Saturday, December 27, 2003
Well said Stanley...
Stanley Hartt, former chief of staff to Brian Mulroney and the chairman of Solomon Smith Barney, on the antics of Joe Clark and Scott Brison. The piece is all the more significant given that Hartt was until recently a big Brison booster.
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Stanley Hartt, former chief of staff to Brian Mulroney and the chairman of Solomon Smith Barney, on the antics of Joe Clark and Scott Brison. The piece is all the more significant given that Hartt was until recently a big Brison booster.
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Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Gephardt's moxie
The newspaper where I formally worked, The New York Sun, continues to write newsy stories (unlike CNN), living up to its reputation as the newspaper world's "little engine that could." The lovely Luiza Savage, who is travelling with Democratic presidential candidate Richard Gephardt, reports out an interview in which Gephardt asserts that he would toughen up America's stand against its putative Middle Eastern "ally," Saudi Arabia. A snippet:
In an interview with The New York Sun, Mr. Gephardt said he would not rule out economic sanctions or the threat of military force against the kingdom, which he accuses of financing terrorists.
“What I would do as president is lead a world alliance to try to change their behavior. I don’t pretend that would be easy. I don’t advocate that we could easily get that resolved. But I think we’ve got to try,” he said.
“I believe that the Saudis — in part because they have the greatest amount of oil in the world and we are dependent on oil — they have misused and supported terrorism with a lot of that money. They also support schools that train people to be terrorists,” he said.
Asked whether he would use economic sanctions or the threat of military force to pressure the kingdom, Mr. Gephardt would not rule out any options.
Good for Dick Gephardt. I have long thought the Bush administration to be vulnerable on its mollycoddling of the House of Saud. But most Democrats are too pussilanimous to speak up on it, fearful of coming down "to the right" of Bush on the issue. Looks like there's at least one Dem with the intestinal fortitude to do so.
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The newspaper where I formally worked, The New York Sun, continues to write newsy stories (unlike CNN), living up to its reputation as the newspaper world's "little engine that could." The lovely Luiza Savage, who is travelling with Democratic presidential candidate Richard Gephardt, reports out an interview in which Gephardt asserts that he would toughen up America's stand against its putative Middle Eastern "ally," Saudi Arabia. A snippet:
In an interview with The New York Sun, Mr. Gephardt said he would not rule out economic sanctions or the threat of military force against the kingdom, which he accuses of financing terrorists.
“What I would do as president is lead a world alliance to try to change their behavior. I don’t pretend that would be easy. I don’t advocate that we could easily get that resolved. But I think we’ve got to try,” he said.
“I believe that the Saudis — in part because they have the greatest amount of oil in the world and we are dependent on oil — they have misused and supported terrorism with a lot of that money. They also support schools that train people to be terrorists,” he said.
Asked whether he would use economic sanctions or the threat of military force to pressure the kingdom, Mr. Gephardt would not rule out any options.
Good for Dick Gephardt. I have long thought the Bush administration to be vulnerable on its mollycoddling of the House of Saud. But most Democrats are too pussilanimous to speak up on it, fearful of coming down "to the right" of Bush on the issue. Looks like there's at least one Dem with the intestinal fortitude to do so.
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Monday, December 22, 2003
CNN story on Chalabi: Completely Non Newsworthy
The mainstream media continues to recycle patent falsehoods about Iraqi political leader Ahmad Chalabi. In this "news story" (based on a Sunday interview on "Late Edition" with Chalabi) CNN brings up this tired old canard about Chalabi's bank fraud conviction in Jordan without doing any digging whatsoever. This "story" epitomizes the culture of lazy/biased journalism that I believe has so tainted post-war (and pre-war, for that matter) news coverage. Let's deconstruct this thing. First, the headline.
Chalabi dismisses Jordanian fraud charges
Iraqi politician backed by Pentagon: 'Let them come and fix it'
Sunday, December 21, 2003 Posted: 7:51 PM EST (0051 GMT)
So,why is it news that Chalabi has dismissed the fraud charge? He has dismissed the charge since the day it was levied, way back in 1992. He has publicly dismissed it literally hundreds of times. Why this headline?
Second, politican "backed by Pentagon" is sloppy. Many people back Chalabi. Some at the Pentagon like him, some don't like him. (If he had truly been championed by the Pentagon, he'd probably be president of an Iraqi provisional government by now). But many on Capitol Hill support him as well (two that I can think of off the top of my head are Sens. Brownback and McCain).
Let's go further down.
In 1992, a Jordanian military court sentenced Chalabi in absentia to 22 years at hard labor after his Petra Bank, which had been Jordan's third-largest, collapsed in 1989 amid the charges of wrongdoing.
"My response to this is that this sentence is unjust, and it's ill-founded and based on falsehood," Chalabi said on CNN's "Late Edition." "And even the legal procedures that surround it are very, very questionable and invalid."
This is it -- there is no further elaboration of or follow up on Chalabi's point. CNN should do some reporting on the case before leaving it at that, and (see below) using smear quotes from Jordanian King Abdullah II to further slime Chalabi.
In particular CNN should look at the court records. They should look into the dubious links between the late King Hussein of Jordan and Saddam, and how Chalabi might have known too much about their relationship. Or, failing that, the New York Sun editorial which laid out the bare facts on how this case was prosecuted. If they had, they'd learn (quoting from the Sun editorial), amongst other things:
-- The Jordanian "military court" that was used to prosecute Chalabi was established on April 1, 1992. It had its first hearing on April 8, 1992. The following day, April 9, 1992, the court handed down a 223-page decision against Mr. Chalabi. How was it possible for this court to thoroughly and fairly examine matters involving a complex international banking empire and issue a 223-page ruling all in the space of 24 hours? Is this the way the rule of law works in Jordan?
-- Did the timing of the Jordanian security court's attack on Mr. Chalabi and his bank have anything to do with Mr. Chalabi's appearance in a "60 Minutes" segment in early 1992, in which he showed documents detailing the links of... King Hussein to arms purchases by Saddam Hussein's Iraq?
-- Prince Hassan of Jordan...made a surprise appearance at an Iraqi opposition meeting held in July (2002) at London, where he gave a luncheon speech on the historical ties between Iraq and Jordan, the New York Times reported. The meeting was led and organized by Mr. Chalabi, who was in attendance. If Mr. Chalabi was so discredited by this banking scandal, what is Prince Hassan doing signaling support by attending his meetings?
-- The only time the Petra Bank case went before a serious court, in Hong Kong in 1993, the court found that under British law the whole Jordanian martial law takeover of the bank had been illegal.
In addition to the Sun editorial, I was told by sources when I worked in Washington that the case against Chalabi was so flimsy that interpol refused to act upon it (which explains why Chalabi was never arrested when he lived in the US, Lebanon or England).
Further down in this sad "news story":
He [Chalabi] is believed to have been a source of intelligence about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, which have not been discovered in the nine months since Saddam's regime fell.
Again, CNN has not confirmed or even investigated this claim. "...believed to have been a source of intelligence..." is all they'll say. If they had asked Chalabi about that, as PBS' Frontline did, they'd learn that Chalabi turned over exactly THREE (3) defectors who provided intelligence to the US government about Saddam's WMD.
PBS Interviewer: The United States built a case for the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam, based on weapons of mass destruction and imminent threat. [AD note: This past sentence is erroneous. Never did President Bush try to paint Saddam as an "imminent threat"] Now people are feeling that they were suckered into a war where there was no imminent threat, that the real reasons for this war are far more idealistic and ambitious, and have to do with the transformation of the Middle East. Some people would say that you were the primary actor in that process of providing intelligence. What do you say to those critics?
Chalabi: I say to those critics, let them look at the facts. We provided exactly three defectors on the weapons of mass destruction to the United States..." (Chalabi goes on to explain who each one was: One was an engineer involved in building sites for weapons storage, one who knew of mobile weapons labs and a third who provided information about an isotope separation facility.)
Now, back to the CNN story.
He [Chalabi] was also the champion of a plan to rid Iraq of Baath Party influence that has caused rancor among many Iraqis.
"Rancor among many Iraqis" is the kicker here. Yes, rancor among Baath Party members who were high-ranking officials in the Saddam regime and members of Saddam's army! Chalabi championed a program called "de-Baathification," which he modelled on the de-Nazification of Germany, meaning that it was not enough to simply remove Saddam from power; the entire government and society had to be cleansed of the poisonous Baathist ideology. The plan was adoped by L. Paul Bremer, the American administrator in Iraq. He banned the top four levels of Baathists from holding any public office (estimated by muckraking journalist Joel Mowbray to be between 15,000 -- 30,000 people.)
The disbanded Iraqi army is, admittedly, a high number -- around 400,000. That is tough for them, but what else could you do? Every expert on this subject, even Clinton-appointed undersecretary of defense, Walt Slocum, who is serving as an adivser in the Iraqi Defence Ministry, has said that leaving the Iraqi armed forces intact was simply not an option.
Sorry for the long rant. But I am sick and tired of the media smear campaign against Ahmad Chalabi. Chalabi has his faults, sure, but this is going way beyond any semblance of objectivity.
All in all, this story is a farce. CNN and the rest of the mainstram media ought to dig further into these stories before regurgitating the State Department/CIA talking points and reporting such overtly biased claptrap.
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The mainstream media continues to recycle patent falsehoods about Iraqi political leader Ahmad Chalabi. In this "news story" (based on a Sunday interview on "Late Edition" with Chalabi) CNN brings up this tired old canard about Chalabi's bank fraud conviction in Jordan without doing any digging whatsoever. This "story" epitomizes the culture of lazy/biased journalism that I believe has so tainted post-war (and pre-war, for that matter) news coverage. Let's deconstruct this thing. First, the headline.
Chalabi dismisses Jordanian fraud charges
Iraqi politician backed by Pentagon: 'Let them come and fix it'
Sunday, December 21, 2003 Posted: 7:51 PM EST (0051 GMT)
So,why is it news that Chalabi has dismissed the fraud charge? He has dismissed the charge since the day it was levied, way back in 1992. He has publicly dismissed it literally hundreds of times. Why this headline?
Second, politican "backed by Pentagon" is sloppy. Many people back Chalabi. Some at the Pentagon like him, some don't like him. (If he had truly been championed by the Pentagon, he'd probably be president of an Iraqi provisional government by now). But many on Capitol Hill support him as well (two that I can think of off the top of my head are Sens. Brownback and McCain).
Let's go further down.
In 1992, a Jordanian military court sentenced Chalabi in absentia to 22 years at hard labor after his Petra Bank, which had been Jordan's third-largest, collapsed in 1989 amid the charges of wrongdoing.
"My response to this is that this sentence is unjust, and it's ill-founded and based on falsehood," Chalabi said on CNN's "Late Edition." "And even the legal procedures that surround it are very, very questionable and invalid."
This is it -- there is no further elaboration of or follow up on Chalabi's point. CNN should do some reporting on the case before leaving it at that, and (see below) using smear quotes from Jordanian King Abdullah II to further slime Chalabi.
In particular CNN should look at the court records. They should look into the dubious links between the late King Hussein of Jordan and Saddam, and how Chalabi might have known too much about their relationship. Or, failing that, the New York Sun editorial which laid out the bare facts on how this case was prosecuted. If they had, they'd learn (quoting from the Sun editorial), amongst other things:
-- The Jordanian "military court" that was used to prosecute Chalabi was established on April 1, 1992. It had its first hearing on April 8, 1992. The following day, April 9, 1992, the court handed down a 223-page decision against Mr. Chalabi. How was it possible for this court to thoroughly and fairly examine matters involving a complex international banking empire and issue a 223-page ruling all in the space of 24 hours? Is this the way the rule of law works in Jordan?
-- Did the timing of the Jordanian security court's attack on Mr. Chalabi and his bank have anything to do with Mr. Chalabi's appearance in a "60 Minutes" segment in early 1992, in which he showed documents detailing the links of... King Hussein to arms purchases by Saddam Hussein's Iraq?
-- Prince Hassan of Jordan...made a surprise appearance at an Iraqi opposition meeting held in July (2002) at London, where he gave a luncheon speech on the historical ties between Iraq and Jordan, the New York Times reported. The meeting was led and organized by Mr. Chalabi, who was in attendance. If Mr. Chalabi was so discredited by this banking scandal, what is Prince Hassan doing signaling support by attending his meetings?
-- The only time the Petra Bank case went before a serious court, in Hong Kong in 1993, the court found that under British law the whole Jordanian martial law takeover of the bank had been illegal.
In addition to the Sun editorial, I was told by sources when I worked in Washington that the case against Chalabi was so flimsy that interpol refused to act upon it (which explains why Chalabi was never arrested when he lived in the US, Lebanon or England).
Further down in this sad "news story":
He [Chalabi] is believed to have been a source of intelligence about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, which have not been discovered in the nine months since Saddam's regime fell.
Again, CNN has not confirmed or even investigated this claim. "...believed to have been a source of intelligence..." is all they'll say. If they had asked Chalabi about that, as PBS' Frontline did, they'd learn that Chalabi turned over exactly THREE (3) defectors who provided intelligence to the US government about Saddam's WMD.
PBS Interviewer: The United States built a case for the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam, based on weapons of mass destruction and imminent threat. [AD note: This past sentence is erroneous. Never did President Bush try to paint Saddam as an "imminent threat"] Now people are feeling that they were suckered into a war where there was no imminent threat, that the real reasons for this war are far more idealistic and ambitious, and have to do with the transformation of the Middle East. Some people would say that you were the primary actor in that process of providing intelligence. What do you say to those critics?
Chalabi: I say to those critics, let them look at the facts. We provided exactly three defectors on the weapons of mass destruction to the United States..." (Chalabi goes on to explain who each one was: One was an engineer involved in building sites for weapons storage, one who knew of mobile weapons labs and a third who provided information about an isotope separation facility.)
Now, back to the CNN story.
He [Chalabi] was also the champion of a plan to rid Iraq of Baath Party influence that has caused rancor among many Iraqis.
"Rancor among many Iraqis" is the kicker here. Yes, rancor among Baath Party members who were high-ranking officials in the Saddam regime and members of Saddam's army! Chalabi championed a program called "de-Baathification," which he modelled on the de-Nazification of Germany, meaning that it was not enough to simply remove Saddam from power; the entire government and society had to be cleansed of the poisonous Baathist ideology. The plan was adoped by L. Paul Bremer, the American administrator in Iraq. He banned the top four levels of Baathists from holding any public office (estimated by muckraking journalist Joel Mowbray to be between 15,000 -- 30,000 people.)
The disbanded Iraqi army is, admittedly, a high number -- around 400,000. That is tough for them, but what else could you do? Every expert on this subject, even Clinton-appointed undersecretary of defense, Walt Slocum, who is serving as an adivser in the Iraqi Defence Ministry, has said that leaving the Iraqi armed forces intact was simply not an option.
Sorry for the long rant. But I am sick and tired of the media smear campaign against Ahmad Chalabi. Chalabi has his faults, sure, but this is going way beyond any semblance of objectivity.
All in all, this story is a farce. CNN and the rest of the mainstram media ought to dig further into these stories before regurgitating the State Department/CIA talking points and reporting such overtly biased claptrap.
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Sunday, December 21, 2003
My friend, Steve Hayes of the Weekly Standard, continues to do the best reporting for any managazine anywhere with his work exposing the Saddam -- Al Qaeda connection. His latest is sure to raise some eyebrows, if the media is actually willing to pay attention.
The clincher came in the spring of 1998, when the CIA secretly gathered a soil sample from 60 feet outside of the plant's main gate. The sample showed high levels of O-ethylmethylphosphonothioic acid, known as EMPTA, which is a key ingredient for the deadly nerve agent VX. A senior intelligence official who briefed reporters at the time was asked which countries make VX using EMPTA. "Iraq is the only country we're aware of," the official said. "There are a variety of ways of making VX, a variety of recipes, and EMPTA is fairly unique."
That briefing came on August 24, 1998, four days after the Clinton administration launched cruise-missile strikes against al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Sudan (Osama bin Laden's headquarters from 1992-96), including the al Shifa plant. The missile strikes came 13 days after bombings at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 257 people--including 12 Americans--and injured nearly 5,000. Clinton administration officials said that the attacks were in part retaliatory and in part preemptive. U.S. intelligence agencies had picked up "chatter" among bin Laden's deputies indicating that more attacks against American interests were imminent.
How much more proof do we need folks? Read the whole article.
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The clincher came in the spring of 1998, when the CIA secretly gathered a soil sample from 60 feet outside of the plant's main gate. The sample showed high levels of O-ethylmethylphosphonothioic acid, known as EMPTA, which is a key ingredient for the deadly nerve agent VX. A senior intelligence official who briefed reporters at the time was asked which countries make VX using EMPTA. "Iraq is the only country we're aware of," the official said. "There are a variety of ways of making VX, a variety of recipes, and EMPTA is fairly unique."
That briefing came on August 24, 1998, four days after the Clinton administration launched cruise-missile strikes against al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Sudan (Osama bin Laden's headquarters from 1992-96), including the al Shifa plant. The missile strikes came 13 days after bombings at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 257 people--including 12 Americans--and injured nearly 5,000. Clinton administration officials said that the attacks were in part retaliatory and in part preemptive. U.S. intelligence agencies had picked up "chatter" among bin Laden's deputies indicating that more attacks against American interests were imminent.
How much more proof do we need folks? Read the whole article.
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