all public statements on the two topics by President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House Press Secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan. These statements were painstakingly collected from the websites of the White House, State Department, and Defense Department as well as from transcripts of interviews and briefings, texts of speeches and testimony, prepared statements, and the like.
Also included are statements in the same two categories that appeared in major newspapers and on television programs, were part of public statements by other officials, or were contained in government studies or reports, books, and the like from September 11, 2001, to December 31, 2007. Secondary material from reports and books was included in the two-year database only in cases where specific dates were available. Other noteworthy material was included for context and completeness. (Center for Public Integrity [CPI], 2008. The War Card: Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War)

After examining this material, the authors concluded that “President Bush and seven of his top officials made at least 935 false statements in the two years following 9/11 about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. … This orchestrated campaign was the underpinning of the Bush administration’s case for war” (CPI, 2008)
Despite the fact the report’s conclusions are as damaging as The Pentagon Papers, the media response has been very different. This is illustrated by the President's Press Secretary only being asked one question by the White House press corps on the day the report was released (January 23). While evidence of collusion is hard to find, this suggests the Administration’s spinreflects the opinion of most journalists working for the mainstream press, radio and television. Sadly, but not surprisingly the failure of the White House Press Corps, to seriously challenge this administration , is an unfortunate echo of what the report’s authors view as the media’s failure to challenge or investigate the validity of the Administration’s claims and accusations. Instead:

The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war. Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, “independent” validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq.(CPI, 2008)

A Lexis-Nexis search (see table below) for the period January 23 –26, 2008 found the report was the focus of 9 articles, 3 of these were published in American newspapers, including the The Los Angeles Times, Newsday (New York), and The New York Times. Importantly, this list does not include the The Wall Street Journal or The Washington Post. The other 6 articles were either published overseas, Australia (2) and the United Kingdom (2) or they were published in the transnational press – The International Herald Tribune and The Financial Times both of which carried 1 article. I found no transcripts for articles published in either USA Today or The Washington Post and while some regional/local newspapers may have reprinted the story from AP newswire, the fact the story was ignored by Reuters and Gannett, suggests there were a great many regional/local newspapers that did not.
The situation was just as bleak on television and radio. It was completely ignored by ABC, NBC and CBS News as well as the McNeil Lehrer Newshour. I also found no transcripts from any local news station, no matter which network they were affiliated with. The only regular news broadcasts that reported the story were National Public Radio’s Morning Edition and Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now. On CNN, Fox and MSNBC it was not covered in their regular evening news broadcasts, instead it was used a platform for opining by Dan Abrams, Glenn Beck, Alan Colmes, Sean Hannity, Brit Hume and Keith Obemann,
The following statistics of the numbers of stories that appeared between in a variety of media outlets between January 23-26th 2008, is taken from a Lexis Nexis search of major US and world publications, news wire services, TV and radio broadcast transcripts and blogs

Center for Public Integrity Iraq Report	92 stories
Death of Heath ledger	992 stories
Britney Spears Breakdown	1129 stories
% of stories devoted to the coverage of the documented false statements given by the Bush Administration in lead up to the war in Iraq in this period	.24 %