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Thu 30 Oct, 2003 08:21 pm
Cheney's Hawks 'Hijacking Policy'
By Ritt Goldstein
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday 30 October 2003
A former Pentagon officer turned whistleblower says a group of hawks in the Bush Administration, including the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, is running a shadow foreign policy, contravening Washington's official line.
"What these people are doing now makes Iran-Contra [a Reagan administration national security scandal] look like amateur hour. . . it's worse than Iran-Contra, worse than what happened in Vietnam," said Karen Kwiatkowski, a former air force lieutenant-colonel.
"[President] George Bush isn't in control . . . the country's been hijacked," she said, describing how "key [governmental] areas of neoconservative concern were politically staffed".
Ms Kwiatkowski, who retired this year after 20 years service, was a Middle East specialist in the office of the Undersecretary of Defence for Policy, headed by Douglas Feith.
She described "a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through deceit of a large segment of the Congress", adding that "in order to take that first step - Iraq - lies had to be told to Congress to bring them on board".
Ms Kwiatkowski said the pursuit of national security decisions often bypassed "civil service and active-duty military professionals", and was handled instead by political appointees who shared common ideological ties.
There was speculation earlier this year that such an ideologue group had emerged, and that it was behind the US attack on an Iraqi convoy in Syria in June.
The New York Times quoted Patrick Lang, a former senior Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) official, as saying that many in the Government believed the incursion was an effort by ideologues to disrupt co-operation between the US and Syria.
Ms Kwiatkowski said there was an extra-governmental network operating outside normal structures and practices, "a network of political appointees in key positions who felt they needed to take some action, to make things happen in a foreign affairs, national security way". She said Pentagon personnel and the DIA were pressured to favourably alter assessments and reports.
In a separate interview, Chalmers Johnson, an authority on US policy, said that the Administration's neo-conservatives had in effect seized power from Mr Bush.
Dr Johnson said the neo-conservatives had pursued an agenda outlined in the controversial 1992 Defence Planning Guidance. That document, drawn up at the direction of Mr Cheney when he was defence secretary, said the world's only superpower should not be cautious about asserting its power.
*Maybe Cheney is really the Pres. and W the crappy Spin Doc./PR Dope?
W's little speech
It really irked me when he said that killers don't want Iraq to be a free country.
"The bulk of the nineteen men on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia, armed not only with Wahabbism, but mainly with a deep antipathy to US imperialism (often transferred into hatred for Americans) - since the Saudi regime do not allow any expression of this animosity, the tactical means adopted by these powerless men was to be grotesque." Tariq Ali
Amerika is colonizing Iraq and we except the Iraqies to submit to the USA stealing their land,dominating their resources and controlling their politics? Saddam was a tyrant and a monster but replacing him with Western domination doesn't seem to bring joy to the people of Iraq.
pistoff
This is an interesting idea. Could you add a link to the Herald piece for us? Have you found any other coverage on Kwiatkowski's claim?
Not trying to be a smartass here, but I've read this before, quite a ways back. Wish I could instantly document it for you but memory is not serving. Except that this news has been out before and I have no doubt it's true.
Cheney
This guy is a fast talkin' con man. I have heard several interviews and he is fast and smooth. He has a lot to gain. Ater his VP stint do you doubt that he will get paid by Haliburton, perhaps even be their CEO again?
Dick ain't a regular guy. He's not like the plumber down the street. These guys clearly live in a culture which has few corollaries to blue-collar life and values. It isn't just the wealth, though that itself is truly boggling...it is a whole world of connections and expectations, power and priviledge, and it is greatly disconnected from the reality which we all walk through. It is aristocratic. Like the powdered wig boys, these fellows and fellowettes aren't very comfortable with any sort of egalitarian notion, and they aren't likely to give up what they have for some ephemeral notion like 'democracy'. Political reality they understand much more properly than all those dirty plumbers and sweaty waitresses.
I have some carpentry skills, and I think a guillotine would be within the range of what my tool shed and I could muster up. Anyone want to join in? Lots of cake, liberated wine cellars, midnight torch parades, and dirty plumbers/sweaty waitresses to share freedom with.
"Paws his inside P-coat pocket
for a welcome twenty-five cents,
And the last bent butt from a package of Kents,
As he dreams of a waitress with Maxwell House eyes
And marmalade thighs with scrambled yellow hair.
Her rhinestone-studded moniker says, "Irene"
As she wipes the wisps of dishwater blonde from her eyes"
I've got a huge machete I don't need, Blatham. It's big enough to do one neck at a time, but it could use a good sharpening. Would be glad to contribute that...
dys
That must be Waits?
Tartarin
Great, but forget the sharpening....and leave it out in the rain for a few nights first.
"They may say I'm a dreamer..."
I believe in the concept of Democracy as stated in the Constitution and The Bill of Rights. I do understand that these docs were fashioned by priviliged caucasions yet improvements have been fashioned since their time, I feel that the ideals of America have been spit upon by the present Regime
You won't get any argument from me, Pistoff.
There either pissing on them or slobbering over them.