How Republicans live their lives in the dark

I'm stopped at a red light when a decrepit old Chevrolet pickup with its windows rolled down pulls into the adjacent lane.

Its radio is bleating Rush Limbaugh, and the rear bumper bears a sticker that reads, "My wife, yes. My dog, maybe. My gun, NEVER!"

The driver looks disheveled and haggard, making it very easy to surmise that here's the perfect example of an American totally screwed over by capitalism run greedily amok, decisively abetted by conservative ideology.

He's probably unemployed, has no medical insurance, no pension prospects, and is likely facing having sheriff's deputies put his family's belongings out on the sidewalk, following a heartbreaking eviction.

But he's got that radio tuned to right-wing propaganda, and he's so completely brainwashed that he thinks his greatest worry is gays getting married!

He's undoubtedly convinced that the "Democrat Socialist Party" is ruining his life -- not to mention his beloved country -- and that liberals are the reason his wallet has thinned to nothing but pictures of his gaunt spouse and sickly, skinny kids.

Meanwhile, Limbaugh and other well-compensated voices of radio or television reaction, live in luxury, exceeded in ill-gotten wealth only by the corporate Fat Cats who hire them to keep
the masses from angrily identifying their true enemy.

That allows the Silk Suits to laugh all the way to the bank, and then lean back with Mint Juleps in their poolside gazebos, while poor bastards like my guy in that truck fart out the remains of their
last unhealthy meal.

Or maybe a little cheap beer.

But here's the real kicker:

A father from our area, pretty much like that Chevy dude, sent his son off to war a couple years back.

"There aren't any jobs here, anyway. Plus, you'll learn a useful trade."

He did so with teary-eyed pride, emphatically believing both this nation's foreign policy myths and George Bush's lies.

It was beyond his awareness to comprehend that the U.S. aggressing a sovereign country for fraudulent reasons, in blatant violation of international law, made us no different than Nazis attacking Poland in 1939, or the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor.

Despite letters from his boy that contained strange passages that a more critical soul would have seen as indicators of things on the battlefield being much different than what Republicans gloriously portrayed, Dad never let his patriotism waver.

Publicized photos of Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse didn't faze him, because right-wing media "explained" it all to his manipulated satisfaction.

Then, one tragic day, his precious child got blown to bloody shards by a rocket-propelled grenade. Shortly thereafter, what was left of him came home in a box, and was lowered beneath cemetery sod as a bugler played taps.

The greatest tragedy, however, is that Dad will probably go to his own grave, decades from now, still convinced that his "Hometown Hero" served a noble cause, never mind those many thousands of foreign innocents who were themselves violently killed because the Americans needlessly, wrongfully invaded.

Or maybe, at some clarifying moment in otherwise foggy old age, he'll have an epiphany, understanding that his entire life was spent fleshing out a massive Fox News falsehood.

That medal from the President, presented posthumously, will suddenly lose it's luster.

It'll perhaps get hurled against the wall, leading nursing home residents to wonder what that bang and the accompanying, agonized scream were all about.

That's what it sadly boils down to for rank-and-file conservatives.

They'll either die entirely unreconstructed and unenlightened, clinging to absurdity until the very end.

Or they'll eventually see the light, as the armor of their fallacies finally turns to fully-powdered rust.

There's nothing worse than realizing -- too late -- that one's entire existence was spent living, breathing, sweating, and bleeding to advance somebody else's abysmally selfish, decidedly wicked agenda.
It just doesn't get any worse than this | The Smirking Chimp

Greg Palast » Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM

Greg Palast » Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM
Screw the autoworkers.
They may be crying about General Motors' bankruptcy today.  But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into a mass grave won't spoil Jamie Dimon's day.

Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase bank.  While GM workers are losing their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting zilch and many creditors getting hosed, a few privileged GM lenders – led by  Morgan and Citibank – expect to get back 100% of their loans to GM, a stunning $6  billion.

The way these banks are getting their $6 billion bonanza is stone cold illegal.

I smell a rat.

Stevie the Rat, to be precise.  Steven Rattner, Barack  Obama's 'Car Czar' - the man who essentially ordered GM into bankruptcy this morning.

When a company goes bankrupt, everyone takes a hit:  fair or not, workers lose some contract wages, stockholders get wiped out and creditors get fragments of what's left.  That's the law.  What workers don't lose are their pensions (including old-age health funds) already taken from their wages and held in their name.

But not this time.  Stevie the Rat has a different plan for GM: grab the pension funds to pay off Morgan and Citi.

Here's the scheme:  Rattner is demanding the bankruptcy court simply wipe away the money GM owes workers for their retirement health insurance.  Cash in the insurance fund would be replaced by GM stock. The percentage may be 17% of GM's stock - or 25%.  Whatever, 17% or 25% is worth, well ... just try paying for your dialysis with 50 shares of bankrupt auto stock.

Yet Citibank and Morgan, says Rattner, should get their whole enchilada - $6 billion right now and in cash - from a company that can't pay for auto parts or worker eye exams.

Preventive Detention for Pensions

So what's wrong with seizing workers' pension fund money in a bankruptcy?  The answer, Mr. Obama, Mr. Law Professor, is that it's illegal. 

 

In 1974, after a series of scandalous take-downs of pension and retirement funds during the Nixon era, Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.  ERISA says you can't seize workers' pension funds (whether monthly payments or health insurance) any more than you can seize their private bank accounts.  And that's because they are the same thing:  workers give up wages in return for retirement benefits. 

The law is darn explicit that grabbing pension money is a no-no.  Company executives must hold these retirement funds as "fiduciaries."  Here's the law, Professor Obama, as described on the government's own web site under the heading, "Health Plans and Benefits."

            "The primary responsibility of fiduciaries  is to run the plan solely in the interest of participants and beneficiaries  and for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits."

Every business in America that runs short of cash would love to dip into retirement kitties, but it's not their money any more than a banker can seize your account when the bank's a little short.  A plan's assets are for the plan's members only, not for Mr. Dimon nor Mr. Rubin.

Yet, in effect, the Obama Administration is demanding that money for an elderly auto worker's spleen should be siphoned off to feed the TARP babies. Workers go without lung transplants so Dimon and Rubin can pimp out their ride. This is another "Guantanamo" moment for the Obama Administration - channeling Nixon to endorse the preventive detention of retiree health insurance.

Filching GM's pension assets doesn't become legal because the cash due the fund is replaced with GM stock.  Congress saw through that switch-a-roo by requiring that companies, as fiduciaries, must

            "...act prudently and must diversify the plan's investments in order to minimize the risk of large losses."

By "diversify" for safety, the law does not mean put 100% of worker funds into a single busted company's stock.

This is dangerous business:  The Rattner plan opens the floodgate to every politically-connected or down-on-their-luck company seeking to drain health care retirement funds.

 

House of Rubin

Pensions are wiped away and two connected banks don't even get a haircut? How come Citi and Morgan aren't asked, like workers and other creditors, to take stock in GM?

As Butch said to Sundance, who ARE these guys?  You remember Morgan and Citi.  These are the corporate Welfare Queens who've already sucked up over a third of a trillion dollars in aid from the US Treasury and Federal Reserve.  Not coincidentally, Citi, the big winner, has paid over $100 million to Robert Rubin, the former US Treasury Secretary.  Rubin was Obama's point-man in winning banks' endorsement and campaign donations (by far, his largest source of his corporate funding).

With GM's last dying dimes about to fall into one pocket, and the Obama Treasury in his other pocket, Morgan's Jamie Dimon is correct in saying that the last twelve months will prove to be the bank's "finest year ever."

Which leaves us to ask the question:  is the forced bankruptcy of GM, the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs, just a collection action for favored financiers?

And it's been a good year for Señor Rattner. While the Obama Administration made a big deal out of Rattner's youth spent working for the Steelworkers Union, they tried to sweep under the chassis that Rattner was one of the privileged, select group of investors in Cerberus Capital, the owners of Chrysler.  "Owning" is a loose term.  Cerberus "owned" Chrysler the way a cannibal "hosts" you for dinner. Cerberus paid nothing for Chrysler - indeed, they were paid billions by Germany's Daimler Corporation to haul it away.  Cerberus kept the cash, then dumped Chrysler's bankrupt corpse on the US taxpayer.

("Cerberus," by the way, named itself after the Roman's mythical three-headed dog guarding the gates Hell.  Subtle these guys are not.)

While Stevie the Rat sold his interest in the Dog from Hell when he became Car Czar, he never relinquished his post at the shop of vultures called Quadrangle Hedge Fund. Rattner's personal net worth stands at roughly half a billion dollars.  This is Obama's working class hero.

If you ran a business and played fast and loose with your workers' funds, you could land in prison. Stevie the Rat's plan is nothing less than Grand Theft Auto Pension.

It doesn't make it any less of a crime if the President drives the getaway car.

******

Economist and journalist  Greg Palast, a former trade union contract negotiator, is author of the New York Times bestsellers The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse.  He is a GM bondholder and card-carrying member of United Automobile Workers Local 1981. 

America must force Israel to stop stealing Palestinian land if Israel ever wants to see peace.

JERUSALEM — Israel insisted Thursday that it wanted to reach an understanding with the United States on construction in West Bank settlements, despite a blunt call by the Obama administration to completely freeze all work.

A government spokesman, Mark Regev, had said a day earlier that the final status of the existing settlements would be determined in negotiations with the Palestinians. “In the interim, normal life should be allowed to continue in those communities,” he said then.

On Thursday, after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton repeated the United States position that all settlement activity must halt, Mr. Regev reiterated the Israeli position that no new settlements would be built but that “normal life” in existing ones would go on, meaning that some construction would continue there.

Mrs. Clinton’s comments were among the strongest to date from the Obama administration. Talking to reporters after a meeting with the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, she said of President Obama, “He wants to see a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth’ exceptions. That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly.”

Mr. Regev reiterated on Thursday that Israel would not build new settlements and would abide by commitments regarding the removal illegal outposts, and he recalled that the Israeli authorities had recently taken action against a small number of settlers in illegal outposts. Last week, Israeli police and security forces dismantled a small Jewish outpost in the West Bank in what many in Jerusalem saw as a gesture by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to President Obama three days after they met in Washington. But new shacks have already appeared there.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is expected to focus on the issue of settlement expansion when he meets with Mr. Obama on Thursday in Washington. Mr. Abbas and other Palestinian leaders have said repeatedly that they see no point in resuming stalled peace negotiations without an absolute settlement freeze.

Analysts in Washington said the exchanges between the Obama administration and the Israeli authorities showed how far apart Israel and the United States are on the issue of settlements, even as Mr. Abbas prepares for meetings with the friendliest White House the Palestinian Authority has encountered in years.

Mr. Obama and other senior American officials have called on the government of Mr. Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing Likud Party who became prime minister almost two months ago, to halt all settlement activity. Israel says it reached understandings with the Bush administration — some formal, some informal and some tacit — on building within settlements. For example, construction was limited in small outlying settlements but more tolerated in large ones in areas that Israel intends to keep under any deal with the Palestinians.

“We want to work to reach understandings with the new administration” that are “fair” and “workable,” said an Israeli official on Wednesday. He was speaking on condition of anonymity because the issue was still under discussion.

Some Middle East peace analysts in Washington interpreted Mrs. Clinton’s comments as a sign that the administration was determined to change Israel’s policy on settlements rather than accept a compromise.

Dan Meridor, the Israeli minister of intelligence, and other senior Netanyahu aides returned to Jerusalem on Wednesday from meetings in London with Mr. Obama’s Middle East envoy, George J. Mitchell, and other American officials. The purpose was to continue discussing issues raised in last week’s Netanyahu-Obama meeting, including Mr. Obama’s objections to settlement expansion. Mr. Regev said Thursday that the dialogue with the Americans on these issues would continue.

Mr. Mitchell has been negotiating reciprocal measures with Israel’s Arab neighbors, in which they would take steps, like granting visas to Israeli citizens or allowing Israel to open trade offices in their capitals, in return for Israel’s action on settlements. But administration officials say the onus is on Israel to show progress. Almost 300,000 Israelis now live in settlements in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, among a Palestinian population of some 2.5 million. Much of the world considers the 120 or so settlements a violation of international law.

Mr. Netanyahu says his government will not build any new settlements and will take down outposts erected in recent years by settlers without proper government authorization. But he insists that his government will allow building within existing settlements to accommodate what he terms “natural growth.”

But the tenor of Mrs. Clinton’s comments Wednesday indicated to some analysts that the Obama administration was unlikely to budge from its position, even at the risk of putting Mr. Netanyahu’s government into jeopardy.

“She is stripping away whatever nuance, or whatever fig leaf, that would have allowed a deeply ideological government to make a settlement deal that is politically acceptable at home,” said Aaron David Miller, a public policy analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “They’ve concluded, ‘We’re going to force a change in behavior.’”

Within the Israeli government, however, there is a consensus that the ever-growing settler population must be accommodated.

In an interview with Army Radio on Monday, Ehud Barak, the defense minister and leader of the center-left Labor Party, gave a hypothetical example of a family of four that originally moved into a two-room home in a settlement. “Now there are six children,” he said. “Should they be allowed to build another room or not?” He added, “Ninety-five percent of people will tell you it cannot be that someone in the world honestly thinks an agreement with the Palestinians will stand or fall over this.”

In an effort to show good will, Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Barak have been underscoring their willingness to take down 22 small outposts that are illegal under Israeli law, and that were supposed to have been removed under the 2003 American-backed peace plan known as the road map. That plan specified that Israel should halt “all settlement activity (including natural growth).”

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, the police removed some sheds and a tent from two tiny outposts in the Hebron area. Like the small outpost demolished in the West Bank last week, none of the outposts was on the list of 22, but the measures against them prompted furious reactions from the hard right.

Many religious Jewish nationalists say it is their right to settle in the biblical heartland of the West Bank, which they call Judea and Samaria. Other Israelis cite security for holding on to the areas captured in the 1967 war.

Israel Insists on Some Construction in West Bank Settlements - NYTimes.com

12 democrats vote against the american people on mortgage relief

Sam Rayburn, a longtime speaker of the U.S. House, once said, "Every now and then, a politician ought to do something just because it's right."

Recently, 45 U.S. senators dodged an excellent chance to do just what Mr. Sam advised. At issue was a straightforward, common-sense amendment proposed by Dick Durbin, D-Ill. It would have allowed bankruptcy judges to help hundreds of thousands of financially strapped homeowners who now find themselves trapped by exploding, exorbitant interest rates that bankers had attached to their loans.

Here was a conspicuous opportunity for even the most ethically blind of our congress-critters to take a principled stand, for Durbin's bill practically had a flashing red-and-yellow neon arrow attached to it, declaring, "Vote Here for the People Against Greedy Bankers."

Actually, even GBs would've benefited, for the bankruptcy provision would have allowed families to stay in their homes and keep making monthly payments to banks (albeit in reduced amounts). Also, banks could still make a profit (though not a killing), and there would be far fewer vacant homes going on the market, thus giving a badly needed break to America's depressed housing market.

What a sensible idea! So, naturally, the Senate stomped it to death.

The members were prodded to do so by Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and other upstanding members of the hyper-aggressive GB lobby. These are, of course, the same banksters who for years speculated rapaciously on people's homes, created a housing bubble that has since burst and shattered our economy, reduced their own financial fiefdoms to insolvency, then rushed to Washington to unscrew the Capitol dome and help themselves to a taxpayer bailout that is nearing $3 trillion.

Yet, the very idea of allowing bankrupt families to get a small break in bankruptcy courts has caused Wall Street elites to squawk like a banty rooster choking on a peach pit. They dispatched hundreds of well-connected lobbyists to Congress, to the White House and to key government agencies to nix Durbin's amendment (which, ironically, would've been attached to a bill that awards even more billions of taxpayer dollars to the banks).

Among the influence peddlers hired by bailout recipients were more than 100 former lawmakers, top congressional staffers, White House aides and agency officials. Goldman Sachs alone has more than 30 ex-government officials in its lobbying army, including former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt and the former top staffer to house banking chairman Barney Frank.

The first and chief target of this furious lobbying blitz was a guy who had long backed the homeowners protection plan, promising again and again last year that he would lead the fight to pass it: Barack Obama. The banker lobbyists were aided in this effort to back off Obama by two White House insiders who have shown themselves to be shameless Wall Street softies -- Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and top economic advisor Larry Summers. Timid Timothy reportedly argued that even a small, tightly targeted bankruptcy provision for common folks would create "uncertainty" for big investors in Wall Street banks.

Never mind that millions of homeowners are facing crushing uncertainty over their mortgages, Obama and team promptly disappeared from the legislative fight, abandoning Durbin.

This let Wall Street's hired guns go after pusillanimous, bank-financed Democrats. Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, for example, was a swing vote, counted on by Durbin. But with no pressure from Obama, Bayh was free to sidestep principle and vote his own political pocketbook. Up for re-election next year, Bayh's top campaign donor is Goldman Sachs.

Needing 60 votes for passage, Durbin got 45. In all, a dozen Democrats gave Wall Street a big wet kiss by voting against Durbin's amendment, which also was a vote against America's hard-pressed homeowners -- and against Mr. Sam's sage admonition.

"The banks are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill," sighed Sen. Durbin afterward. He added this sobering note: "They frankly own the place."

Hightower: Democrats Give Wall Street a Big, Wet Kiss | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace | AlterNet

McClatchy | Cartoons

McClatchy | Cartoons

BartCop's most recent rants - Political Humor and Commentary

BartCop's most recent rants - Political Humor and Commentary

We can't HANDLE those terrorists!

Republican Senators have come up with a REALLY SCARY ad. Hope it makes you piss your pants. Liberals have a counter ad.

The pussy's version of the ad:



The liberal answer to the pissing-their-pants republican ad:

La. atop per capita gun death list - News Updates - SunHerald.com

http://www.sunherald.com/newsupdates/story/1327492.html

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Louisiana has more gun-related deaths per capita than any other state.

That's according to the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. Next on the list are Alabama, Alaska, Mississippi and Nevada. The group said Wednesday that Hawaii has the fewest gun deaths per capita.

The study says that each of the states had a per capita gun death rate far exceeding the national rate of 10.32 per 100,000 for 2006. Louisiana's rate was 19.58 per 100,000, followed by 16.99 in Alabama, 16.38 in Alaska and Mississippi and 16.25 in Nevada.

• Link: http://www.vpc.org/press/0905gundeath.htm
• Link: http://www.vpc.org/fadeathchart09.htm

The Violence Policy Center says each of the states with a high death rate has lax gun laws and higher gun ownership rates.

The nonprofit compiled its list by analyzing data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Excellent discussion on torture and American liberties

Drug dealer gets 60-year prison sentence - Yahoo Local - SunHerald.com

Drug dealer gets 60-year prison sentence

By ROBIN FITZGERALD - rfitzgerald@sunherald.com

GULFPORT — Circuit Judge Jerry Terry sentenced a Gulfport man to 60 years without parole after the defendant was found guilty of selling crack cocaine to an undercover officer.

Jurors in the trial of Larry Press “Preston” Wells deliberated 17 minutes Thursday before returning the verdict in a two-day trial.

The 50-year-old was convicted of possession with intent to distribute. 

The drug sale involved less than 1/10th of a gram of crack cocaine.

Assistant District Attorney Joel Smith said Wells was prosecuted as an habitual offender on an enhanced offense.

Wells has four prior felony convictions since 1993. Three of those are for drug sales.

Habitual-offender status requires a day-for-day prison term without eligibility for early release, Smith said. 

The new drug conviction qualified for an enhanced or double penalty.

Without the double penalty, Wells faced up to 30 years in prison without early release.

Smith said Gulfport police had arrested Wells in an undercover operation targeting street-level drug dealers in the Magnolia Grove area on May 24, 2007.

The jury heard an audio recording of Wells getting in an unmarked car with an undercover officer, leaving the vehicle and returning with “a 40,” street slang for $40 in crack.

“The jury could hear the defendant say, ‘you’ve got to take a hit off of this crack pipe before I give you the cocaine,’ Smith said. “The officer refused the request and gave a pre-determined arrest signal that went out over the audio wire.”

Wells was convicted of forgery in 1993. He was convicted of a drug sale in 1993 and convicted on two drug sales in 2000, Smith said.

Drug dealer gets 60-year prison sentence - Yahoo Local - SunHerald.com

Just because this bird is awesome!

Better than a simple bow.

Daily Kos: Midday open thread

Truthdig - Cartoons - Feeling Dirty

Truthdig - Cartoons - Feeling Dirty

Bush new Saddam wasn't a threat and went to war anyway.

In October of 2002, 5 months before Bush sent our troops into Iraq, he received from his 16 top intelligence agencies a report. In that report he was told that Saddam didn't have any nuclear capabilities at that time and that the only way he would use chemical or biological weapons against Americans is if he were first attacked. But 7 days later, after Bush got this report, he said "we don't want the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud". he knew it wasn't true when he said it. he said that "Saddam has the capability to hit America in 45 minutes". this was another lie to convince the American people into war with Iraq. A country that the intelligence agencies were telling him were no threat against America whatsoever unless we attacked him first. The report "judged" that Saddam had wmd but that he wouldn't use them unless he was attacked. The evidence they received this information from was from a source called "curveball" whom The German and English intelligence agencies told us was unstable and a known fabricator. no other source gave evidence of wmd. yet this administration, knowing the reputation of this source, used this information to scare people into going to war with Iraq. As we've found out since, and as we knew before from a report from Hans Blix, there were no wmd and no reconstitution of any wmd programs. Bush knew this and still we went to war. This man sent our soldiers off to die for a war that he claimed was self defense because Saddam was a threat to America, and it wasn't true. here is the part of the report dealing with Saddam and the likelihoods he would attack America

Public Record Oct, 2002 National Intelligence estimate. 5 months before invading Iraq.

HTTP://fas.org/irp/cia/product/iraq-wmd.html

(The claim Bush made in one of his speeches that Saddam had unmanned areal vehicles that could strike within the U.S.)
* Baghdad's UAVs could threaten Iraq's neighbors, U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, and if brought close to, or into, the United States, the U.S. Homeland.

o An Iraqi UAV procurement network attempted to procure commercially available route planning software and an associated topographic database that would be able to support targeting of the United States, according to analysis of special intelligence.

o The Director, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance, U.S. Air Force, does not agree that Iraq is developing UAVs primarily intended to be delivery platforms for chemical and biological warfare (CBW) agents. The small size of Iraq's new UAV strongly suggests a primary role of reconnaissance, although CBW delivery is an inherent capability.

(remember now, Bush knew this before his January 28^th 2003 state of the union speech when he repeated this.)

* Iraq is developing medium-range ballistic missile capabilities, largely through foreign assistance in building specialized facilities, including a test stand for engines more powerful than those in its current missile force.

We have low confidence in our ability to assess when Saddam would use WMD. (i address the fact that saddam didn't have wmd later in the post)

* Saddam could decide to use chemical and biological warfare (CBW) preemptively against U.S. forces, friends, and allies in the region in an attempt to disrupt U.S. war preparations and undermine the political will of the Coalition.

* Saddam might use CBW after an initial advance into Iraqi territory, but early use of WMD could foreclose diplomatic options for stalling the US advance.

* He probably would use CBW when be perceived he irretrievably had lost control of the military and security situation, but we are unlikely to know when Saddam reaches that point.

* We judge that Saddam would be more likely to use chemical weapons than biological weapons on the battlefield.

* Saddam historically has maintained tight control over the use of WMD; however, he probably has provided contingency instructions to his commanders to use CBW in specific circumstances.

Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW against the United States, fearing that exposure of Iraqi involvement would provide Washington a stronger cause for making war.

Iraq probably would attempt clandestine attacks against the U.S. Homeland if Baghdad feared an attack that threatened the survival of the regime were imminent or unavoidable, or possibly for revenge. Such attacks--more likely with biological than chemical agents--probably would be carried out by special forces or intelligence operatives.

• The Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) probably has been directed to conduct clandestine attacks against US and Allied interests in the Middle East in the event the United States takes action against Iraq. The US probably would be the primary means by which Iraq would attempt to conduct any CBW attacks on the US Homeland, although we have no specific intelligence information that Saddam's regime has directed attacks against US territory.

you get that? Saddam, it was believed, would only use Chemical or Biological weapons in self defense. Bush knew this and tried to make the American people believe he was a threat to the homeland.

remember when bush said this in his 2003 state of the union address?

HTTP://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html
"Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."

Here is what the NIE told him before he made that statement:

"Although we assess that Saddam does not yet have nuclear weapons or sufficient material to make any, he remains intent on acquiring them. Most agencies assess that Baghdad started reconstituting its nuclear program about the time that UNSCOM inspectors departed--December 1998."

we now know, due to the 2008 congressional investigation that Saddam hadn't been working on nukes since before 2003 (most likely since the first gulf war when weapons inspectors moved in and stayed until 1998.

Also in his 2003 State of the Union Address (SOTU) Bush claimed that Saddam was not disarming. That his intelligence agencies were telling him that.

"The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary; he is deceiving. From intelligence sources we know, for instance, that thousands of Iraqi security personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the U.N. inspectors, sanitizing inspection sites and monitoring the inspectors themselves. Iraqi officials accompany the inspectors in order to intimidate witnesses."

Unfortunately for Bush, Hans Blix, Iraq's chief UN weapons inspector, was that intelligence source and he told Bush that he hadn't found ANY wmd of any kind. And that to achieve certainty he wouldn't need years or days, but months. Bush immediately shut down the inspectors in Iraq when he got this news. Why would a man who doesn't want war shut down inspections that are proving that the man he's so afraid of can't hurt him? Here is what Hans Blix told the UN security counsel on March 7th before Bush invaded Iraq on March 19th:(this is one reason the UN did not authorize war with Iraq):

HTTP://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/SC7asdelivered.htm
Blix
Inspections in Iraq resumed on 27 November 2002. In matters relating to process, notably prompt access to sites, we have faced relatively few difficulties and certainly much less than those that were faced by UNSCOM in the period 1991 to 1998. This may well be due to the strong outside pressure.
Some practical matters, which were not settled by the talks, Dr. ElBaradei and I had with the Iraqi side in Vienna prior to inspections or in resolution 1441 (2002), have been resolved at meetings, which we have had in Baghdad. Initial difficulties raised by the Iraqi side about helicopters and aerial surveillance planes operating in the no-fly zones were overcome. This is not to say that the operation of inspections is free from frictions, but at this juncture we are able to perform professional no-notice inspections all over Iraq and to increase aerial surveillance."
"There were about 700 inspections, and in no case did we find weapons of mass destruction," said Hans Blix, the Swedish diplomat called out of retirement to serve as the United Nations' chief weapons inspector from 2000 to 2003"

So why did bush say that Saddam was not cooperating with the inspectors and he was deceiving them? If you really didn't want to go to war, wouldn't this be the exact kind of news you'd want to hear? Yea! we don't have to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of human beings! there are no signs of weapons! But that's not what Bush did, when he found out that Blix and his inspectors weren't finding anything, he shut them down and took "disarmament" into his own hands. Why would he do that?

Bush claimed that intelligence told him that there were mobile bio and chemical weapons (bcw) in his speech.

Bush SOTU speech January 28th 2003:
“From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed them.”

But Blix testified that 12 days before Bush's SOTU speech he had told the White House:
"As I noted on 14 February, intelligence authorities (from that one source, curveball) have claimed that weapons of mass destruction are moved around Iraq by trucks and, in particular, that there are mobile production units for biological weapons...
...Food testing mobile laboratories and mobile workshops have been seen, as well as large containers with seed processing equipment. No evidence of proscribed activities have so far been found. Iraq is expected to assist in the development of credible ways to conduct random checks of ground transportation."

more to come... i want any of you to explain this away with out right wing talking points. i want to see the evidence. These excerpts are from official UN, NIE and White house documentation. They cannot be disputed honestly. only through spin or cherry picking without giving the whole picture including this evidence. you can find a line that says "Saddam has wmd" but if the next line is "he wouldn't use it unless he were attacked" you're leaving out the most important part of the assessment. let's be honest now and assess this and come up with reasons that bush would edit out what was really said in the nine and totally ignore what Hans Blix was saying before he invaded Iraq with the lives of potentially millions at stake.