This will not be a real investigation. It will be a whitewash.
And I have the proof to back that up...
Specifically, the president will appoint the entire commission himself < http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df0204200
4.html >, breaking the previous tradition of allowing lawmakers from both parties to appoint commission members. Although lawmakers have raised objections to the commission's lack of independence, the White House is moving forward with its plans. Additionally, despite the fact that the commission's work will be critical to national security, the president will only authorize a commission that produces a report after the election -- so as to minimize any political fallout for himself. (1)
What others have said:
``We had an opportunity to have a truly independent commission that could have brought fresh eyes to the subject. Instead, we have a commission wholly owned by the executive branch investigating the executive branch,'' - House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (2)
"the commission also will look at the bigger picture of fighting terrorism and monitoring U.S. adversaries, such as those in Iran and North Korea"
`On the one hand, the commission is charged with looking at prewar intelligence assessments on Iraq but apparently not at exaggerations of that intelligence by the Bush administration. ``On the other hand, the commission is tasked to look at so many other areas that it will not be able to adequately focus on the paramount issue of the analysis, production and use of prewar intelligence on Iraq. ``
-Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee (2)
Let's Look at who Bush handpicked to investigate him and white wash the lies that led to billions in profits for the employers of his staff, 513 dead American soldiers, and thousands of dead Iraqi civilians:
Co-chair Laurence Silberman
Long time republican operative
The judge who declared that Clinton was "at war with the US government"
As comfortable with illegally and secretly brokering deals with Muslim extremists as the Bush family is with the Saudis and the Bin Laden family. He was dubbed the Reagan-Bush campaign's "ambassador to Iran" for his behind-the-scenes contacts with the Khomeini regime. (3)
Up to his ass in the Iran-Contra scandal < http://www.oldamericancentury.org/bushco/bushcontra.htm >.
From being the go-to guy with the Iranians to hold the hostages for the "October surprise" to casting the deciding vote on a three-judge panel in a decision that resulted in dismissing the criminal convictions of Admiral John Poindexter < http://www.oldamericancentury.org/poindy.htm > and Lt Col Oliver North for lying to Congress in connection with the scandal (4)
A top contender for Supreme Court slots that Reagan and the first President Bush filled. You can bet if this commission find no fault in the Bush administration, that seat on the bench is a guarantee (5)
deputy attorney general in the Nixon and Ford administrations (6)
Blocking the Clinton legal team's attempts to track down leaks emanating from Starr's office and blocking any attempts at discovery in the matter.(7)
Silberman also has attacked as too liberal a number of respected journalists who cover the federal courts, including Pulitzer Prize-winning Linda Greenhouse of the New York Times and National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg, whom Silberman once alluded to in speech as "the wicked witch of the airwaves." He has publicly assailed the reporting of the Times' Neil Lewis as "obviously distorted and tendentious," failing to mention that Lewis had written about Silberman's threat to assault Judge Mikva. (8)
Laurence Silberman: the Right Man or the Right's Man?:
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=13902
Co-chair Chuck Robb
In 1991, Robb was among only 10 Democrats who voted for to give then-President George H.W. Bush authority to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
Obtained an illegal tape of a phone conversation between then-Lt. Gov. Doug Wilder and one of his top supporters, then handed over the tape to a Washington Post reporter. Three of Robb's top aides did jail time for that incident and Robb himself barely survived indictment. Rumor has it that it was a payoff for voting to confirm Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. (9)
Frequently attending parties in Virginia Beach, VA during his term in office as governor where cocaine was used. His staff secretly investigated his private life and determined that Robb had slept with at least a dozen young women in different Virginia Beach parties -- some of whom were under the age of consent. (10)
"Robb...long has advocated a tough policy toward Saddam. As a member of the Senate in 1998, Robb advocated lifting an executive order banning political assassinations, as a warning to Saddam." (11)
Chuck Robb ended his 2000 campaign with a $609,000 campaign debt. The vast majority of Robb's campaign contributions have come from Texas energy producers. I'm willing to bet that debt will magically go away. (12)
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona
Actively campaigning for the re-election of George Bush
Seems to have already made up his mind by stating "The president of the United States, I believe, did not manipulate any kind of information for political gain or otherwise." (13)
Lloyd Cutler
Served as White House counsel to Presidents Carter and Clinton
Chairman of the Reagan-era commission on government salaries that recommended raises of at least 50% for the President, Cabinet members, Congress, and federal judges
Advisor to Ross Perot and co-chairman of the Committee on the Constitutional System who authored The 1985 book 'Reforming American Government' which called for 6 year terms for presidents, proposes that the president and all the members of congress be of the same party (One party system is called totalitarianism), and each voter may cast a ballot for one such slate as an entirety, and votes cast separately for individual candidates shall not be counted." Furthermore, 'Reforming American Government' states on page 29 that they plan a "significant shift in our constitution" which would require "a crisis that would be very grave indeed" such as a depression. (Or terrorist attack?-ed.) The only way the CCS can get its package of amendments into the Constitution is if the state legislatures can be panicked into calling for a U.S. Constitutional Convention < http://www.sweetliberty.org/concon.htm > which Alexander Hamilton warned us against in Federalist paper Number 85, as it puts our government at risk of overthrow. (14)
Cutler serves as No Contest's ultimate embodiment of the evil power lawyer (15)
Ret. Adm. Bill Studeman
Admiral Studeman is a Texan by birth and a Naval Intelligence Officer by career choice. In his distinguished career, he has served among other assignments as the operational intelligence officer with the 7th Fleet during four lengthy deployments to Vietnam/Southeast Asia, as executive assistant to the Vice Chief of Naval Operations, as commander of the Naval Operational Intelligence Center, and as Director of the Long-Range Planning Group under the Chief of Naval Operations. (16)
Former Director of the National Security Agency. Immediately prior to coming to NSA, he served as Director of Naval Intelligence former deputy director of the CIA (1992-1995) - a post to which he was named by George Bush senior. (17)
$16 billion defense contractor, TRW Systems set up a homeland security office under Bill Studeman before being bought by Northrop Grumman (18)
Vice President & Deputy General Manager for Intelligence & Information Superiority for, $25 billion global defense enterprise, Northrop Grumman Mission Systems (19)
Mr. Studeman also serves on numerous corporate and government boards. (20)
Helped to author A 78-page briefing document under the auspices of the Defense Science Board advocating a greatly expanded and more assertive role for covert military actions, intelligence collection and operations to "stimulate reactions" among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction. This sparked concerns that the proposal would usurp CIA's covert operations role, erode congressional oversight, or change long-standing policies such as prohibition of assassinations. The document also advocated the expansion of existing covert units and the addition of new covert units in all of the Services as well as the new expenditure of billions of dollars (21)
Former appellate court judge Patricia Wald
Squeaky clean as far as I can tell. Token female, perhaps? Or perhaps some sort of punishment?
In his controversial book, 'Blinded by the Right', former right-wing journalist David Brock said Intelligence investigation co-chairman Laurence Silberman gave ''false information'' to him about Patricia Wald whom, according to Brock, ''(Silberman) hated with a passion''. Brock depicts Silberman as a major, if discreet, figure in the right-wing network that harassed Bill and Hillary Clinton for various alleged scandals during the 1990s. (22)
Patricia Wald replaced Laurence Silberman as judge in the Microsoft court cases after he was forced to recuse himself (23)
It seems this isn't the only time they have butted heads (24)
Before their appointment the American Bar Association rated Judge Wald as "well qualified." Judge Silberman was rated "qualified-not qualified."
Patricia Wald, 75, has been a judge at the Hague-based International Criminal Court since 1992.
She was named to the Washington federal appeals court in 1977 by then-president Jimmy Carter, a Democrat. But Wald retired in 1999 and became an ICE magistrate whose work has included trials of the first criminals from the former Yugoslavia.
Richard C. Levin, president of Yale University, an economist by training.
Mr. Levin has written extensively on such diverse subjects as the patent system, industrial research and development, and the effects of antitrust and public regulation on private industry. In the mid 1980's he directed a major effort to gather evidence on the incentives for 130 manufacturing industries' investments in research and development. Throughout the 70's and 80's, his series of papers on the Interstate Commerce Commission had significant influence on the course of railroad deregulation. His teaching included courses on microeconomics, industrial organization, antitrust, the oil industry, the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing industries, and the history of economic thought. (25)
Mr. Levin currently serves as a director of the Hewlett Foundation
Mr. Levin was recently elected to the Board of Directors to Defense contractor, Lucent Technologies (26)
Henry Rowen, PNAC Member
Henry S. Rowen is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution < http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=Hoover_Instituti
on > and a "professor of public policy and management emeritus at the university's Graduate School of Business and a member Stanford University's Asia/Pacific Research Center ... Rowen is an expert on international security, economic development, Asian economics and politics, as well as U.S. institutions and economic performance. His current research focuses on economic growth prospects for the developing world, political and economic change in East Asia, and the tenets of federalism." (27)
From 1949 to 1950, Rowen was a management intern for the Barnsdall Oil Company < http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=Barnsdall_Oil_Co
mpany&action=edit > and was an economist for the RAND Corporation from 1950 to 1953 and again from 1955 to 1960.
Mr. Rowen served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs from 1961 to 1964, served as President of the RAND Corporation < http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=RAND_Corporation
>from 1967-1972 , Chairman of the U.S. Intelligence Council from 1981 to 1983, and served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs from 1989 to 199.
He is currently a member of the Department of Defense's Defense Policy Board with Henry Kissinger, (PNAC member) Richard Perle < http://www.oldamericancentury.org/richard_perle.htm >, and (PNAC member) Dan Quayle.
Mr. Rowen himself is a PNAC member < http://www.oldamericancentury.org/pnac.htm > as you can see his signature on this document:
http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm (28)
A full list Mr. Rowen's educational, Government, and institutional affiliations can be found here:
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/rowen/rowen_body.html
Charles Vest, president of MIT, and former Pentagon official
Dr. Vest chairs the U.S. Department of Energy Task Force on the Future of Science Programs and serves as vice chair of the Council on Competitiveness. He is also a member of both the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Commission on Scientific Communication and National Security and of the National Academies-CSIS collaborative Roundtable on Scientific Communication and National Security.
Dr. Vest is a director of IBM and E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company; a trustee of the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development; a member of the Corporation of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; and an ex officio institutional trustee of the WGBH Educational Foundation. (29)
The White House said Vest chaired a U.S. Department of Energy task force from 2002 to 2003. (30)
(1) http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df0204200
4.html
(2) http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3719978,00.
html
(3) http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/feb2004/bush-f07.shtml
(4) http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=22300
(5) http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/7898983.htm
(6) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19147-2004Feb
6.html
(7) http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2003/05/06/blumenthal2
/index_np.html
(8) http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_dneiwert_archive.htm
l#107610489659604535
(9) http://loper.org/~george/archives/1992/Jun/99.html
(10) http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/11/17/robb/index.html
(11) http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/7898983.htm
(12) http://www.danconley.com/archives/000212.htm
(13) http://news.yahoo.com news
(14) http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/wolves/perot.htm
(15) http://www.businessweek.com/1996/46/b350136.htm
(16) http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_cr/s920408-studeman.htm
(17) http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/37EF952A-8A1C-46F8-A7
73-0D0771F57671.htm
(18) http://www.washingtontechnology.com/news/17_3/features/18215
-8.html
(19) http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Northrop_Grumma
n
(20) http://www.ms.northropgrumman.com/whoweare/WLEOWilliam.html
(21) http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=P2OG
(22) http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=22300
(23) http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/msftdoj/TWB19980317S0020
(24) http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m3169/n38_v38/21148626/p1
/article.jhtml
(25) http://www.ustreas.gov/organization/bios/levinr-p.html
(26) http://www.lucent.com/press/0703/030711.coa.html
(27) http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Henry_S._Rowen
(28) http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/pubaffairs/newsletter/04021/r
owen.html
(29) http://www.broad.mit.edu/broad/charlesvest.html
(30) http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:0X3KrPjQQTYJ:www.deepik
aglobal.com/ENG4_sub.asp%3Fnewscode%3D41427+U.S.+Department+ ...
|
