THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, TENTH THREAD.

The president's argument sums up to 'information is declassified, when I say it is declassified.'

And that is true to an extent.
That is true, period!

No, it isn't.

Yes, it is.
As we both know there are three separate branches of the government:
Legislative;
Executive; and,
Judicial.

As head of the executive branch, the President has the authority to execute the powers of the executive branch. One of those powers is classifying and declassifying information for the purpose of, respectively, increasing or reducing access to that information in the national interest as he judges it.

As head of the legislative branch, a majority of Congress can order an override of an executive branch's classification, but if vetoed by the president, and that veto not overriden by a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress, the President can ignore such Congressional order.

As head of the judicial branch, a majority of the Supreme Court can order an override of an executive branch's classification, if a plaintiff were to appeal to the court for that classification to be overriden. If the President were to decide not to comply, a majority of the House and two-thirds of the Senate would be required to impeach, convict and remove the President from office.

No one or more members of the President's cabinet or his other appointees has the power to override Presidential declassification orders.

So far, neither the Congress or the Supreme Court has decided to attempt to override the President's declassification of Plame's status and/or actions.

Witness the fact that the WH staff was 'working to declassify' the information for an additional ten days after the president had already 'declassified' the information.

What were they working on? Was the information officially declassified, or not? If Bush has the power to declassify with a wave of a hand, then there would be no need for further work; his word is, as you would have it be, law, if the truth is that That is true, period!

At the President's order, they were merely formalizing and subsequently disseminating the declassification decision the President had already made.

So there is some question of what the procedure is for declassification. I reject your assertion that the president merely has to wave his hand for a document to be officially declassified.
Waving his hand is insufficient. The President must order the declassification.

I have no doubt that he sits at the top of the procedure; that he can order it done at any time; but there exists no evidence that Bush followed existing WH procedures, procedures he had used often in the past to declassify information, in order to declassify. This is his perogative, you may argue; but it certainly speaks to the concept of a concerted, co-ordinated and secret effort to pass NIE information to reporters, under false pretense of being a 'former hill staffer,' in order to politically attack Joe Wilson. During this process, his wife, Valerie Plame, and her company, Brewster Jennings and Associates, were revealed to be a CIA front.
You are making a valid point. You are not questioning the President's power to order declassification of information about Plame's status and actions; rather you are questioning his judgment in giving that order.

I too question the President's judgment in ordering declassification of information about Plame's status and actions. I question his judgment for the same reasons you do plus a few more!

This is a point that isn't discussed very often; Brewster-Jennings had how many NOC agents (Which Plame was in the past, though not neccessarily at the time of the revealing of her identity; we will see about that one) working for them in the last several years? How many people were revealed as having been working for the CIA, when the 'bad guys' didn't know before? We don't know. The damage done could have been large. And an effort to discredit a political attacker by the upper levels of the White House, directly or indirectly, has lead to this.

I agree that the President's order was unjustified.

Phrases like "some evidence" and "pretty much none" are a bit ambiguous, don't you think?

Sorry. There is evidence that Plame did work overseas:

First, direct statements from Larry Johnson

Second, logical inferrence; the CIA and DoJ certainly have given some evidence that they believe Plame to have been covert, or other associates of hers at Brewster Jennings & assoc. This can been seen both in Fitzgerald's statements, and in the fact that the case is being pursued in the first place.

There is zero documented evidence that Plame did not serve overseas in the last five years before 2003. Do you have such evidence which I am unaware of? Present it, please. Otherwise, the preponderance of evidence would seem to indicate that she had done covert work overseas in the previous five years.
I cannot produce such evidence! I base my claim on what I remember hearing on several TV news reports all claiming the same thing. Even if my memory were perfect in this regard, I still could not produce evidence to support the truth of those claims.


You left out the "some evidence" that what Wilson reported orally to the CIA after his African trip contradicted what he wrote in his published article: that is, in Wilson's oral report, Saddam sought yellow cake; in Wilson's written article, Saddam did not seek yellow cake.

Where is this evidence, in writing? Link please.
Here again I am relying on TV news reports that all said the same thing, but that I cannot independently verify. By the way, several recent TV news reports have referred to captured Saddam files that they claim say that Saddam sought yellow cake. I cannot produce evidence to support the truth of those claims, either.

Here's a link from a 2005 Bloomberg article examining whether or not Wilson's claims have held up:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a8dab8rni_Do&refer=us

I agree that the administration probably chose to reveal Plame's relationship with Wilson to combat what Wilson claimed in his article.

Essentially, Bush authorized a leak of sensitive information in order to attack a poltical rival who was exposing their manipulation of evidence presented to the public Re: WMD. The Bush WH entered into a concerted effort to do so, and this effot lead in one fashion or another to the revealing of CIA counter-proliferation assets, both Plame and her associates at Brewster Jennings. This is certainly worth investigation, as I'm sure you agree, and during the course of the investigation the WH has told some conflicting stories (lies) about the course of events. Information shows that Bush&Cheney&Rove may not have told the truth on the issue of a secret effort - conspiracy - to attack wilson, defend completely false Iraq war intelligence, and then cover the fact up afterwards.

Also, please remem ...

Immaterial to the discussion at hand, and frankly nothing more than another attempt by you to change the subject.
No, I was not interested in changing the subject. I was interested in influencing your perspective on the context of this discussion. That is, regardless of Bush's judgment, behavior or motives since the Iraq invasion, there is a preponderance of evidence that shows that Wilson's allegations together with the whole Plame episode, are irrelevant to the question about whether we should or shouldn't have invaded Iraq.
Cycloptichorn

EXECUTIVE ORDER 13292

- - - - - - -

FURTHER AMENDMENT TO EXECUTIVE ORDER 12958, AS AMENDED,
CLASSIFIED NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION

(4) Each delegation of original classification authority shall be in writing and the authority shall not be redelegated except as provided in this order. Each delegation shall identify the official by name or position title.

... Sec. 6.3. Effective Date. This order is effective immediately, except for section 1.6, which shall become effective 180 days from the date of this order.

GEORGE W. BUSH

THE WHITE HOUSE,
March 25, 2003.

Presidents Reagan, Clinton, and George W. Bush all signed executive orders pertaining to the declassification of national security information. At least one legal analyst -- Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew P. Napolitano, a former New Jersey state judge -- has argued that Bush "would be violating his own order" if he declassified parts of the NIE without following certain procedures.

From the April 6 edition of Fox News' The Big Story with John Gibson:

GIBSON (host): All right. So, then, what does this story mean, that President Bush revealed classified information? He is the president. Can he unilaterally declassify something and release it?

NAPOLITANO: Yes. He can unilaterally declassify what he has ordered to be classified. He has to go through certain steps in order to do that. He can't say, "Hey, Dick, tell Lew he can tell this to Judy." He has got to sign certain documents. It's got to go through a procedure, a procedure set up by President Clinton and reinforced by President Bush. The president does not commit a crime if he says, "Hey, Dick, tell Lew he can talk to Judy." He would be violating his own order

...
Zarqawi had no prior link to or involvement in al Qaeda. After the invasion, and well after the invasion, Zarqawi took a small group of radicals in Iraq, and dubbed his group "al Qaeda in Iraq."
...
Zarqawi is no member of al Qaeda, and "al Qaeda in Iraq" is just a flashy title with which he hoped (and it appears he has been disappointed in this regard) to swell his ranks to a significant degree.

2.4 BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION, DECLARING WAR ON THE UNITED STATES (1992-1996)
...
Bin Ladin had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic army.53

... Bin Ladin ... continued to aid a group of Islamist extremists operating in part of Iraq (Kurdistan) ... . In the late 1990s, these extremist groups suffered major defeats by Kurdish forces. In 2001, with Bin Ladin's help they re-formed into an organization called Ansar al Islam. There are indications that by then the Iraqi regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common Kurdish enemy.54

...
[At] two ridges and a steep valley in far northeastern Iraq, right on the border of Iran ... were the camps of the Ansar al-Islam terrorists, where al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab Zarqawi had trained disciples ... [American] Special Forces and Special Mission Operators, leading Kurdish Peshmerga fighters invaded these al-Qaeda camps, collecting evidence, taking prisoners, and killing all those who resisted.
...

The war in Iraq is central to al Qa'ida's global jihad.

The war will not end with an American departure.

Their strategic vision is one of inevitable conflict with a call by al-Zawahiri for political action equal to military action.

Popular support must be maintained at least until jihadist rule has been established.

More than half the struggle is taking place "in the battlefield of the media."
...
Letter in English at:
www.dni.gov/letter_in_english.pdf

Three years after US forces symbolically toppled a statue of Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi capital, 'Baghdad blogger' Salam Pax says things look bleaker than ever for his country.

"One of the tragedies of this ongoing war is that no one knows how many Iraqi lives have been lost.

"And those of us who have survived so far now risk losing our country," he told BBC Newsnight.

Baghdad resident Mr Pax came to prominence documenting the Iraq war from an Iraqi perspective on his weblog.

In taking stock of the situation three years on from the symbolic felling of the statue, Mr Pax says he is "more negative about the future than ever".

Bad experiences

Even in the immediate aftermath of the war, he says, hope and excitement was tinged with fear.

"A lot was going on and it was amazing how quickly things were changing. For the first time everyone had access to satellite dishes, almost a 150 new newspapers and magazines and about a 100 new political parties suddenly appeared out of nowhere."
"But at the same time many Iraqis were having bad experiences with the occupying forces."

After the capture of Saddam Hussein, he says, "Saddam's supporters had joined ranks with the Islamist insurgency", and it was no longer just the occupying forces civilians had to fear.

Iraqi identity

Mr Pax says the country has become so deeply divided that any sense of national identity has been eroded.
"I have a Sunni name from my father but my mother is a Shia and we are all Arabs.

"If I want to visit the Shia south I feel safer when using my mother's name. I am not very welcome in the Kurdish north because I'm Arab; in fact I need a permit just to go there.

"All these are labels and all I want to be is an Iraqi - but there doesn't seem to be such a thing any more."

Huge mistake

Stopping short of describing the rising number of Iraqi deaths at the hands of insurgents as a civil war, he says the coalition's stated aims of providing democracy and freedom stand on the brink of complete failure.

"With the prospect of internal conflict looming ever larger it looks like this has been one huge mistake.
"What kind of democracy can we have when our politicians are still unable to agree on a government four months after the elections?

"And as far as freedom is concerned, when mothers are too afraid to send their kids to school, all these big ideas fly out of the window."

Sectarian tensions

Quality of life in Iraq has, he says, fallen sharply in the last three years, to the extent that many have to improvise to get around a lack of basic facilities.


"Fuel shortages have become the norm and we all have given up on depending on the government's electricity grid. We buy electricity from the guy who has a big generator at the end of the street."
Salam Pax also says sectarian tensions have eroded personal freedoms, citing one example of a group of musicians unable to play due to threats of violence from Islamist parties.

There has also been a lack of progress on women's rights and rising youth unemployment, he says.

The picture Mr Pax paints of everyday life for Iraqis is of constant fear and dwindling hope.

"Today many people have felt forced to leave Iraq altogether because of the fear and insecurity that has become part of our daily lives."

But for all the problems and despite his growing international renown, Baghdad's blogger remains a resident of the Iraqi capital despite his fears for the future.

I wish I could place any credence on the US intelligence efforts back then, or with Tommy Franks, with regard to Zarqawri, or anything else.

If my inference is correct, your position amounts to your mind is made up and is not open to the possibility, much less the probability, that what you think are the facts are not the facts.