|
UNIVERSITY OF
COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM (what
is this?)
COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM
333*
*Knowledge, Shmowledge
AKA
The investigations/probes of the Bush administration, by the Bush
administration# and for the Bush administration
[#includes its apologists
partners in Congress]
In this course you will learn about the
investigations of a subset of suspected or proven, unethical or illegal
activities - aka scandals compassionate policies/activities of the
administration of (or people under) compassionate conservative2
President George W. Bush. As always, keeping President Bush's acclaimed
interest in education in mind, we present this course as a study of
the importance of knowledge - which he is so obviously trying to assimilate through
self-investigation (however half-hearted or whitewashed it may
be).
Please stop by to check this site from
time to time as the Election 04 (2004) campaign picks up steam, so
that you can refresh your memory on Bush's compassion. For
feedback and corrections, please go
here. If you want to get on my mailing list, please email me at
compassion-at-compassiongate-dot-com.
One particular site forms the basis of
a significant part of the information on this webpage (including many of the source articles) -
the Carpetbagger
Report (CR). A big thanks to CR for helping us all understand
President Bush's addiction to scandals quest for
self-knowledge (as Rush Limbaugh might compassionately put it -
to all his superbly discerning listeners). Thanks also to Buzzflash
for the link to this site.
Note that each investigation
instance of compassionate conservatism generates one Compassion Con
credit.
Total investigations
Compassion
Con credits 3 available from this course
to date = 41
Last Update: 5/23/04
Areas of focus
#
BONUS: REPUBLICANS close to the White House (for
compassionate reasons,
this section is available only for audit, not credit )
I. NATIONAL SECURITY [8]
1. Illegally Compassionately Outing an
Undercover CIA Operative on Weapons of Mass Destruction (known, in
short, as Treason
Compassion)
The Bush Justice Department is investigating the
revenge-leak of the name (Valerie Plame, wife of former Ambassador
Joseph Wilson) of an undercover CIA operative by senior Bush
administration officials, in violation of federal law.
As Mike Allen and Dana Milbank pointed out in the
Washington Post:
The officer's name was disclosed
on July 14 in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak, who said his
sources were two senior administration officials.
Yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak's
column ran, two top White House officials called at least six
Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of
Wilson's wife. Wilson had just revealed that the CIA had sent him to
Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found
no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson's account touched off a
political fracas over Bush's use of intelligence as he made the case
for attacking Iraq.
"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the
senior official said of the alleged leak.
You can read more about the circumstances
surrounding this treasonous compassionate act, here.
2. Asleep-at-the-wheel
Compassionate policies prior to 9/11, under investigation by the 9/11
Commission
A sample of the Bush administration's asleep-at-the-wheel
compassionate national security policy before 9/11 and their compulsive
inclination for perjury extraordinary compassion before the
9/11 commission is
recorded here.
3, 4. Use of Forged compassionate documents
claiming Saddam Hussein was purchasing uranium from Niger (remember
the famous
Bush State of the Union claim, among other things?)
Josh Marshall in The
Hill:
Next up is the much-less-discussed
investigation into those forged documents that purported to prove that
Iraq was purchasing large quantities of uranium from the African
nation of Niger.
The Senate investigation is focusing on what happened to those
documents after that they got into U.S. government hands. But
there’s also an ongoing FBI investigation into just who forged them
and how this fraudulent evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program was
peddled into American hands.
...
We normally think of the uranium claims with reference to the 2003
State of the Union speech. But the real controversy came months
earlier.
In September 2002, the White House was beginning a major press
offensive designed to prove that Iraq had a robust nuclear weapons
program. That campaign was meant to culminate in the president’s
Oct. 7 speech in Cincinnati.
But behind the scenes, a battle royal was shaping up between the White
House and the CIA. On Oct. 1, U.S. intelligence agencies released to
the White House and Congress a top-secret national intelligence
estimate (NIE) that mentioned the Niger reports as well as claims
about attempts to purchase uranium in Somalia and Congo.
Despite the NIE, however, the CIA clearly had grave concerns about the
accuracy of the Niger story. And there was a wrestling match between
the White House and the CIA over whether the president should publicly
refer to it in his speech.
The struggle culminated in the two days (Oct. 5 and 6, 2002) before
the president traveled to Ohio, when the CIA sent two separate
top-secret memos to the president’s staff insisting that the
references be removed from the speech. Fearing that even that hadn’t
done the trick, CIA Director George Tenet personally telephoned Deputy
National Security Adviser Steve Hadley insisting that the references
to uranium sales be removed from the speech, as they were.
Though none of this was publicly known at the time, it was clearly in
that first week of October 2002 that the White House was most in need
of some new evidence on the Niger uranium front. And on Oct. 7, within
48 hours of those memos flying back and forth between the National
Security Council (NSC) and the CIA, an Italian businessman was
offering those forged documents to a reporter in a bar in Rome.
To call that timing convenient is rather an understatement.
Was the source of those documents (or someone associated with him)
privy to a high-level, secret dialogue between the NSC and the CIA?
And if so, how and why?
5. Investigation of the alleged, illegal, treasonous
compassionate transfer of classified American intelligence secrets to "axis-of-evil
member" Iran by someone in the Bush administration via
the Iraqi National Congress
Newsday,
via Josh
Marshall:
Struggling to save his political
future in Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi dominated the major news shows yesterday
with bitter denunciations of the Central Intelligence Agency for
allegedly spreading what he claimed were false reports that he and his
political organization had passed sensitive U.S. secrets to Iran.
Yet even as Chalabi, once the Pentagon's favorite Iraqi politician,
was defending himself, there were reports that his problems are only
worsening. An intelligence source confirmed to Newsday reports in Time
and Newsweek that the FBI had launched an investigation into who in
the administration had passed the classified material to his Iraqi
National Congress.
...
"There were a number of us who warned this administration about
him ..." Hagel said. "But the fact is, there were some in
this administration, some in Congress who were quite taken with
him."
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, noted that his committee's coming report on prewar
assessments in Iraq will include criticism of Chalabi.
"There is a school of thought, especially by the CIA, that Mr.
Chalabi's intelligence input was not that good, and that's probably an
understatement," Roberts said on "Face the Nation."
Newsday, quoting intelligence sources, reported last week that the
administration believes that Chalabi's top security aide, Aras Karim
Habib, is an Iranian agent. An arrest warrant was issued for Habib
when Iraqi police, reportedly accompanied by FBI agents, raided
Chalabi's home and offices last week. He is currently a fugitive.
6. Air Force allows Boeing to win business by massaging contract
Joseph
Galloway (Knight-Ridder) via Failure
Is Impossible:
The Air Force gave the Boeing Co.
five months to rewrite the official specifications for 100 aerial
refueling tankers so that the company's 767 aircraft would win a
$23.5 billion deal, according to e-mails and documents obtained by
Knight Ridder.
In the process, Boeing eliminated 19 of the 26 capabilities the Air
Force originally wanted, and the Air Force acquiesced in order to
keep the price down.
The Air Force then gave Boeing competitor Airbus 12 days to bid on
the project and awarded the contract to Boeing even though Airbus
met more than 20 of the original 26 specifications and offered a
price that was $10 billion less than Boeing's.
The Boeing tanker deal has been under investigation since it became
public two and a half years ago and has been suspended pending the
outcome of the probes.
But the e-mails and other documents show just how intent the Air
Force was on steering the deal to Boeing, even though Airbus'
tankers were more capable and cost less.
In one document, Bob Gower, Boeing's vice president for tankers,
noted that one objective in rewriting the specifications was to
"prevent an AoA from being conducted." "AoA"
stands for "analysis of alternatives" or, in essence, a
look at serious competitors.
Among the original Air Force requirements Boeing eliminated was that
the new tanker be equipped to refuel all the military services'
aircraft, refuel multiple aircraft simultaneously, and carry
passengers, wounded troops and cargo. Boeing also eliminated an Air
Force requirement that the new tankers be at least as effective and
efficient as the 40-year-old KC-135 tankers they would replace.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., demanded the Boeing documents in his role
as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. Senate investigators
made the Boeing documents available to Knight Ridder.
7, 8. Homeland Security department used for partisan
political vendetta compassion
Per the Houston
Chronicle:
U.S. House Majority Leader Tom
DeLay admitted Thursday he provided Texas Speaker Tom Craddick with
the same information that state police used to enlist a homeland
security agency in the search for runaway Democratic legislators.
DeLay said his staff used public information at the Federal Aviation
Administration to track former Texas Speaker Pete Laney's airplane.
Laney was among 55 Democrats who broke a House quorum on May 12 to
kill a congressional redistricting bill sought by DeLay, R-Sugar
Land. Craddick and DeLay wanted the errant legislators arrested and
returned to the House to force a vote on the bill.
...
Homeland Defense Secretary Tom
Ridge, meanwhile, said Thursday his agency is investigating
"potentially criminal" misuse of the federal air
interdiction service by the DPS.
...
The Travis County district attorney's office and the state House
General Investigating Committee also are conducting preliminary
investigations into whether the DPS violated state laws in searching
for the Democrats and in destroying the records.
DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange said the records were ordered destroyed
by Chief Marshall Caskey, head of the DPS law enforcement division.
Mange said Caskey's order was a routine command to destroy
non-criminal records once the House dropped the order to arrest the
missing legislators.
Per CBS
News:
Transportation Secretary Norman
Mineta has ordered a review of the Federal Aviation Administration's
role in helping U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay track the plane
of a Democrat who joined a walkout from the Texas Legislature.
The review is the second federal agency inquiry into how Texas
Republicans handled a Democratic walkout aimed at killing a
congressional redistricting bill that would likely hand the GOP four
additional seats. The Homeland Security Department has also
announced an investigation into how its resources were used.
II. ENVIRONMENT and
ENERGY [4]
1. Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force's Energy
"Policy" "Process"
The bipartisan General Accounting Office
investigated the shenanigans of Mr. Cheney and his energy task force,
to the extent they could, but could not get far enough because the
Bush administration withheld important documents under the guise of
Executive Privilege.
As Mike Allen reports in the Washington
Post:
The White House collaborated
heavily with corporations in developing President Bush's energy
policy but repeatedly refused to give congressional investigators
details of the meetings, according to a federal report issued
yesterday.
The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress,
said in the report that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham privately
discussed the formulation of Bush's policy "with chief
executive officers of petroleum, electricity, nuclear, coal,
chemical and natural gas companies, among others."
An energy task force, led by Vice President Cheney, relied for
outside advice primarily on "petroleum, coal, nuclear, natural
gas, electricity industry representatives and lobbyists," while
seeking limited input from academic experts, environmentalists and
policy groups, the GAO said.
[snip]
Although the Energy Department
released e-mails, letters and calendars that reflected heavy input
from corporations, the GAO report provided the first systematic look
at the extent to which the administration relied on corporations and
insisted on secrecy in developing its policy, issued in May 2001.
Among the previously disclosed meetings were private sessions for
Kenneth L. Lay, then the chairman of Enron Corp., the Texas energy
trading company that collapsed in the nation's largest accounting
scandal. Lay was given a 30-minute meeting with Cheney and a
conference with a top aide for the task force.
David M. Walker, comptroller general of the United States and head
of the GAO, said in an interview that the standoff over the task
force documents called into question the existence of "a
reasonable degree of transparency and an appropriate degree of
accountability in government."
Walker said the energy investigation was the first instance since he
took office in November 1998 in which the GAO was unable to do its
job and produce a report according to generally accepted government
auditing standards.
"The Congress and the American people had the right to know the
limited amount of information we were seeking," Walker said.
Of course, the Sierra Club/Judicial Watch lawsuit
against Cheney and his task force is now under
review at the Supreme Court. Let's not hold our breath about the
outcome. With this Supreme Court, it is a foregone conclusion.
2. Deputy Interior Secretary continues lobbying for mining
industry after taking up his job. Like boss, like employee!
Steven Rosenfeld in TomPaine.com:
Just this week after an 18-month
investigation, the Interior Department's inspector general issued a
report citing numerous examples where Deputy Interior Secretary J.
Steven Griles continued to lobby for former mining industry clients
after assuming federal office.
3. Polluting Compassionate industries writing EPA rules.
Steven Rosenfeld in TomPaine.com:
...it was also reported this week
that energy lobbyists had drafted revisions to the Environmental
Protection Agency's standards for mercury emissions in power plants.
The EPA "short-circuited the traditional rulemaking process and
had adopted some industry recommendations verbatim," The
Washington Post said March 17.
While the EPA is now reviewing that change, the Post
reported, there could hardly be a more classic case where narrow
profits were put before broader public interests, such as protecting
public health. But like the ethics committee decision to investigate
the Nick Smith bribery case, another after-the-fact inquiry will not
alter the economic or political advantage conferred by a prior EPA
rule change or a past congressional vote on Medicare.
The EPA now says it will investigate, but so what? The changes in
EPA air rules already benefit the energy industry, just as
steamrolling the Medicare bill through the House last fall conferred
billions in future benefits to the insurance and drug industries.
Also see here.
4. Interior Department investigation of Bureau of Land
Management's proposed land exchange that would have ripped off
compassionately treated taxpayers.
NRDC:
Inspector General faults Interior
officials for faulty land swap
July 23, 2003: Thank goodness for
whistleblowers. That's the basic conclusion of a report by the
Interior Department's Inspector General. The IG's investigation
confirmed what the Bureau of Land Management land appraisers risked
their careers to reveal -- that a proposed exchange of lands in Utah
for BLM-managed lands would have ripped off taxpayers by $117 million
in lost mineral revenues.
Under the deal, Utah would have swapped roughly 108,000 acres of state
land for nearly 140,000 acres of federal land. The IG implicated BLM
Director Kathleen Clarke for concealing key facts about the
controversial land exchange from Congress, negotiating away a valuable
oil shale resource -- while pressuring the agency's land appraisers to
deflate the value of the federal lands being offered. The employees
instead blew the whistle and the ensuing publicity nixed the deal,
sparking several investigations and subsequent reforms in the way the
government does such business.
III. HEALTHCARE [6]
1, 2. Illegally Compassionately preventing
instructing Medicare actuary from releasing true costs of Medicare Bill to
Congress
The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service just
concluded its investigation of the charges by Chief Medicare Actuary
Richard Foster, that he was prevented by the Bush administration under
threat of being fired, from releasing truthful cost estimates for the
Big Pharma Corporate Welfare Medicare Bill, as summarized
here (bold text my emphasis):
Bush administration officials were
wrong to prevent a budget expert from giving Congress estimates of
the cost of Medicare legislation, congressional researchers have
concluded.
In a report made public Monday, the nonpartisan Congressional
Research Service said efforts to keep Richard Foster, the chief
Medicare actuary, from giving Democratic lawmakers his projections
of the bill's cost — $100 billion more than the president and
other officials were acknowledging — probably violated federal law.
Recent estimates set the bill's cost at more than $500 billion.
Foster testified in March that he was prevented by then-Medicare
administrator Thomas Scully from turning over information over to
lawmakers. Scully, in a letter to the House Ways and Means
Committee, said he had told Foster "that I, as his supervisor,
would decide when he would communicate with Congress."
Congressional researchers chided the move. "Such 'gag orders'
have been expressly prohibited by federal law since 1912," Jack
Maskell, a CRS attorney, wrote in the report.
The report was requested by committee Democrats after majority
Republicans refused to subpoena Scully and White House adviser Doug
Badger to testify about their roles in keeping cost estimates from
lawmakers.
Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., the committee chairman, said he would be
willing to issue subpoenas if laws had been broken.
A spokesman for Thomas did not immediately respond to requests for
comment.
David Rogers of the WSJ also points
out that the HHS Inspector General's Office is investigating this
as well:
Nonpartisan congressional analysts
said Bush administration officials appear to have violated federal law
by barring Medicare's chief actuary from sharing cost estimates with
lawmakers debating prescription-drug legislation.
"Congress's right to receive truthful information from federal
agencies to assist in its legislative functions is clear and
unassailable," said the Congressional Research Service legal
analysis, which cites both statutes and related Supreme Court
decisions dating back almost a century. "Political gamesmanship
must yield to the clear public interest of providing elected
representatives in the Congress with accurate and truthful information
upon which to effectively fashion the laws for the nation," it
said.
...
The CRS is respected by the administration. In an April 16 letter to
lawmakers, the Department of Health and Human Services cited its legal
opinions to justify the administration stand on another matter related
to Congress.
Adopted in November, the Medicare prescription-drug law cleared
Congress by the narrowest of margins after hours of predawn arm
twisting by the Republican leadership in the House. Many conservatives
were furious later when it was revealed that Medicare's chief actuary,
Richard Foster, had predicted months before that the new benefit could
far exceed the $400 billion, 10-year budget. Early this year, the
administration released its final $534 billion estimate. Sen. Max
Baucus (D., Mont.) said yesterday his staff had been frustrated in
getting Medicare information from the administration as late as
October -- even as Mr. Baucus helped write the final bill.
In public testimony and interviews, Mr. Foster, a career civil
servant, has since described a pattern of pressure from his
politically appointed superiors discouraging him from sharing his cost
analyses with Congress. The most celebrated instance was a threatening
June 20, 2003, e-mail memo from an assistant to Mr. Scully. In a
face-to-face meeting in November, Mr. Foster says, he gave the
Medicare administrator updated cost estimates well above $400 billion
and was told, "We can't let that get out."
Mr. Scully has denied issuing a gag order or threatening to fire Mr.
Foster. But the inspector general's office at HHS has begun an
inquiry.
3, 4. Defrauding Educating the public through misleading
propaganda compassionate ads on Medicare
As noted here
by the Seattle Times (bold text is my emphasis), the GAO conducted one
investigation of this and started a second one.
It was with great fanfare that the
Bush administration unveiled 30-second television commercials and a
two-page flier that would be mailed to 41 million seniors and
disabled people, touting the newly enacted Medicare
prescription-drug benefit.
Missing from the publicity was any mention of "video news
releases" that feature "interviews" with government
officials and voice-overs by production-company employees posing as
Washington reporters, for use in local TV news shows.
Yesterday, less than a week after it concluded that the
administration's Medicare commercials and fliers were technically
legal but contained "notable omissions and errors," the
General Accounting Office (GAO) said it would conduct another
investigation to determine whether the video news releases
constituted illegal "covert propaganda."
Several Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, sent a letter to executives
of the five major television networks urging them to
"immediately warn stations not to use these materials"
because they contain no statement indicating that they were produced
by the government.
Democratic lawmakers also demanded an investigation into claims that
the Bush administration withheld cost estimates of the
prescription-drug benefit and that an administration official
threatened to fire Medicare's chief actuary if he showed Congress
his cost projections.
The question of the Medicare bill's likely cost was a major issue
last fall, when House GOP leaders barely got enough votes to enact
the Bush-backed measure. Throughout the long debate, congressional
leaders said the bill would cost $395 billion over 10 years, a
figure the White House did not publicly dispute. But soon after Bush
signed it into law, the White House said the cost would be about
$534 billion.
The results of the second investigation are noted
here, by CAP, among other things. In essence at least two Federal
laws were broken and taxpayer money was used for illegal
propaganda compassionate policy.
Taxpayer-Funded
Illegal Covert Propaganda
The
non-partisan General Accounting Office (GAO) found that the
Bush administration engaged in illegal, covert propaganda when
it produced fake news segments about the new Medicare law and
distributed them to local television stations. The segment featured
individuals purporting to be Washington reporters who were, in fact,
"paid with federal funds through a contractor to report the
message." The GAO found that the news segments were "not
strictly factual news stories as HHS [the Department of Health and
Human Service] contends," and, just like their multi-million
dollar advertising campaign, contained "notable omissions
and weaknesses." The fake news segments were broadcast, in
whole or in part, on 40 stations in 33 markets across the country.
When the investigation was launched, Bush administration spokesman
Kevin Keane mocked the allegations that the fake news segments were
illegal. Keane said "The use of video news releases is a
common, routine practice in government and the private sector.
Anyone who has questions about this practice needs to do
some research on modern public information tools." The GAO
concluded, however, that the conduct Keane was defending violated
two federal laws and improperly expended at least $44,000 of
taxpayer money. Nevertheless, the Bush administration has indicated
it is unlikely
it would comply with the GAO ruling. The latest incident is part
of a pattern of deception and deceit which the Bush administration
has employed to pass and promote its $500 billion Medicare
legislation.
REPORT
ALLEGES CONSERVATIVE HOUSE LEADERS BRIBED MEMBERS FOR VOTES:
This week, Common Cause released a report
chronicling all of the improprieties that occurred before and after
the passage of the Bush administration's Medicare bill. Perhaps most
disturbing: conservative leaders in the House held the vote on the
Medicare bill open for 3 hours in the middle of the night while they
pressured Rep. Nick Smith (R-MI) and others to switch their votes.
Normally, votes in the House are open for 15 minutes. In a 11/23/03
column on his website Rep. Smith wrote, "members and groups
made extensive financial campaign supports and endorsements for my
son Brad who is running for my seat. They also made threats of
working against Brad if I voted no." The following month on a
radio interview, Smith said "the first offer was to give [my
son Brad] $100,000-plus for his campaign and endorsement by national
leadership." While Smith stuck to his principles, others did
not, and the bill passed by one vote.
CONSERVATIVE HOUSE LEADERS CENSORED C-SPAN:
The House leadership controls the C-SPAN cameras in the chamber.
Normally, during a vote, the camera constantly pans side to side
monitoring floor activity. But during the three hours the
conservative leadership was harassing members to switch their votes,
the camera was locked on the Democratic side of the chamber. As a
result "there is no
visual record of who was talking to whom that night while votes
were sought by the leadership."
ADMINISTRATION THREATENED GOVERNMENT
EMPLOYEES TO HIDE TRUE COST: Chief
Medicare actuary Richard Foster "was threatened
with dismissal if he released his official estimate of the cost of
the prescription drug bill," which was $156 billion higher
than the administration promised. The White House was well aware of
the higher estimate because Foster gave the estimates to them in
June 2003. According to Foster, that same month Medicare
administrator Tom Scully "decided to restrict the practice of
our responding directly to provide responses to him so he could
decide what to do with them." An April 26, 2004 Congressional
Research Service (CRS) report found that Scully's behavior was
likely illegal. According to the CRS, a federal government employee
who issues a "'gag order' on subordinate employees, to
expressly prevent and prohibit those employees from communicating
directly with Members or committees of Congress, would appear to
violate a specific and express prohibition of federal law."
EMPLOYEE WHO ISSUED GAG ORDER CASHES IN:
In December 2003, just after the president signed the Medicare bill,
chief Medicare administrator Tom Scully joined a law firm that
represents drug manufacturers and other major players in the health
care industry who benefited from the law. The Bush administration
granted Scully an ethics waiver "so that he could negotiate
with potential employers while he helped write the Medicare law."
5, 6. Bribery Financial Compassion being "probed"
Kaiser Network had this
blurb in Feb 04:
The House
Committee on Standards of Official Conduct is scheduled to hold
its first formal meeting in more than four months on Thursday, just
days after Chair Joel Hefley (R-Colo.) and Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.
Va.) disclosed that the committee is conducting an "informal
fact-finding" probe into bribery accusations related to the
November House vote on the Medicare law, Roll
Call reports (Bresnahan/Chappie, Roll Call,
2/9).
Disinfopedia
has more:
- 5
December 2003: "Feds Probe Bribe Charge. Group: GOP
congressman offered $100G for Medicare vote" by Elaine S.
Povich, Newsday: "The Justice Department will look
into a charge that a Republican congressman was offered a bribe
in exchange for his vote on the Medicare prescription drug bill
that squeaked through the House last month, a department
official said yesterday. ... The Campaign Legal Center, a public
interest group headed by former Federal
Election Commission Chairman Trevor
Potter, requested the federal probe. The group also asked
the House ethics committee to look into the allegation that Rep.
Nick Smith (R-Mich.) was offered $100,000 for his son's
political campaign in exchange for his vote. Smith, who is
retiring, voted against the bill, which passed after an
unprecedented three-hour roll call during which Republican
leaders twisted the arms of recalcitrant Republicans until
enough changed sides to eke out a five-vote victory,
220-215."
IV. FOREIGN POLICY [21]
1-12. Prisoner abuse aka
Rush Limbaugh's Compassion for Prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay
The list here is so extensive that I am sure I have
likely missed some of the investigations into criminal acts
that resulted from the Bush administration's wanton disregard for
international law compassion.
[1-6] From MSNBC's
timeline below, there is a mention of 6 investigations (Miller, Ryder,
Sanchez (2), Army, CIA) - highlighted in blue below:
Aug.
31-Sept. 9, 2003
Maj. Gen. Geoffrey
Miller, who runs the military prison for terror suspects at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, conducts an inquiry on interrogation and
detention procedures in Iraq.
He suggests that prison guards can help set conditions for the
interrogation of prisoners. |
October-December
Many of the alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib take place during
this time period. |
Oct.
13-Nov. 6
Maj. Gen. Donald Ryder,
provost marshal of the Army, investigates conditions of
U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, including Abu Ghraib. He finds
problems throughout the prisons.
Some units, including the 800th Military Police Brigade, did
not receive adequate training to guard prisons, he notes. He
also says military police (MPs) should not assist in making
prisoners more pliable to interrogation, as their job is to
keep prisoners safe. |
Nov.
19
The 205th Military Intelligence Brigade is given
responsibility for Abu Ghraib prison and authority over the
800th Military Police Brigade. |
November
Two Iraqi detainees die in separate incidents that involved
CIA interrogation officers. |
Jan.
13, 2004
Army Spc. Joseph M. Darby, an MP with the 800th at Abu Ghraib,
first reports cases of abuse at the prison. |
Jan.
16
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez
orders a criminal investigation into reports of abuse at the
prison by members of the brigade.
The military also announces the investigation publicly. |
Jan.
19
Sanchez orders a
separate administrative investigation into the 800th MP
Brigade. Maj. Gen.
Antonio M. Taguba is appointed to conduct that inquiry on Jan.
31. |
Late
January - early February
President Bush becomes aware of the charges sometime in this
time period, according to White House spokesman Scott
McClellan, although the spokesman has not pinpointed a date.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld tells Bush of the
charges, McClellan has said. |
Feb.
23
Seventeen U.S. soldiers suspended from duties pending outcome
of investigation. |
Feb.
24
International Committee of the Red Cross provides the
Coalition Authority with a confidential report on detention in
Iraq. Portions of the report are published without ICRC
consent by the Wall Street Journal on May 7. |
March
3-9
Taguba presents his report to his commanders. He finds
widespread abuse of prisoners by military police and military
intelligence. He also agrees with Ryder that guards should not
play any role in the interrogation of prisoners. |
March
20
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt tells reporters six military personnel
have been charged with criminal offenses. |
Mid
April
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
asks CBS-TV to delay airing photographs it has obtained of
abuse at Abu Ghraib. Myers says the photos would exacerbate an
intense period of violence under way in Iraq. CBS delays its
program for two weeks. |
April
28
-
Rumsfeld
meets with senators in a closed briefing on the war in
Iraq. Rumsfeld neglects to mention the issue of prisoner
abuse or the coming disclosure of photos.
-
CBS
“60 Minutes II” airs the photos, setting off an
international outcry. Bush first learns about these photos
from the television report, his aides say.
|
Early
May
CIA confirms that some of its officers hid Iraqi prisoners
from watchdog groups like the Red Cross. |
May
1
An article by Seymour Hersh, published on The New Yorker
magazine's Web site, reveals contents of Taguba's report. |
May
2
Myers admits on ABC’s "This Week" that he has not
yet read the Taguba report issued in March. |
May
3
Officials say the Army has reprimanded seven soldiers in the
abuse of inmates at Abu Ghraib. |
May
4
U.S. Army discloses
that it is conducting criminal investigations of 10 prisoner
deaths in U.S. custody in Afghanistan and Iraq
- beyond two already ruled homicides - plus another 10 abuse
cases. (The number grows
by two on May 5, when the CIA says it is investigating more
cases.) |
May
5
President Bush appears on two Arab television channels to
address the scandal but does not apologize for the abuse of
iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops. The following day Bush does
apologize. |
| May
6
|
May
7
Rumsfeld testifies before the Senate and House Armed Services
Committees on the issue of prisoner abuse in Iraq. Separately,
Army Pfc. Lynndie England, shown in photographs smiling and
pointing at naked Iraqi prisoners, is charged with assaulting
detainees and conspiring to mistreat them. |
May
19
Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits receives the maximum penalty -- one year
in prison, reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge -- in
the first court-martial stemming from mistreatment of Iraqi
prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison. |
Bradley Graham of the Washington Post reported
on 5/22/04 that the number of prisoner deaths being investigated
by the Army has gone up.
The Army announced yesterday a jump
in the number of criminal investigations it has launched into detainee
deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, among them a case involving one of
Saddam Hussein's top generals, who died last November while being
interrogated by U.S. soldiers.
A senior military official, briefing reporters at the Pentagon, said
the Army has completed or is still conducting criminal probes into 33
cases involving the deaths of 32 detainees in Iraq and five in
Afghanistan.
The new tally amounts to an increase of eight cases over the 25
reported on May 4 by the Army's top criminal investigator as the
scandal over abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison was erupting.
It also pointed to wider problems beyond the Abu Ghraib facility,
raising the possibility that coercive interrogations and other
mistreatment by U.S. soldiers may have resulted in the deaths of some
detainees.
In the case of Iraqi army Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, who once
headed Hussein's air defenses, the Pentagon initially attributed his
death last November to natural causes. But an autopsy released by the
Pentagon yesterday said Mowhoush, who was found in a sleeping bag,
died of "asphyxia due to smothering and chest compression."
At the briefing, the military official confirmed a Denver Post report
Wednesday that his case is being probed as a homicide.
[7] Seymour Hersh reported in the New
Yorker that:
After the story broke on CBS last
week, the Pentagon announced that Major General Geoffrey Miller, the
new head of the Iraqi prison system, had arrived in Baghdad and was on
the job. He had been the commander of the Guantánamo Bay detention
center. General Sanchez also authorized an investigation into
possible wrongdoing by military and civilian interrogators [my
emphasis].
[8, 9] USA Today has reported
that:
CIA and Pentagon investigators
are conducting separate probes of allegations that military
intelligence officers, CIA field officers and possibly private
contractors told the military police guarding the prisoners to mete
out rough treatment to selected inmates in the early morning hours
prior to interrogation.
...
The CIA says its own initial probe of agency field officers who worked
at Abu Ghraib last fall has turned up no evidence that any of these
interrogators witnessed or ordered abusive treatment. A separate
inquiry headed by CIA Inspector General John Helgerson is focusing on
the death of one Iraqi under CIA questioning at Abu Ghraib last
November [my emphasis].
[10] CNN reported
that:
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
will tell congressional committees Friday that he plans to form an
independent panel to review how the Pentagon handled investigations
into allegations of abuses of Iraqi prisoners, a senior administration
official said [my emphasis].
[11] BBC has reported
that:
In a separate announcement, the US
Department of Justice said it had opened the first criminal
investigation of a civilian contractor for alleged mistreatment of
prisoners in Iraq.
[12] CNN reported
that:
Two guards at the U.S. military
prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were disciplined for misuse of force
against detainees in 2002 and 2003, according to Col. David
McWilliams of the U.S. Southern Command.
Three other cases were investigated but those involved were cleared
of wrongdoing, McWilliams said.
13-20. Pre-war "intelligence" on Iraqi Weapons of Mass
Destruction to be "investigated" by a commission led by
Clinton-hating, Kenneth-Starr-loving, right-wing partisan
compassionate, former Federal judge Laurence Silberman
See Disinfopedia
for more.
Not to mention, as Alexander
Bolton points out in The Hill:
In the sensitive national security
arena, the House and Senate intelligence committees, along with an
independent commission chaired by former Sen. Charles Robb (D-Va.)
and Judge Laurence Silberman, are investigating the accuracy of
prewar Iraqi intelligence.
Last month, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to expand the
investigation of prewar intelligence to include scrutiny of how
policymakers used that data to justify the year-ago invasion.
However, some Democrats remain dissatisfied with the scope of the
Senate intelligence probe, saying it is only a fraction of the scope
they seek.
These three investigations of prewar intelligence on Iraq coincide
with four other inquiries that the executive branch is conducting on
possible intelligence failures prior to the U.S. invasion. They are
being conducted by the CIA Iraq Survey Group, a CIA internal review
team, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and a
U.S. Army investigative team.
21. General William My-God-is-better-than-your-God-and-Bush-is-appointed-by-Christ
Boykin under "investigation" by the Pentagon
Bradley Graham reports in the
Washington Post:
The Pentagon is launching a formal
investigation into statements by a high-ranking Army officer that
cast the U.S. fight against terrorists in religious terms, Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced yesterday.
Rumsfeld said the investigation was requested by the officer, Lt.
Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin. But pressure has been
growing on the Bush administration to reprimand the general or
remove him from his Pentagon intelligence post.
Boykin's remarks, some of which were captured on videotape, were
delivered in uniform to evangelical Christian groups over the past
year and a half. They have drawn sharp criticism from lawmakers and
Islamic organizations in the United States and enraged Muslims
abroad. Critics have condemned the remarks as inflammatory, if not
illegal, and politically damaging to administration efforts to woo
support among Muslims for the war on terrorism.
Among the most problematic were comments that described the United
States as battling a "spiritual enemy" named Satan. In
another instance, Boykin said President Bush "is in the White
House because God put him there." And discussing a 1993 battle
with a Muslim militia leader in Somalia, he said: "I knew that
my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and
his was an idol."
In an apologetic statement Friday, Boykin said he is "not
anti-Islam" and insisted his remarks had been misconstrued or
taken out of context.
V. JUDICIARY [1]
1. Democrats computer files stolen by GOP (aka Nixon redux)
Walter Pincus reported in Nov 2003 on this in the Washington
Post (via Josh
Marshall):
The Senate sergeant-at-arms has
opened an investigation into Republicans obtaining and publicizing
internal memos from the computer and network resources of two
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Late Tuesday, Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah)
confirmed that his inquiry had found that a member of his staff
"had improperly accessed some of the documents" and a
second former staff member "may also have been involved."
As Josh Marshall pointed
out:
...a few weeks ago it emerged
that the infiltration had been far more extensive than earlier
believed. For at least a year, and probably more like eighteen
months, GOP staffers accessed the Democrats confidential files. And
they snatched approximately 5,000 of them, give or take.
But the big
change came last Thursday at an open hearing of the Judiciary
Committee. Faced with the new evidence, pretty much every Republican
on the committee gave up on offering any justifications or excuses
for what had happened. And even those who had been most aggressive
in fighting off Democratic attacks conceded that what had happened
was quite possibly criminal and should be pursued by law enforcement
authorities.
In this
update, he also said:
Two weeks
ago, I shared
with you the possibility that the long-brewing controversy over
those pilfered Democratic Judiciary Committee staff memos could lead
to an investigation of the White House Counsel's office. (The earlier post
covers all the details of how this could come to pass.)
Now, last week four Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee
(Durbin, Leahy, Kennedy and Schumer) wrote White House Counsel Alberto
R. Gonzales with a series of detailed and pointed questions all of
which focused on whether the White House had any knowledge of the
pilfering or involvement in it and whether they had made use of those
pilfered memos in any way.
...
...yesterday Gonzales
responded to the Democratic Senators' letter and he was far more
equivocal when he spoke
for the Counsel's Office and the White House staff. If it's not a
classic example of a non-denial denial, it's definitely the
well-chosen phrasing of someone who's far from ready to deny that his
office was involved in the theft of these files.
The Boston Globe this morning reported
Gonzales' response thusly ...
Gonzales, replying yesterday in a
letter to Leahy, said he was aware of no "credible
allegation" of White House involvement in the incident, so no
investigation has been made. He said he "respectfully, but
categorically, reject the statement in your letter" that
administration actions contributed to the atmosphere around the
files controversy.
But I think that doesn't do
justice to the full measure of equivocation and obfuscation.
Here are the two paragraphs from Gonzales' letter in which he
responds to the Senators' detailed questions about possible White
House involvement ...
As I explained, I am not aware of
any credible allegation of White House involvement in this matter.
Consequently, there has been no White House investigation or
effort to determine whether anyone at the White House was aware of
or involved in these activities.
As I also advised you, I have no personal knowledge that any such
computer files or the documents they may have contained were
provided to our office or to others at the White House. So far as
I know, moreover, neither my staff nor others at the White House
were aware of activity by the Judiciary Committee staff or other
Senate employees such as they alleged in public reports on this
matter.
I have no personal knowledge ...
so far as i know ... rather less than unequivocal, isn't it?
VI. TREASURY/ECONOMY [1]
1. Treasury Department Inspector General investigating the use
of Treasury Department as a political pawn of the Bush
campaign for compassionate purposes
Some background, first, from Mark
Schmitt:
This happened a couple of weeks ago,
but a link in Tim
Noah's story in Slate about Kerry's international tax proposal led
me to actually look at the Treasury's
politically motivated analysis of the Kerry tax plan.
...
In addition to the obvious misuse of public resources, I noticed three
things in this analysis that I hadn't seen mentioned before:
1. The Treasury actually did a distributional analysis, of sorts, on
the Kerry plan. This is exactly the kind of analysis that they have
not been willing to do on most of the Bush proposals, leaving
independent organizations such as the Tax
Policy Center of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute
to do the work of figuring out how policy changes would affect
different income classes.
2. Treasury didn't use the standard categories that would go into a
distributional analysis, such as income quintiles or households with
income in certain ranges. Instead, they used a category of their own
devising: "Hardworking Individuals and Married Couples."
3. And what's the definition of the new population category called
"Hardworking Individuals and Married Couples"? To me, it
brings to mind the guy who guts chickens for a living ten hours a day
and his wife who works at Wal-Mart. But I must have too bleak a view.
Apparently this category refers to people who earn more than $200,000 and
get much of their income from dividends and capital gains. I don't
want to engage in class warfare, and I'm sure some of these people are
very hardworking, but that just doesn't seem like the appropriate
term.
This whole thing is just disgraceful. To top it all off, every
Treasury release now has the following useful public service
announcement at the bottom:
America has a choice: It can
continue to grow the economy and create new jobs as the
President's policies are doing; or it can raise taxes on American
families and small businesses, hurting economic recovery and
future job creation.
I'm sure Brad DeLong can confirm
that this is the kind of thing that, in the Rubin/Summers Treasury
Department -- and in fact in every Treasury Department from Hamilton
and Gallatin forward -- not only would not have been done, but
wouldn't even be considered.
As Wonkette
points out:
The U.S. Treasury says:
America has a choice: It can
continue to grow the economy and create new jobs as the
President's policies are doing; or it can raise taxes on American
families and small businesses, hurting economic recovery and
future job creation.
And the RNC also says:
America has a choice: It can
continue to grow the economy and create new jobs as the
President's polices are doing; or it can raise taxes on American
families and small businesses, hurting economic recovery and
future job creation.
Great minds think alike, no? Or
something. OK, OK, you could call this using taxpayer money to
produce campaign literature. We prefer to think of it as thrifty. Of
course, some people think of it as illegal. Whatever.
Treasury
to Investigate Press Releases [AP/Yahoo]
So, the Treasury Department has an investigation in
progress as a result (via Brad
DeLong).
Bloomberg's Simon Kennedy and
Brendan Murray write about the Treasury's Inspector General:
Treasury Inspector Expands
Election-Year Inquiry (Update1)
By Simon Kennedy and Brendan
Murray
April 19 (Bloomberg) -- The
Treasury's inspector general... widened a preliminary inquiry to
include news releasesthat promoted the Bush administration's tax
cuts.
In question are April 9 documents from the Treasury's officeof
public affairs that calculate the benefit of Bush's $1.7trillion
in tax cuts and highlight the work of the InternalRevenue Service.
U.S. Representative Charles Rangel, of New York,the top Democrat
on the House Ways and Means Committee, askedActing Inspector
General Dennis Schindel last week to broaden hisinformal
investigation of department staff.
Democrats, including Rangel and House Minority Leader NancyPelosi,
have complained that the research may have violated U.S.law, which
bars federal employees from engaging in partisanpolitical
activities.
``We are going to expand the preliminary inquiry into
otherTreasury press releases,'' Rich Delmar, counsel to the
inspectorgeneral, said in an interview. ``We'll look at how the
pressreleases were generated. We're not making any assumptions
aboutwrongdoing.''... The statements that are now being studied
include oneentitled ``April 15 Tax Day Reminder: Millions of
Individuals andFamilies are Benefiting from Tax Relief Plan.''...
Dan Maffei, a spokesman for Democrats on the House Ways andMeans
Committee, said Rangel ``believes there is a differencebetween
representing the administration and electioneering.'' ``It is
quite appropriate for the inspector general toaddress whether
there has been a pattern of crossing the line,''he said...
It does appear that John Snow's
acquiescence in this has made a good many Treasury staff even more
unhappy campers than they were before. Nobody in this administration
is getting out of it with a reputation.
BONUS: TOP HOUSE/SENATE REPUBLICANS CLOSE to
the WHITE HOUSE
1. Tom DeLay, WESTAR and White House superstar
Steven Rosenfeld in TomPaine.com:
This week, acting for the first
time since 2001, the House's Committee on the Standards of Official
Conduct, better known as the ethics committee, announced it was
launching a "full and complete inquiry" into an allegation
of political bribery involving House Majority Leader Tom Delay. On
the surface, it looks like the ethics committee is dealing with a
nasty case blurring the line between political arm-twisting and
outright extortion.
But closer scrutiny reveals the panel is hardly protecting the
public. Moreover, when one steps back and assesses the range of
ethically questionable favors granted by the GOP-led Congress or
administration to selected interests, the pattern that emerges is
one where political favors are doled out and then some political
hand-wringing occurs, but little real fallout follows.
...
At an early March press conference, representatives from eight
Washington watchdog groups?the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause,
Judicial Watch, Democracy 21, the Center for Responsive Politics,
Public Citizen, the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington and Public Campaign?said the ethical lapses and
corruption in the House of Representatives had reached a new nadir.
They cited the Nick Smith case, but also sought to show a larger
pattern?especially concerning the GOP leadership.
"The Smith affair is not an isolated incident," said
Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and
Ethics in Washington. "You don't have to take my word for it,
just look at the e-mail between Westar Energy Company executives
stating that Westar had to pay (House Majority Leader Tom) Delay
$25,000 to ensure passage of legislation significant to the company
because nothing could get through the House without his
support."
2. Tom DeLay and Texas
The Carpetbagger
Report says:
An investigation into House
Majority Leader Tom
DeLay's criminal fundraising schemes in Texas -- which allegedly
used corporate funds to help state GOP lawmakers -- is already
before a Texas grand jury.
More here
on other unethical and immoral,
compassionate GOP leaders.
1.
Now
some of you might wonder where this University is located - so, it is
appropriate to make it clear right here that this is not a real
University - it is only a hypothetical institute of lower
higher learning.
2. I sometimes prefer to truncate
the words Compassionate Conservative to Compassion Con. There is no
intent here to imply anything significant by this (at least anything
more than is commonly understood). I reserve all moral clarity rights
to the use of this term. One Compassion Con credit is assigned to
every instance of compassion (i.e., misleading, deceptive or
inaccurate statement or outright lie/mendacity).
3. Note that Compassionate
statements made by Mr. Bush's spokespersons, advisers or appointees -
speaking clearly on behalf of Mr. Bush - are considered as being
supported by Mr. Bush, absent a public statement to the contrary.
|
