Return on Investment

The Center for Public Integrity released a study yesterday revealing that companies who donate to Republican campaigns are being rewarded with valuable government contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Private contractors that received billions in reconstruction contracts for Iraq and Afghanistan contributed significantly to President Bush's election campaign and stocked their staffs and governing boards with well-connected former federal officials, according to a report released today by a watchdog group. The Center for Public Integrity matched companies with political donations to conclude that dozens of companies that won contracts had contributed to national political campaigns, with President Bush receiving more money than any other candidate since 1990--about $500,000.

Overall, the watchdog group traced about $49 million in national political parties and committees to more than 70 companies that won as much as $8 billion in contracts for work in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003.

(Washington Post article)       (CPI report) Wow, that's a 16,327% return on investment! The shareholders of those contractors have to be pleased with that. Now, what would be really scandalous is if there were any high-ranking, policy-making officials in the government who are also shareholders in the companies to whom these contracts were awarded. Well lookie here: Vice President Dick Cheney still heavily invested in Halliburton. Hmm.
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Still no Weapons of Mass Destruction

Sunday's Washington Post contained a detailed front-page account of the Iraq Survey Group's findings on Iraq's nuclear weapons program - or rather, it's lack of one:

According to records made available to The Washington Post and interviews with arms investigators from the United States, Britain and Australia, it did not require a comprehensive survey to find the central assertions of the Bush administration's prewar nuclear case to be insubstantial or untrue. Although Hussein did not relinquish his nuclear ambitions or technical records, investigators said, it is now clear he had no active program to build a weapon, produce its key materials or obtain the technology he needed for either. Among the closely held internal judgments of the Iraq Survey Group, overseen by David Kay as special representative of CIA Director George J. Tenet, are that Iraq's nuclear weapons scientists did no significant arms-related work after 1991, that facilities with suspicious new construction proved benign, and that equipment of potential use to a nuclear program remained under seal or in civilian industrial use.

(Washington Post article) An interesting aspect of the article is that the aluminum tubes and former nuclear sites frequently mentioned by Bush, Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld as evidence of Iraq's nuclear ambitions received very little attention from Kay's team.

No evidence mattered more to the nuclear debate than Iraq's attempt to buy aluminum tubes overseas. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, among many others, scorned the Baghdad government's explanation that it sought the tubes as artillery rocket casings.

"There really wasn't a need for our specialized area of work," Navy Cmdr. David Beckett said in a recent interview. In Iraq, Beckett commanded a group of nuclear-trained Special Forces known as the Direct Support Team. Now program manager for special nuclear programs at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Beckett said the aluminum tubes and machine tools cited in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate -- vacuum tubes, industrial magnets and balancing machines -- were "not a big focus" of his work in Iraq. He added, "To be honest, I've read more about that since I got back."

It seems like the Bush administration already knew the evidence they were citing wasn't valid. They weren't just acting rashly based on bad intelligence - they already knew the intelligence was bad but used it to deceive the American people anyway. The full article is long, but definitely worth reading if you have time.
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231 US combat deaths in Iraq so far

(Reuters article)

Two U.S. soldiers were killed in an attack north of Baghdad late on Tuesday, the U.S. military says, taking the combat death toll among U.S. troops in Iraq since the war higher than the wartime total.

The deaths brought to 116 the number of U.S. troops killed in hostile action since Washington declared major combat operations over on May 1, compared to 115 U.S. combat deaths during the U.S.-led war, according to official figures.

Think about that number for a minute. That’s 231 people dead before their time. People with parents, children, brothers, sisters, and friends who are grieving right now. People who had hopes and plans for their lives. People who were willing to risk all that, give up everything that meant anything to them, to defend their country from “all enemies, foreign and domestic” as the oath says. And that's what moves this story beyond sad to sickening. Those 231 people joined the military to defend the people of the United States from enemies who would do us harm. But that’s not what they died for. The war in Iraq was about several things – personal vendetta by the Bush family, colonial ambitions of petroleum companies, profiteering by defense contractors, Evangelical Christian crusade fantasies; take your pick – but one thing it wasn't about is a credible threat to the security of the United States. Saddam Hussein's Iraq was, at most, a minor regional threat. The forces that control our government cynically took advantage of post-9/11 terrorism fears to start a war that was not in America’s interest. Indeed, the war on Iraq has made America, and the world, less safe. Our huge military commitment in Iraq means we don’t have the resources to defend American from real terrorists. The global goodwill the US enjoyed after 9/11 has turned to distrust and scorn because of George Bush’s reckless, arrogant approach to foreign policy. The financial costs of occupying a hostile country are causing our already record budget deficit to skyrocket. The poverty and lawlessness we created in Iraq is providing more recruits and more motive for Islamic terrorist organizations who hate the United States. It would be some small comfort to the families of those 231 dead people if their sacrifice had resulted in more security for the United States. But it did not. Their lives were squandered by a president who cares nothing about the lives of the armed forces under his command. He seems to think a good PR campaign and a couple hundred dollars in tax cuts will get us not to care either. So far he seems to be right. Congress is giving him a free pass. The press refuses to ask any tough questions. So it is down to us, the American people. And we had better act soon. Because every day we let George Bush continue with this madness is an insult to the memories of the 231 Americans he has killed so far.
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My plan for combating anti-US terrorism

When malcontents like me criticize the war in Iraq, Bushlickers often respond with "At least the president has a plan for combating terrorism. What's your plan?" I'm glad you asked! Here is my plan: • Use the military, particularly special forces, to hunt down Al Qaeda cells in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. Unfortunately we can't do this while our military is tied up in Iraq. • Get our troops out of Saudi Arabia. There is no compelling strategic reason for us to have a presence there, and it is not in our interest to prop up an authoritarian regime that allows Israel-bashing fanatics the run of their country. • Give Israel a deadline to start dismantling settlements in the occupied territories or we will cut off military sales and aid. Affirm our commitment to the UN resolutions defining Israel's borders. • Offer financial aid to Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi, and maybe other Arab countries, if and only if they will use it to build economic opportunities for Palestinians in the OT, help resettle Palestinian refugees, and provide real cooperation in shutting down terrorist cells within those countries. That's my plan. I think it's a better plan than invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11/01 or Al Qaeda, but hey, that's just me.
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The Truth has been on-line for about a month now. For new readers, the main themes so far have been that the Bush administration lied to the American public about the reasons for going to war with Iraq, and that the war itself was a reckless action causing significant damage to American national security. The Truthspeaker knows that his discerning readers will not be convinced merely by the rantings of a granola-crunching dopehead like himself. To that end I make a point of backing up my allegations with links to reputable, objective news sources. Today I can let those sources speak for themselves, because they are confirming exactly what I have been saying all along.

Colin Powell misled Americans

(CBS News article)

The person responsible for analyzing the Iraqi weapons threat for Colin Powell says the Secretary of State misinformed Americans during his speech at the U.N. last winter. Greg Thielmann tells Correspondent Scott Pelley that at the time of Powell’s speech, Iraq didn’t pose an imminent threat to anyone – not even its own neighbors.

Thielmann also tells Pelley that he believes the decision to go to war was made first and then the intelligence was interpreted to fit that conclusion. "The main problem was that the senior administration officials have what I call faith-based intelligence," says Thielmann. "They knew what they wanted the intelligence to show. They were really blind and deaf to any kind of countervailing information the intelligence community would produce."

The interview will be broadcast tonight on 60 Minutes II, on CBS. Thielmann was also interviewed for last week's episode of Frontline, "Truth, War & Consequences", on PBS. If you haven't seen it, I strongly urge you to check your local PBS listings for a repeat, or visit the website.

Iraq War Swells Al Qaeda's Ranks

(Reuters article)

War in Iraq has swollen the ranks of al Qaeda and galvanized the Islamic militant group's will, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said on Wednesday in its annual report. The 2003-2004 edition of the British-based think-tank's annual bible for defense analysts, The Military Balance, said Washington's assertions after the Iraq conflict that it had turned the corner in the war on terror were "over-confident."

"On the minus side, war in Iraq has probably inflamed radical passions among Muslims and thus increased al Qaeda's recruiting power and morale and, at least marginally, its operating capability," it said.

Surprised? You shouldn't be. This is exactly what was predicted before the Iraq war by intelligence analysts and anti-war activists alike.
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Bush Masters Doublespeak

One thing the Bush administration is consistent at is making statements that are not just misleading or untrue, but actually diametrically opposed to the truth. Responding to the report from David Kay's Iraq Survey Group saying that no banned weapons have been found in Iraq (BBC News article), our great leader claimed the report proves former leader Saddam Hussein "was a danger to the world" (followup article). He went on to add that war is peace, freedom is slavery, and up is down.
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It's Official: Israel Wants War

Israel to Build 600 New Settler Homes in W. Bank (Reuters) They may as well just admit they intend to annex the occupied territories and will never allow the Palestinians a state of their own. The question is what will the status of Palestinians be in an expanded Israel? Second class citizens? Deportees? Incinerator fuel? If it were up to me the US would recall our ambassador over this. Fat chance. Instead we'll sell them tanks and guns to defend the settlements with.
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