- A cascade of embarrassing revelations and accusations
are demolishing George W. Bush's slickly packaged, made-for-TV persona
as a "war president" and the scourge of Islamic terrorists.
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- Former president Jimmy Carter accused Bush and British
PM Tony Blair of waging a war of "lies" against Iraq.
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- Poland's president said he was "deceived" by
Bush into sending troops to Iraq. Spain's new prime minister denounced
Bush's Iraq adventure as a "fiasco" and a "war based on
lies."
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- A group of leading American business executives ran a
full-page ad in The New York Times entitled "Have you noticed what's
happened to chief executives who lie?" with a picture of an executive
being led away in handcuffs. The ad described the Iraq invasion as a "state-sponsored
deception (that) already dwarfs the damage done by the worst corporate
scandals," citing 566 American dead and a cost of $125 billion US
(not to mention 20,000 Iraqi deaths).
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- The underlying message was stark: the president and his
"war cabinet" ought to face criminal charges for lying to the
nation and starting an unnecessary war for domestic political reasons.
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- The fourth bombshell exploded when Richard Clarke, the
respected former counter-terrorism chief under presidents Clinton and George
Bush Sr., went public with the most damning accusations yet made against
the White House. His testimony before a commission investigating the 9/11
attacks on the U.S. asserted the Bush administration damaged U.S. national
security, did not do enough to prevent the 9/11 attacks, and obsessed over
Iraq while largely ignoring al-Qaida's threat.
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- Bush, said Clarke, did "a terrible job" in
fighting terrorism. Bush's obsession with Iraq left the U.S. "needlessly
unprepared" to counter an al-Qaida attack. He also criticized, somewhat
less strongly, the Clinton administration's anti-terrorism efforts.
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- Clarke, a Republican, insisted there were no links between
Iraq and either 9/11 or terrorism, and that Iraq had no concealed weapons,
a position long maintained by this column. But the feeble, politicized
9/11 commission failed to follow up on this dramatic testimony.
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- Vice President Dick Cheney was described by Clarke as
a "right-wing ideologue." He accused Deputy Defence Secretary
Paul Wolfowitz, a principal architect of the Iraq War, of "belittling"
the al-Qaida threat.
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- We learned Defence Secretary Rumsfeld was so preoccupied
with anti-missile defence before 9/11 he ignored al-Qaida.
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- Urgent warnings
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- The commission's report stated Rumsfeld "did not
recall any particular counter-terrorism issue that engaged his attention
before 9/11," though the CIA claimed to have urgently warned both
Bush and Rumsfeld of impending attacks.
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- National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who refused
to testify, was shown to be a dithering, confused amateur and a character
assassin who has led the White House attacks on Clarke.
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- Attorney General John Ashcroft, another self-styled scourge
of terrorists, actually proposed cutting spending on counter-terrorism
exactly one day before 9/11 - and again, afterward. Unfortunately, the
commission failed to ask why the Bush administration had been sending millions
in aid to the "terrorist" Taliban until four months before 9/11.
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- This column has repeatedly asserted the Bush administration
was asleep on guard duty on 9/11.
-
- True, there were no warnings hijacked airliners were
coming on that specific day. But with the benefit of hindsight, we see
the same ineptitude and confusion that preceded the attack on Pearl Harbor
- a combination of distraction, smugness, self-deception, disbelief and
bungling. On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan's naval codes were being intercepted and
deciphered; her attacking aircraft were spotted by radar. Yet the obvious
conclusions somehow were not made. The same applies to Sept. 11, 2001.
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- In the U.S. Navy, a ship's captain is responsible for
all accidents or misfortunes, no matter what the excuse. But no senior
member of the Bush administration has accepted responsibility for the death
of some 3,000 people on 9/11. No one resigned.
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- No senior U.S. official acted with the honour and courage
of Britain's foreign secretary, Robin Cook, who resigned to protest a war
against Iraq he charged was based entirely on falsehoods and disinformation.
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- Instead, the Bush administration launched a trumped up
war against Iraq to mask its own negligence prior to 9/11, and to satisfy
America's lust for revenge by attacking a nation innocent of that crime.
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- Clarke, at least, had the decency to apologize to the
families of the 9/11 victims, saying, "the government failed you.
And I failed you." We have yet to hear a peep of self-criticism from
the blundering but arrogant Bush White House.
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- Of course not. This administration is running for re-election
on its "war record" against Iraq, and its so-called war on terrorism.
Bush is playing Franklin Roosevelt or Harry Truman.
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- But his claim to be a war president is like the man who
murders his family, then begs for mercy because he is an orphan. The Iraq
war was not one of self-defence, like World War II, but an unprovoked,
illegal aggression engineered by the Bush administration and justified
by a torrent of shameful lies. Bush's "war on terrorism" is a
police action that was unnecessarily and foolishly militarized.
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- Richard Clarke, no matter his motives, has done his nation
an important, badly needed service.
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- Eric can be reached by e-mail at: margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com
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- Copyright © 2004, CANOE, a division of Netgraphe
Inc.All rights reserved.
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- http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Eric_Margolis/2004/03/28/398787.html
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