THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

Another interpretation/opinion on the Woodward book.
**************
A Heady Mix of Pride and Prejudice Led to War
April 19, 2004
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI

In his engrossing new book, "Plan of Attack," Bob Woodward
uses myriad details to chart the Bush administration's
march to war against Iraq. His often harrowing narrative
not only illuminates the fateful interplay of personality
and policy among administration hawks and doves, but it
also underscores the role that fuzzy intelligence, Pentagon
timetables and aggressive ideas about military and foreign
policy had in creating momentum for war.

The chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., describes the White
House as trying to perform a circus trick of straddling two
horses, the horse of war and the horse of diplomacy. It is
a task, this book shows, that the White House did with
difficulty and at times a good deal of disingenuousness,
with the horse of war rapidly outpacing the horse of
diplomacy. It is also a White House committed to the
"vision thing" in a big way (promoting risky, sweeping
ideas like exporting democracy and pre-emptive war) and the
avoidance of any perception of wimpiness, a White House in
many ways determined to avoid accusations once hurled at
the president's father.

"Plan of Attack" reveals that President George W. Bush
asked Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Nov. 21,
2001, to start a war plan for Iraq, and to do so in secret
because a leak could trigger "enormous international angst
and domestic speculation." Among the first to express angst
was Gen. Tommy Franks, who got the Iraq assignment while he
was busy prosecuting the war against the Taliban in
Afghanistan.

The book also reveals that the director of Central
Intelligence, George Tenet, told President Bush in December
2002 that intelligence about Iraq possessing weapons of
mass destruction was "a slam dunk," but later told
associates that he and the C.I.A. should have stated up
front in that fall's National Intelligence Estimate and
other reports that the evidence was not ironclad, that
there was no smoking gun.

In addition "Plan of Attack" ratifies assertions made in
two recent controversial books. It corroborates the
observation made by the former Treasury Secretary Paul
O'Neill (in Ron Suskind's book "The Price of Loyalty") that
Iraq was high on the Bush administration's agenda before
9/11, in fact from its very first days in office. And
echoing accusations made by the former counterterrorism
czar Richard A. Clarke (in his book "Against All Enemies"),
it contends that prior to 9/11 Mr. Bush was focusing on
domestic issues and a large tax cut and had "largely
ignored the terrorism problem."

In the wake of Mr. Woodward's best-selling 2002 book "Bush
at War" - which presented a laudatory portrait of Mr. Bush
as a fearless and determined leader after 9/11 - the
president agreed to be interviewed in depth by the author
about how and why he decided to go to war against Iraq. Mr.
Woodward, an assistant managing editor of The Washington
Post, says the president also made it clear that he wanted
administration members to talk with him, and that he
interviewed more than 75 key players.

Thanks to this wide access, "Plan of Attack" has a more
choral-like narrative than many of the author's earlier
books, which tended to spin scenes from the point of view
of his most voluble sources. And while Mr. Woodward - who
has long specialized in forward-leaning narratives that are
long on details and scoops, and short on analysis - does
not delve into the intellectual and political roots of the
war cabinet, he does pause every now and then to put his
subjects' actions and statements into perspective. The
resulting volume is his most powerful and persuasive book
in years.

In reporting that General Franks said in September 2002
that his people had been "looking for Scud missiles and
other weapons of mass destruction for 10 years and haven't
found any yet," Mr. Woodward adds: "It could, and should,
have been a warning that if the intelligence was not good
enough to make bombing decisions, it probably was not good
enough to make the broad assertion, in public or in formal
intelligence documents, that there was `no doubt' Saddam
had WMD." Vice President Dick Cheney had done exactly that
just days before.

Later Mr. Woodward observes that Secretary of State Colin
Powell warned the president in January 2003 that military
action against Iraq would leave the United States
responsible for rebuilding the country and dealing with
whatever global fallout the invasion might cause, but adds
that the president never asked his top diplomat for advice,
and that Mr. Powell never volunteered any. "Perhaps the
president feared the answer," Mr. Woodward writes. "Perhaps
Powell feared giving it. It would, after all, have been an
opportunity to say he disagreed. But they had not gotten to
that core question, and Powell would not push."

In contrast Mr. Woodward describes Mr. Cheney as having
been a "powerful, steamrolling force" for military
intervention, "a rock," in President Bush's words, who was
"steadfast and steady in his view that Saddam was a threat
to America and we had to deal with him." The
"self-appointed special examiner of worst-case scenarios,"
Mr. Cheney, who had been defense secretary during the first
gulf war in 1991, harbored "a deep sense of unfinished
business about Iraq," Mr. Woodward writes, and in January
2001, before the inauguration, he passed a message to the
outgoing defense secretary, William S. Cohen, stipulating
that Topic A in Mr. Bush's foreign policy briefing should
be Iraq.

During the buildup to war, this book contends, tensions
between Mr. Powell and Mr. Cheney grew so toxic that the
two men "could not, and did not, have a sit-down lunch or
any discussion about their differences." Mr. Powell is
described as thinking that the vice president had an
unhealthy fixation on Saddam Hussein and was constantly
straining to draw (unproven) connections between Al Qaeda
and Iraq. As Mr. Woodward puts it: "Powell thought that
Cheney took intelligence and converted uncertainty and
ambiguity into fact."

As for Mr. Cheney, he reportedly complains to hawkish
friends - at a dinner party he and his wife gave on April
13, 2003, to celebrate the Marines' arrival in Baghdad -
that Mr. Powell "always had major reservations about what
we were trying to do." He and his friends are described as
chuckling about the secretary of state, whom Mr. Cheney
characterizes as someone interested in his own poll ratings
and popularity.

President Bush, the object of so much jockeying for
position among cabinet members, emerges from this book as a
more ambiguous figure than the commanding leader portrayed
by Mr. Woodward in "Bush at War." In some scenes he is
depicted as genuinely decisive (as in his choice to go to
United Nations in 2002). In others he seems merely childish
(eyeing Gen. Henry Shelton's peppermint during a meeting
with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, until the general passed it
over.)

Sometimes Mr. Bush comes across as instinctive and shrewd
(dismissing a C.I.A. presentation on weapons of mass
destruction as "not something that Joe Public would
understand or would gain a lot of confidence from").
Sometimes he sounds petulant and defensive (saying of Mr.
Powell, "I didn't need his permission" to go to war). And
sometimes he simply seems like someone trying to live up to
the "Persona" outlined by his political adviser Karl Rove
in a campaign brief: a "Strong Leader" with a penchant for
"Bold Action" and "Big Ideas."

Mr. Bush and the people around him - most notably Mr. Rove,
Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rumsfeld, the national security adviser
Condoleezza Rice and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul
Wolfowitz - are constantly talking about the importance of
showing resolve, of standing firm, of talking the talk and
walking the walk. And as plans for war advance, this
posture becomes part of the momentum toward war. As Mr.
Bush himself says of the weeks leading up to the war: "I
began to be concerned at the blowback coming out of
America: `Bush won't act. The leader that we thought was
strong and straightforward and clear-headed has now got
himself in a position where he can't act.' And it wasn't on
the left. It was on the right."

Adding to the war momentum was the growing buildup of
troops in the Iraq theater, the approach of hot weather in
the gulf (which would make military operations more
difficult), promises made to allies like Saudi Arabia
(Prince Bandar, Mr. Woodward reveals, was told of the
president's decision to go to war before Colin Powell was)
and risky C.I.A. operations in the region.

In the final walkup to war, Mr. Bush repeatedly asks
associates: "What's my last decision point?" "When have I
finally made a commitment?" Mr. Rumsfeld eventually tells
the president, "The penalty for our country and for our
relationships and potentially the lives of some people are
at risk if you have to make a decision not to go forward."

By January 2003, this book reports, Mr. Bush had made up
his mind to take military action, but the book also
suggests that that decision was far from inevitable, given
the many vagaries of intelligence findings, domestic and
international politics, and the personalities and
maneuverings of the people closest to the president.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/books/19KAKU.html?ex=1083466318&ei=1&en=520575c1a00f7f91

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

This has been posted a couple of times on various threads:
a) to what year(s) are these figures related,
b) what are the US and UN sources?

I have thus far been unable to determine the source other than that alleged at the beginning: US State Department and United Nations. I was hoping some one in this thread could determine the specific source or sources. Without that, I have no way of determining its validity and will remain skeptical until I can identify the specific source. I recommend everyone remain skeptical until the specific source is identified.

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I can not verify any of this either. It may be useful if true in that it may identify some of the problems that have to be rectified.

April 19, 2004, 8:43 a.m.
"Betrayal"
Iraqis are hesitant to trust the U.S.

By Michael Rubin:

Quote:

"We love Bush" reads the graffiti scrawled on the bombed-out remains of the former Baathist security compound in the southern Iraqi town of Nasiriyah. U.S. precision bombing destroyed the hated symbol of the former regime in the first days of the war. The site of a major battle during the march to Baghdad, residents of Nasiriyah nevertheless embraced Coalition occupation, albeit with the frustration over the slow pace of reconstruction projects. Rather than embrace Iranian infiltrators and Muqtada al-Sadr's brownshirts, local officials have sought to capture and transfer them to American or Italian forces. Locals complain not about the presence of the Coalition military, but rather that the U.S. treats saboteurs and infiltrators too leniently. "Don't worry about being liked," one local cleric advised when I first visited the town in July, "Worry about being respected." In Nasiriyah, the Coalition is respected. Soon after the November 12, 2003, car-bomb attack against the Italian military-police headquarters, locals hung banners proclaiming, "Yes, yes to peace; no, no to terrorism," from mosques, walls, and windows in the overwhelmingly Shii city. Following the most recent outbreak of violence, Wael al-Rukadi, vice secretary general of the Council of Iraqi Tribes and a prominent Shii leader, told an Italian journalist, "Any withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq at this time before a transition of power, elections, and return to stability would only lead to chaos and all-out civil war in Iraq."

While Iraqis remain grateful for their liberation, there is great suspicion of U.S. intentions, not because al-Jazeera commentators suggest we came for oil, but rather because they doubt Washington's commitment to democracy. Speaking before the National Endowment for Democracy on November 6, Bush declared that U.S. commitment to democracy in the Middle East would be "a focus of American policy for decades to come." But, in recent days, Iraqi democrats and liberals complain that State Department and National Security Council officials charged with implementing Bush's vision work not to enforce it, but rather to undermine it.

Iraqis are obsessed with American betrayal. When explaining why they are hesitant to trust American political leaders, Iraqi Kurds cite 1975, the year Secretary of State Henry Kissinger brokered the Algiers Accords between Tehran and Baghdad. As part of the agreement which addressed border disputes between the two countries left unresolved since the 1847 Treaty of Erzurum, Washington and Tehran agreed to withdrawal their support from Iraqi Kurdish rebels. The Kurdish uprising, led by Masud Barzani's father Mullah Mustafa, collapsed in a blood bath, sending tens of thousands of refugees into Iranian Kurdistan.

Iraqi Arabs and Kurds both point to March 1991 as evidence that American rhetoric is insincere. On February 15, 1991, speaking to a crowd of workers on the floor of a U.S. munitions factory, President George H. W. Bush declared, "...The Iraqi military and the Iraqi people [should] take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein the dictator to step aside." Iraqis rose to the president's challenge, quickly seizing 14 of Iraq's 18 governorates. The president, counseled by his national-security adviser and then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, stood by as Saddam's Baathist regime and its senior military officers massacred tens of thousands of civilians. "It wasn't so much that you didn't help," one Kurdish political leader told me in 2000, "but rather that you helped Saddam. Why else would you release the Republican Guard prisoners just in time for them to rearm and regroup." Heading into an election year, White House strategists decided to let politics trump principle.

And so, from an Iraqi perspective, history repeats itself. Iraqis today say they face another betrayal. While many Americans know U.N. Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi only as the facilitator of the Afghanistan Loya Jirga process, Iraqis have greater experience with the former Algerian foreign minister. A staunch Nasserist, they say Brahimi is much more interested in rehabilitating former senior Baathist officers than in promoting democracy. Brahimi has demonstrated disdain not only for Iraq's Kurdish minority, but also for Iraq's Shia majority. As undersecretary of the Arab League between 1984 and 1991, Brahimi stood silent as Saddam massacred more than 100,000 Iraqi Kurds, and then perhaps 400,000 Iraqi Shia. As Iraqis discover and excavate new mass graves every week, there are constant reminders of Brahimi's silence. Visiting Baghdad on U.N. business in 1997, Brahimi added insult to injury, as Iraqi television showed Brahimi embracing Saddam's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, a man whom Iraqis hope to try for crimes against humanity.

A U.N. affiliation may lend Brahimi legitimacy on the streets of Washington and London, but it does not in Basra, Baghdad, or Erbil. After more than three decades of strict censorship, Iraqis now enjoy free speech. They publish more than 170 newspapers. Children hawk tabloids and broadsheets at intersections across Baghdad. Like taxi drivers in New York, newspaper vendors in Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul readily opine on local political trends based on which papers sell on which days.

Al-Mada has become the center of much discussion, not just among Iraqis but also among Western correspondents. Al-Mada has gained a reputation for cutting-edge investigative reporting after publishing a series of oil-ministry documents - now authenticated - which show the complicity and corruption of senior U.N. officials involved in the Oil-for-Food program. The greed and graft of U.N. workers is legend in Baghdad and across Iraq. Iraqis are furious that, despite rhetoric about encouraging Iraqi self-government, in recent weeks Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer has moved to derail, de-fund, and administratively block the Governing Council's investigation into U.N. corruption. Holding the United Nations accountable for its crimes in Iraq might interfere with the National Security Council and State Department plan to devolve responsibility to a bureaucracy unaccountable to any electorate.

The sense of Iraqi betrayal extends beyond the fact of U.N. involvement to the substance of the Brahimi plan. Kurdish and Shia leaders say privately that the Brahimi plan is dead-on-arrival. Brahimi's call for a national conference duplicates the Bremer plan already dismissed by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

Bremer's April 14 claim that Brahimi's recommendation was based on "broad consultations with hundreds of Iraqis from across the country" rings hollow, and reinforces the Iraqi perception of Bremer as insincere and arrogant. The 70-year-old Brahimi was in Baghdad for slightly more than a week, during which time he did not travel widely because of security concerns. Even if Brahimi neither ate nor slept, he would have had little time to speak with "hundreds" of Iraqis. Sources say that Brahimi had drawn up his plans well in advance of any consultations. Iraqis get upset when U.S. diplomats and U.N. insult their intelligence. In reality, Brahimi caucused mostly with Adnan Pachachi, an octogenarian former foreign minister remembered most for his regime's brutal suppression of both Shia and Kurds, and for his impassioned attacks on Kuwait's right to exist. President George W. Bush's recognition of Pachachi by name in this year's State of the Union address was popular in Foggy Bottom, but it backfired on the streets of Baghdad. While Iraqis will respect Pachachi as an elder, many say he sacrificed any claim for leadership when he accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in subsidy from the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and when he subordinated himself and kissed the hand of UAE President Shaykh Zayid bin Sultan al-Nahyan on al-Arabiya television.

In the Middle East - as in Washington - perception is more important than reality. Iraqis say that Brahimi has an agenda, but do not believe it involves democracy. Brahimi used his April 14 press conference to defend top-tier Baathist collaborators. "It is difficult to understand that thousands upon thousands of teachers, university professors, medical doctors, and hospital staff, engineers, and other professionals who are sorely needed, have been dismissed within the de-Baathification process," Brahimi said. What Brahimi did not say, but what many Iraqis know, is that Iraqi ministers have hired thousands upon thousands of teachers, professors, medical doctors, and hospital staff who had refused to collaborate with Saddam's regime. Upon liberation, Iraq had a glut of unemployed schoolteachers, many of whom had never compromised themselves morally.

I became convinced of the need for de-Baathification when I accompanied an Iraqi friend into a repository of Baathist-party documents hidden under the shrine of Michel Aflaq, the man who, inspired by European fascism and national socialism, founded the Baath party in 1944. Amid musty books and scattered documents, an Iraqi scholar showed me a ledger containing the names of every secondary-school child, notes about his ethnic and sectarian background, and political details regarding their extended family. Marks next to names indicated that that child would be blacklisted upon graduation. Baathist schoolteachers, at least those in the upper-four levels of the hierarchical party, were not benign opportunists as Brahimi alleges, but rather the enforcers of one of the world's most evil regimes.

Iraqis also object to Brahimi's facile claim that Iraq is full of underutilized technocrats, dismissed in post-liberation purges. Under Saddam Hussein, employees won promotion not on technocratic ability, but rather for political loyalty. The previous Iraqi regime systematically discriminated against Shia and Kurds many of whom now seek positions on their individual merit for the first time. It is a betrayal of liberty, democracy, and freedom to abandon them now.

Glossed over by Foggy Bottom, but seized upon by many Iraqis was Brahimi's statement, "The issue of former military personnel also needs attention." Alarm bells in Iraq are also ringing over the redeployment of Major-General David Petraeus, a critic of de-Baathification, to train and screen the new Iraqi military and security forces. Speaking at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on April 7, 2004, Petraeus argued that the Coalition should encourage reconciliation and reintegrate former Baathist officials into leadership positions. While Petraeus, who seldom misses an opportunity for a media interview, says that his reconciliation policy in Mosul proved successful, facts on the ground fail to support his assertion. Mosul today contains the most organized anti-democratic resistance. Petraeus's empowerment of radical Islamists may very well have cost American lives. On several occasions, Iraqis handed me lists of dozens of top-tier Baathists protected by Petraeus. "How can I go to the police, when the police chief tortured my brother in [Saddam's] prison," one Kurd asked me.

Speaking at the National Endowment for Democracy, President Bush said, "The progress of liberty is a powerful trend. Yet, we also know that liberty, if not defended, can be lost... The sacrifices of Americans have not always been recognized or appreciated, yet they have been worthwhile." We promised Iraqis democracy, and we should deliver. Many career diplomats seek to cut-and-run by transferring authority to the U.N. To do so would not only betray Iraqis, but it will cost American lives as we cast aside the goodwill of Iraq's Shia majority, Kurdish minority, and a good portion of its Arab Sunni population as well. Iraqis respect Bush for standing up for democracy and universal principles. He should not sell his legacy for short-term expediency. The credibility of America depends upon fulfillment of our promises.

- Michael Rubin is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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Boy, this thread has meandered all over the place in recent days, much like a Talmudic exercise in neo-logic. Equally hard to understand at times. So, how many fairies can dance on the head of a pin?

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Sumac wrote:

Quote:

And Bush's favorability ratings may have gone up slightly

I heard today on CNN's Inside Politics that the Bush campaign has already spent 99 million dollars. They have 87 million remaining. Of course they'll raise more, but will it do them any good? 99 million and still a dead heat.....especially in the battle states. Bush is in trouble.

I've been reading the book by Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty. Ten days into the Bush presidency, their primary focus was already on Iraq in the NSC.

Here's a short quote:

Quote:

O'Neill thought about Rumsfeld's memo. It described how everything fit together. The sudden focus on Saddam Hussein made sense only if the broader ideology -- of a need to "dissuade" others [other countries] from creating asymmetric threats -- were to be embraced. That was the why. [italics in original text]

A weak but increasingly obstreperous Saddam might be useful as a demonstration model of American's new, unilateral resolve. If it could effectively be shown that he possessed, or was trying to build, weapons of mass destruction -- creating an "asymmetric threat," in the neoconservative parlance, to U.S. power in the region -- his overthrow would help "dissuade" other countries from doing the same. At least, that seemed to be the idea.

[In the NSC] There was never any rigorous talk about this sweeping idea that seemed to be driving all the specific actions," O'Neill said, echoing the comments of several other participants in NSC discussions. "From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out and change Iraq into a new country. And, if we did that, it would solve everything. It was all about finding a way to do it [italics in original text]. That was the tone of it. The President saying, 'Fine. Go find me a way to do this.' "

PP. 85-86.

(Edited one time in order to provide page reference.)

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It is interesting to speculate whether CBS and CNN are working in tandem to provide forums for explosive events, just coincidentally books being published.

Lola quoted from Suskind's book:

"A weak but increasingly obstreperous Saddam might be useful as a demonstration model of American's new, unilateral resolve. If it could effectively be shown that he possessed, or was trying to build, weapons of mass destruction -- creating an "asymmetric threat," in the neoconservative parlance, to U.S. power in the region -- his overthrow would help "dissuade" other countries from doing the same. At least, that seemed to be the idea."

There are two interesting points in that quote. First of all, O'Neill was not a part of the "group" which actively discussed and/or originated this policy, even though it was a clear, driving construct to much discussion. And two, it would seem to be a policy which might get disparate support from countries in the region. So why didn't it?

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That's right, Sumac, O'Neill had to figure it out.

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Here's another little tidbit from the same book.

Quote:

In Kennebunkport in 1998, George H.W. Bush introduced his son to Condoleezza Rice, a political science professor at Stanford University and the school's provost. The governor was beginning to think about what it might mean to be President. He had insights into only one foreign country thanks to Texas's long shared border with Mexico. Rice teamed up with Paul Wolfowitz, and a tutorial commenced. Over the next year and a half, others were called in, almost all of whom were part of a small, neoconservative community.

p. 80

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Quote:

I heard today on CNN's Inside Politics that the Bush campaign has already spent 99 million dollars. They have 87 million remaining. Of course they'll raise more, but will it do them any good? 99 million and still a dead heat.....especially in the battle states. Bush is in trouble.

You could spin this another way and consider 9 Dem candidates, Ted Kennedy, the Media, Michael Moore, and the ex-employee book of the month club have been hammering this Admin. for several months yet Bush is holding his own with Kerry.

I think if General Clark were the nominee he would have been ahead of Bush, Kerry just isn't cutting it.

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A real strange war story.
*********************
Uniontown WW II flyer's memories in Louisiana boy
By Judy Kroeger

DAILY COURIER
Thursday, April 15, 2004

James Leininger, 6, of Lafayette, La., loves airplanes.

"He has always been extraordinarily interested in airplanes," said James' mother, Andrea Leininger, by telephone from their Louisiana home.

Lots of kids love airplanes, but James' story is unique. He has memories of being a World War II fighter pilot from Uniontown -- Lt. James McCready Huston, shot down near Iwo Jima in 1945.

At 18 months old, his father, Bruce Leininger, took James to the KavanaughFlightMuseum in Dallas, Texas, where the toddler remained transfixed by World War II aircraft.

A few months later, the nightmares began.

"They were terrible, terrible," Andrea said. "He would scream, 'airplane crash, on fire, little man can't get out!' He'd be kicking, with his hands pointing up at the ceiling."

When James was 2 1/2 years old, he and Andrea were shopping and he wanted a toy airplane. "I said to him, 'Look, it has a bomb on the bottom' and he told me, 'That's not a bomb, it's a drop tank.' I had no idea what a drop tank was."

Neither of the Leiningers have ever served in the military, nor are they involved with aviation. Until James began showing an interest in planes, they had nothing aviation-related in their home.

Andrea's mother sent her a book by Pennsylvania author Carol Bowman, called "Children's Past Lives." The Leiningers started using Bowman's techniques of affirming James' nightmares and assuring him that the experiences happened to a different person, not the person he was now. "It helped. The nightmares stopped almost immediately," Andrea said.

However, the memories did not stop, but they do not come up all the time.

"I was reading him a story and he got a faraway look," she recalled. "I asked what happened to your plane? 'Got shot,' he said. Where? 'Engine.' Where did it crash? 'Water.' When I asked him who shot the plane, he gave me a look like a teenager, rolling his eyes, 'the Japanese,' like who else could it have been?

"What little kid knows about the Japanese," she asked. "He said he knew it was a Japanese plane because of the red sun. My husband and I were shell-shocked."

James provided other information. He said his earlier name was James, he flew a Corsair and took off on a boat called the Natoma, and he remembered a fellow flyer named Jack Larson.

Foods can set James' memories off, too.

"I hadn't made meatloaf in 10 years, so James had never had it," Andrea said. "When he sat down, he said, 'Meatloaf! I haven't had that since I was on the Natoma.' When we were getting ice cream one day, he told me that they could have ice cream every day on the Natoma."

Bruce began researching his son's memories and discovered a small escort carrier called the NatomaBay, which was present at the Battle of Iwo Jima. Twenty-one of its crew perished. Bruce also discovered that only one of the Natoma's crew was named James, James Huston.

James Huston's plane was hit in the engine by Japanese fire on March 3, 1945, went down in flames and sank immediately. Flyer Jack Larson witnessed the crash.

James Huston was born Oct. 22, 1923, in South Bend, Ind., and lived in Uniontown during the 1930s. His father was James McCready Huston Sr., of Brownsville, and Daryl Green Huston, who was born in New Geneva and grew up in Uniontown. James was the only son.

According to Lt. Huston's cousin, Bob Huston of Flatwoods, the elder Huston started several newspapers and published 13 books. He was living in Brownsville when two Navy officers informed Huston of his son's death.

"I didn't know James," Bob Huston said. His parents were divorced, "but I knew his father. He stayed with us in Brownsville. James was on his 50th mission and would have come home if he'd lived another five minutes."

The Leiningers have been in touch with Bob Huston.

"I knew what happened to James (Huston)," he said. "I was excited to hear from them (the Leiningers). The boy's mother was flabbergasted when all this happened."

Andrea believes that her son is the reincarnation of Lt. James Huston. "There are so many little things. I believe in reincarnation now."

Her husband, Bruce, remains skeptical. "He started researching to disprove what James was telling us, and ended up proving it all," he said. "I think he believes that James Huston's spirit has manifested itself in our son somehow."

The Leiningers have been in touch with NatomaBay veterans, too.

"We didn't tell the veterans for a long time," Andrea said, "but everyone has a story about having had a spirit visit them. James' sister, Anne Barron, was in California talking to him the day he was killed. Anne believes James' story, because he has provided so much information that only her brother could have known.

"Families of the 21 men who were killed are talking to each other," continued Andrea. "It's brought them together."

The Leiningers plan to attend this year's NatomaBay reunion and bring their son, James.

Andrea doesn't know why this has happened.

"If he did come back, why? Maybe it was so my husband could write the book about the NatomaBay," she said. "It helped turn the tide of the war in the Pacific and was one of the most highly decorated carriers, but it hasn't received much recognition."

She said her husband has been working on a chronology of what's happened to James and is researching the book. "He has flight plans from the missions and has spent a year and a half on research. In the introduction, he's writing about how he found out about the ship."

That discovery, through a toddler's fascination with airplanes and nightmares, has led to a segment on national television.

ABC contacted Carol Bowman about her work on children's past lives and James Leininger's experience was the most verifiable, Andrea said. "And we agreed to share his story."

Chris Cuomo will host the segment, which airs tonight at 10.

Judy Kroeger can be reached at [email protected] or (724) 626-3538.
*********
Any new believers out there?

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Brand X wrote:
"You could spin this another way and consider 9 Dem candidates, Ted Kennedy, the Media, Michael Moore, and the ex-employee book of the month club have been hammering this Admin. for several months yet Bush is holding his own with Kerry."

Yes, but that would be denying that an incumbent, especially with that much money has a distinct advantage.....or should. Bush's "advantage" seems to be non-existant. Hopefully it's because people are beginning to see the light about this unnecessary war........ How it was started by a bunch of crazed ideologues for purposes of their own agrandizement......or at least because they refused to heed advise from many people and other nations who were in a position to know. They were head strong in their conviction that they knew better than everyone else. Pretty arrogant, I'd say.

I hope enough voters in this country are finally facing the truth about this administration. They have led us into an unnecessary war, caused thousands to be killed or mamed and neglected their responsibilities to both 1. the cause of fighting terror and 2. domestic issues, like the economy, along the way. Now the country and the entire world are at risk because of this outrageous narcissism.

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CI - Interesting story. Thanks for sharing it. I immediately thought that the job of stripping away the memories of a previous life before refitting the soul for a new host is probably a government job in the afterlife, and so it doesn't surprise me that someone screwed it up in this case. :wink:

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c.i., that is a strange article. I wonder what little James' IQ is. I learned to read when I was 2 and 1/2. I didn't read about airplanes and Japanese fighter pilots, however. I just read the first grade reader. But some 2 and 1/2 year olds do, if they're little geniuses.

My daughter, when she was very young, 2 or 3 y.o. or so) also used to make reference to her brother. And I would say, "but you don't have a brother" and she'd reply, "no, it was in my other life, before this one." Many kids say similar things.

Or......maybe James has provided proof of multible lives. Who knows. But I doubt it.

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Scrat,

That was very funny.

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sumac wrote:

Lola quoted from Suskind's book:
"A weak but increasingly obstreperous Saddam might be useful as a demonstration model of American's new, unilateral resolve. If it could effectively be shown that he possessed, or was trying to build, weapons of mass destruction -- creating an "asymmetric threat," in the neoconservative parlance, to U.S. power in the region -- his overthrow would help "dissuade" other countries from doing the same. At least, that seemed to be the idea."

LOOKS LIKE BUSH IS NO WORSE THAN MEDIOCRE--SO WHAT?

The components and ingredients of weapons of mass murder are continually being discovered in Iraq. Several months would have been required to assemble that stuff into actual weapons of mass murder. So it might have taken up to a year for Saddam to be an "immediate threat." Then again it might not. Confused

The components and ingredients of weapons of mass destruction--specifically rockets--have been found in both fully assembled and unassembled form, but unarmed as far as ordinance or weapons of mass murder. Many of these were available for immediate use.

On the otherhand, the tons of yellow brick that have been found would have taken years to convert into nuclear weapons of mass destruction. No "immediate threat" there.

So what is the left preoccupied with now? Why of course, when did Bush start contemplating war with Saddam's Iraq?

Did Bush contemplate it before he was governor of Texas?
Did Bush contemplate it after he was governor of Texas?
Did Bush contemplate it before he was inaugurated president of USA?
Did Bush contemplate it after he was inaugurated president of USA?
Did Bush contemplate it before 9/11/2001?
Did Bush contemplate it after 9/11/2001?
Did Bush contemplate it before attacking Afghanistan?
Did Bush contemplate it after attacking Afghanistan?
Did Bush contemplate it before attacking Saddam's Iraq?
Did Bush contemplate it after attacking Saddam's Iraq?

Clearly that last one is silly. Think about it just a little bit, and maybe, just maybe, you'll decide they are all silly.

Are we trying to determine whether in attacking Saddam's Iraq Bush was:
1. diabolic?
2. prescient?
3. lucky?
4. unlucky?
5. self-serving?

How is knowing which going to help us save ourselves in particular and the human race in general?

Do you actually think that knowing which will help Kerry be elected President in November? I bet not. The majority of us voters have already figured out that Kerry is a fool and a fraud.

Face it, unless the Democrats come up with a candidate a lot better than mediocre, we're stuck with Bush. If I could, I would try to get a super majority of the delegates to the Democratic Party Convention to vote to release all delegates to vote their consciences on the very first ballot. I would like them to then nominate Senator Zel Miller.

HOW SHALL ZEL MILLER RECTIFY THE IRAQI SITUATION?

Proposal I. Start with an Iraqi plebiscite--it will probably cost hundreds of lives plus a couple of billion dollars to provide an acceptable level of security.

Proposal II. Turn the governance of Iraq over to the UN--a corrupt and incompetent organization will likely maintain the status quo.

Proposal III. Improve the effectiveness of Bush's current process--tough work with a cost of thousands of lives plus tens of billions of dollars.

Proposal IV. ????????????????

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Troops from Thailand are reported to have said they will leave Iraq if they are attacked. I confidently predict they will be attacked and will leave.

Acting Israeli Ambassador in London said Vanunu gave away vital secrets such as bus routes.

And how else does Israel protect itself from those who would blow themselves up if it doesnt blow up those who would blow themselves up.

Israel will not be the first to "introduce" nuclear weapons into the middle east because Israel has already deployed nuclear weapons to the IDF.

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Steve (as 41oo) wrote:

Troops from Thailand are reported to have said they will leave Iraq if they are attacked. ... Israel will not be the first to "introduce" nuclear weapons into the middle east because Israel has already deployed nuclear weapons to the IDF.

If all the coalition pulls out then what? Should the US duplicate what the Brits did in 1948 and pull out too?

The Brits pulled out of Palestine in 1948 and the UN solved nothing with its multitude of strictly symbolic resolutions.

The Palestinian Arabs and the Palestinian Jews are still fighting and one (one-half the total number of factions) has weapons of mass destruction.

Let's follow the old British model and do the same for Iraq. There are three to four factions there. Maybe half there too will develop weapons of mass destruction.

I'm one of those people who thinks that if we keep doing the samething over and over we will get the same result not a different result.

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Scrat wrote:

CI - Interesting story. Thanks for sharing it. I immediately thought that the job of stripping away the memories of a previous life before refitting the soul for a new host is probably a government job in the afterlife, and so it doesn't surprise me that someone screwed it up in this case. :wink:

In my previous life I flew ostriches. I spent a lifetime with one ostrich after another, in one failed takeoff roll after another. It wasn't until this life that I learned at the age of 2.5 years from reading the Encyclopedia Brittanica cover to cover that ostriches can't fly. :wink:

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Things can only get better.

First Spain pulls out. Then Honduras and the Dominican Republic. Followed by Thailand and Poland. The Ukrainians ran away anyway, and now the S Koreans will withdraw if the right party wins the election. Meanwhile the coalition appointed Iraqi police are more likely to join the insurgents than fight them...all working out just as predicted.

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THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

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