Never Faithful; The Rivalry Between our Army and Marines

A. Scott Piraino

The United states has two armies. Today we take this for granted, and don’t question the reasons for funding both the United States Army, and the United states Marine Corps. But it wasn’t always this way.

There were no Marines in the Continental Army that won the Revolutionary War. During the Civil War, Congress authorized less than 3,200 men for the Marine Corps, this while the Union Armies totaled nearly one million men. The fact is, for most of their history the United States Marine Corps was little more than a security force for the Navy.

The myth of the Marine Corps as a second army began in WW I. When the United states entered the war in 1917, over two million U.S. Army soldiers were deployed to France along with one brigade of marines, about ten thousand strong. Despite being a tiny fraction of the American forces fighting in WW I, the Marines managed to make a name for themselves at the U.S. Army’s expense.

General Pershing, the Commander of all U.S. Forces in France, had ordered a news blackout that prevented reporters from mentioning specific units in their dispatches. The purpose of the order was obvious; to prevent German intelligence from learning about American troop movements. But one reporter circumvented the order, a war correspondent for the Chicago Tribune named Floyd Gibbons.

After Mr. Gibbons was severely wounded at the battle of Belleau Wood, the press corps passed on his dispatches without the approval of Army censors. The result was a storm of press coverage in the US claiming that the Huns were being defeated with "the Help of God and a few Marines". No mention was made of the thousands of Army soldiers who were fighting and dying with equal valor.

Floyd Gibbons made no secret of his "friendship and admiration for the U.S. Marines". There is no proof that his writings created the mythology of the Marine Corps, but we do know he wrote a biography of Baron von Richthofen, more popularly known as the Red Baron. His description of the German aviator reads as propaganda, not journalism, and his other works were probably embellished as well.

Today all Marines in basic training are taught that German soldiers in WW I referred to them as “Devil Dogs”. H.L. Mencken, an American writing in 1921, clearly states that; “The Germans, during the war, had no opprobrious nicknames for their foes…Teufelhunde (devil-dogs), for the American marines, was invented by an American correspondent; the Germans never used it.”

In addition, there is the legend of “Bulldog Fountain”, where the U.S. Marine’s mascot originated. This fountain is located in the village of Belleau, not the wood of the same name. Although the Marines fought in Belleau Wood, the US Army’s 26th division liberated the village, three weeks after the Marines had left the area.

There is no documented evidence that Germans ever referred to Marines as “Devil dogs”, and the Marines never captured the village of Belleau with its “Bulldog Fountain”. It is not clear exactly where these stories come from, but their source is most likely Floyd Gibbons. Perhaps the Marines knew this, because they made him an honorary Marine posthumously in 1941.

Floyd Gibbons helped enhance the image of the Marines, but the United States Marine Corps as we know it today came of age in WW II. Most Americans believe that the Marine Corps won the war in the Pacific, while the US Army fought in Europe. In fact our Pacific operations were hampered by a conflict between the Army and the Navy, that split the theatre in two.

The Navy adamantly refused to place their fleet, (and their Marines), under the command of the Army. After five weeks of bureaucratic wrangling, General MacArthur was given command of the Southwest Pacific theatre, while Admiral Nimitz had jurisdiction over the remainder of the Pacific ocean. The result, in Macarthur’s own words, was a “divided effort, the… duplication of force (and) undue extension of the war with added casualties and cost”.

The US Army fought the main force of the Japanese Imperial Army in New Guinea and the Philippines. The Navy and Marines carried out an “island hopping” strategy that involved amphibious assaults on islands such as Guadalcanal and Saipan. General Macarthur complained bitterly to the President that “these frontal attacks by the Navy, as at Tarawa, are tragic and unnecessary massacres of American lives“.

By way of comparison, General Macarthur’s Army killed, captured, or stranded over a quarter of a million Japanese troops during the New Guinea campaign, at a cost of only 33,000 US casualties. The Navy and Marines suffered over 28,000 casualties to kill roughly 20,000 Japanese on Iwo Jima. Even then, the Army played a greater role than Marines like to admit; the Army had more divisions assaulting Okinawa than the Marines.

The famous image of Marines raising the US flag on Mount Suribachi is actually a photograph of the second, staged flag-raising ceremony. The Marines raised the flag a second time to replace the original, smaller flag, and to provide the press corps with a better photo opportunity. That photograph has become one of the most enduring images of WW II, and served as the model for the Marine Corps Memorial statue.

The Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal, was on Iwo Jima that morning in 1945, and when he saw the Stars and Stripes go up he declared; 'The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years!"

In fact the Marine Corps was nearly legislated out of existence two years later. After the bureaucratic infighting that characterized inter-service relations during WW II, there was a strong desire among military professionals to unify the military commands. President Truman agreed, and in 1946 his administration proposed a bill to unify the separate service bureaucracies.

Having one budgetary authority for the Armed Forces, and one chain of command each for land forces, ships, and aircraft makes sense. But this would have placed the US Navy at a distinct disadvantage. The Navy had their own air wings aboard their carriers, and their own army, the Marine Corps.

The Navy and Marine Corps were determined to scuttle this legislation. Marine generals created a secret office code named the Chowder Society to lobby behind the scenes, (in opposition to their President and Commander in Chief), and thwart the unification bill before Congress. The Commandant of the Marine Corps even made an impassioned speech before Congress to plead for his separate service.

It worked. Congress rejected the Truman administration’s unification bill, and instead passed the National Security Act of 1947. This Act guaranteed separate services, with their own independent budgets, and was a victory for the Navy and Marine Corps.

In addition, the Marines succeeded in having their separate force structure written into the language of the legislation. It is very unusual for Congress to dictate the actual composition of a military service. Yet the National Security Act mandates that the Marines Corps must maintain “not less than three combat divisions and three aircraft wings and such land combat, aviation, and other services as necessary to support them“.

President Truman was furious, and military professionals were appalled. General Eisenhower characterized the Marines as "being so unsure of their value to their country that they insisted on writing into the law a complete set of rules and specifications for their future operations and duties. Such freezing of detail...is silly, even vicious."

The war between the Army and Marines would get more vicious in Korea. On November 27th, 1950 a division of Marines 25,000 strong, was ordered to proceed along the west side of the Chosin reservoir, while a much smaller task force of 2500 Army troops went up the eastern side. Waiting for them were 120,000 troops of the Chinese Communist 9th Army Group.

The Army soldiers fought a running battle for three days against a Chinese force eight times their size, in temperatures as low as minus 35 degrees. Despite the death of two commanding officers, the task force lumbered south with over 600 dead and wounded soldiers loaded into trucks, fought through repeated ambushes, and was even mistakenly bombed by US Marine aircraft. Finally, just four miles from safety, the convoy was cut off by the Chinese and annihilated.

385 men made it to the safety of American lines by crossing the frozen Chosin Reservoir.

The First Marine Division, with the help of allied air power, managed to fight their way out of the Chinese encirclement. Marines claimed that the Army had disgraced itself, and passed on stories of US soldiers throwing down their weapons and feigning injuries. A Marine Chaplain even made statements to the press and wrote an article accusing army soldiers of cowardice.

There were so few officers and men left from the Army task force that the Marine’s claims were accepted as fact. But newly released Chinese documents prove otherwise. The Army task force fought bravely against overwhelming odds before being destroyed, and their stubborn defense bought time for the Marines to escape the encirclement.

Nevertheless, Marines to this day hold up the fight at the Chosin reservoir as proof of their superiority over the Army.

In Vietnam, a Marine regiment at Khe Sanh refused to come to the aid of a Special Forces outpost only four miles from their perimeter. On Febuary 7th, 1968, the camp at Lang Vei was overran by heavily armed North Vietnamese troops during an all-night battle. The Marines had earlier agreed to reinforce the camp in the event of an attack, but two requests for assistance were denied.

General Westmoreland himself had to order the Marines to provide helicopters for Special forces personnel, so they could be airlifted into the besieged outpost. By this time the post had been overrun, at a cost of 208 soldiers killed and another 80 wounded. Ironically, two months later this same Marine regiment would be besieged at Khe Sanh, and they would be relieved by Army troops of the First Cavalry Division.

During Operation Desert Storm 90,000 Marines attacked Iraqi forces alongside over 500,000 US Army and coalition troops. Yet the Marines garnered 75 percent of the newsprint and TV coverage. This was not an accident.

The Commanding General of the Marines in Iraq, Gen. Walt Boomer, was the former Director of Public Affairs for the Corps. He issued the following order to Marine units in the theater:

“CMC [Commandant of the Marine Corps, then General A. M. Gray] desires maximum media coverage of USMC … The news media are the tools through which we can tell Americans about the dedication, motivation, and sacrifices of their Marines. Commanders should include public affairs requirements in their operational planning to ensure that the accomplishments of our Marines are reported to the public.“

During the war Marine officers used military communications systems to transmit stories for reporters in the field, and even assigned personnel to carry press dispatches to rear areas. The Marine Commander also had his own entourage of reporters complete with satellite uplinks, and used them to good effect. He received far more air time than his Army counterparts.

The US Army performed a “Hail Mary” operation that trapped Iraq’s Republican Guard divisions and fought numerous running battles in the Iraqi desert. But no one saw them. Instead the press focused on Lt. Gen. Walter Boomer parading triumphantly through the streets of Kuwait City.

When George Bush the Second launched his misguided invasion of Iraq, the Marines were once again included, and this time the goal was Baghdad. The invasion, which began on March 20th, 2003, called for a two pronged assault on Baghdad. The Army's 5th Corps would advance from the desert west of the Euphrates river, while the First Marine division was ordered to cross the Euphrates and make a parallel advance through central Iraq.

The invasion did not go well for the Marines. In several cities, including Umm al Qasr and Nasiriya, their units suffered heavy casualties fighting remnants of the Iraqi Army and fedayeen guerrillas. Since the Marines had fewer armored vehicles, and they were exposed to a more tenacious enemy, their progress was slower than the Army’s.

Major General Mattis, the commanding general of the Marines in Iraq, was not pleased. He repeatedly pressured his regiments to make greater speed, and this pressure grew more intense as the Marines lagged further behind Army units. On the morning of April 3rd, the First Marine Regiment, commanded by Colonel Dowdy, was ordered to drive to the town of al-Kut.

The city was another choke point, where Iraqi fedayeen guerrillas could ambush Marine convoys in city streets. As soon as his Marines reached the city, they began taking fire. Colonel Dowdy could not forget the mauling another regiment had received in Nasiriya, where 17 Marines were killed and another seventy were wounded.

He had to make a choice. His orders were to proceed to al-Kut, but the decision to push through or bypass the town was up to him. However, Colonel Dowdy was receiving mixed signals from his superiors. According to him "there was a lot of confusion", some officers were recommending an attack, others urged withdrawal.

Colonel Dowdy decided to bypass al-Kut. His regiment would take an alternative route to Baghdad that was safer, but the detour of 170 miles meant that the Marines fell further behind schedule. Colonel Dowdy‘s superiors were furious with his decision.

After the withdrawal from al-Kut, General Mattis and other staff officers let the Colonel know that his regiment was to make greater speed. That night on the road to Baghdad, vehicles of the First Marine Regiment were ordered to drive the highways of Iraq with their headlights on, irregardless of security. But their progress was not good enough, the Army‘s Fifth Corps had already reached Baghdad.

Colonel Joe Dowdy was relieved of his command the following day. The Marine Corps will never admit it, but he was fired because he failed to carry out the Corps most important mission in Iraq: Colonel Dowdy failed to upstage the US Army by being the first to reach Baghdad.

The Marines would return to Iraq one year later, when the First Marine Expeditionary Force assumed responsibility for Al Anbar province, which includes the city of Fallujah.

During the change of command ceremony Lt. Gen. James T. Conway of the I MEF proclaimed that; "Although Marines don't normally do nation-building, they will tell you that once given the mission, nobody can do it better." The Marines took control of the area from the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division, and they made no secret of their distain for the Army’s strategy in Iraq.

Before deploying, General Conway had told the New York Times "I don't envision using that tactic“, when asked about Army troops using air strikes against the insurgents. “I don't want to condemn what [Army] people are doing. I think that they are doing what they think they have to do."

On March 30th, General Conway told a reporter that “There's no place in our area of operation that we won't go, and we have taken some casualties in the early going making that point“. The next day four civilian contractors were killed and mutilated in Fallujah, and five Marines also lost their lives. The Marines sealed off the city and attempted to reassert control over Fallujah, but the insurgents proved to be more determined than expected.

When their patrols came under heavy fire the lightly armed Marines had only two choices; Fight it out with the insurgents on foot, or call in artillery and air strikes. The inevitable result was scores of Marines killed or wounded, and hundreds of civilian casualties. The world was appalled by the carnage in Fallujah, and the Marines were called off.

While Marines were fighting in Fallujah, the US Army was heavily engaged against militiamen loyal to Muqtata al-Sadr in cities throughout Iraq. But in contrast to the Marine’s failure to recapture Fallujah, the US Army’s heavy armored vehicles could enter hostile cities with impunity. They brought al-Sadr to heel after two months of fighting, while suffering relatively few casualties.

An uneasy truce was made between the US Army and al-Sadr’s militia, that would last until the Marines again became involved. On July 31st 2004, the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit replaced Army units in the holy city of Najaf, headquarters of Muqtata al-Sadr. Just five days later, al-Sadr’s militia would again be waging open war against the US, and the Marines would be calling for reinforcements.

The Marines began skirmishing with al-Sadr’s militiamen as soon as they were given responsibility for Najaf. After the uprising in April, US Army units had avoided driving past al-Sadr’s house as part of the informal truce, but this would not do for the Marines. The second Shia uprising began after Marines in Najaf provoked al-Sadr by driving their patrols right up to his stronghold.

A firefight ensued, and al-Sadr’s militiamen took up arms in cities throughout Iraq in a replay of the uprising in April. The Marines had not just picked a fight with Muqtada in Najaf, they had engaged his militia in an ancient cemetery that abutted the Imam Ali Mosque, Shiite Islam’s holiest shrine. And they did this without informing the Army chain of command, or the Iraqi government.

According to Maj. David Holahan, second in command of the Marine unit in Najaf, "We just did it". But in a replay of the Fallujah assault, the Marines faced an enemy that they were not prepared for. Within hours of launching their attack on August 5th, the Marines were pinned down, and requesting assistance.

Unfortunately for the Marines, their rash attack on al-Sadr’s headquarters had sparked another revolt by his militiamen. Army units were once again fighting the Mahdi army in cities throughout Iraq. When the Army’s Fifth Cavalry Regiment received orders to reinforce the beleaguered Marines, they were deployed against al-Sadr’s militia in the outskirts of Bagdhad, 120 miles away.

The Fifth Cavalry arrived in Najaf after a two day drive through insurgent controlled territory. By then any opportunity to capture al-Sadr had been lost, because the press, and the Islamic world, were focused on the Imam Ali Mosque and the adjacent cemetery. Any attack on Shiite Islam’s holiest shrine, where Muqtata al-Sadr was holed up, would have had disastrous consequences for the US war effort.

In Fallujah and Najaf, inexperienced Marine units picked fights with insurgents, and in both cases ended up handing the enemy a strategic victory. Their failure to recapture Fallujah made the city a rallying cry for Islamic militarism worldwide, (that is until the second US assault rendered Fallujah uninhabitable). The Marine’s botched attempt to capture Muqtata al-Sadr has only strengthened his hand.

Today there are 23,000 Marines in Iraq, out of a total 138,000 U.S. Armed Forces personnel. Marines are 17 percent of our total force, yet they have suffered 29 percent of all U.S. casualties; 530 of the more than 1,820 U.S. service personnel killed in Iraq. The Marine’s aggressive tactics combined with a lack of armored firepower has proven lethal, their bravery notwithstanding.

The United States Marines pride themselves on being better than the US Army. They are harder, more gung-ho, and they possess some magic that enables them to do things the US Army can’t do. If this is not true, (as recent events in Iraq suggest), then there is no reason for a separate Marine Corps.

President Harry Truman once stated that Marines; "Have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin's." The Marines have always advertised themselves, but in Truman’s day, they at least had something to sell. The original raison d’etre of the USMC was their ability to carry out amphibious landings on hostile beaches.

The truth is, the US Army conducted the biggest amphibious assault in our nation’s history when they captured the Normandy beaches. And neither the Army or the Marines have assaulted an enemy held beach since the Korean war, over fifty years ago. In every subsequent conflict Soldiers and Marines have fought in the same way, using similar equipment and tactics.

The Marines are in fact a second Army, and since they compete with the Army for funds, missions, and prestige, their real enemy is… the US Army.

However, the Marine Corps has an unfair advantage in this competition. Since the end of Desert Storm the US Army has been downsized by one third, losing over 200,000 troops and eight combat divisions. By Contrast the Marines have lost only twenty thousand personnel. The reason is the National Security Act of 1947, which prevents any changes in the force structure of the Marines.

Today’s United States Marine Corps is only slightly larger than the US Army in Iraq. That war is stretching our Army to the breaking point. The obvious solution is to merge the Army and Marine corps into one service.

The savings would add up to tens of billions of dollars when their training, logistics, administration, and headquarters were merged. The personnel shortages that are now crippling both services would disappear. And so would the rivalry between the Army and the Marine Corps.

…

The Third Depression

A. Scott Piraino

The US economy as we know it will soon collapse. This has happened before, twice, and history is about to repeat itself again. This will be the third depression the United States has suffered, and it will probably be the worst.

In the Gilded Age of the 1890’s, and the Roaring 1920’s, improvements in technology and industry fueled rapid economic expansions. Capitalism was revered as the new engine of progress, while onerous government regulations were seen as an impediment to growth. These were days of “laissez faire” economics and unscrupulous robber barons.

Inevitably there was a growing disparity in incomes, but the majority of Americans were more concerned with getting rich than helping the poor. Most investors believed these economic booms would last forever, but this optimism proved to be their undoing as exuberance bid up share prices. Inevitably the day came when prices fell, and markets collapsed.

The Gilded Age ended with a monetary crisis in the first decade of the twentieth century. Incoming President Teddy Roosevelt was forced to borrow money from wealthy elites to finance the government. The Roaring Twenties ended in a more spectacular fashion, a stock market crash in 1929 ushered in the Great Depression.

Depressions are created when money disappears. People suddenly become poorer, and they spend less money. With less demand for goods and services, production declines and prices fall, causing a downward spiral of unemployment and falling incomes.

Our country has endured deflationary periods after numerous boom and bust cycles, most notably during the Great Depression. But the coming collapse will be different. Debt, and our dependence on imported oil and manufactured goods are the reasons the Third Depression will be different, and much worse.

The U.S. budget deficit climbed to a record high $412 billion last year, which was surpassed by our trade deficit of $496 billion, also a new record. This year’s deficits will be even larger. The Bush administration has projected a budget deficit of $390 billion for the year, not including $80 billion for the war in Iraq. Meanwhile our trade deficit is growing even faster, at an annual rate of $592 billion.

To finance our current account deficit, we have to import three billion dollars in cash, every working day. Our deficits now consume 80 percent of the entire world’s net savings, and our demand for debt is increasing. This is unsustainable.

Interest rates on our national debt are low only because bondholders are confident in our ability to make payments. The US dollar maintains its value on world markets because foreign nations believe we can afford our appetite for imported goods. As our economy falters and our deficits rise, the world is losing faith in our ability to finance our deficits.

This is why world markets are beginning to reject the US dollar. The dollar has lost about one third of its value against other major currencies since 2002, and has been falling at a much faster rate in recent months. The danger of course is that as the dollar declines in value, it becomes less profitable to hold, and the incentive to sell dollars increases.

If enough central banks and foreign investors began unloading US assets, other investors and financial institutions would see the dollar rapidly losing value. They would have to sell their US securities quickly, to protect themselves from further losses on their dollar denominated holdings. There would be a financial panic, and the US dollar would collapse.

This danger is very real, and our declining dollar is creating a vicious cycle which will inevitably cause our currency to depreciate more. As our dollar loses value, foreign goods purchased with dollars become more expensive. Since we are now dependent on imported goods, (see the trade deficit figures above), our shrinking dollar means higher prices for those goods.

In addition to the inflation caused by rising prices for imported wares, we have to worry about oil. The price of oil is skyrocketing even faster than the value of our dollar is falling, rising 30% in the last three months alone. As of this writing the price of oil has reached 50 dollars a barrel, and gasoline prices nationally are at a record high $2.11 at the pump.

These market forces are putting immense pressure on our economy. Higher costs for energy and transportation have been driving up prices at a 3% annual rate. Last month the Consumer Price Index jumped 0.6 %, the largest increase in four years, even when rising prices for food and energy are excluded.

While inflation is gaining momentum, recent economic reports and corporate earning statements show an economy rapidly losing steam. General Motors reported a net loss of over one billion dollars in their most recent quarter. U.S. durable goods orders plummeted by 2.8 percent in March, while new housing starts plunged 17.6 percent, marking their steepest drop in more than 14 years.

Even more telling is a report prepared by the Economic Policy Institute on April 21st. The report shows that wages and salaries as a share of national income fell to their lowest levels on record, even lower than the Great Depression of 1929. Although corporate profits are at all time highs, wages, (which represent total income for 80% of Americans), have not kept pace with inflation.

The US economy may be expanding as government statistics claim, but the majority of Americans are actually getting poorer. US household debt now stands at $10 trillion, ( a record high, of course), and has been increasing by over one trillion dollars per year since 2002. Americans cannot spend enough money to lift the economy out of the doldrums, nor can they afford higher prices, or higher interest rates.

The trembling dollar, inflation jitters, and pessimistic economic data sent all three US stock indexes to their lows for the year in April. The Dow Jones declined by 3 percent, the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped by 4 percent, while the S&P 500 lost 2 percent. The market is waiting for the other shoe to drop, and in April the warnings became more shrill.

In testimony before Congress two weeks ago, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan warned that “these deficits would cause the economy to stagnate or worse“.

He’s right, and he knows our economic problems are even worse than our deficits, a declining dollar, and inflation. Derivatives are financial holdings that derive their value from other securities. These new financial instruments have created a speculative bubble unlike anything ever seen, and pose a mortal danger to our economy.

In a letter to shareholders, billionaire investor Warren Buffet warned that derivatives were “time bombs, both for the parties that deal in them and the economic system“. He went on to explain how derivatives work, and why they are so dangerous:

“Essentially, these instruments call for money to change hands at some future date, with the amount to be determined by one or more reference items, such as interest rates, stock prices or currency values. If, for example, you are either long or short an S&P 500 futures contract, you are a party to a very simple derivatives transaction -with your gain or loss derived from movements in the index.”

“Unless derivatives contracts are collateralized or guaranteed, their ultimate value also depends on the creditworthiness of the counterparties (sic) to them. In the meantime, though, before a contract is settled, the counterparties record profits and losses -often huge in amount- in their current earnings statements without so much as a penny changing hands.”

In 1986, the global market for derivatives stood at just over one trillion dollars. By 2004, The U.S. Comptroller of the Currency estimated the value of derivatives held by U.S. commercial banks at around $84 trillion. That’s eight times the size of the US economy.

Derivatives are now one of the pillars of our financial system. Fannie Mae, a federally subsidized home-mortgage corporation, has recently admitted to $8.4 billion dollars in losses stemming from derivatives. JP Morgan Chase has $43 trillion in derivatives contracts, by far the largest portfolio of any commercial bank.

The implosion of one of our banks or lending agencies due to losses on derivatives would cause a panic, and wipe out the US economy. And the fact is, many of our financial institutions are only solvent as long as their derivative holdings are profitable. This situation is now very dangerous because 87% of derivative positions consist of interest rate contracts.

Alan Greenspan is trapped, and he knows it. The Federal Reserve must raise interest rates to improve the rate of return on dollar investments, and keep foreign investors from abandoning the US currency. But higher interest rates will slow down the already moribund US economy, and create immense losses on derivative contracts.

Monetary policy cannot save us from an impending financial reckoning caused by our soaring levels of debt and speculation. The only people who can get us out of our economic difficulties are the very people who have put us in this mess. Yet the Bush administration appears to be blithely marching the United States over the brink of an economic abyss.

After the economic crises following the Gilded Age and Roaring Twenties, there was a backlash against the excesses of capitalism. Teddy Roosevelt reined in monopolies, and passed the first income tax into law. During the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt raised taxes on the wealthy to finance his New Deal legislation.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a Roosevelt in office to champion the majority against business interests. President Bush has repeatedly cut taxes for our wealthiest citizens, and signed more free trade agreements, while our deficits have soared. He and his cronies have offered nothing but the same warmed over Reaganomics that created our trade and budget deficits in the first place.

If the US Government does not take drastic action immediately to reduce our deficits and increase investment in the US economy, one or more of the following scenarios will take place:

1) The dollar’s value will depreciate until enough investors and foreign central banks decide to unload our currency, causing a financial panic.
2) Higher interest rates will cause multi-billion dollar losses in derivatives trading, and when a financial institution admits to the scale of those losses, there will be a financial panic.
3) Too many Americans will foreclose on variable-rate mortgages and credit card debts, causing a default in a bank or lending agency, and a financial panic.
4) Fearing any of the above eventualities, US and global stock markets melt down as investors liquidate their holdings, causing a financial panic.

Either way, the house of cards that Reaganomics built will soon collapse. We have a right to be angry about the economic calamity we are about to experience, but we have no right to be surprised. This is the Third Depression after all.

…

A House Divided...

A. Scott Piraino

Exit polls show that “moral values“ won the election for Bush. The Republicans succeeded in distracting us from real, pressing issues, and making November 2nd a referendum on the new “culture war“. Basically, the American people re-elected George W. Bush because he is a conservative.

But what does that mean? George Bush is certainly not a fiscal conservative, his administration has ran record trade and budget deficits. Nor is he politically conservative, enforcing a literal interpretation of the Constitution, (the Patriot Act is proof of that). No, George Bush has cast himself as a moral conservative, standing against liberals who seek to change our culture and way of life.

“Liberal“ literally means generous, or giving. Democrats believed that redistribution of wealth was right and necessary, and raised taxes, (predominantly on the wealthy), to pay for these social programs. They supported the Unions that forced capitalists to equitably share profits with workers.

Franklin D. Roosevelt created Social Security, and Lyndon B. Johnson gave us Medicare, Welfare, and the Civil Rights Amendment. Unfortunately, the days when Democrats thought big, and proposed legislation that benefited the working class are gone. The American people may still be liberal at heart, but they do not subscribe to the fringe issues that are passed off as Democratic values today.

This new liberalism goes by many names; multiculturalism, diversity, but it is most aptly described as being “politically-correct“. This movement is not one single issue, rather it is a way of thinking that seeks to force a left-wing ideology onto the majority. Anyone who disagrees with this ideology or dares to speak out can simply be branded as right-wing, extremist, or a bigot.

Our police officers are accused of racism when they “profile“ groups of blacks. Even though everyone knows black males commit the majority of violent crimes in this country, and the statistics prove it. This fact just isn’t discussed, because it’s not politically correct.

Most Americans oppose illegal immigration, and they resent immigrants for committing crimes, drawing welfare, using public funds for education and health care, and competing with citizens for jobs. But again, no one speaks out against illegal immigration because Republicans want cheap labor, and Democrats want votes. There are an estimated eight to twelve million people living in the United States illegally, yet the issue is simply not up for public debate.

In the recent election, the moral issue that was used to split the electorate was gay marriage. Middle America does not approve of gay marriage, but they are more offended by the gay community‘s whining about being oppressed when they don‘t get it. Again, anyone who criticizes the gay community’s endless lawsuits and courtroom theater is simply politically incorrect.

Right wing pundits like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O‘Reilly, and Ann Coulter have made careers out of lambasting the excesses of the American left. These new pundits are not content to rail about old school conservative issues like gun control or abortion. In their view every perceived problem; from big government, rampant crime, ivory tower professors, civil-rights extremists, violence on television, and even our self-centered, hip hop culture is caused by…liberals, (who are of course Democrats).

These right wing pundits are very popular on television, radio, and the internet simply because many people share their views. The fact is, the majority of Americans distain these false liberals and their left-wing causes. And they disagreed with this politically correct agenda strongly enough to re-elect George Bush on November 2nd.

Unfortunately, Middle America has made a terrible mistake, because George Bush is not a conservative, he is a thief and a liar.

Now the President is free to carry out his real agenda,and with Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, he just might pull it off. Already the Bush administration is proposing the privatization of Social security, more energy de-regulation, the rollback of conservation laws, and of course more tax cuts. Whether you call it the social safety net or the welfare state, the Republicans are preparing to dismantle it.

The next Bush administration is not going to prevent gay marriage, curb illegal immigration, censor the decadent media, or rationalize racial profiling. But they are going to destroy the core Democratic ideal of redistribution of wealth for the benefit of the majority. Seriously, with our budget deficits and these crooks in office, cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and other basic subsidies to middle class Americans are on the table.

The real irony, the real tragedy of this election is that Middle America, represented by the “Red States“ that voted for George bush, has suffered the worst from Republican politics. Their blue collar jobs have been shipped overseas, (Ohio is in the middle of the rust belt after all), and agri-business has destroyed the small farmers. Since they are poorer, they are more dependent on the very Federal subsidies that Bush Inc. intends to cut.

While the “Blue States” that voted Democratic have benefited from Republican policies. Their incomes have climbed above the national average, they are better educated, and they have lower unemployment rates than Middle America. They are also wealthier, and would have paid higher taxes in a Kerry administration to support programs that benefited their poorer countrymen.

The culture war has turned American politics upside down. Those who benefit from the Republican agenda vote Democrat, those who lose vote Republican. In addition, the Bush administration has not been forced to answer for their real performance during the last four years.

The United States now runs trade and budget deficits of over $400 billion a year each. There are one million fewer jobs in the US today than when Bush took office in 2000, and per capita incomes have declined. President Bush failed to capture Osama bin Laden or destroy al-Qaeda, yet one third of our army is fighting in Iraq because the President lied about WMDs to put them there.

And they got away with it by hyping the excesses of a few too-far-left liberals, and using the September 11th attacks to justify the War in Iraq. Simply put; Middle America was manipulated by an alliance of right-wing conservatives and cynical Republicans. They‘ve been duped, and now they will be discarded.

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The End is Near

A. Scott Piraino

I am embarrassed to be an American today, and more than that, I really fear for our future. The majority of Americans have voted to re-elect George W. Bush, knowing what this president and his administration stand for. Disregarding what they have said, their actions over the last four years make clear what we can expect from the next Bush administration.

George Bush ran on a platform of conservative “values” in the 2000 campaign, but his real agenda was tax cuts for the wealthy. He did not disappoint. The President proposed a 1.3 trillion dollar tax cut package, using the same tired, Republican/Reaganomic argument: Simply put, tax cuts would stimulate a recovery from the recession, and create jobs.

Inexplicably, there are one million fewer jobs today than when Bush took office, despite nearly two trillion dollars in tax cuts. It was no surprise that massive tax cuts without reductions in federal spending would create huge deficits. During President Bush's first term our trade and budget deficits climbed to over $400 billion a year each.

After passing his tax cuts, the President proposed a new “energy policy”. Enron CEO Kenneth Lay was the number one contributor to the Presidents first campaign, and he got what he paid for. President Bush signed an executive order that allowed Enron and other energy trading companies to legally extort electricity. The energy crisis that bankrupted California was a direct result of outrageous price gouging by Enron and other energy brokers.

After the energy debacle and the collapse of Enron, the Bush administration faced their first foreign crisis. Most Americans don't remember the incident because our enemy was not Afghanistan or Iraq, but China. On April 1st 2001, a Chinese fighter aircraft collided with a US surveillance plane flying in international airspace. The US plane was forced to make an emergency landing in China, and the aircrew was held captive by the Chinese armed forces for eleven days.

Our government met all of China’s demands for the release of our airmen, and issued three apologies to the Chinese. All the while, the Bush administration assured us that there would be no change in US/China relations. It may seem strange that the US would appease China while our yearly trade deficits with that country have skyrocketed to nearly $150 billion. The truth is, most Fortune 500 companies now manufacture in China, and earn huge profits from our trade deficits by importing their products into the US.

President Bush cut taxes for the rich, brought back deficit spending, enacted a corrupt energy policy, and kowtowed to China, all before September 11th, 2001.

After that horrible day, President Bush had a new mandate; win the War on Terror. The country rallied behind him, and their was a global consensus that the perpetrators of those heinous attacks must be brought to justice. But instead of fighting that war, he chose to invade Iraq.

The problem of course is that there was no reason for the United States to invade. The Bush administration manufactured all the evidence that Iraq was developing Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks. The President’s claim that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium in Niger, the alleged meeting between the 9/11 hijackers and Iraqi agents, the mobile chemical weapons factories, these were not mistakes, they were all lies.

By the summer of 2002 US troops were deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, our country was mired in recession, and defense spending was at an all time high. While Americans were being told that sacrifices had to be made, the Bush administration passed another 600 billion dollar tax cut package for the rich. They even had the nerve to call it “Patriotic Tax Relief“.

President Bush has not captured Osama bin Laden, or destroyed al-Qaeda. Instead his administration embroiled our Armed Forces in a futile guerrilla war in Iraq. So far that war has claimed the lives of over 1000 American servicemen, and seriously wounded another 6000.

Through it all, the President has made his allegiance very clear. He is not going to admit that he lied to invade Iraq, much less take responsibility for the disaster the war has become. The majority of Americans will pay for the War(s) on Terror, and finance our soaring deficits, while our wealthiest citizens pay a smaller share of the nation‘s tax burden.

Since this is what George W. Bush stands for, his re-election is a disaster for the United states.

So whose fault is it?

We can’t blame the Media. Although Wolf Blitzer did not come right out and call George Bush a scumbag, the press by and large reported the truth. The facts are all there: The Bush administration’s tax cuts are public knowledge, our deficits are public knowledge, Osama bin Laden is still at large, and there are still no WMDs in Iraq.

We can't blame John Kerry, although he is a wishy-washy liberal, and a “nice” man. His campaign refused to attack George Bush over Iraq, tax cuts for the rich, and energy fraud. But we all knew these things anyway, thanks to the press.

Finally, we can’t blame the President. He and his neo-conservative lackeys are lying weasels and they make no bones about it. They haven’t been devious or particularly clever, they just lie, and then get on with their agenda.

No, we are responsible. The American people have given the most despicable President in US history another four years in office. We have no excuse for it, and we deserve what we are going to get.

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Patriot Games

A. Scott Piraino

The Republican National Convention has served its purpose. George W. Bush is riding high and on message: The war on terror is the source of our troubles, and only he can win the war.

The fact is, the War on Terror is far from won. Al-Qeada is still dangerous, and Osama bin Laden is still at large. A recent study even concluded that al-Qaeda and other terrorist cells have grown in number since the 9/11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq.

Osama bin Laden is still at large because the Bush administration’s half-assed invasion of Afghanistan failed to capture him and thousands of other al-Qaeda operatives. There were more policemen in New York guarding the Republicans at their convention than there are troops in Afghanistan searching for al-Qaeda. The Bush administration failed to defeat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan because they were determined to invade Iraq.

We are not winning the War on Terror, but that does not matter. What matters is that the Bush administration has convinced Americans that the war in Iraq is the War on Terror. And they have accomplished this by lying.

Bush’s speech about Iraqi agents purchasing uranium in Niger was a lie. The President’s claims that we had evidence Iraq was developing chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons was a lie. The Bush administration’s claims that Saddam’s regime was involved with al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks was also a lie.

The 9/11 attacks are the most serious failure of US national defense since Pearl Harbor, yet our military response to al-Qaeda has been tepid. There are no WMDs in Iraq, but there is plenty of evidence that our enemies are developing, and even exporting, nuclear weapons technology. However, the evidence points to North Korea, Iran, and our reluctant ally Pakistan, not Iraq.

The truth is the national unity and international solidarity we earned after the September 11th attacks has been squandered by the invasion of Iraq. One third of the US army is entrenched in Iraq, and will be pinned down fighting a growing insurgency for the foreseeable future. And the unrest and violence has increased since the handover of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government in June.

148 US troops have been killed since the handover on June 28th, including 65 deaths and more than 1,000 wounded during the fighting in August. The Pentagon reported 87 attacks per day on U.S. forces in August—the worst monthly average of the war. In total, over 1000 U.S. military personnel have been killed in Iraq, another 7000 have been wounded, and nearly 13,000 Iraqis have died in the war.

The news only gets worse.

In in the past week over 200 Iraqis have been killed, and several hundred more have been wounded. Recent attacks included a massive mortar barrage targeting US Headquarters in Baghdad that killed sixty. Scores of Iraqi civilians were killed in the crossfire of a firefight between US forces and insurgents. Air strikes in Fallujah killed twenty. And the latest report is a car bomb has killed 47 Iraqis and wounded 114 at a Baghdad police station.

President Bush and his cabal of advisors have no one but themselves to blame for losing control over the war, and public perceptions of the war. But placing the blame on themselves, (where it belongs), would mean taking responsibility for the lies they told to garner support for the invasion of Iraq. Instead the Bush administration has adopted a new strategy: Minimize the negative news coverage from the war, at least until after the November elections.

To that end, whole cities and regions of Iraq have been declared “insurgent enclaves”. Fallujah, Ramadi, Samarra, and several other areas of Iraq are now off limits to US troops. In effect these areas have been ceded to the insurgents.

These safe havens have become staging areas where the insurgents can operate with impunity, and plan more coordinated attacks. US troops are now hunkered down and fighting off increasingly tenacious guerrillas, without being allowed to deliver a killing blow. During the heavy fighting in August, US forces defeated the Mahdi Army, but the fighting ended in negotiations that allowed the insurgents to retreat, with their weapons.

We are not winning the War in Iraq, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the Bush administration has convinced us we have to keep fighting. Using simpleton slogans like “if we don’t fight them there we’ll have to fight them here”, the White House has convinced us that the war in Iraq is necessary.

The truth is we are fighting an enemy that would not exist, if we had not invaded Iraq. The Mahdi Army is our creation, as are the insurgent groups that have flocked to Iraq to battle the Americans. We are creating terrorists, not defeating them.

The people of Iraq are not better off than they were four years ago, and neither are we. There are one million fewer jobs in the US than there were when George Bush took office, and the average family has lost over 1000 dollars in annual income. Our budget and trade deficits have climbed to record highs, surpassing 400 billion dollars a year, each.

The budget surpluses inherited by George Bush have been squandered, but that doesn’t matter. Because the Bush administration has convinced us that the deficits, and the recession, are caused by the war on terror. Our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost nearly $200 billion since the 9/11 attacks, yet the Bush administration has run up over one trillion dollars in debt.

The truth is, our budget deficits are the result of George Bush’s huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. His administration passed a tax cut bill before the 9/11 attacks, then used the war on terror as an excuse to pass another “tax relief” package. As for the stubborn recession, technically, the recession of 2001 ended over two years ago.

It is difficult for the average American to believe that because they have not seen any profits from the economy’s recovery. Since the recession officially ended in late 2001, 47 percent of the real national income growth has gone to corporate profits, and only 15 percent to wages and salaries. This is the first economic recovery since WW II where corporate profits gained at the expense of worker’s pay and benefits.

And let’s not forget the real cause of the recession. It was not the September 11th attacks, but the collapse of companies like Enron that precipitated a stock market meltdown. Enron's CEO was the number one contributor to the Bush campaign, yet the company managed to go bankrupt after legalizing the extortion of electricity and bankrupting the State of California.

Given the facts, you’d think that anyone could defeat George Bush in November. But The collapse of Enron, the energy debacle in California, tax cuts for the rich, our soaring deficits, nuclear proliferation, none of these issues matter today. The War(s) on Terror are the issues in this election, and Americans are convinced that only George Bush can win those wars.

And that’s just not true. Whoever wins the Presidency in 2004 had better be ready to face the music, and convince the American People to do the same. George W. Bush is not that man, and our country cannot survive four more years of his patriot games.

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"Personal Reasons" The Fall of George Tenet

A. Scott Piraino

CIA Director George Tenet officially resigned last week after a tumultuous, seven year tenure. President Bush offered a conciliatory speech to the outgoing Director, and claimed Mr. Tenet had resigned for “personal reasons”. He is absolutely right.

George Tenet’s reason for resigning is his personal disgust with the White House, and the “neo-conservative” alliance that undermined the US intelligence agencies. The Bush Administration is responsible for the lies that led to the invasion of Iraq, not the CIA. And George tenet knows this better than anyone.

Last week also saw the release of a Senate investigation into US intelligence failures leading up to the War in Iraq. Not surprisingly, the report blames the CIA for falsifying and overstating analyses on Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction. However, the Senate report only investigated the CIA’s role in the Iraqi intelligence fiasco.

The report does not address the manipulation of that intelligence by the White House and Defense department to bolster the case for war. The Republicans were determined not to undermine the President’s re-election bid, and defeated attempts to investigate the Bush administration’s shenanigans regarding Iraq. Their role in creating evidence of Iraq’s WMDs, and connections to al-Qaeda will be the subject of a separate Senate investigation.

A second report pertaining to the misuse of intelligence will be released by the end of the year, but after the election on November 2nd. This Senate Report is a whitewash, and a public relations coup for the Bush administration. They are off the hook, while George Tenet and the CIA take the fall for the faulty intelligence that justified the invasion of Iraq.

This is the last, not the first time George Tenet has been held responsible for Bush administration lies. In late 2001 forged documents were “discovered” stating that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase uranium in Niger. British Intelligence had supplied the original forged documents, and they came to the British from an unnamed foreign source.

Even though the documents did not originate from CIA sources, Vice President Cheney pressured the CIA into investigating the report. In February of 2002 retired ambassador Joseph Wilson was dispatched to Niger. After returning, he concluded that no exchange of uranium between Niger and Iraq took place, and said as much to CIA officials. George Tenet then informed the White House that the story was false.

This did not stop President Bush from using the allegations in his State of the Union address in January of 2003. When the press began investigating these reports, the notorious “yellow cake” scandal unfolded. The Bush administration saved face by forcing George Tenet to accept responsibility for the faulty intelligence. He publicly apologized by saying: “The President had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound.”

The Bush Administration would repay the CIA’s loyalty by releasing the name of a covert agent in retaliation for criticism of the White House.

In July of last year Joseph Wilson wrote an Op-Ed piece for the New York times aptly titled, "What I Didn't Find in Africa". His piece criticized the Bush administration’s use of bogus information in the State of the Union address, and further claimed that they knew the yellow cake story was not true. In retaliation, an unknown White House official (Karl Rove), leaked the name of his wife to reporters and told them she was a CIA agent.

This is a federal crime, and a serious one. National Security laws protect the identity of covert agents, penalties for revealing classified information range from fines to up to ten years in prison. In September the CIA, with George Tenet’s approval, formally requested a Justice department investigation.

The ongoing Grand Jury investigation has questioned several high-ranking White House officials and Vice President Cheney. Three weeks ago, the investigation reached the President himself. The White House press secretary declared that, “no one wants to get to the bottom of this matter more than the president of the United States”. However, the President had a private lawyer present during his hour long interrogation by Justice Department investigators.

The Valerie Plame affair is not the only case where the Bush administration broke the law in order to control information about Iraq. Federal Investigators are now asking questions about illegal contacts between the Bush administration and Ahmad Chalabi. The Defense Department has been secretly funding Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress for the past four years, to the tune of 33 million dollars.

Chalabi wanted the United states to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The Bush administration needed propaganda about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction in order to justify the invasion they also wanted. According to the Wall street Journal, Ahmad Chalabi attended a secret Defense Policy Board meeting just days after September 11th. The subject of the meeting was how to use the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to invading Iraq.

In return for funding from the Bush administration, Chalabi‘s Iraqi National Congress leaked false stories to the press about Iraq’s WMD programs. Including the reports of Iraq’s mobile bio-weapons labs, which turned out to be nothing but tractor trailers. These reports were used by the Bush administration as evidence of Iraq’s WMD programs.

Again, the CIA knew these stories were false, and that Chalabi was unreliable.

After US forces had invaded Iraq, Chalabi was groomed for the role of interim Prime Minister, and given a seat on the Iraqi Governing Council. When asked by a reporter about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, weapons his INC clamed were there but had not been found, Chalabi said: “As far as we're concerned we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important.”

Then, on May 20th, coalition forces in Iraq raided the mansion of Ahmad Chalabi. Just days before the coalition raided his house, the Bush administration cut funding to Chalabi, and distanced themselves from their new pariah. President Bush even remarked to King Abdullah of Jordan, "you can piss on Chalabi".

US officials now suspect Chalabi of passing classified information to Iran. Apparently Mr. Chalabi has informed the Iranians that U.S. intelligence agencies have cracked their communications codes. Worse, they suspect that Defense Department officials who had frequent contacts with Chalabi leaked that information to him, and Chalabi in turn passed it on to Iran.

This information is highly classified, and Iran will surely take precautions to prevent further access to their secrets by U.S. Intelligence. The FBI has begun questioning the few Defense Department officials who had access to the information. Interestingly, both Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney deny any knowledge that the investigation is even taking place.

Warrants were issued for fifteen of Ahmad Chalabi’s associates, all INC officials. Their crimes ranged from kidnapping, fraud, running stolen car rings, illegal seizure of property, and "associated matters". Nevertheless, Chalabi continued to protest his innocence, and even blame George Tenet for his crimes.

He publicly accused the CIA director of providing “erroneous information about weapons of mass destruction to President Bush, which caused the government much embarrassment at the United Nations and his own country.” He added that George Tenet, “was behind the charges against me that claimed that I gave intelligence information to Iran.”

George Tenet has been forced to endure this abuse, because if he spoke out he would have to admit that Chalabi is a paid stooge of the White House.

The Bush administration’s relationship with Chalabi provides a glimpse of where the real case for war in Iraq was made. The fact is, the CIA is a professional organization, ran by career civil servants. The bush administration could strong-arm the agency into reporting that Iraq was a threat to the U.S., but the White house could not just order the CIA to lie.

However, the truth can only be stretched so far, and the truth was Iraq was not a threat. So neo-conservatives in the Defense Department created the Office of Special Plans. The OSP publicized the few bits of information that showed Iraq was a threat to the US, and ignored the preponderance of data that said otherwise, thus creating propaganda to support the march towards war.

The Office of Special Plans also invented lies. This secret organization within the Pentagon, answerable to no one, funded Chalabi. The OSP also created evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime was connected to al-Qaeda.

During the buildup to war, Vice President Cheney began claiming that Mohammed Atta, one of the September 11th hijackers, met with an Iraqi intelligence officer. The alleged meeting took place in the Czech Republic in April 2001. Bush administration officials made repeated references to this meeting as evidence that Iraq was cooperating with al-Qaeda to strike at the United states.

The CIA had published contrary intelligence about Mohammed Atta as early as December 2001. FBI Evidence of Mohammed Atta‘s whereabouts place him in the United States at the time of the alleged meeting in Prague. The Senate’s 9/11 report concurred with CIA analysts, the meeting never took place.

In testimony before the 9/11 Commission George Tenet admitted that the OSP briefed white House officials on ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda without his knowledge. He also revealed a memo he sent to the Under Secretary of defense. The memo stated that Mr. Tenet did not agree with "the way the data was characterized", pertaining to the alleged meeting between Mohammed Atta and the Iraqis.

The Defense Department issued a correction, but not before they had leaked the story to the press. During the build up to war administration officials referred to the meeting between Mohammed Atta and Iraqi intelligence officers as fact. Vice President Cheney repeatedly mentioned the alleged meeting, even after the 9/11 Commission had ruled the story a farce, by saying that the meeting “couldn’t be ruled out.”

Again the Bush administration’s intelligence was a lie, and again the CIA was not responsible. Vice President Cheney was lying, they were all lying, but Mr. Tenet could not speak out. After the Chalabi fiasco and the Intelligence Committee report, Mr. Tenet had all he could take, and he tendered his resignation.

One Democrat flatly stated that George Tenet “fell on his sword". They failed to implicate the Bush administration for lying about Iraq, but Senate Democrats did attach nine “alternative opinions” to the report issued last week. This appendix details Bush administration pressure on the CIA to modify analyses, and provides the first official evidence of the Office of Special Plans.

People must realize that the CIA works for the White House. This has put George Tenet in a difficult position. The CIA cannot publicly condemn the President‘s propaganda campaign, because he is their boss. In addition to being double crossed by the Bush administration, the CIA has had to answer for the September 11th attacks, and the faulty intelligence that led to the war in Iraq.

We must also realize that the CIA is on record as opposing the Invasion of Iraq. The Bush administration has co-opted the CIA in order to prosecute their mad war, and they bear the responsibility. As CIA Director, George Tenet was used by the Bush administration, and discarded.

For George Tenet, this was personal.

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The Burning Bush

A. Scott Piraino

We are going to lose the war in Iraq, and by lose I mean we will not bring peace and democracy to that unfortunate country. Instead we will endure a steady trickle of American casualties until public pressure forces the U.S. to withdraw. Most Everyone knows this.

Everyone except perhaps our president, George W. Bush.

It is tempting to believe that President Bush is nothing but a paid mouthpiece for the American oligarchy. But if that were true, then there would be some logical reason for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. There isn’t.

800 U.S. service members have died since the war began last year, over 4,500 have been wounded, at a cost approaching 200 billion dollars. Defense Undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz recently told Congress that military operations in Iraq are now costing about $4.7 billion a month. The cost of our war in Iraq is approaching the cost of the Vietnam War, after adjusting for inflation.

And for what?

Saddam Hussein’s war machine had been rendered impotent after the first Gulf War and the sanctions imposed by the United States. Iraq was not manufacturing Weapons of Mass destruction, nor was Saddam Hussein involved in the 9/11 attacks. Yet the Bush administration has still not provided any justification for the invasion, or accepted any responsibility for the bungled war in Iraq.

The only Weapon of Mass Destruction that has been found is an artillery round containing the nerve agent sarin. The shell was rigged as a makeshift explosive device, and detonated next to a passing U.S. convoy. Two Americans were treated for minor exposure to the sarin nerve agent, but there were no serious injuries. Weapons experts have dated the artillery shell to before the first Gulf War, meaning it was not produced after sanctions were put in effect.

Even some members of the Bush administration are finally admitting that somebody lied about Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction. Secretary of State Colin Powell recently acknowledged as much NBC: “The Central Intelligence Agency and other US government institutions were in some cases deliberately misled about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the war.”

If that is true, then where did the faulty “intelligence” about Iraq’s weapons programs come from? Richard Clarke served four U.S. presidents, and was chief of counter-terrorism for the Clinton and Bush administrations. After resigning in January of 2003 he published Against All Enemies, the most revealing account to date of the Bush administration’s march toward war.

Richard Clarke states matter-of-factly where the propaganda alluding to Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction came from. “The people in Rumsfeld's office and in Wolfowitz's operation cherry-picked intelligence to select the intelligence to support their views. They never did the due diligence on the intelligence that professional intelligence analysts are trained to do. [The OSP] would go through the intelligence reports including the ones that the CIA was throwing out.”

The Office of Special plans was the creation of Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. The purpose of this secret office was to “cherry-pick” any intelligence that hinted Iraq had WMD, and publicize that evidence. After the U.S. invaded Iraq, the office was shut down, and the blame for faulty intelligence pertaining to Iraq was placed squarely on the CIA.

Most Americans know they were deceived about Iraq’s WMD. However, few know that the propaganda about Saddam Hussein’s weapons came from an obscure office in the Defense Department. Since all the material is classified, and the CIA cannot investigate the Defense Department or the White House, the real “source” of the missing WMD goes unnoticed.

Some pundits have suggested that the real reason for the invasion was a secret plan to take control of Iraq’s oil wealth. Halliburton, the infamous company with ties to Vice President Cheney has received lucrative, non-competitive contracts for Iraqi oil. But conspiracy theorists may rest assured that if the Bush Administration invaded Iraq for oil, their plan has failed miserably.

In the months immediately after the invasion Iraqis were rationing fuel, and oil was actually imported from Kuwait, Jordan, and Turkey. Since then, Iraqi saboteurs and a crumbling infrastructure have crippled Iraq’s oil output. Data released by the US Army Corps of Engineers shows Iraqi oil exports declined from nearly two million barrels per day before the war, to 860,000 barrels per day today.

Crude oil prices worldwide, and gasoline prices in the United States have climbed to new record highs precisely because of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

There are no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq and the Bush administration knew it before we invaded. Otherwise they would not have needed to lie. If they engineered the invasion to control Iraq’s oil supplies and give war contracts to Halliburton, they are the most despicable administration in U.S. History. But there could be another explanation, if not a proper reason.

The President and his cabal of close advisors believe in the war, and they have lied to the American people to pursue it.

On February 7th 2004, the President was interviewed in the Oval Office by Tim Russert. In a taped interview for Meet the Press, the President fielded candid, straightforward questions about the U.S. war in Iraq. Here is a brief transcript:

Russert: The night you took the country to war, March 17th, you said this: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
President Bush: Right.

Russert: That apparently is not the case.
President Bush: Correct.

Russert: There’s a sense in the country that the intelligence that was given was ambiguous, and that you took it and molded it and shaped it — your opponents have said "hyped" it — and rushed to war.
President Bush: Yeah.

Russert: Now looking back, in your mind, is it worth the loss of 530 American lives and 3,000 injuries and woundings simply to remove Saddam Hussein, even though there were no weapons of mass destruction?
President Bush: Every life is precious. Every person that is willing to sacrifice for this country deserves our praise, and yes.

President Bush did attempt to justify his war in Iraq with this statement:

“I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign-policy matters with war on my mind. Again, I wish it wasn't true, but it is true. And the American people need to know they got a president who sees the world the way it is. And I see dangers that exist, and it's important for us to deal with them.”

In other words, the President declared that we were invading Iraq because of that nation’s WMD…But there were no weapons of mass destruction, and yes, the intelligence was fudged. We give praise to those who have been killed or wounded, and yes, the war is worth their sacrifice, (their lives).

He’s a war president, and by God, he has done what must be done. Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction so he could do the right thing, and invade Iraq. We the people should just accept the lies, and be grateful that our President is doing whatever it takes to defeat our enemies.

In the three months since that interview was conducted, the Iraqi insurgency has grown, and the media has revealed widespread abuse of prisoners in Iraq. Polls show most Americans are uneasy about the war, and the President’s approval ratings are well below fifty percent. Last week President Bush made another public appearance, in an attempt to allay concerns about Iraq and shore up his crumbling support among voters.

His speech at the Army War College said nothing new. The President vowed to stay the course, and promised more troops if they were necessary. Bush trumpeted the removal of Saddam Hussein as the new raison d’etre of our war. He declared that Iraq is the headquarters of terrorists who "seek weapons of mass destruction." Instead of admitting that Iraq’s WMD do not exist.

More important than the President’s empty words is what was left unsaid. He did not offer one word of contrition for the dead and wounded American soldiers, or express any concern for the war’s escalating costs. If the President has any doubts about his war in Iraq, he did not reveal them.

The truth is, President Bush and his neo-conservative advisors did not expect the war to get so out of hand. If they had been successful, no one would care about the lies they used to justify the invasion. They planned to take over Iraq and overthrow Saddam’s regime, but they did not plan on the Iraqi insurgency.

The Bush administration has yet to admit that the war is wrong, let alone apologize to the American people. But they can never claim that the war in Iraq is a mistake. It is a lie, and it could be the biggest military debacle in U.S. history.

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