XPost: alt.radio.talk, alt.conspiracy, alt.fan.barbra.streisand   
   XPost: alt.fan.j-garofalo   
   From: rlewis@N0SPAM.0RG   
      
   Liberals Team-Up with Saddam   
      
      
      
   Saddam Hussein and Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee   
   agree: President Bush is the enemy.   
      
   Trapping George W. Bush   
   By Frank J Gaffney Jr.   
   November 11, 2003   
      
      
   What do erstwhile Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein and the vice chairman of   
   the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, West Virginia   
   Democrat, have in common? They both seem to have been so keen to   
   defeat George W. Bush that their subordinates resorted to laying traps   
   for the president and his   
   administration.   
      
   According to press reports, Saddam personally endorsed the initiative   
   conjured up by senior Iraqi intelligence officers involving an   
   11th-hour deal to stave off Operation Iraqi Freedom.   
      
   One can be forgiven for wondering whether Mr. Rockefeller also had   
   prior knowledge of the trap described in a memorandum written by his   
   staff - involving cynical use of the Intelligence Committee's   
   traditional   
   nonpartisanship for political advantage at the president's expense.   
   After all, the senator adamantly refuses to disavow this memo or its   
   contents.   
      
   The Iraqi dictator clearly hoped that he would be able to do to Bush   
   43 what he did to Bush 41: Outlast him. Saddam must have calculated he   
   could survive the son's efforts to topple him, just as he did the   
   father's, by offering some last-minute concessions via a trusted   
   interlocutor, Bush II's Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle.   
      
   The bait? At a meeting last March in London, a Lebanese-American   
   interlocutor told Mr. Perle that, among other things: 2,000 FBI agents   
   could enter Iraq to look around for weapons of mass destruction (WMD);   
   a terrorist wanted in connection with the first World Trade Center   
   attack (who happened to be living in Iraq) would be turned over to the   
   U.S.; and elections could be held in Iraq in two years.   
      
   Fortunately, as Mr. Perle said on ABC's Sunday news program "This   
   Week," this gambit was recognized by the Bush administration as the   
   "trap" it was. U.S. weapons inspectors would likely have fared no   
   better in trying to find the unaccounted-for Iraqi WMD in Saddam's   
   police state than did their U.N. counterparts. (Even after Saddam was   
   toppled, 1,200 military and other personnel have thus far been stymied   
   in their search for more than evidence of related manufacturing   
   programs and concealment efforts.)   
      
   Understanding the danger posed by a state-sponsor of terror, the   
   administration was also unmoved by the offer of a single terrorist   
   (even a most-wanted one), just as it understood the dubious value of   
   any elections   
   Saddam would be willing to allow. After all, he had won the last one   
   with 100 percent of the vote.   
      
   As for the Rockefeller staff initiative, a Democratic colleague from   
   Indiana, Sen. Evan Bayh, has observed that the Intelligence   
   Committee's vice chairman has been under intense pressure to use the   
   panel for partisan   
   purposes. Evidently, the hope has been that Democrats would also be   
   able to do to Bush 43 what they did to Bush 41 in 1992: Deprecate his   
   military victory as incomplete or otherwise flawed and seek to elicit   
   at the polls a vote of no-confidence in his leadership.   
      
   Since the Rockefeller staff memo was revealed last week by talk-radio   
   and television host Sean Hannity, the nature of the trap it proposed   
   for President Bush has been the topic of intense debate on and off   
   Capitol Hill.   
   What has not been explicitly recognized is that the plan - the trap -   
   envisioned by this memo is already far advanced.   
      
   Last July, the Intelligence Committee took extensive testimony from   
   senior Defense Department officials concerning the nature of the   
   intelligence in hand before Iraqi Freedom was launched, how it was   
   handled within the Bush administration and whether it was manipulated,   
   hyped or otherwise distorted so as to induce members of Congress or   
   the public to support an otherwise unwarranted war against Saddam   
   Hussein.   
      
   In late September, Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, Kansas Republican,   
   agreed to a further request for information from Mr. Rockefeller. It   
   took the form of a joint letter to the Pentagon asking additional   
   questions. In the course of preparing this letter, however, Mr.   
   Roberts declined to include a number   
   of those proposed by the minority. Mr. Rockefeller, however,   
   subsequently sent them along over his own signature.   
      
   This is precisely the strategy described in the Rockefeller staff   
   memo: "Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that may   
   lead to major new disclosures regarding improper or questionable   
   conduct by administration officials. ... [And] prepare to launch an   
   independent investigation when it becomes clear we have exhausted the   
   opportunity to usefully collaborate with the majority. The best time   
   to do so will probably be next year."   
      
   By implementing this strategy, the minority staff - and perhaps others   
   in the Senate's Democratic ranks - have already undermined the   
   nonpartisan character of the Intelligence Committee. They have indeed   
   set the stage to "pull the trigger" on an investigation designed   
   specifically to go after the Office of the Secretary of Defense and   
   Undersecretary of State John Bolton, two of the Bush administration's   
   most import loci of intellectual horsepower, strategic vision and   
   commitment to principled security policies.   
      
   For this reason, the Bush administration would be well-advised to   
   avoid this trap, as well. It should refuse to cooperate further with   
   the committee's investigation - at least until, as Sen. Zell Miller,   
   Georgia Democrat, put it last week "The ones responsible - be they   
   staff or elected or both - should be dealt with quickly and severely   
   sending a lesson to all that this kind of action will not be   
   tolerated, ignored or excused. Heads would roll."   
      
      
   --   
   Left-wing liberals are EVERYTHING they accuse the right of being. They   
   are mean, vicious, hateful, greedy, cold-hearted, selfish, intolerant,   
   bigoted and racist.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)