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Preemptive Madness * 911 Suit * Stupid White Men Back on Top

24 June 2002

1) Iraq: Behind 'Plot' on Hussein, a Secret Agenda
2) 911 Suit -- William Rivers Pitt -- "All Along the Watchtower"
3) Michael Moore's Stupid White Men Back on Top

Editor's Notes:
One can only continue to believe that light often breaks in the deepest and the darkest of hours – yet it seems that we are stretching this insane suicidal leadership agenda a bit too far. The preemptive strike agenda will only accelerate the forces of terrorism, especially with the greed factor of armament manufacturers, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

A strategic action for you to consider doing is to get and show a cassette video tape of a powerful presentation by Dennis J. Kucinich. The Yucca Mountain vote proved that the majority of members of Congress are controlled by money interests and irrational. Here it is at a time of terrorist threats, and they are sending thousands of radioactive shipments (targets) traversing across the US to an earthquake-prone area. This makes as much sense as the plutonium Cassini flyby or billions of dollars spent for Corporate "Star Wars." An answer to engage policies that would help transform US from such madness would be to elect Dennis Kucinich for US President in 2004. Yet, much damage can happen in the next two years, and Iraq appears to be the line in the sand for finding out how much terror the US can create by an unprovoked attack that could cost thousands, or more, their innocent lives and untold suffering. The banner of attacking for one's fear is just plain bad common sense and lunacy. We need to pull on Congress to listen to someone with the experience and integrity of Scott Ritter. Following Ritter's EdOp in item 1, are various related news story links. Item 2 is another eloquent article by William Rivers Pitt on a 911-$7billion-lawsuit that names ten defendants, including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld. Item 3 emphatically states that you are not alone. Michael Moore's book, ‘Stupid White Men' began its 16th week on the New York Times Best Seller list and, once again, #1!

The Congressional Switchboard telephone number is 202-224-3121
Keep working on Congress to debate and not to attack Iraq.
Send the Scott Ritter Editorial
Additional US Congress contact information, see:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/index.html

For purchasing the Kucinich video, contact:
ICIS - Institute for Cooperation in Space
Dr. Carol Rosin rosin@peaceinspace.com
Tel. (805)641-1999
PO Box 25040, Ventura, CA 93001
or Alfred Lambremont Webre, JD, MEd alw@peaceinspace.com
2225 West 41 Avenue, PO Box 18153
Vancouver, BC V6M4L3 Canada

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1) Iraq: Behind 'Plot' on Hussein, a Secret Agenda
by Scott Ritter, June 19, Los Angeles Times,

Killing weapons inspections would clear way for war.

President Bush has reportedly authorized the CIA to use all of the means at its disposal--including U.S. military special operations forces and CIA paramilitary teams--to eliminate Iraq's Saddam Hussein. According to reports, the CIA is to view any such plan as "preparatory" for a larger military strike.

Congressional leaders from both parties have greeted these reports with enthusiasm. In their rush to be seen as embracing the president's hard-line stance on Iraq, however, almost no one in Congress has questioned why a supposedly covert operation would be made public, thus undermining the very mission it was intended to accomplish.

It is high time that Congress start questioning the hype and rhetoric emanating from the White House regarding Baghdad, because the leaked CIA plan is well timed to undermine the efforts underway in the United Nations to get weapons inspectors back to work in Iraq. In early July, the U.N. secretary-general will meet with Iraq's foreign minister for a third round of talks on the return of the weapons monitors. A major sticking point is Iraqi concern over the use--or abuse--of such inspections by the U.S. for intelligence collection.

I recall during my time as a chief inspector in Iraq the dozens of extremely fit "missile experts" and "logistics specialists" who frequented my inspection teams and others. Drawn from U.S. units such as Delta Force or from CIA paramilitary teams such as the Special Activities Staff (both of which have an ongoing role in the conflict in Afghanistan), these specialists had a legitimate part to play in the difficult cat-and-mouse effort to disarm Iraq. So did the teams of British radio intercept operators I ran in Iraq from 1996 to 1998--which listened in on the conversations of Hussein's inner circle--and the various other intelligence specialists who were part of the inspection effort.

The presence of such personnel on inspection teams was, and is, viewed by the Iraqi government as an unacceptable risk to its nation's security.

As early as 1992, the Iraqis viewed the teams I led inside Iraq as a threat to the safety of their president. They were concerned that my inspections were nothing more than a front for a larger effort to eliminate their leader.

Those concerns were largely baseless while I was in Iraq. Now that Bush has specifically authorized American covert-operations forces to remove Hussein, however, the Iraqis will never trust an inspection regime that has already shown itself susceptible to infiltration and manipulation by intelligence services hostile to Iraq, regardless of any assurances the U.N. secretary-general might give.

The leaked CIA covert operations plan effectively kills any chance of inspectors returning to Iraq, and it closes the door on the last opportunity for shedding light on the true state of affairs regarding any threat in the form of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Absent any return of weapons inspectors, no one seems willing to challenge the Bush administration's assertions of an Iraqi threat. If Bush has a factual case against Iraq concerning weapons of mass destruction, he hasn't made it yet.

Can the Bush administration substantiate any of its claims that Iraq continues topursue efforts to reacquire its capability to produce chemical and biological weapons, which was dismantled and destroyed by U.N. weapons inspectors from 1991 to 1998? The same question applies to nuclear weapons. What facts show that Iraq continues to pursue nuclear weapons aspirations?

Bush spoke ominously of an Iraqi ballistic missile threat to Europe. What missile threat is the president talking about? These questions are valid, and if the case for war is to be made, they must be answered with more than speculative rhetoric.

Congress has seemed unwilling to challenge the Bush administration's pursuit of war against Iraq. The one roadblock to an all-out U.S. assault would be weapons inspectors reporting on the facts inside Iraq. Yet without any meaningful discussion and debate by Congress concerning the nature of the threat posed by Baghdad, war seems all but inevitable.

The true target of the supposed CIA plan may not be Hussein but rather the weapons inspection program itself. The real casualty is the last chance to avoid bloody conflict.

Scott Ritter, a former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq, is author of "Endgame: Solving the Iraq Problem, Once and for All" (Simon & Schuster, 1999).

This article first appeared in the: Los Angeles Times and posted at Media Workers Against War
http://www.mwaw.org/article.php?sid=1273&mode=thread&order=0
See this above URL for links to following articles:
Iraq accuses US of sabotaging deal
Iraq: US building to wage war by February

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Related Article: Why a First Strike Will Surely Backfire

Published Sunday, June 16, 2002
Washington Post
Why a First Strike Will Surely Backfire
by William A. Galston

As the White House moves closer to a brand-new security doctrine that supports preemptive attacks against hostile states or terrorists that have chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, Iraq would be first on its list of targets. The Bush administration has argued before that the national security of the United States requires the elimination of Saddam Hussein's regime, by force if necessary. Democrats with national ambitions have been lining up to agree.

A preemptive all-out invasion of Iraq would represent one of the most fateful deployments of American power since World War II. Given the stakes, the policy discussion in official Washington has been remarkably narrow. To be sure, glib analogies between Iraq and Afghanistan and cocky talk about a military "cakewalk" have given way to more sober assessments: A regime change would likely require 150,000-200,000 U.S. troops, allies in the region willing to allow us to pre-position and supply them, and a post-victory occupation measured in years rather than months.

But hardly anyone in either party is debating the long-term diplomatic consequences of a move against Iraq that is opposed by many of our staunchest friends. Fewer still have raised the most fundamental point: A global strategy based on the new Bush doctrine means the end of the system of international institutions, laws and norms that the United States has worked for more than half a century to build.

What is at stake is nothing less than a fundamental shift in America's place in the world. Rather than continuing to serve as first among equals in the postwar international system, the United States would act as a law unto itself, creating new rules of international engagement without agreement by other nations. In my judgment, this new stance would ill serve the long-term interests of our country.

William Galston is a professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs and director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy. From 1993 until 1995 he served as
deputy assistant to President Clinton for domestic policy.

The complete Ed/Op Article by William A. Galston is posted at
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0616-07.htm

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Related Article: Bush's Grim Vision

George W. Bush once joked that he would like to run the United States like a dictatorship. As he asserts unilateral power at home and abroad, it looks more and more like he wasn't entirely kidding.

For the complete Nat Perry article at Consortium News, see:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2002/062102a.html

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Related Story: Mass grave discovered in Afghanistan

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
LATELINE
Late night news & current affairs

TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT
Broadcast: 19/6/2002

Human rights groups are urging that mass gravesites in northern Afghanistan be immediately secured and investigated for evidence of possible war crimes involving United States military personnel. An Irish documentary maker has secretly filmed mass graves near the northern city of Mazar-e-sharif and interviewed witnesses who claim that container loads of prisoners were dumped in the desert. It's alleged that most suffocated in the sealed containers, but those left alive were shot on the spot. Key aspects of his claims are backed up by a detailed report from the group Physicians for Human Rights.

For the complete TV transcript, see:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/s586222.htm

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Related Article: Cheney Made Millions Off Oil Deals with Hussein
by Martin A. Lee
San Francisco Bay Guardian

November 13, 2000

Here's a whopper of a story you may have missed amid the cacophony of campaign ads and stump speeches in the run- up to the elections.

During former defense secretary Richard Cheney's five-year tenure as chief executive of Halliburton, Inc., his oil services firm raked in big bucks from dubious commercial dealings with Iraq. Cheney left Halliburton with a $34 million retirement package last July when he became the GOP's vice-presidential candidate.

Of course, U.S. firms aren't generally supposed to do business with Saddam Hussein. But thanks to legal loopholes large enough to steer an oil tanker through, Halliburton profited big-time from deals with the Iraqi dictatorship. Conducted discreetly through several Halliburton subsidiaries in Europe, these greasy transactions helped Saddam Hussein retain his grip on power while lining the pockets of Cheney and company.

For the complete article, see:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.22A.cheney.hussein.htm

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2) 911 Suit -- William Rivers Pitt -- "All Along the Watchtower"


All Along the Watchtower
By William Rivers Pitt

20 June, 2002

Stanley Hilton, a San Francisco attorney and former aide to Senator Bob Dole, filed a $7 billion lawsuit in U.S. District Court on June 3rd. The class-action suit names ten defendants, among whom are George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Norman Mineta.

Hilton's suit charges Bush and his administration with allowing the September 11th attacks to take place so as to reap political benefits from the catastrophe. Hilton alleges that Osama bin Laden is being used as a scapegoat by an administration that ignored pressing warnings of the attack and refused to round up suspected terrorists beforehand. Hilton alleges the ultimate motivation behind these acts was achieved when the Taliban were replaced by American military forces with a regime friendly to America and its oil interests in the region.

Hilton's plaintiffs in this case are the families of 14 victims of 9/11, numbering 400 people nationwide. These are the same families that rallied in Washington recently to advocate for an independent investigation into the attacks. The current 9/11 hearings are being conducted by Congress behind closed doors, a situation these families find unacceptable.

Mr. Hilton, by filing his lawsuit, has joined the ranks of an ever-increasing body of Americans who subscribe to what they call the LIHOP Theory. LIHOP stands for Let It Happen On Purpose. The LIHOP Theory puts forward the accusation that Bush and his people allowed the September 11th attacks to take place, despite the fact that they had been repeatedly warned of an impending strike.

The LIHOP Theory is straightforward: In the months before 9/11, American intelligence agencies received ominous warnings from the intelligence services of nations like Israel, Russia, Egypt and Germany. These warnings were pointed - an attack involving hijacked aircraft and prominent American landmarks was imminent, our security forces were told. Bush himself was briefed of these warnings weeks before they happened. Instead of responding vigorously to these warnings, the Bush administration and its security apparatus did nothing.

LIHOP is, of course, the purest breed of conspiracy theory, involving high-ranking members of government from both parties, as well as the CIA, FBI and NSA. Like all good conspiracy theories, LIHOP is surrounded by disturbing facts and bits of evidence that are difficult to ignore.

The warnings from all those foreign intelligence services, after all, are quite real. Egypt, Germany, Russia and the Israelis were vociferous in their concerns. The German intelligence service BND told US and Israeli intelligence that Middle East terrorists were "planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture." The BND's information came through Echelon, the American-controlled network of 120 satellites that monitors all worldwide electronic communications.

Egypt voiced similar warnings that same month regarding aircraft attacks. Delivered just before the G-8 summit in Genoa, Egypt's alert carried such weight that anti-aircraft batteries were placed around Columbus Airport in Italy. The Russians warned the US that same summer of 25 pilots who had been trained for suicide missions, and Putin himself delivered the warning "in the strongest possible terms" to the US government. The Israeli intelligence service Mossad delivered a warning to both the FBI and the CIA detailing "a major assault on the United States" against "a large-scale target" that was "very vulnerable."

The Washington Post has reported that the NSA intercepted two messages on September 10, 2001, warning that something was going to happen the next day. "Tomorrow is zero hour," was one of the messages. The NSA's charter is to intercept, translate and pass on to FBI and CIA operatives important electronic signals from all across the globe. The Echelon satellite network which provided the German BND with their 9/11 information last June is part of that system.

According to the NSA, the September 10th data was not translated until September 12th, but it stands to reason that they were privy to the same electronic data the other foreign services were using as the basis for their warnings. One US intelligence source claims the data provided "no actionable intelligence," a fair claim given the vagueness of the messages and the volume of material NSA must deal with. Yet in combination with the strident foreign intelligence warnings, the words intercepted by our large electronic ears on September 10th add to the growing questions.

Then, there are the threads. A FEMA official told Dan Rather that the disaster agency had been at the World Trade Center on September 10th. Why? Governor Jeb Bush of Florida signed executive order #01-261 on September 7th, putting his state's National Guard on heightened alert status, essentially placing Florida under martial law for no demonstrable reason. Why? Attorney General John Ashcroft stopped flying on commercial aircraft in the weeks before 9/11, something he had commonly done since his entry into the administration. Why?

At the core of the LIHOP Theory lies motivation - what possible purpose could be served by the Bush administration allowing a terrorist attack to take place on American soil? It is flatly inconceivable to most Americans that Bush and his people could demonstrate such callous disregard for American lives, and accusations that they allowed an attack to happen reek of the worst kind of poisonous partisan politics.

LIHOP Theory, however, is not so easily dismissed. Two French intelligence analysts, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, have published an extensively-researched book entitled "Osama bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth." In it, they allege that the Bush administration put energy policy before national security concerns. According to Brisard and Dasquie, a foundering pipeline project aimed at exploiting natural gas reserves along the Caspian Sea in Turkmenistan was revived by the Bush administration when it arrived in Washington in January of 2001.

The pipeline project, which sought to bring oil and natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to a warm water port, had been the brainchild of American petroleum giant Unocal for much of the 1990s. After the destruction of two American embassies in Africa in 1998 by Osama bin Laden, the Clinton administration forbade any American companies from doing business with the Taliban, which had been sheltering bin Laden in Afghanistan. Unocal's pipeline project was frozen.

After the Bush administration came to power, Brisard and Dasquie allege that reinvigorating the pipeline project became a high-priority matter of policy. Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca was dispatched to Pakistan to discuss the pipeline with Taliban officials in August of 2001. Rocca, a career officer with the CIA, had been deeply involved in Agency activities within Afghanistan. According to documents Brisard and Dasquie claim to hold, the main subject of their discussion was oil. A Pakistani foreign minister was also present at the meeting, and witnessed the exchange.

How does this pipeline relate to September 11th? According to Brisard and Dasquie, the main obstacle to the completion of the pipeline was the fact that it had to pass through Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The project would receive no international support unless the Afghan government somehow became legitimized. In bargaining for the pipeline, the Bush administration demanded that the Taliban reinstate deposed King Mohammad Zahir Shah as ruler of Afghanistan, and demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden for arrest. In return, the Taliban would reap untold billions in profit from the pipeline. According to Brisard and Dasquie, part of the Bush administration's bargaining tactics involved threats of war if these conditions for the legitimization of Afghanistan were not met.

The BBC of London reported on September 18th, 2001 of the existence of war plans on Bush's desk aimed at Afghanistan. Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, stated that the war plans were slated for October of 2001. Conditions set by the Bush administration to avoid war involved the Taliban's handing over of bin Laden and the acceptance of King Zahir Shah. Naik went so far as to doubt that America would hold off on war even if these conditions were met.

The result, according to the French analysts, was total disaster. The Bush administration fundamentally misunderstood the Taliban regime - to bring back the King and hand bin Laden over to the West would have been tantamount to suicide for the Taliban. Instead of acquiescing to the hard-sell tactics of the Bush administration, the Taliban unleashed their pet attack dog, Osama, upon America. They were going to lose everything, and chose to attack first in the hope that all-out war would break out in Central Asia and rally other Muslim nations to their cause.

Motive suddenly becomes far more clear. The Bush administration very much wanted the Unocal pipeline to go through, and put intense pressure on the Taliban to see it happen. As this was happening, American intelligence services were flooded with warnings of an impending attack upon American targets by bin Laden and Al Qaida. The decision was made - let the attack come, and in the ensuing outrage American forces can carve out the guts of the Taliban government like a ripe gourd, replacing them with a 'legitimate' regime more receptive to the pipeline plan.

Did the Bush administration have an inkling of the massive death and destruction that would come on September 11th? Those who espouse the LIHOP Theory disagree on this point. Some believe that FEMAs presence at Ground Zero on the day before the attack, coupled with specific language within the international intelligence warnings pertaining to aircraft and high-profile targets, are prima facie evidence of specific prior knowledge. Others believe that the Bush administration only knew vaguely that an attack would come, but not where or when. They did not foresee the level of destruction, and were caught flat-footed when those planes appeared along the New York skyline.

In the end, LIHOP Theory can encompass either view. Whether they had specific knowledge beforehand, or merely decided to let some attack happen somewhere, the final results were the same. The Taliban were routed and replaced by an interim government headed by a man named Harmid Karzai. Karzai was recently elected President of Afghanistan in his own right, legitimizing the Afghanistan government. Soon after this, Karzai announced the impending construction of a pipeline that would exploit Turkmenistan's natural gas reserves He named Unocal as the lead company for the project. Before becoming President, Karzai was an advisor to Unocal.

For LIHOP Theorists, the evidence is clear. The Bush administration got the pipeline it wanted. Along the way, they used the horrors of 9/11 to place themselves above reproach. In the patriotic fervor that resulted from the attacks, both the press and the Democratic opposition were bracketed by the administration-espoused idea that any questions or criticism were tantamount to treason.

The passage of the PATRIOT Anti-Terror Act has given the US government sweeping abilities to snuff dissent by defining it as terrorism, thanks to the loosely-defined wording of the bill. Bush enjoyed stratospheric approval ratings that persist to this day, and American citizens were given new enemies to hate. The Defense Department, and the weapons contractors who cater to them, received billions from the federal budget to do with as they pleased in order to address the objects of that hate.

Even the most hardened political observer must admit the dismal truth - September 11th was the greatest thing ever to happen to the Bush administration. Attorney Stanley Hilton has brought LIHOP Theory into the federal court system with his class-action suit, and with the families of 9/11 victims he represents. It will be interesting to see what transpires when these two facts collide in an American courtroom. Given the current climate, it does not seem likely that much will come of it. After all, these conspiracy theorists are just a bunch of nuts.

Right?

# # #

William Rivers Pitt w_pitt@hotmail.com is a teacher from Boston, MA. His new book, 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence,' will be published soon by Pluto Press.



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3) Michael Moore's Stupid White Men Back on Top

"Michael Moore's Mailing List" < mailinglist@michaelmoore.com >
Stupid White Men Returns to #1 This Week on NY Times List June 22, 2002

Dear friends,

Tomorrow (Sunday, June 23) "Stupid White Men" begins its 16th week on the New York Times Best Seller list - and, remarkably, it does so by returning, once again, to #1. I just want to thank all of you for this incredible response, but more importantly, I want each of you to know that there are millions just like us who don't like what is happening to this country under George W. Bush, and the overwhelming reaction to this book is living proof. YOU ARE NOT ALONE! I know it feels that way, but don't fall for it. Now is the time to get active and encourage others to do likewise.

I am also happy to announce that my website, http//www.michaelmoore.com, has finally been overhauled and will soon be chock-full of lots of goodies. A Canadian web design company, Plank Design, has graciously offered to re-design and update our site and Webcore Labs from Calgary is our new Internet host. These are wonderful people who are helping me reach an audience that now includes millions more than we ever had before. We are currently getting nearly 8 million hits per month on our site!

The new site is still a work in progress but I'm sure you'll like it. It includes a free additional chapter to Stupid White Men, "THE SAD AND SORDID WHEREABOUTS OF BIN CHENEY AND BIN BUSH." Part One, "What Does a 99-cent Bic Lighter Tell Us About Bush's War on Terrorism?" begins today. Over the coming weeks, I intend to ask some questions about 9-11 that few in the media seem willing to address. The website will also include other good information, links and news. http://www.michaelmoore.com
Yours,
Michael Moore
mike@michaelmoore.com
Author
Filmmaker
Uncharged Detainee

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