Newsweek: The COMMISSION'S findings SETBACK FOR BUSH!

[LittleApple81]

Much Ado About Little

The GOP's focus on Sandy Berger may have deflected some attention from the 9/11 report. But the commission's findings are still a setback for Bush
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
Updated: 3:01 p.m. ET July 23, 2004July 23 - The House and Senate leadership doesn't have enough time to take up the 9/11 commission's recommendations about overhauling the nation's terror fighting network until next year, but the House Government Reform Committee can find the time to squeeze in an investigation of Sandy Berger before the election.

Republicans are acting like Berger is the worst threat to national security since Julius Rosenberg. You'd think Berger was charged with passing nuclear secrets to Iran. He is guilty of removing copies of classified documents from the National Archives—and of serving in the Clinton White House as national-security adviser, which is enough to re-activate the right-wing scandal machine.

This is much ado about very little. "Between jaywalking and Julius Rosenberg, this is closer to jaywalking," says a Senate aide on the Republican side.

SNIP...


Still, Republicans should beware of overreaching. Berger didn't remove any original documents or do anything to imperil national security. The originals of everything he examined are safely stored at the archives. "This is the national-security equivalent of the Gary Condit story," says a Senate staffer, recalling the media frenzy over the California congressman's relationship with a missing intern in the months before 9/11. While the press chased Condit, implying he was a murderer, Osama bin Laden put the finishing touches on his audacious plan to attack America.

SNIP...

Kerry goes to Boston next week in a stronger position than any recent Democratic challenger. The party is united in its determination to beat Bush, and liberals and New Democrats alike are delighted that John Edwards is on the ticket. Yet Kerry might as well be emerging from a cocoon when he takes the stage to accept the nomination on Thursday night. For all the millions he's raised and the countless campaign trips, he hasn't said anything memorable enough or significant enough to enter the public consciousness.


SNIP...

Bush caught a break this week with the Berger revelations, but Democrats are on the march. As a Senate Democrat put it, "If we can't beat Bush and Cheney after all this, we don't deserve to exist as a party."


lINK: DEFINITELY WORTH A READ!

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5498001/site/newsweek /

[Jack_Dawson]

1. You must mean Clinton

Bush hasn't done anything wrong. He's our leader in the War on Terror.

[Worst Username Ever]

2. Totally!

He hates america, you know.

[DaveSZ]

3. Eleanor Clift hates America

We all know that, so let's not beat around the *

[Neoplatonist]

4. Bush's defense?

I was never the president -- Cheney was!

[Moderator]

5. Subject line - Title of Post

You need to change the Subject to read: Much Ado About Little

[DrBB]

6. Regarding the Berger leak

I think it may have more to do with imminent indictments in the Plame story. Lotta evidence that they may be preparing the media ground for that. Marshall and several others are now citing this evidence and I think Berger fits the pattern. Why didn't the GOP wait on that leak until it would do more harm to Kerry--like after Berger got noised as a possible Sec. State closer to the election? Doing it now doesn't seem like the time when it would cause the Dems the most trouble. But what if it's not about the Dems at all? Suppose what they're trying to do is get some political smoke out there that will let them claim Plame is no worse than what Berger did, and how come their guy (whoever it is) is being pilloried when Berger is not even being charged.

[Disturbed]

7. Haliburton/Cheney

That's the story that the Rethugs wanted to sideline. They suceeded.

An indictement of Cheney would be quite an upset.

[KittyWampus]

8. The Democrats Are Turning This Back Around Nicely!

Think Newsweek (and Eleanor Clift) deserves a thank you on the basis of the paragraphs you've posted.

Off to read the whole thing. :)

[struggle4progress]

9. I think Clift is sipping some Koolaid:

"Iran allowed some of the 9/11 hijackers to pass through their territory on their way from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia without having their passports stamped, smoothing their entry into the United States without arousing suspicion."

Well. "Omigosh! Did we say IRAQ? Golly! We meant to say IRAN!" seems to be the poisonous mantra of the day. And the press continues to echo "Iran was even more closely linked to Al-Qaeda than Iraq was." This, of course, is a Bushista game, designed to soften public opinion for another Middle Eastern war, this time directed against Iran, in accord with the PNAC blueprint, to be launched in the second term.

It's unlikely to be true:


Report details Qaeda's skill in faking passports
Thomas Crampton IHT
Friday, July 23, 2004

WASHINGTON At times verging on a how-to guide for sneaking across international borders, the newly released report of the Sept. 11 commission details the ease with which terrorists obtained, faked and doctored passports to hoodwink immigration services around the world.

“Lax passport issuance standards are among the vulnerabilities exploited by terrorists, possibly including two of the 9/11 hijackers,” the report states, urging tighter screening of travel documentation at airports. “For terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons.” Detailing a Qaeda passport supply chain running from Canada to the Afghanistan battlefields, the report documents a Qaeda forgery unit based at the airport in Kandahar, Afghanistan, that was skilled at altering official stamps and documents. A major role of the office was to add or erase entry and exit stamps to create false travel records.

Among the tourism stamps forged by the terrorists to enhance the credibility of their travel were those for Singapore, Malaysia, Turkey and Egypt.
<snip>

“Operatives either erased the Pakistani visas from their passports or traveled through Iran, which did not stamp visas directly into passports,” the report said. “One detainee described attending several security and specialized courses, including ones in counterfeiting and seal removal.” Each of the two hijacker passports that were recovered showed signs of doctoring.
<more>

http://www.iht.com/articles/530797.html


Iran in Bush's Sights
by Juan Cole
published by Informed Comment

<snip>
The 9/11 commission maintains, however, according to Time magazine, that Iranian officials had issued specific instructions to facilitate the passage of al-Qaeda members across Iranian borders, beginning in October, 2000.
<snip>
One problem with all these allegations is that they are sourced only to al-Qaeda detainees, Iranian defectors, and NSA electronic intercepts. It is the same as with Iraq in 2002. For all we know, there is an Iranian Chalabi who is behind these reports, hoping to get the US to overthrow the regime in Iran so that he can take over. As for the al-Qaeda detainees or those under electronic surveillance, the letter of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has already made it clear that some radical Sunni elements that fought in Afghanistan dream of provoking a Shiite-American struggle. Al-Qaeda detainees are notorious for providing the US with disinformation aimed at furthering their plots. Iran is a notorious enemy of Wahhabism and al-Qaeda and the Taliban. How sweet it would be to provoke a war between the US and Iran by hanging 9/11 on Tehran! (It should be remembered that NSA intercepts also showed that Saddam had biological and chemical weapons, presumably because Saddam ordered his officers to talk them up in the vain hope of deterring a US attack).

Acting CIA Director John McLaughlin has already admitted that a) the US has known for a long time that al-Qaeda operatives travelled through Iran, and b) that there is no evidence that Iran knew beforehand about the 9/11 plot.

Iranian officials have acknowledged that the al-Qaeda men passed through its territory, but point out that Iran's borders are long and porous, and insisted that the al-Qaeda operatives came through "illegally." Iran’s intelligence minister, Ali Yunesi, said on Saturday that "The Intelligence Ministry has identified and dismantled all the Iranian branches of the Al Qaeda movement . . . We have stopped the terrorist acts of Al Qaeda. If we had not done so, we would have had security problems.”
<snip>

http://progressivetrail.org/articles/040721Cole.shtml