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| [dmlc] BUSH'S AMERICA 2004:JOBS DOWN; TAXCUTS/TAXBREAKS FOR BIG BUSINESS,THE WEALTHY UP
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October 8, 2004
BUSH'S AMERICA 2004: JOBS AND JOB CREATION DOWN....TAXCUTS/TAXBREAKS,
OFFSHORE LOOPHOLES FOR BIG BUSINESS, THE WEALTHY, THE ELITE...UP
By Alyce Vrba
Can the PEOPLE handle,... can the PEOPLE survive four more years of the
Bush/Cheney team?
If Bush's war of choice in Iraq is of actual benefit and merit, why is there
no shared sacrifice by the elite, the wealthy to pay their fair share of the
taxload to fund such? Why has none of our elected officials' children
enlisted and joined the fight on the ground in Iraq?
Where is the leadership, the jawboning, the incentives to systematically
lower our dependency on fossil fuels? Why has the Bush administration
allowed us to continue on a path that fosters our dependency on fossil
fuels, on BIG OIL, and that leaves us vulnerable to 'unstable or volatile
Regions'?
Election 2004: The PEOPLE have the opportunity, the responsibility, the
obligation to decide. Which team, which agenda benefits, protects, and
constructively moves forward the vast majority of Americans: 'our vanishing,
increasingly squeezed MiddleClass, our increasing POOR'?
YOU HAVE THE POWER....
POORPOWER, Copyright 2004, All rights reserved.
==============================================================
September job growth weaker than expected
From wire reports
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2004-10-08-umemployment-sept_x.htm?
WASHINGTON — U.S. businesses added just 96,000 jobs to payrolls in
September, the government reported on Friday, a weaker-than-expected total
that was expected to sharpen a presidential debate later in the day over the
economy's direction.
The Labor Department report, showing the unemployment rate in September held
steady at 5.4 percent , will provide fodder for the second debate between President
George W. Bush and Democratic Presidential contender Sen. John Kerry, the
first one in which the candidates are expected to discuss economic policy.
'The reality is that a 96,000 increase in a work force of a 131 million base
is an anemic rise, and is in no way a satisfactory increase,' said private
economist Ken Mayland of ClearView Economics.
The economy should be creating 250,000 jobs a month or more by now, he said.
The September job-creation total came in below economists' forecasts for
148,000 new jobs. Four hurricanes swept through the Southeast during August
and September, which Labor said likely held down employment growth 'but not
enough to change materially' its estimate of September jobs.
Labor also said that, according to preliminary estimates, the economy added
about 236,000 more jobs than previously thought in the year ended March 2004
and it will incorporate the change into benchmark revisions it issues next
February.
As a result, after including the projected change, it appears that about
585,000 jobs have been lost since President Bush took office in January
2001.
Job growth in September was held down by losses in manufacturing, retail and
information services. September's net increase of 96,000 payroll jobs was
less than August's rise, which was revised down in Friday's report from
144,000 to 128,000.
The jobs report showed much of the growth last month occurred in government
hiring, which resulted in 37,000 net new jobs. Hiring in the service sector
continued to rise in such industries as professional and business services,
which added 34,000 jobs; financial services, which added 26,000 jobs; and
the leisure and hospitality category, which added 13,000.
The troubled manufacturing sector shed 18,000 jobs, first decline in two
months. However, the nation's factories have boosted hiring by 88,000 jobs
the previous seven months. Construction employment grew 4,000. The sector
has showed little growth since May.
© Copyright 2004 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
==============================================================
OP-ED COLUMNIST NEW YORK TIMES
Working for a Pittance
By BOB HERBERT
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/08/opinion/08herbert1.html?
Published: October 8, 2004
E-mail: [email removed]
Reality keeps rearing its ugly head. The Bush administration's case for the
war in Iraq has completely fallen apart, as evidenced by the report this
week from the president's handpicked inspector that Iraq had destroyed its
illicit weapons stockpiles in the early 1990's.
Coming next week are the results of a new study that shows - here at home -
how tough a time American families are having in their never-ending struggle
to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. The White House,
as deep in denial about the economy as it is about Iraq, insists that things
are fine - despite the embarrassing fact that President Bush is on track to
become the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net loss
of jobs during his four years in office.
The study, jointly sponsored by the Annie E. Casey, Ford and Rockefeller
Foundations, will show that 9.2 million working families in the United
States - one out of every four - earn wages that are so low they are barely
able to survive financially.
'Our data is very solid and shows that this is a much bigger problem than
most people imagine,' said Brandon Roberts, one of the authors of the
report, which is to be formally released on Tuesday. The report found that
there are 20 million children in these low-income working families.
For the purposes of the study, any family in which at least one person was
employed was considered a working family. Very wealthy families were
included.
The median income for a family of four in the U.S. is $62,732. According to
the study, a family of four earning less than $36,784 is considered
low-income. A family of four earning less than $18,392 is considered poor.
The 9.2 million struggling families cited by the report fell into one of the
latter two categories. And those families have one-third of all the children
in American working families.
Not surprisingly, the problem for millions of families is that they have
jobs that pay very low wages and provide no benefits. 'Consider the motel
housekeeper, the retail clerk at the hardware store or the coffee shop
cook,' the report said. 'If they have children, chances are good that their
families are living on an income too low to provide for their basic needs.'
Neither politicians nor the media put much of a spotlight on families that
are struggling economically. According to the study, one in five workers are
in occupations where the median wage is less than $8.84 an hour, which is a
poverty-level wage for a family of four. A full-time job at the federal
minimum wage of $5.15 an hour is not even sufficient to keep a family of
three out of poverty.
Families with that kind of income are teetering on the edge of an economic
abyss. Any misfortune might push them over the edge - an illness, an
automobile breakdown, even something as seemingly minor as a flooded
basement.
For the families in these lower-income brackets, life is often a harrowing
day-to-day struggle to pay for the bare necessities. According to federal
government statistics, the median annual rent for a two-bedroom apartment in
major metropolitan markets is more than $8,000. The annual cost of food for
a low-income family of four is nearly $4,000. Utility bills are nearly
$2,000. Transportation costs are about $1,500. And then there are costs for
child care, health care and clothing.
You do the math. How are these millions of poor and low-income families
making it?
[A lot of those families are going to get a shock this winter as price
increases for crude oil get translated into big jumps in home heating
bills.]
The economy relies heavily on the services provided by low-wage workers but,
as the report notes, 'our society has not taken adequate steps to ensure
that these workers can make ends meet and build a future for their families,
no matter how determined they are to be self-sufficient.'
Mr. Roberts said he hoped the study, titled 'Working Hard, Falling Short,'
would help initiate a national discussion of the plight of families who are
doing the right thing but not earning enough to get ahead. 'Seventy-one
percent of low-income families work,' he said. More than half are headed by
married couples. But economic self-sufficiency remains maddeningly out of
reach.
Even in a presidential election year, these matters have not been explored
in any sustained way. We're quick to give lip service to the need to work
hard, but very slow to properly reward hard work.
TOP OPINION ARTICLES
Tom DeLay's Self-Ruination
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
==============================================================OP-ED
COLUMNIST NEW YORK TIMES
Ignorance Isn't Strength
By PAUL KRUGMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/08/opinion/08krugman.html
Published: October 8, 2004
E-mail: [email removed]
I first used the word 'Orwellian' to describe the Bush team in October 2000.
Even then it was obvious that George W. Bush surrounds himself with people
who insist that up is down, and ignorance is strength. But the full costs of
his denial of reality are only now becoming clear.
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have an unparalleled ability
to insulate themselves from inconvenient facts. They lead a party that
controls all three branches of government, and face news media that in some
cases are partisan supporters, and in other cases are reluctant to state
plainly that officials aren't telling the truth. They also still enjoy the
residue of the faith placed in them after 9/11.
This has allowed them to engage in what Orwell called 'reality control.' In
the world according to the Bush administration, our leaders are infallible,
and their policies always succeed. If the facts don't fit that assumption,
they just deny the facts.
As a political strategy, reality control has worked very well. But as a
strategy for governing, it has led to predictable disaster. When leaders
live in an invented reality, they do a bad job of dealing with real reality.
In the last few days we've seen some impressive demonstrations of reality
control at work. During the debate on Tuesday, Mr. Cheney insisted that 'I
have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11.' After the
release of the Duelfer report, which shows that Saddam's weapons
capabilities were deteriorating, not advancing, at the time of the invasion,
Mr. Cheney declared that the report proved that 'delay, defer, wait wasn't
an option.'
From a political point of view, such exercises in denial have been very
successful. For example, the Bush administration has managed to convince
many people that its tax cuts, which go primarily to the wealthiest few
percent of the population, are populist measures benefiting middle-class
families and small businesses. [Under the administration's definition,
anyone with 'business income' - a group that includes Dick Cheney and George
Bush - is a struggling small-business owner.]
The administration has also managed to convince at least some people that
its economic record, which includes the worst employment performance in 70
years, is a great success, and that the economy is 'strong and getting
stronger.' [The data to be released today, which are expected to improve the
numbers a bit, won't change the basic picture of a dismal four years.]
Officials have even managed to convince many people that they are moving
forward on environmental policy. They boast of their 'Clear Skies' plan even
as the inspector general of the E.P.A. declares that the enforcement of
existing air-quality rules has collapsed.
But the political ability of the Bush administration to deny reality - to
live in an invented world in which everything is the way officials want it
to be - has led to an ongoing disaster in Iraq and looming disaster
elsewhere.
How did the occupation of Iraq go so wrong? [The security situation has
deteriorated to the point where there are no safe places: a bomb was
discovered on Tuesday in front of a popular restaurant inside the Green
Zone.]
The insulation of officials from reality is central to the story. They
wanted to believe Ahmad Chalabi's promises that we'd be welcomed with
flowers; nobody could tell them different. They wanted to believe - months
after everyone outside the administration realized that we were facing a
large, dangerous insurgency and needed more troops - that the attackers were
a handful of foreign terrorists and Baathist dead-enders; nobody could tell
them different.
Why did the economy perform so badly? Long after it was obvious to everyone
outside the administration that the tax-cut strategy wasn't an effective way
of creating jobs, administration officials kept promising huge job gains,
any day now. Nobody could tell them different.
Why has the pursuit of terrorists been so unsuccessful? It has been obvious
for years that John Ashcroft isn't just scary; he's also scarily
incompetent. But inside the administration, he's considered the man for the
job - and nobody can say different.
The point is that in the real world, as opposed to the political world,
ignorance isn't strength. A leader who has the political power to pretend
that he's infallible, and uses that power to avoid ever admitting mistakes,
eventually makes mistakes so large that they can't be covered up. And that's
what's happening to Mr. Bush.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
==============================================================
House Passes Corporate Tax Bill
Measure Would Provide Breaks to Businesses, Tobacco Quota Buyouts
By Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 8, 2004; Page A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A16139-2004Oct7
The House, by a vote of 280 to 141, gave final approval last night to a
far-reaching tax bill that would provide a rich array of breaks to
manufacturing companies, energy producers and small businesses and would
underwrite a $10 billion buyout of American tobacco farmers over the next
decade.
The bill is aimed at ending a transatlantic trade war by scrapping certain
tax subsidies for U.S. exporters that have brought on retaliatory action by
Europe. But in the version approved last night by the House, that modest
goal is largely overwhelmed in a preelection package of benefits for dozens
of constituencies, including NASCAR track owners and mall builders.
The measure, which would provide nearly $150 billion in concessions but
claims to offset nearly half that amount with new revenue, goes to the
Senate. Speedy approval there is considered likely.
The bipartisan momentum, however, masked the bitter disappointment of health
advocates and labor organizations, which saw their hopes for major
legislative gains evaporate during final House-Senate negotiations in which
pro-business House Republicans were able to assert their will.
The compromise measure approved last night does not include a
Senate-approved plan that, for the first time, would have given the Food and
Drug Administration authority to regulate the cigarette industry. Also
deleted was a provision in the Senate-passed version of the tax bill that
would have blocked a portion of the Bush administration's controversial new
overtime pay eligibility rules.
Democrats charged that the bill would do little to create jobs or enhance
the competitiveness of U.S. industry, as Republicans claim.
Senate backers of the FDA regulation of cigarettes indicated last night that
they had not abandoned hope of defeating the gigantic tax bill.
Sen. Mike DeWine [R-Ohio] said earlier this week that a bill without the FDA
regulation of cigarettes would pass 'over my dead body.' A spokesman for
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy [D-Mass.], another strong supporter of FDA
regulation, said last night that the senator was 'considering all the
parliamentary tools available to him to defeat the bill.'
But the sheer diversity of the bill's benefits -- which would go to
economically strapped manufacturing companies, timber operations, oil and
gas wildcatters, and new industries that make diesel fuel from soybeans --
will make it difficult for opponents to muster the 60 votes in the Senate
needed to block action.
Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle [D-S.D.], who is in a tight race to
retain his seat in November, has indicated that he supports the compromise
bill. Daschle lobbied for new tax breaks for small producers of ethanol
fuel, a budding business in his state.
Both parties are hoping to exploit the tobacco buyout provisions.
On Wednesday, Democrat Erskine B. Bowles, who is in a fierce battle for one
of North Carolina's Senate seats, canceled his campaigning and rushed to
Washington to urge senators to vote for the tax bill even without the FDA
regulation of tobacco.
The bill would channel about $4 billion to North Carolina tobacco farmers
over 10 years. It would phase out the New Deal-era system of government
quotas that is threatening to bankrupt tobacco farmers faced with slackening
demand and falling prices.
Under the buyout provisions, farmers would get a transitional payment,
enabling them to retire, switch to new crops or modernize their tobacco
production to meet the demands of a competitive market.
On the House floor last night, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas
[R-Calif.] described Bowles's Republican opponent, Rep. Richard Burr [N.C.],
as one of the chief architects of the tobacco buyout provisions.
Taking the floor, Burr then called it 'a special night' for tobacco farmers
and said: 'This piece of legislation will probably enable 10,000 individuals
in North Carolina alone' to avoid having 'to file for bankruptcy this year.'
Other parts of the bill were clearly crafted with an eye to the coming
election. Republicans, for example, would like to take credit for helping
middle-class voters in seven states that do not have a state income tax. The
bill would restore a provision of the tax code that allows the deduction of
state sales taxes in lieu of deducting state income taxes.
Meanwhile, Democrats charged that the bill is far too generous to big
companies. 'It's Christmas in October for multinational companies and
lobbyists with friends in high places,' said Charles B. Rangel [N.Y.],
ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee.
Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer [D-Md.] said the bill 'only serves to
complicate and carve up the tax code. . . . It continues [on] the path of
extraordinary fiscal irresponsibility.'
From modest beginnings, the tax bill grew steadily.
The original impetus was a World Trade Organization ruling nearly two years
ago that declared $5 billion in annual U.S. export subsidies to U.S.
manufacturers to be illegal.
That ruling prompted the European Union to impose retaliatory tariffs on
1,600 U.S. manufactured products and farm goods. The tariffs, now at 12
percent, rise each month the illegal export subsidies continue.
The bill would phase out the export subsidies deemed illegal by the WTO. But
it is still unclear whether this would take place fast enough to satisfy the
Europeans and result in the lifting of the tariffs.
2004 The Washington Post Company
==============================================================
Democratic Leaders Call for DeLay's Ouster
By Charles Babington and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 8, 2004; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16136-20040Oct7.html
House Democratic leaders and several outside groups called for Majority
Leader Tom DeLay to resign his post yesterday, saying that three
admonishments by the House ethics committee in one week disqualify him for
the chamber's second-highest leadership job. Fellow Republicans staunchly
defended the Texas lawmaker, even as some said the consecutive rebukes may
complicate his prospects of ever becoming speaker.
'Mr. DeLay has proven himself to be ethically unfit to lead his party,'
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi [D-Calif.] told reporters. 'The burden now
falls upon his fellow House Republicans' to oust him.
Facing perhaps the biggest challenge of his combative career, DeLay began
summoning colleagues within minutes of the Wednesday night release of the
committee's latest report, distributing talking points that GOP members
recited throughout the day yesterday. He fought back furiously on other
fronts, saying vengeful Democrats wanted to smear him and calling on the
House Rules Committee to condemn the lawmaker who filed the latest
complaint.
While Democrats railed, Republicans rallied, hailing the man that many
credit for boosting the GOP's grip on the House through aggressive campaign
and redistricting strategies that often draw fire. 'People are grateful for
what he's done to build the majority,' said Rep. Rob Portman [R-Ohio],
including the Texas redistricting fight at the center of some of the ethics
complaints.
Rep. Paul Ryan [R-Wis.] called the charges against DeLay 'gutter politics at
its worst' and said: 'You're going to see a big rallying around Tom. It will
do nothing but bolster support for Tom DeLay.'
Still, some Republicans said the ethics rebukes could haunt DeLay if he
tries to become speaker. Some lawmakers expect Speaker J. Dennis Hastert
[R-Ill.] to retire in 2006 or perhaps step down from the speakership next
year if President Bush, his ally and friend, should lose the Nov. 2
election.
As the second-ranking leader, DeLay would automatically be considered a
potential successor. But Rep. Mark Edward Souder [R-Ind.] said the Texan
'will have a tough battle for speaker' because of his unyielding
conservatism and the attacks on his ethics record. Souder, who calls himself
a DeLay ally, said the majority leader may be able to prevail because so
many House Republicans feel loyal to him.
DeLay can afford little erosion in support, one lawmaker noted, because the
entire House votes for a speaker. Were an election held today, as few as a
dozen GOP rebels could deny DeLay the speakership by siding with Democrats,
who are virtually certain to vote unanimously against their adversary.
Rep. Zach Wamp [R-Tenn.] said a colleague asked him yesterday whether he
would be interested in seeking a leadership post, a question that inevitably
raises the matter of DeLay's viability. 'The question is: Is the aggregate
weight of the [ethics] charges too much?' Wamp said in reference to DeLay.
'I'm definitely interested in getting more involved in leadership and
setting the direction of the party.'
DeLay's claim yesterday that the ethics committee had 'dismissed' the
charges against him bore little resemblance to key portions of the ethics
panel's 44-page memo, seven-page letter and thick stack of documents,
Democrats noted. The committee's five Republicans and five Democrats voted
unanimously to admonish the majority leader on two separate matters this
week, sometimes in scolding tones. It deferred action on a third matter
under grand jury investigation in Texas.
The committee noted that it also had chastised DeLay last week and in 1999.
'It is clearly necessary for you to temper your future actions,' the panel
wrote DeLay, to comply with 'House rules and standards of conduct.'
House Democrats seized on such language to attack the politician they view
as their most bitter foe in terms of fundraising, congressional
redistricting and hardball parliamentary tactics. Minority Whip Steny H.
Hoyer [D-Md.] said DeLay's 'defiant and deliberately misleading statements .
. . show nothing but contempt for the ethics process,' and he should lose
his leadership post. Common Cause began a 'nationwide petition drive to
collect thousands of signatures' calling for his ouster.
Joel Hefley [R-Colo.], the House ethics committee chairman, said that
Democrats were accusing his colleagues and him of being too soft on DeLay,
and that Republicans were saying the panel was duped into being too severe.
He said of the committee: 'It's a unanimous vote, Democrats and Republicans,
liberals and conservatives. . . . I think that speaks for itself.'
The ethics committee on Wednesday faulted DeLay's actions in involving a
federal agency in a Texas partisan dispute. It also admonished him for his
dealings with officers of a Kansas energy company who gave his political
committees $25,000 and claimed they received legislative help in return.
Last week, the ethics panel publicly admonished DeLay for offering to
endorse the political campaign of a Michigan lawmaker's son if the
legislator would give a crucially needed vote on the 2003 Medicare
prescription drug bill. And in 1999, the committee privately chastised him
for threatening to retaliate against a Washington trade group for hiring a
Democrat as its president.
'This is a case of a recidivist, and it needs to be treated as one,' said
Fred Wertheimer, president of the nonprofit advocacy group Democracy 21,
which urged Republicans to remove DeLay from his post.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee tried to capitalize on the
ethics reports yesterday. It criticized Rep. Christopher Shays [Conn.] -- a
moderate Republican in a district Democrats believe they can win -- for
defending DeLay as 'a great majority leader.'
'Only a rubber stamp for DeLay and his right-wing Republican agenda would
call him a great leader on the same day he's sanctioned for the third time
by the House ethics committee,' said DCCC Chairman Robert T. Matsui
[D-Calif.].
But Rep. Mike Rogers [R-Mich.], finance chairman of the National Republican
Congressional Committee, said Democrats are wasting their time. 'When we're
campaigning, we're not talking about Tom DeLay, we're talking about what
we've accomplished for the American people,' he said.
Rep. Thomas M. Davis III [R-Va.] said DeLay's name came up at a recent
candidates' debate 'and people said, 'Who is he?' '
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
==============================================================Thursday,
October 7, 2004
Subject : IRAQ: NO 'IMMINENT' THREAT TO AMERICA. SADDAM WAS MORE
CONCERNED WITH IRAN...AND MAINTAINING HIS OWN CONTROL OVER IRAQ and THE
IRAQI PEOPLE.
INSPECTOR'S JUDGMENT
U.S. Report Finds Iraqis Eliminated Illicit Arms in 90's
By DOUGLAS JEHL
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/07/politics/07intel.html?hp
Published: October 7, 2004
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 - Iraq had destroyed its illicit weapons stockpiles
within months after the Persian Gulf war of 1991, and its ability to produce
such weapons had significantly eroded by the time of the American invasion
in 2003, the top American inspector for Iraq said in a report made public
Wednesday.
The report by the inspector, Charles A. Duelfer, intended to offer a
near-final judgment about Iraq and its weapons, said Iraq, while under
pressure from the United Nations, had 'essentially destroyed'' its illicit
weapons ability by the end of 1991, with its last secret factory, a
biological weapons plant, eliminated in 1996.
Mr. Duelfer said that even during those years, Saddam Hussein had aimed at
'preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction
when sanctions were lifted.'' But he said he had found no evidence of any
concerted effort by Iraq to restart the programs.
The findings uphold Iraq's prewar insistence that it did not possess
chemical or biological weapons. They also show the enormous distance between
the Bush administration's own prewar assertions, based on reports by
American intelligence agencies, and what a 15-month inquiry by American
investigators found since the war.
Mr. Duelfer said he had concluded that between 1991 and 2003, Mr. Hussein
had in effect sacrificed Iraq's illicit weapons to the larger goal of
winning an end to United Nations sanctions. But he also argued that Mr.
Hussein had used the period to try to exploit avenues opened by the
sanctions, especially the oil-for-food program, to lay the groundwork for a
plan to resume weapons production if sanctions were lifted.
In addition, the report concluded that Mr. Hussein had deliberately sought
to maintain ambiguity about whether it had illicit weapons, mainly as a
deterrent to Iran, its rival.
The American inspector presented his conclusions to Congress on Wednesday,
including highly charged public testimony before the Senate Armed Services
Committee.
With Iraq figuring prominently in the last dash toward the presidential
election, Democrats argued that the report had undermined the
administration's case for war, while the White House and its Republican
allies called attention to elements in the report that highlighted potential
dangers posed by Mr. Hussein's government.
'There is no doubt that Saddam was a threat to our nation, and there is no
doubt that he had W.M.D. capability, and the Duelfer report is very clear on
these points,'' said James Wilkinson, a White House deputy national security
adviser, using the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction.
The three-volume report, totaling 918 pages, represented the most
authoritative attempt so far to unravel the mystery posed by Iraq between
1991 and 2003, beginning with the point after the Persian Gulf war when Iraq
still possessed chemical and biological weapons and an active
nuclear-weapons program. The conclusions suggest that the main war aim cited
by the White House in March 2003 - to disarm Iraq, which American
intelligence agencies said possessed chemical and biological weapons and was
reconstituting its nuclear program - was based on an outdated view of Iraq's
weapons stockpiles.
At the time of the American invasion, Mr. Duelfer said in the report, Iraq
did not possess chemical and biological weapons, was not seeking to
reconstitute its nuclear program, and was not making any active effort to
gain those abilities. Even if Iraq had sought to restart its weapons
programs in 2003, the report said, it could not have produced militarily
significant quantities of chemical weapons for at least a year, and it would
have required years to produce a nuclear weapon.
'Saddam Hussein ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the gulf war,''
Mr. Duelfer said in the report. It said American inspectors in Iraq had
'found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program.''
After a closed briefing by Mr. Duelfer to the Senate Intelligence Committee,
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the
committee, described the report as 'a devastating account.''
'The administration would like the American public to believe that Saddam's
intention to build a weapons program, regardless of actual weapons or the
capability to produce weapons, justified invading Iraq,'' Mr. Rockefeller
said in a statement. 'In fact, we invaded a country, thousands of people
have died, and Iraq never posed a grave or growing danger.''
In accounting for what happened beginning in 1991, Mr. Duelfer said Mr.
Hussein made a fundamental decision after the Persian Gulf war to get rid of
Iraq's illicit weapons and accept the destruction of its weapons-producing
facilities as part of an effort to win an end to sanctions imposed by the
United Nations to achieve those ends.
Although Mr. Duelfer concluded that Mr. Hussein had intended to restart his
programs, the report acknowledged that that conclusion was based more on
inference than solid evidence. 'The regime had no formal written strategy or
plan for the revival of W.M.D. after sanctions,'' it said.
The report notes that its conclusions were drawn in part from interrogation
of Mr. Hussein in his prison cell outside Baghdad. Mr. Duelfer, a special
adviser to the director of central intelligence, said he had concluded that
Mr. Hussein had deliberately sought to maintain ambiguity about whether Iraq
possessed illicit weapons, primarily as a deterrent to Iran, Iraq's
adversary in an eight-year war in the 1980's.
It was not until a series of meetings in late 2002, just months before the
American invasion, that Mr. Hussein finally acknowledged to senior officers
and officials of his government that Iraq did not possess illicit weapons,
Mr. Duelfer said.
The report said American investigators had found clandestine laboratories in
the Baghdad area used by the Iraqi Intelligence Service between 1991 and
2003 to conduct research and to test various chemicals and poisons,
including ricin. As previously reported, it said those efforts appeared to
be intended primarily for use in assassinations, not to inflict mass
casualties.
Mr. Duelfer said in his report that Mr. Hussein never acknowledged in the
course of the interrogations what had become of Iraq's illicit weapons. He
said that American investigators had appealed to the former Iraqi leader to
be candid in order to shape his legacy, but that Mr. Hussein had not been
forthcoming.
The report said interviews with other former top Iraqi leaders had made
clear that Mr. Hussein had left many of his top deputies uncertain until the
eve of war about whether Iraq possessed illicit weapons. It said he seemed
to be most concerned about a possible new attack by Iran, whose incursions
into Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88 were fended off by Baghdad
partly with the use of chemical munitions.
Mr. Duelfer said Iraq had tried to maintain the knowledge base necessary to
restart an illicit weapons program. He said Iraq had essentially put its
biological program 'on the shelf,' after its last production facility, Al
Hakam, was destroyed by United Nations inspectors in 1996, and could have
begun to produce biological questions in as little as a month if it had
restarted its weapons program in 2003.
But the report said there were 'no indications'' that Iraq was pursuing such
a course, and it reported 'a complete absence of discussion or even interest
in biological weapons'' at the level of Mr. Hussein and his aides after the
mid-1990's.
The report will almost certainly be the last complete assessment by the team
led by Mr. Duelfer, which is known as the Iraq Survey Group. But he said he
and the 1,200-member team would continue their work in Iraq for the time
being. He said the team had not completely ruled out the possibility that
some Iraqi weapons might have been smuggled out of Iraq to a neighboring
country, like Syria.
The report did revise several earlier judgments, including a report by the
Central Intelligence Agency in May 2003 that said mysterious trailers found
in Iraq after the American invasion in 2003 were intended for use in a
biological warfare program. Mr. Duelfer said that the trailers could not
have been used for that purpose, and that their manufacturers 'almost
certainly designed and built the equipment exclusively for the generation of
hydrogen,'' upholding claims by Iraqi officials that linked the trailers to
weather balloons used for artillery practice.
RELATED ARTICLES
Corruption: Report Says Iraq Misused U.N. Oil Plan [October 7, 2004]
Unconventional Weapons: Saddam Hussein Sowed Confusion About Iraq's
Arsenal as a Tactic of War [October 7, 2004]
Prewar Assessment On Iraq Saw Chance Of Strong Divisions [September 28,
2004] $
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
==============================================================
October 8, 2004
British Hostage Bigley Beheaded
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-100804hostage_wr,1,2075642.story?coll=la-home-headlines
From Associated Press
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — British hostage Kenneth Bigley, who pleaded
tearfully last month for Prime Minister Tony Blair to meet his kidnappers'
demands, was beheaded by his captors, his brother said Friday.
'We can confirm that the family has now received absolute proof that Ken
Bigley was executed by his captors,' Phil Bigley said in a statement he read
on national television in Britain.
'The family here in Liverpool believe that our government did everything it
possibly could to secure the release of Ken in this impossible situation.'
But another brother, Paul, said Blair has 'blood on his hands.' He made the
comment in a written statement to the Stop the War Coalition, an activist
group in Britain that opposes the conflict.
A witness who saw a videotape sent to Abu Dhabi TV said it showed six
hooded, armed men standing behind the kneeling Bigley, whom the witness
recognized from two previous tapes released by the kidnappers in which he
pleaded for his life.
One of the six then spoke in Arabic for about a minute, saying they planned
to carry out 'the sentence of execution against this hostage' because the
British government 'did not meet our demand' to release Iraqi women detained
by the U.S.-led command in Iraq.
Afterward, the speaker took a knife from his belt and severed Bigley's head
as three others held him down, the witness said on condition of anonymity.
The tape ended with the killer holding up the severed head.
The U.S. military in Iraq said it had not found Bigley's body.
'We're aware of the reports but can give no further information,' a
spokesman for Blair's office said.
Cabinet minister Patricia Hewitt told Sky TV, 'We cannot get into the
business of negotiating with terrorists, with hostage takers, with these
evil people who have inflicted such appalling suffering already on Ken
Bigley and his family.'
Bigley's 86-year-old mother, Lil, who has been treated at a hospital
emergency room several times during the crisis, was at the family home in
Liverpool on Friday, with her sons Stan, 65, and Philip, 49.
A policewoman was stationed outside the house amid a swarm of TV cameras and
reporters.
Abu Dhabi TV said it had the video showing Bigley's beheading but decided
not to air it.
Bigley, 62, was abducted Sept. 16 along with two Americans from their home
in the upscale Mansour neighborhood by members of Tawhid and Jihad, Iraq's
most feared terrorist group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The two Americans -- Eugene Armstrong, 52, and Jack Hensley, 48 -- were
beheaded a few days later.
'It could be that the fate of Ken, Eugene and Jack was sealed from day one.
We will never know,' Phil Bigley said.
Two videos surfaced last month showing Bigley begging Blair to save his life
by meeting his captors' demands.
Early Friday, American warplanes struck a building in rebel-held Fallujah
where the U.S. command said leaders of al-Zarqawi's network were meeting. A
doctor said the attack killed 13 people, including a groom on his wedding
night, and wounded 17 others.
The U.S. command said 'credible intelligence sources' reported terrorist
leaders were meeting at the targeted house in Fallujah, 40 miles west of
Baghdad.
The report of Bigley's death came a day after Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad
Allawi hinted there might be progress in efforts to secure his release.
Kidnappers have abducted more than 150 people in Iraq this year. Most
hostages have been freed, but at least 27 have been killed.
Some kidnapping groups seek political objectives such as the withdrawal of
foreign forces or companies from Iraq in a bid to undermine the U.S.-backed
interim government, while others demand ransom money.
The attack in Fallujah was among a dozen 'precision strikes' launched since
last month against al-Zarqawi's network. Besides claiming to have kidnapped
and beheaded foreign hostages, the group is also believed to be behind
mortar attacks, suicide bombings and shooting sprees that have killed scores
in recent months.
The U.S. military said those strikes dealt a 'significant blow' to
al-Zarqawi's movement, killing several key figures, including chief
lieutenant Mohammed al-Lubnani and spiritual adviser Abu Anas al-Shami.
Dr. Ahmed Saeed said his hospital in Fallujah received 13 dead, including
the groom, and 17 wounded, including the bride. He said most of the injured
were female relatives of the groom who were staying at the house after the
wedding.
Mohammed Jawad, who lives next door, said he had just moved into the central
neighborhood to escape repeated shelling on Fallujah's outskirts. His
brother and six nephews were killed in the strike.
'This attack shows that there is no safe place in Fallujah, and the
Americans are not differentiating between civilians and armed men,' Jawad
said in tears, as he was treated for shrapnel wounds to his face and hand.
American and Iraqi authorities are trying to curb the growing insurgency in
Baghdad and elsewhere so national elections can take place by Jan. 31. Some
U.S. military officials have expressed doubt that balloting will be possible
in all parts of the country.
Late Thursday, three rockets struck Baghdad's Sheraton Hotel crowded with
foreign contractors and journalists, shattering windows and sparking small
fires. There were no serious injuries.
Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said the rockets were
fired from the back of a truck. A fourth blew up inside the vehicle, he
said, and security guards responded with gunfire.
Earlier, a mortar shell exploded in the U.S.-controlled Green Zone across
the Tigris River from the hotel compound. There was no report of damage or
casualties.
Acting on a tip, Task Force Baghdad soldiers stopped a truck carrying more
than 1,500 155-mm artillery rounds Thursday one of the largest seizures to
date, U.S. command said. The driver and passengers were detained.
Allawi's administration has been talking with representatives from
insurgency hotspots, including the radical Shiite stronghold Sadr City in
the northeast of the capital.
An aide to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr offered Thursday to disarm
his Mahdi Army militia in a move that could bring an end to weeks of
fighting in Sadr City. The government cautiously welcomed the offer and
suggested other militant groups also lay down their arms.
A spokesman for al-Sadr also offered to hand over medium and heavy weapons
and cooperate with Iraqi security forces if the government will stop
pursuing militia members and release the cleric's detained followers.
The offer by Ali Smeisem on Al-Arabiya television contained no explicit
promise to disband the militia, as demanded by U.S. and Iraqi authorities.
However, a senior security official, Qassim Dawoud, cautiously welcomed the
proposal and urged other armed groups to lay down their arms.
Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times
==============================================================
Alyce Vrba, CEO
POORPOWER, Property Rights Power
P.O. BOX 351513
Los Angeles, California 90035
[310]229-5252
http://www.poorpower.org
Email: [email removed]
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[October 8, 2004]
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