Fog Of Gore

In the midst of a nasty election campaign against the backdrop of a foolish and deadly war, film maker Errol Morris, who crafted a brilliant, devastating film about Robert McNamara ( Fog Of War ), has put on his website a series of fascinating commercials. Originally created as campaign ads featuring real Republicans who voted for Bush in 2000 but refuse to do so again in 2004, most of them did not air. Morris has made them available for free.

Gestapo goes to the polls

Voter fraud is an issue every campaign, regardless of the location and office up for grabs.

Going into the polls this year both sides have been howling about fraudulent voter registrations, the trashing of registration forms, and other illegal dirty tactics. So far, the Republicans seem to be winning the battle to disenfranchise voters, as their efforts have been exposed in the press more often. That, or they simply suck at not getting caught.

I don't think this is what Malcolm X meant when he said "by any means necessary:"

The GOP's Shameful Vote Strategy

By Harold Meyerson

Wednesday, October 27, 2004; Page A25

With Election Day almost upon us, it's not clear whether President Bush is running a campaign or plotting a coup d'etat. By all accounts, Republicans are spending these last precious days devoting nearly as much energy to suppressing the Democratic vote as they are to mobilizing their own.

Time was when Republicans were at least embarrassed by their efforts to keep African Americans from the polls. Republican consultant Ed Rollins was all but drummed out of the profession after his efforts to pay black ministers to keep their congregants from voting in a 1993 New Jersey election came to light.

For George W. Bush, Karl Rove and their legion of genteel thugs, however, universal suffrage is just one more musty liberal ideal that threatens conservative rule. Today's Republicans have elevated vote suppression from a dirty secret to a public norm.

In Ohio, Republicans have recruited 3,600 poll monitors and assigned them disproportionately to such heavily black areas as inner-city Cleveland, where Democratic "527" groups have registered many tens of thousands of new voters. "The organized left's efforts to, quote unquote, register voters -- I call them ringers -- have created these problems" of potential massive vote fraud, Cuyahoga County Republican Chairman James P. Trakas recently told the New York Times.

Let's pass over the implication that a registration drive waged by a liberal group is inherently fraud-ridden, and look instead at that word "ringers."

Registration in Ohio is nonpartisan, but independent analysts estimate that roughly 400,000 new Democrats have been added to the rolls this year. Who does Trakas think they are? Have tens of thousands of African Americans been sneaking over the state lines from Pittsburgh and Detroit to vote in Cleveland -- thus putting their own battleground states more at risk of a Republican victory? Is Shaker Heights suddenly filled with Parisians affecting American argot? Or are the Republicans simply terrified that a record number of minority voters will go to the polls next Tuesday? Have they decided to do anything to stop them -- up to and including threatening to criminalize Voting While Black in a Battleground State?

This is civic life in the age of George W. Bush, in which politics has become a continuation of civil war by other means. In Bush's America, there's a war on -- against a foreign enemy so evil that we can ignore the Geneva Conventions, against domestic liberals so insidious that we can ignore democratic norms. Only bleeding hearts with a pre-Sept. 11 mind-set still believe in voting rights.

For Bush and Rove, the domestic war predates the war on terrorism. From the first day of his presidency, Bush opted to govern from the right, to fan the flames of cultural resentment, to divide the American house against itself in the hope that cultural conservatism would create a stable Republican majority. The Sept. 11 attacks unified us, but Bush exploited those attacks to relentlessly partisan ends. As his foreign and domestic policies abjectly failed, Bush's reliance on identity politics only grew stronger. He anointed himself the standard-bearer for provincials and portrayed Kerry and his backers as arrogant cosmopolitans.

And so here we are, improbably enmeshed in a latter-day version of the election of 1928, when the Catholicism of Democratic presidential nominee Al Smith bitterly divided the nation along Protestant-Catholic and nativist-immigrant lines. To his credit, Smith's opponent (and eventual victor), Herbert Hoover, did not exploit this rift himself. Bush, by contrast, has not merely exploited the modernist-traditionalist tensions in America but helped create new ones and summoned old ones we could be forgiven for thinking were permanently interred. (Kerry will ban the Bible?)

Indeed, it's hard to think of another president more deliberately divisive than the current one. I can come up with only one other president who sought so assiduously to undermine the basic arrangements of American policy (as Bush has undermined the New Deal at home and the systems of post-World War II alliances abroad) with so little concern for the effect this would have on the comity and viability of the nation. And Jefferson Davis wasn't really a president of the United States.

After four years in the White House, George W. Bush's most significant contribution to American life is this pervasive bitterness, this division of the house into raging, feuding halves. We are two nations now, each with a culture that attacks the other. And politics, as the Republicans are openly playing it, need no longer concern itself with the most fundamental democratic norm: the universal right to vote.

As the campaign ends, Bush is playing to the right and Kerry to the center.

That foretells the course of the administrations that each would head. The essential difference between them is simply that, as a matter of strategy and temperament, Bush seeks to exploit our rifts and Kerry to narrow them. That, finally, is the choice before us next Tuesday: between one candidate who wants to pry this nation apart to his own advantage, and another who seeks to make it whole.

Slight delay

Apologies for the slight delay in our regularly scheduled programming. I've been busy rolling around on the carpet and drooling on myself, but time for such fanciful interludes has evaporated.

Truth be told, I've been avoiding election coverage as much as possible, peeking from between my chubby fingers once in a while to reaffirm that the deathmatch is still in progress.

I'll try to catch up - with a lot of smaller posts so you can skip right over the ones that bore you to an early grave.

Swiss Cheese

Where to begin? Against the backdrop of the VP debate where once again Dick Cheney repeated those false assertions that Iraq and Al Qaeda were working in concert, that weapons of mass destruction existed and were ready to be deployed, that the invasion of Iraq was part of the war on terror (I refuse to capitalize that any more), reality is rudely intruding.

A couple of reports blow enormous holes in those fraudulent statements:

U.S. Inspector at Odds with Bush on Iraq Weapons
Wed Oct 6, 2004 11:58 AM ET

By Vicki Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iraq had no stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons before last year's U.S.-led invasion and its nuclear program had decayed since the 1991 Gulf War, a weapons inspector appointed by the Bush administration said on Wednesday.

The assessment contrasted with statements by President Bush before the invasion, when he cited a growing threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as the reason for overthrowing President Saddam Hussein.

"I still do not expect that militarily significant WMD stocks are cached in Iraq," Charles Duelfer, the CIA special adviser who led the hunt for weapons of mass destruction, said in testimony prepared for the Senate Armed Services Committee obtained by Reuters.

He said Iraq's nuclear weapons program had deteriorated since the 1991 Gulf War, but he said Saddam did not abandon his nuclear ambitions.

The issue has figured prominently in the campaign for the Nov. 2 U.S. presidential election, with Bush's Democratic opponent John Kerry saying Bush rushed to war without allowing U.N. inspections enough time to check out Iraq's armaments.

Bush, who has given varying justifications for the war, said in a speech in Pennsylvania on Wednesday that the concern was that terrorists would get banned weapons from Saddam.

"There was a risk, a real risk, that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks," Bush said.

"In the world after September the 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take," he said, referring to the 2001 attacks on the United States attributed to al Qaeda.

CHEMICAL WEAPONS

Duelfer said a risk that has emerged since he last briefed Congress on the status of the WMD hunt was a connection between chemical weapons experts from Saddam's former regime with insurgents fighting the U.S.-led forces now in Iraq.

"I believe we got ahead of this problem through a series of raids throughout the spring and summer. I am convinced we successfully contained a problem before it matured into a major threat," Duelfer said.

"Nevertheless, it points to the problem that the dangerous expertise developed by the previous regime could be transferred to other hands," he said.

Duelfer said that by the time of the war in 2003, Iraq would have been able to produce mustard agent in months and nerve agent in less than a year.

"We have not come across explicit guidance from Saddam on this point, yet it was an inherent consequence of his decision to develop a domestic chemical production capacity," Duelfer said.

Duelfer said that "despite Saddam's expressed desire to retain the knowledge of his nuclear team, and his attempts to retain some key parts of the program (after 1991), during the course of the following 12 years Iraq's ability to produce a weapon decayed."

Duelfer briefed the Senate Intelligence Committee behind closed doors about his report in the morning and was to testify later at an open Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

"While it is clear that Saddam wanted a long-range missile, there was little work done on warheads. It is apparent that he drew the line at that point ... so long as sanctions remained," Duelfer said.

One of Saddam's priorities was to escape U.N. sanctions, he said.

"Over time, sanctions had steadily weakened to the point where Iraq, in 2000-2001 was confidently designing missiles around components that could only be obtained outside sanctions," Duelfer said.

Duelfer's key conclusion tallied with that of his predecessor, David Kay, who said when he stepped down in January that no large stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons existed in Iraq when the United States went to war.

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A New C.I.A. Report Casts Doubt on a Key Terrorist's Tie to Iraq
By DOUGLAS JEHL

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 - A reassessment by the Central Intelligence Agency has cast doubt on a central piece of evidence used by the Bush administration before the invasion of Iraq to draw links between Saddam Hussein's government and Al Qaeda's terrorist network, government officials said Tuesday.

The C.I.A. report, sent to policy makers in August, says it is now not clear whether Mr. Hussein's government harbored members of a group led by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the officials said. The assertion that Iraq provided refuge to Mr. Zarqawi was the primary basis for the administration's prewar assertions connecting Iraq to Al Qaeda.

The new C.I.A. assessment, based largely on information gathered after the American-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, is the latest to revise a prewar intelligence report used by the administration as a central rationale for war.

Other reports have cast doubt on the idea that Iraq provided chemical and biological weapons training to Al Qaeda, and the report of the Sept. 11 commission found no "collaborative relationship" between the former Iraqi government and Al Qaeda.

In the months before the war, George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell were among administration officials who asserted without qualification that Iraq had harbored Mr. Zarqawi and members of his terror group.

In June of this year, President Bush described Mr. Zarqawi as "the best evidence of connection to Al Qaeda affiliates and Al Qaeda." But while Mr. Zarqawi was once thought to be closely linked to Al Qaeda, his affiliations are now less certain.

Some American and European officials have said there is no clear coordination between Mr. Zarqawi and Al Qaeda, though their aims are similar. In the meantime, Mr. Zarqawi has emerged as an architect of repeated car bomb attacks and as the most active and deadly foreign terrorist operating in Iraq as part of the anti-American insurgency.

The C.I.A.'s new assessment states that it could not be conclusive even about his relationship with Mr. Hussein's government. The C.I.A. review, first reported by Knight Ridder newspapers, did not say on what basis the earlier assessment was being softened, and government officials declined to explain on Tuesday.

On Monday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld appeared to back away from earlier claims about the close relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

"I just read an intelligence report recently about one person who's connected to Al Qaeda who was in and out of Iraq, and there's the most tortured description of why he might have had a relationship and why he might not have had a relationship," Mr. Rumsfeld told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Mr. Rumsfeld later issued a statement saying that he continued to believe that there had been "solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of Al Qaeda members" before the 2003 war and that "we have what we believe to be credible information that Iraq and Al Qaeda have discussed safe haven opportunities in Iraq."

A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment about any new intelligence assessment. The government officials who outlined its findings represented several different agencies, but all were guarded in discussing it, saying they did not want to add to tensions between the C.I.A. and the White House.

One government official said the new report "doesn't make clear-cut assertions one way or another" about whether Iraq harbored Mr. Zarqawi. But officials said that it had established beyond doubt that Mr. Zarqawi spent time in Baghdad in 2002, that from there he ordered the assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan and that he was in contact with members of the insurgent group Ansar al-Islam in northern Iraq.

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Bremer Criticizes Troop Levels
Ex-Overseer of Iraq Says U.S. Effort Was Hampered Early On

By Robin Wright and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 5, 2004; Page A01

The former U.S. official who governed Iraq after the invasion said yesterday that the United States made two major mistakes: not deploying enough troops in Iraq and then not containing the violence and looting immediately after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, administrator for the U.S.-led occupation government until the handover of political power on June 28, said he still supports the decision to intervene in Iraq but said a lack of adequate forces hampered the occupation and efforts to end the looting early on.

"We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness," he said yesterday in a speech at an insurance conference in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. "We never had enough troops on the ground."

Bremer's comments were striking because they echoed contentions of many administration critics, including Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry, who argue that the U.S. government failed to plan adequately to maintain security in Iraq after the invasion. Bremer has generally defended the U.S. approach in Iraq but in recent weeks has begun to criticize the administration for tactical and policy shortfalls.

In a Sept. 17 speech at DePauw University, Bremer said he frequently raised the issue within the administration and "should have been even more insistent" when his advice was spurned because the situation in Iraq might be different today. "The single most important change -- the one thing that would have improved the situation -- would have been having more troops in Iraq at the beginning and throughout" the occupation, Bremer said, according to the Banner-Graphic in Greencastle, Ind.

A Bremer aide said that his speeches were intended for private audiences and were supposed to have been off the record. Yesterday, however, excerpts of his remarks -- given at the Greenbrier resort at an annual meeting sponsored by the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers -- were distributed in a news release by the conference organizers.

In a statement late last night, Bremer stressed that he fully supports the administration's plan for training Iraqi security forces as well as its overall strategy for Iraq.

"I believe that we currently have sufficient troop levels in Iraq," he said in an e-mailed statement. He said all references in recent speeches to troop levels related to the situation when he arrived in Baghdad in May 2003 -- "and when I believed we needed either more coalition troops or Iraqi security forces to address the looting."

He said that, to address the problem, the occupation government developed a plan that is still in place under the new interim Iraqi government.

Bremer also said he believes winning the war in Iraq is an "integral part of fighting this war on terror." He added that he "strongly supports" President Bush's reelection.

The argument over whether the United States committed enough troops to the mission in Iraq began even before the March 2003 invasion.

Prior to the war, the Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, said publicly that he thought the invasion plan lacked sufficient manpower, and he was slapped down by the Pentagon's civilian leadership for saying so. During the war, concerns about troop strength expressed by retired generals also provoked angry denunciations by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In April 2003, for example, Rumsfeld commented, "People were saying that the plan was terrible and there weren't enough people and . . . there were going to be, you know, tens of thousands of casualties, and it was going to take forever." After Baghdad fell, Rumsfeld dismissed reports of widespread looting and chaos as "untidy" signs of newfound freedom that were exaggerated by the media. Rumsfeld and Bush resisted calls for more troops, saying that what was going on in Iraq was not a war but simply the desperate actions of Baathist loyalists.

In yesterday's speech, Bremer told the insurance agents that U.S. plans for the postwar period erred in projecting what would happen after Hussein's demise, focusing on preparing for humanitarian relief and widespread refugee problems rather than a bloody insurgency now being waged by at least four well-armed factions.

"There was planning, but planning for a situation that didn't arise," he said.

A senior defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said yesterday that Bremer never asked for more troops when he was the administrator in Iraq -- except for two weeks before he left, when he requested forces to help secure Iraq's borders.

Bremer said in his speech that the administration was clearly right to invade Iraq. Though no weapons of mass destruction have been found, he said, the United States faced "the real possibility" that Hussein would someday give such weapons to terrorists.

"The status quo was simply untenable," he said. "I am more than ever convinced that regime change was the right thing to do."