Pentagon Killed Liberia Report Seeking Early US Intervention.

[jayfish]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-intervene17aug17,1,2912638.story?coll=la-home-headlines

(Registration Required)

-SNIP-

The Defense Department had sent a team of 31 military specialists to Liberia on July 7 "to make recommendations for an appropriate level of intervention," according to the group's mission statement. After assessing the situation on the ground, the team completed its analysis and delivered it within 72 hours to Air Force One during President Bush's Africa trip that week.

The team urged that the United States immediately deploy a 2,300-strong Marine Expeditionary Unit to stabilize the country and protect civilians amid a vicious civil war, said several U.S. officials familiar with the report. Two hundred Marines arrived in the country Thursday, five weeks after the call for urgent action.

On Air Force One, the initial draft of the team's report made the rounds of State Department and National Security Council officials, including national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, according to officials on the trip. The report was also distributed to top officials in the Army's European Command, which oversaw the team, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

But before the president saw the report, Pentagon officials pulled it back.

"The Pentagon squashed it," an administration official said. "It was way too strong for their liking."
-SNIP-

Donald Rumsfeld has so much blood on his hands; one has to wonder how this fiend still has a job in the greatest democracy on the planet. Did this episode prompt all of the "Powell won't be back for a second term" talk we heard at the beginning of the month?



Notice To Moderators:
The subject line of this thread comes from the headline of this article as printed in my local newspaper.

Jay

[MaineDem]

1. I heard this on C-SPAN this morning

I love this line "But before the president saw the report, Pentagon officials pulled it back."

When will all this become a liability to the Boy George?
Damn!

[huckleberry]

2. This is such a sad story.

Why do they even send people to get independent analysis of a situation when they already know what they're going to do? The people in Liberia were begging for U.S. intervention and this administration just ignored them. Contrast that to Iraq where the people want us OUT!

More from the article --

In the first week of August, the U.N. airlifted the first of a vanguard battalion of about 800 West African peacekeepers into Monrovia to help stop the fighting and secure a corridor for the delivery of aid. Rapturous Liberians, desperate for an end to the rebels' systematic rape and killing, lined the streets to cheer the West Africans.

"That could have been American soldiers being celebrated across Monrovia," a U.N. official said. "This could have been an easy one for them."

Robert Warwick, the International Rescue Committee relief group's West Africa director, agreed.

"The U.S. squandered their opportunity," he said. "There was a moment when it seemed like all of the players, even the rebels, were willing and anxious for the U.S. to get involved. An earlier intervention would have stemmed the loss of more than a thousand lives from fighting and illnesses, and the looting of food and supplies."

Now, he said, aid groups have had their supplies and equipment stolen, making it much more difficult to respond to an already dire humanitarian crisis.

[Rose Siding]

4. The Pentagon goofed!

They accidentally let some human beings on the team of specialists. They responded to what they saw as such.

"The US squandered..." BUSH SQUANDERED. BUSH and his CABAL.

[Dude_CalmDown]

3. Truly phukt up but Clinton's admin did almost the same thing in Rwanda

-SNIP-

April 21, 1994

The U.N. Security Council votes unanimously to withdraw most of the UNAMIR troops, cutting the force from 2,500 to 270.

The International Red Cross estimates that tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Rwandans are now dead.

- - - - - - - - -

April 28, 1994

State Department spokeswoman Christine Shelley is asked whether what is happening in Rwanda is a genocide. She responds,

"...the use of the term 'genocide' has a very precise legal meaning, although it's not strictly a legal determination. There are other factors in there as well."

However, a secret intelligence report by the State Department issued as early as the end of April calls the killings a genocide.

The U.N. Security Council passes a resolution condemning the killing, but omits the word "genocide." Had the term been used, the U.N. would have been legally obliged to act to "prevent and punish" the perpetrators.

-SNIP-

Click Me For More

[jayfish]

5. Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right. -NT-

Jay

[Dude_CalmDown]

6. Trust me - I don't think 2 wrongs make a right - I just don't want

any hypocrisy on our side. Bash the Chimp all you want (I do it every day) but where and when it's deserved our Dem leaders need to be held accountable.

[Rose Siding]

7. Even Clinton agrees

Genocide Chat

http://slate.msn.com/id/1000549/

The only excuse suggested (not by him) was the lack of public support for US involvement.