Max Clealand Quits 9-11 Commission

[raysr]

(Fw from Bill Douglas, Kansas City 9-11 activist group) CLELAND QUITS --A TRAGEDY!!
For those following this issue closely, the fact that Bush offered Max Cleland a job to get him off the commission, raises some vast concerns. Why? Because Cleland is the only 9-11 commissioner who has aggressively demanded FULL DISCLOSURE of the PDB's (presidential daily briefings) which show what the CIA told Bush officials of the coming 9-11 attacks. FL Senator Bob Graham who was on the Senate Intelligence Committee said Bush knew MUCH more than we've been told.

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20031123-091108-4750r.htm

1) New job takes Cleland off 9/11 panel

WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- Former Sen. Max Cleland, a Democrat, has been nominated by President Bush to serve on the board of the Export-Import Bank.

As a result he will have to leave the commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The statutes governing the panel, formally known as The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, bar anyone who holds a federal job like being on the Ex-Im Board.

Cleland has been one of the more outspoken members of the commission, accusing the administration of delaying access to vital documents in an effort to run out the clock on its investigation. The panel, which started work at the beginning of the year, must submit its report by a congressionally mandated deadline of May 27, 2004.

Commission spokesman Al Felzenberg told United Press International that Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle will nominate Cleland's replacement.

*********************************************

ACTION ALERT

Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Independent Commission
http://911independentcommission.org
November 24, 2003

Dear Friends,

Once again we need your help. We are requesting that everyone call and keep the pressure on the Commission to get full access to the PDB's . Weve been told that the Commission is getting many e-mails and phone calls and that we need to keep the pressure on. We can make a difference.

Please call the commission and send e-mail:

Washington Office*
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
<mailto:[e-mail]>[e-mail]

New York Office
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
<mailto:[e-mail]>[e-mail]

Family Liaison Office
Tel: [phone]
Toll-Free: 1-888-862-0556
Fax: [phone]
[e-mail]

[Shakespeare]

1. Oh, this is NOT good....

Cleland was the only one raising a fuss over the white house's refusal to cooperate with the commission.

Gee, wonder why Bush nominated him for the new job?

This sucks. Absolutely sucks.

[raysr]

2. Clealand

Just that alert from Vets for Peace.

[Spazito]

3. This doesn't make any sense to me...

why would Max Cleland accept this change? Has he made any statement on this? He would have the right of refusal on this "new" appointment, wouldn't he?

[KittyWampus]

4. You Know, Rove Could Make Anyone's Life A Living Hell

Novac had that story about one of the Congressmen having his son's budding political career threatened if he voted against the Medicare Bill.

Perhaps Junior & Co. really are the Cosa Nostra and made Max an offer he couldn't refuse.

It's one thing if they threaten you, it's another when they threaten your family.

[Spazito]

14. Sad to say, that was my thought...

they must have done something to get him to back off, scary stuff, imo.

[SayitAintSo]

5. I can't imagine that Cleland would take a bribe...

There HAS to be more to it than this. Maybe we are getting TWOfers ... Cleland knows what's there and can still support the 911 efforts from his new position but Daschle gets to appoint another one to raise hell.
Let's only hope...

[papau]

6. A major civil service job that leads to major lobbying jobs later

A major civil service job that leads to major lobbying jobs later

There are only 2 "members" of the Board - the rest of board come from other Administration jobs

it is a very high paid full time position - and leads to very very high paid lobbying jobs afterward.

A great job - and a chance to really do good for the world.

very hard job to turn down.

[alfredo]

22. Lobbying, no. The new rules bars any non Republican from lobbying

congress. Lobbying firms had to let go all Democrats.

[w13rd0]

7. This smells to holy hell and back...

...wake me when it comes from a source more reputable than the Moonie Times...

[oasis]

8. Cleland won't have time to campaign for Kerry, his choice for president.

[UTUSN]

9. Well, THIS Doesn't Help nt

[RBHam]

10. Fishy as hell

Max was really pissed off about the Bushies stonewalling the investigation. I recall watching CNN as Aaron Brown interviewed him and he damn near accused the Bush Administration of covering up the truth behind 9-11 and raised some serious questions regarding the House of Saad and the Bushies business connections.

How did they get to Cleland? There's no way they could have bought him off. They must have something hanging over his head...a family member? Does Max have a son in the service? A threat from someone very high up he couldn't ignore?

What a stench doth rise from that never-to-be-disguised swamp!

[oasis]

11. Fishy yes. Max lost his senate seat because of a White house smear job.

He owes Bush/Rove nothing but a swift kick.

[pruner]

12. anyone else find this eerily reminiscent of when…

Johnson named McNamara president of the World Bank.

:tinfoilhat:

[SharonAnn]

15. Yes. that was my first thought.

McNamara and the World Bank.

[leetrisck]

13. This was in the news some time ago

and I had hoped it wasn't true. He has spoken out so forcefully. If he really does leave (hope he doesn't) maybe he will speak out more than ever.

[leetrisck]

16. "Has been nominated"

and will have to leave the Commission. Why? He hasn't accepted it, has he? Something is wrong with this story but I don't know what. Why would bush nominate Cleland to anything and why would Cleland accept it -- I hardly think Cleland is the type to take a bone thrown by bush to make up for what he did in the election.

[JohnGideon]

17. I Suspect That Max Is Putting Himself In a Good Position

First, he had to take a hand-out of a job after he lost the election. He lost a lot of money running for re-election. Then his handicapped-equiped Cadillac was totaled.

He's also smart enough to know that he was hitting his head against a wall trying to get anything done on the commission. He is also under a veil of secrecy while he is on the commission.

If he takes this job, he will be out from under that veil. He won't be able to tell all of the facts, but he will be able to talk about the stonewalling and roadblocks. What's Bush going to do, fire him?

[papau]

19. I agree - sometimes you must let heros get on with their lives

It is a good move for Max.

[RBHam]

18. important kick

:kick:

[RBHam]

20. "Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President"

In a scathing critique of the Iraq war, former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland compares President Bush to Lyndon Johnson -- and blasts his lack of service in Vietnam.

Editor's note: Former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland lost both legs and and an arm during active duty in the Vietnam War, and in 1968 was awarded both the Bronze Star and a Silver Star for his service.

The following Op-Ed was first published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Sept. 18. - - - - - - - - - - - -
By Max Cleland Sept. 22, 2003

The president of the United States decides to go to war against a nation led by a brutal dictator supported by one-party rule. That dictator has made war on his neighbors. The president decides this is a threat to the United States. In his campaign for president he gives no indication of wanting to go to war. In fact, he decries the overextension of American military might and says other nations must do more. However, unbeknownst to the American public, the president's own Pentagon advisers have already cooked up a plan to go to war. All they are looking for is an excuse. Based on faulty intelligence, cherry-picked information is fed to Congress and the American people. The president goes on national television to make the case for war, using as part of the rationale an incident that never happened. Congress buys the bait -- hook, line and sinker -- and passes a resolution giving the president the authority to use "all necessary means" to prosecute the war. The war is started with an air and ground attack. Initially there is optimism. The president says we are winning. The cocky, self-assured secretary of defense says we are winning. As a matter of fact, the secretary of defense promises the troops will be home soon. However, the truth on the ground that the soldiers face in the war is different than the political policy that sent them there. They face increased opposition from a determined enemy. They are surprised by terrorist attacks, village assassinations, increasing casualties and growing anti-American sentiment. They find themselves bogged down in a guerrilla land war, unable to move forward and unable to disengage because there are no allies to turn the war over to. There is no plan B. There is no exit strategy. Military morale declines. The president's popularity sinks and the American people are increasingly frustrated by the cost of blood and treasure poured into a never-ending war. Sound familiar? It does to me. The president was Lyndon Johnson. The cocky, self-assured secretary of defense was Robert McNamara. The congressional resolution was the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. The war was the war that I, U.S. Sens. John Kerry, Chuck Hagel and John McCain and 3 1/2 million other Americans of our generation were caught up in. It was the scene of America's longest war. It was also the locale of the most frustrating outcome of any war this nation has ever fought. Unfortunately, the people who drove the engine to get into the war in Iraq never served in Vietnam. Not the president. Not the vice president. Not the secretary of defense. Not the deputy secretary of defense. Too bad. They could have learned some lessons: -- Don't underestimate the enemy. The enemy always has one option you cannot control. He always has the option to die. This is especially true if you are dealing with true believers and guerrillas fighting for their version of reality, whether political or religious. They are what Tom Friedman of The New York Times calls the "non-deterrables." If those non-deterrables are already in their country, they will be able to wait you out until you go home. -- If the enemy adopts a "hit-and-run" strategy designed to inflict maximum casualties on you, you may win every battle, but (as Walter Lippman once said about Vietnam) you can't win the war. -- If you adopt a strategy of not just pre-emptive strike but also pre-emptive war, you own the aftermath. You better plan for it. You better have an exit strategy because you cannot stay there indefinitely unless you make it the 51st state. If you do stay an extended period of time, you then become an occupier, not a liberator. That feeds the enemy against you. -- If you adopt the strategy of pre-emptive war, your intelligence must be not just "darn good," as the president has said; it must be "bulletproof," as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed the administration's was against Saddam Hussein. Anything short of that saps credibility. -- If you want to know what is really going on in the war, ask the troops on the ground, not the policy-makers in Washington. -- In a democracy, instead of truth being the first casualty in war, it should be the first cause of war. It is the only way the Congress and the American people can cope with getting through it. As credibility is strained, support for the war and support for the troops go downhill. Continued loss of credibility drains troop morale, the media become more suspicious, the public becomes more incredulous and Congress is reduced to hearings and investigations. Instead of learning the lessons of Vietnam, where all of the above happened, the president, the vice president, the secretary of defense and the deputy secretary of defense have gotten this country into a disaster in the desert. They attacked a country that had not attacked us. They did so on intelligence that was faulty, misrepresented and highly questionable. A key piece of that intelligence was an outright lie that the White House put into the president's State of the Union speech. These officials have overextended the American military, including the National Guard and the Reserve, and have expanded the U.S. Army to the breaking point. A quarter of a million troops are committed to the Iraq war theater, most of them bogged down in Baghdad. Morale is declining and casualties continue to increase. In addition to the human cost, the war in dollars costs $1 billion a week, adding to the additional burden of an already depressed economy. The president has declared "major combat over" and sent a message to every terrorist, "Bring them on." As a result, he has lost more people in his war than his father did in his and there is no end in sight. Military commanders are left with extended tours of duty for servicemen and women who were told long ago they were going home. We are keeping American forces on the ground, where they have become sitting ducks in a shooting gallery for every terrorist in the Middle East. Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President. Sorry you didn't go when you had the chance.

[dusty64]

21. I am VERY

disappointed that he has fallen for this MOST obvious ploy to get him off the commission. Man, the ones supposedly on our side sure are at best gullible.

[Unknown Known]

23. Remember Fritz Hollings' daughter ended up dead

after his strong criticism of bushco. This really freaked me out, but it went along with everything I expect from these thugs. Shortly after her death, Hollings said he would retire. I'll always remember him saying how bushco was nothing but a "cash and carry government".

I still believe that Al Gore's family was threatened as well during 2000.

http://charleston.net/stories/041603/loc_16hollings.shtml