by TChris

Courtesy of AlterNet, here's a quick comparison of Condoleezza Rice's testimony to facts of record and to her other statements. A taste:

CLAIM: There was "nothing about the threat of attack in the U.S." in the Presidential Daily Briefing the President received on August 6. [responding to Ben Veniste]

FACT: Rice herself confirmed that "the title [of the PDB] was, 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'" [Source: Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04]

by TChris

In time of war, the President should be expected to show support for the men and women serving in the military. Why, then, is the administration trying to block former POW's from using Iraqi assets to collect a judgment that compensates them for the treatment they endured under Saddam Hussein's regime during the 1991 Gulf War?

The seventeen POW's sued Iraq, arguing that they were entitled to compensation for being tortured, starved, and mistreated while being held prisoner. A federal judge agreed, awarding judgment to the POW's of $653 million in compensatory damages and $306 million in punitive damages. But as the POW's tried to collect that judgment from Iraqi assets, the Bush administration stepped in to object.

The Justice Department apparently fears that opening the door to compensation in this case would jeopardize Iraq's ability to rebuild. Stewart Baker, the POW's attorney, disagrees.

Condoleeza Rice testifies before the 9/11 panel today. Here is the text of her opening remarks. If you're short on time, here are excerpts. The AP report is here. Neal Pollack is blogging it. We'll be in court today, so here's an open thread to discuss it.

by TChris

A report by the Congressional Research Service questions whether the FBI can "transform itself into an effective domestic intelligence agency geared to preventing terrorism." Its authors fear that the FBI will be slow to change from a reactive law enforcement agency to a proactive domestic intelligence service that can stop terrorists before they strike.

One of five suggested solutions (none of which are endorsed) by the report: the creation of "a new stand-alone domestic intelligence service." Sounds suspiciously like a new federal agency dedicated to spying on Americans. Let's hope that enough of our elected representatives remember the bad old days of J. Edgar Hoover to stop that idea before it gains any traction.

Mark Kleiman has just published a new report on drug dealing, drug control, and terrorism. He says one thing his report did not address is:

whether the links between drugs and terror constitute a sufficient reason for making cocaine a licit commodity on more or less the same terms as alcohol.

Here's a portion of what his answer would be:

There is no doubt that cocaine dealing contributes to terrorism in Colombia, and that it does so only because it is illicit. Whatever contribution cocaine dealing makes to the terrorist threat domestically is similarly tied to its illicit status. Therefore, if terrorism were the only thing we cared about, we probably ought to legalize cocaine.

He adds that, because of the drug's severe abuse potential, the world might be worse-off if it were legalized,

But if a convincing case were made that cocaine trafficking was, or could become, a significant source of funding to terrorist groups threatening the United States, that judgment might have to be revised.

Whether it takes legalization or decriminalization, we'd sure like to see our clients be offered treatment instead of a felony conviction.

Update: Pete at Drug War Rant takes serious issue with Mark's contention that we would be worse off if we legalized cocaine.

by TChris

If Iraq is our next Vietnam, will Pakistan be our next Iraq?

The US envoy to Afghanistan has angered Pakistan by warning the country that it must eliminate "terrorist sanctuaries" near their common border or US forces will have to step in. In a speech Monday at a private Washington think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Zalmay Khalilzad said that if Islamabad doesn't solve the problem then "we [the US] will have to do it ourselves."

In other words, according to Khalilzad, if Pakistan doesn't root out terrorists on its soil, the "U.S.-led anti-terrorism coalition might send its troops to destroy them." Not a shining example of diplomacy.

Pakistani officials, already hampered by anti-American sentiment, are angered by what appears to be a threat to unleash the U.S. military on Pakistan. Information Minister Sheikh Ahmed Rashid said "We do not need anybody in our territories ... These kind of irresponsible statements can create political problems for us." Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan says that Khalilzad "is clearly out of his depth" and "should desist from making such statements that can only cause misunderstandings."

Update: The State Department stepped on Khalilzad by assuring Pakistan that the U.S. will not invade Pakistan's borders with U.S. troops. At least, not until after the election.

Don't miss Tom Englehardt's Into the Shadows in today's Mother Jones. Connecting the dots, he takes on:

Guantanamo, the prison camps of Iraq, the holding areas of Bagram Air Base and Diego Garcia, the grim torture cells of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Thailand and other compliant lands...

and concludes,

...to make these the destination of choice for American justice is already to acknowledge Osama Bin Laden's triumph. Such a world mocks what should mean most to us. It indicates what, in a crunch, we value most. It threatens to become the starting point for a new (classified) constitution, a new no-calls legal system.

by TChris

This isn't a headline the Bush administration wants to see:

Leaders of 9/11 Panel Say Attacks Were Probably Preventable

by TChris

Having been frustrated in its efforts to evade the scrutiny of the 9/11 commission, the Bush administration may have found a way to keep its final product from influencing voters: seize control of the report.

Thomas Kean, chairman of the bipartisan commission looking into the attacks, said on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday that the Bush administration would go through the report "line by line to find out if there's anything in there which could harm American interests in the area of intelligence."

If the administration doesn't think it can delay the process until after the election, it may want the report to come out soon after it's finished, giving the buzz time to die down before election day. But how much of the report will we see?

Democracy suffers if we give our leaders the power to censor the results of an investigation into their own conduct.

by TChris

What questions will Condoleezza Rice face when she testifies before the 9/11 commission?

Some commission members who were enraged when Ms. Rice talked to every television and cable network but not to them, are considering confronting her with segments of her many interviews asserting that the White House was acting forcefully against Al Qaeda - and then asking her to explain how when much of the documentation shows otherwise.

A good starting point: 15 smart questions that have occurred to two experts in national security and terrorism (nine from one and six from the other). Here's a sample:

A search of all your public statements and writings reveals that you apparently mentioned Osama bin Laden only once and never mentioned Al Qaeda at all as a threat to the United States before 9/11. Why?

by TChris

Sunday's New York Times has a lengthy review of the Bush administration's response to terrorism in the months leading up to September 11. The bottom line: "the White House's impulse to deal more forcefully with terrorist threats within the United States peaked July 5 and then leveled off until Sept. 11."

The review shows that over that summer, with terror warnings mounting, the government's response was often scattered and inconsistent as the new administration struggled to develop a comprehensive strategy for combating Al Qaeda and other terror organizations.

The warnings during the summer were more dire and more specific than generally recognized. Descriptions of the threat were communicated repeatedly to the highest levels within the White House. In more than 40 briefings, Mr. Bush was told by George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, of threats involving Al Qaeda.

by TChris

Homeland Security is vigilantly protecting the country from foreign novelists.

Halted en route to a West Coast lecture tour, Ian McEwan, an acclaimed British novelist who lunched last fall with first lady Laura Bush, was denied entry into the United States for 36 hours this week.

Unfortunately for a country that has been terrorized by foreign novelists, Homeland Security relented -- but not because it wanted to.

During his third session on Wednesday with Homeland Security officials, after word had spread to British and U.S. newspapers about his situation, McEwan said his interrogators told him: "We still don't want to let you in, but this is attracting a lot of unfavorable publicity."

The quality of the agents guarding our borders from dangerous novelists is illustrated by a question that one of the agents posed to McEwan: "What kind of novels do you write: fiction or nonfiction?"