Well, you may wonder why the LNS has not mentioned the
_resident's WMD whitewash commission yet. It is not a
front-burner issue for us because it is such a blatant
sham. It is not "independent," it was established by
the cabal for the cabal. It will not report until
after the presidential election in November. It's
mandate does not include an investigation of the
policy-makers in the White House. It is a cruel joke
on the families of over 5000 US soldiers (an average
of one death a day), it is a cruel joke...Look at its
composition. Even the NYTwits, in their Sunday
editorial, were compelled to remakr that it lacked
sufficient stature. Chuck Robb ("D"-VA) who lost his
Senate seat to the "vast reich-wing conspiracy," Sen.
John McCain (R-AZ) who apparently not only lost the
2000 South Carolina and the Republican nomination to
Bush cabal dirty tricks...Are these two shadows of
themselves on this commission as a warning to any of
would stand against its "findings"? A message that
reads: "if you stand against us, we will crush you and
make you carry our water, we will make you are bitch."
Strange. How can McCain participate in this charade?
We want to believe he is going undercover for Sen.
John Kerry (D-Meking Delta), a personal friend of his,
and for the US soldiers trapped in Iraq. But that's
wishful thinking. McCain has given up, or been offered
too much (maybe the VP spot to replace Cheney) or is
somehow utterly compromised. He was in the snows of
New Hampshire this year...on the campaign trail...for
the _resident...So very sad...McCain was and could
have been such a force for the Good...I hope he
surprises us, but I doubt it...As for Laurence
Silberman, well -- just read it and pass it on...For
further background, read David Brock's extraordinary
Blinded By The Right...
Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service: President George W.
Bush's choice to co-chair his commission to
investigate intelligence failures prior to the Iraq
War is a long-time, right wing political activist
closely tied to the neo-conservative network that led
the pro-war propaganda campaign. Federal appeals court
Judge Laurence Silberman, who will share the
chairmanship with former Virginia Democratic Senator
Charles Robb, also has some history in covert
operations. In 1980, when he served as part of former
Republican president Ronald Reagan's senior campaign
staff, he played a key role in setting up secret
contacts between the Reagan-Bush campaign and the
Islamic government in Tehran, in what became known as
the ''October Surprise'' controversy.
Support Our Troops, Show Up for Democracy in 2004:
Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0206-10.htm
Published on Friday, February 6, 2004 by Inter Press
Service
Co-Chair of Bush Panel Part of Far Right Network
by Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush's choice to
co-chair his commission to investigate intelligence
failures prior to the Iraq War is a long-time, right
wing political activist closely tied to the
neo-conservative network that led the pro-war
propaganda campaign.
Federal appeals court Judge Laurence Silberman, who
will share the chairmanship with former Virginia
Democratic Senator Charles Robb, also has some history
in covert operations. In 1980, when he served as part
of former Republican president Ronald Reagan's senior
campaign staff, he played a key role in setting up
secret contacts between the Reagan-Bush campaign and
the Islamic government in Tehran, in what became known
as the ''October Surprise'' controversy.
(Former president George HW Bush, the current
president's father, was Reagan's vice-president for
two terms, 1981-89).
Rewarded with his appeals court judgeship several
years later, Silberman helped advise right-wing
activists during the 1990s on strategies for pursuing
allegations of sexual misconduct by then-Democratic
president Bill Clinton, according to various accounts.
Besides Silberman and Robb, a conservative Democrat
who also has strong ties to neo-conservatives through
the Democratic Leadership Council, Bush chose five
other commission members and indicated that two more
have yet to be named.
The five include Arizona Republican Senator John
McCain; former White House counsel for Clinton and
former president Jimmy Carter, Lloyd Cutler; Yale
University President Richard Levin; former deputy
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director, Admiral
William Studeman and retired appeals court judge Pat
Wald.
In announcing the panel, Bush rejected appeals by the
opposition Democrats in Congress that they be given a
role in deciding its membership in order to enhance
its credibility.
He also appeared to limit the commission's mandate to
study only the mistakes made by the intelligence
community in assessing Iraq's alleged weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) programs.
Bush said the commission will submits its report by
Mar. 31, 2005, well after the presidential elections
in November.
''Last week, our former chief weapons inspector, David
Kay ... stated that some pre-war intelligence
assessments by America and other nations about Iraq's
weapons stockpiles have not been confirmed'', Bush
said. ''We are determined to find out why''.
Democrats said the mandate was too limited. ''The
president is not allowing (the commission) to look
into the growing number of questions millions of
Americans are asking about the administration's
statements and actions before the Iraq war'', said
Democratic Minority Leader Tom Daschle. ''That
investigation still needs to be done.”
Democrats have charged that political pressure from
leading administration figures, notably Vice President
Dick Cheney, contributed to the intelligence failures,
as did officials' public exaggerations of the
intelligence community's assessments in order to
persuade the public to support the war.
Democrats and other analysts had also wanted the
commission to take up the administration's pre-war
charges that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein
worked closely with the al-Qaeda terrorist group.
''The independent commission ... should seize upon its
mandate to investigate 'related 21st century threats'
and the biggest failure in the justification for the
Iraq war: unproven allegations of links between
al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein,'' said Charles Pena, a
foreign-policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a
libertarian think tank that has strongly opposed the
Iraq war, despite its generally Republican
orientation.
Yet, Bush's appointments surprised several observers
by their ideological diversity and reputations for
independence.
''Overall, this is a much more professional, much more
balanced group than I expected'', said Mel Goodman, a
former top Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst,
who has frequently charged the administration with
distorting and exaggerating the intelligence on Iraq.
''It looks like the pragmatists in the White House
must have said, 'it's important that we get good
names, so we're not attacked','' added Goodman, who
teaches at the National War College. He said much will
now depend on who is appointed as the panel's staff
director.
While a Republican who has often taken
neo-conservative positions, McCain, who opposed Bush
in the 2000 Republican primary elections and has
frequently clashed with him on key issues, is
considered fiercely independent.
During his tenure at the CIA, Studeman was well
respected among analysts. In contrast to a number of
other senior officials, ''Studeman was an honest
man'', said Goodman, whose public charges that former
CIA chief Robert Gates had slanted assessments of
Soviet power and intentions in the late 1980s created
a sensation in Washington.
Cutler, a top adviser to both Carter and Clinton, has
enjoyed a strong reputation for independence and
thoughtfulness over several decades, while Wald, who
was appointed to the bench by Carter, is considered a
strong-willed liberal Democrat, who after retirement
served as a judge on the International Criminal
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
The appointment of both Silberman and Wald to the
commission is seen as particularly curious, because
they are known not to get along. In his controversial
book, 'Blinded by the Right', former right-wing
journalist David Brock said Silberman gave ''false
information'' to him about 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. Brock, who describes Silberman as
his ''mentor'', has since admitted that many of his
attacks on Democrats were based on little or no
evidence.
''A consummate Washington insider for more than two
decades'', Brock wrote, ''Larry would often preface
his advice to me with the wry demurrer that judges
shouldn't get involved in politics -- 'that would be
improper', he'd say -- and then go ahead anyway”.
”He was a behind-the-scenes adviser to the
conservative editors of the 'Wall Street Journal'
editorial page, and he delighted his conservative
audiences with his acid critiques of the liberal
press,” added Brock.
Silberman has also reportedly been known as aggressive
and sometimes abusive, even in his written opinions.
He once accused Clinton of ''declaring war on the
United States'' by permitting his aides to attack
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr in the Whitewater
case, while, during an argument with another appeals
court judge, he is reported to have said, ''if you
were 10 years younger, I'd be tempted to punch you in
the nose''.
But it is his role in the 1980 election that is
perhaps most intriguing about Silberman's appointment.
He is alleged to have set up and participated in a
mysterious meeting in Washington on Oct. 2, 1980 --
one month before the election -- with Reagan's top
foreign policy adviser, then-Marine Lieutenant Colonel
Robert McFarlane (Reagan's national security adviser
during the Iran-Contra scandal), and at least one
Iranian arms dealer.
It was the culmination of a series of secret meetings
-- never reported to the U.S. government -- between
Reagan campaign officials and Iranians who purported
to represent the government of the Ayatollah Khomeini.
The precise purpose of those meetings has never been
resolved, but one school of thought, propounded most
effectively in the early 1980s by Carter's top
National Security Council adviser on Iran, was that
the Republican campaign was trying to ensure that
Tehran would not make a deal with Carter to release
U.S. Embassy hostages who were being held in Iran
until after the November elections.
In return, Iran would be covertly supplied with
U.S.-made weapons via Israeli middlemen, according to
the theory.
Reagan officials, including Silberman, have vehemently
denied this version of events.
Nonetheless, it appears that Silberman was a key
conduit to Iran during the early 1980s.
According to one source, after he received his
judicial appointment, Silberman passed along his
Iranian contacts to Michael Ledeen, a close associate
of Richard Perle at the American Enterprise Institute
(AEI), who played a key role with McFarlane in the
transfer of U.S. weapons to Tehran in the deal that
gave rise to the Iran-Contra scandal.
Several years later, Silberman cast the deciding vote
on a three-judge panel in a decision that resulted in
dismissing the criminal convictions of Admiral John
Poindexter and Lt Col Oliver North for lying to
Congress in connection with the scandal.
Copyright 2004 IPS - Inter Press Service
###
Printer Friendly Version E-Mail This Article
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of
which has not always been specifically authorized by
the copyright owner. We are making such material
available in our efforts to advance understanding of
environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.
We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such
copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of
the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17
U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed
a prior interest in receiving the included information
for research and educational purposes. For more
information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you
wish to use copyrighted material from this site for
purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you
must obtain permission from the copyright owner.