Secret Bush Finding Widens War with Iran
03rd May 08... four, three, two....:
http://rinf.com/alt-news/politics/secret-bush-finding-widens-war-on-iran/3327/
Secret Bush “Finding” Widens War on Iran
Friday, May 2nd, 2008
by Andrew Cockburn |
Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, “unprecedented in its scope.”
Bush’s secret directive covers actions across a huge geographic area – from Lebanon to Afghanistan – but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines – up to and including the assassination of targeted officials. This widened scope clears the way, for example, for full support for the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, the cultish Iranian opposition group, despite its enduring position on the State Department’s list of terrorist groups.
Similarly, covert funds can now flow without restriction to Jundullah, or “army of god,” the militant Sunni group in Iranian Baluchistan – just across the Afghan border — whose leader was featured not long ago on Dan Rather Reports cutting his brother in law’s throat.
Other elements that will benefit from U.S. largesse and advice include Iranian Kurdish nationalists, as well the Ahwazi arabs of south west Iran. Further afield, operations against Iran’s Hezbollah allies in Lebanon will be stepped up, along with efforts to destabilize the Syrian regime.
All this costs money, which in turn must be authorized by Congress, or at least a by few witting members of the intelligence committees. That has not proved a problem. An initial outlay of $300 million to finance implementation of the finding has been swiftly approved with bipartisan support, apparently regardless of the unpopularity of the current war and the perilous condition of the U.S. economy.
Until recently, the administration faced a serious obstacle to action against Iran in the form of Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon, who made no secret of his contempt for official determination to take us to war. In a widely publicized incident last January, Iranian patrol boats approached a U.S. ship in what the Pentagon described as a “taunting” manner. According to Centcom staff officers, the American commander on the spot was about to open fire. At that point, the U.S. was close to war. He desisted only when Fallon personally and explicitly ordered him not to shoot. The White House, according to the staff officers, was “absolutely furious” with Fallon for defusing the incident.
Fallon has since departed. His abrupt resignation in early March followed the publication of his unvarnished views on our policy of confrontation with Iran, something that is unlikely to happen to his replacement, George Bush’s favorite general, David Petraeus.
Though Petraeus is not due to take formal command at Centcom until late summer, there are abundant signs that something may happen before then. A Marine amphibious force, originally due to leave San Diego for the Persian Gulf in mid June, has had its sailing date abruptly moved up to May 4. A scheduled meeting in Europe between French diplomats acting as intermediaries for the U.S. and Iranian representatives has been abruptly cancelled in the last two weeks. Petraeus is said to be at work on a master briefing for congress to demonstrate conclusively that the Iranians are the source of our current troubles in Iraq, thanks to their support for the Shia militia currently under attack by U.S. forces in Baghdad.
Interestingly, despite the bellicose complaints, Petraeus has made little effort to seal the Iran-Iraq border, and in any case two thirds of U.S. casualties still come from Sunni insurgents. “The Shia account for less than one third,” a recently returned member of the command staff in Baghdad familiar with the relevant intelligence told me, “but if you want a war you have to sell it.”
Even without the covert initiatives described above, the huge and growing armada currently on station in the Gulf is an impressive symbol of American power.
Armed Might of US Marred By Begging Bowl to Arabs
Sometime in the next two weeks, fleet radar operator may notice a blip on their screens that represents something rather more profound: America’s growing financial weakness. The blip will be former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin’s plane commencing its descent into Abu Dhabi. Rubin’s responsibility these days is to help keep Citigroup afloat despite a balance sheet still waterlogged, despite frantic bail out efforts by the Federal Reserve and others, by staggering losses in mortgage bonds. The Abu Dhabi Sovereign Wealth Fund injected $7.5 billion last November (albeit at a sub-prime interest rate of eleven percent,) but the bank’s urgent need for fresh capital persists, and Abu Dhabi is where the money is.
Even if those radar operators pay no attention to Mr. Rubin’s flight, and the ironic contrast it illustrates between American military power and financial weakness, others will, and not just in Tehran. There’s not much a finding can do about that.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=SCO20080501&articleId=8864
Congress, the Bush Administration and Continuity of Government Planning--The Showdown
by Prof. Peter Dale Scott
Global Research, May 1, 2008
911truth.org - 2008-03-31
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In August 2007, Congressman Peter DeFazio, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, told the House that he and the rest of his Committee had been barred from reviewing parts of National Security Presidential Directive 51, the White House supersecret plans to implement so-called "Continuity of Government" in the event of a mass terror attack or natural disaster. (1)
Norm Ornstein, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, commented, "I cannot think of one good reason" for denial. Ornstein added, "I find it inexplicable and probably reflective of the usual, knee-jerk overextension of executive power that we see from this White House." (2)
The story, ignored by the mainstream press, involved more than the usual tussle between the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. Government. What was at stake was a contest between Congress's constitutional powers of oversight, and a set of policy plans that could be used to suspend or modify the constitution.
There is nothing wrong with disaster planning per se. Like all governments, the U.S. government must develop plans for the worst contingencies. But Congress has a right to be concerned about Continuity of Government (COG) plans refined by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld over the past quarter century, which journalists have described as involving suspension of the constitution. (3)
In the 1980s, a secret group of planners inside and outside the government were assigned, by an Executive Order, to develop a response to a nuclear attack in which the U.S. government had been decapitated, forcing an alternative to the constitutional rules of succession. Two of these planners were Dick Cheney, then a Congressman, and Donald Rumsfeld, then a private citizen and CEO of the G.D. Searle drug company.
"One of the awkward questions we faced was whether to reconstitute Congress after a nuclear attack.It was decided that no, it would be easier to operate without them," said one of the COG planners in the 1980s, who spoke to James Mann (The Rise of the Vulcans, 141-42). James Bamford reported the same remark in his book Pretext for War (p. 74).
After the end of the Cold War, the urgency of coming up with plans faded. The COG nuclear planning project "has less than six months to live," reported Tim Weiner of the New York Times. (April 17, 1994). Mann and Bamford concluded, wrongly, that all the COG planning of the Reagan era had been abandoned.
In fact, Reagan's Executive Order 12656, issued in 1988, remained in effect. The order states that Continuity of Government procedures are called for in the event of "any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States." (4)
Under Clinton, some parts of the planning, presumably military, were continued by a group including Rumsfeld and others whose roster (according to Andrew Cockburn) was "filled almost exclusively with Republican hawks." Cockburn quotes one participant, a former Pentagon official, who said "They'd meet, do the exercise, but also sit around and castigate the Clinton administration in the most extreme way." (5)
According to the 9/11 Commission Report (p. 326; cf. p. 38), "Contingency plans for the continuity of government" were implemented on September 11, 2001. (6) But what measures were invoked remains unclear.
Some clues may be supplied by COG's past history. COG planning in the 1980s was handled by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its controversial director, Louis Giuffrida. According to a Miami Herald article by Alfonso Chardy on July 5, 1987, Giuffrida's plans included "suspension of the Constitution," along with detailed arrangements for the declaration of martial law. (7)
Those suspicious of what COG means today have pointed to a number of post 9/11 steps to facilitate the implementation of martial law, including the creation of a new military command (NORTHCOM) for the continental United States. They note also Homeland Security's strategic plan Endgame, whose stated goal is the creation of detention camps designed to "remove all removable aliens," including "potential terrorists."
Then in 2007 National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD 51), issued by the White House, empowered the President to personally ensure "continuity of government" in the event of any "catastrophic emergency." (8) According to the Washington Post (May 10, 2007), this directive "formalizes a shift of authority," from the Department of Homeland Security to the White House, in establishing " a shadow government" after an emergency. (9) Congress has yet to hold a single hearing on NSPD 51. (10)
NSPD 51 contains "classified Continuity Annexes" which shall "be protected from unauthorized disclosure." Congressman DeFazio twice requested to see these Annexes, the second time in a letter cosigned by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Christopher Carney. It was these requests that the White House denied.
Without full disclosure, such suspicions will only fester and distract from the real issue: the role of Congress in constitutional government. In the event of national emergency, Congress must be at the heart of the defense of democratic government and American territory. It is reasonable for the citizenry to ask, "How do Continuity of Government plans preserve and protect the role of the popularly chosen branch of government?" The answer is, we simply don't know.
DeFazio's inability to get access to the NSPD Annexes is less than reassuring. If members of the Homeland Security Committee cannot enforce their right to read secret plans of the Executive Branch, then the systems of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution would seem to be failing.
To put it another way, if the White House is successful in frustrating DeFazio, then Continuity of Government planning has arguably already superseded the Constitution as a higher authority.
Will Congress insist on its right of review COG planning? The answer to this question will depend on discussion in the blogosphere, the degree of pressure exerted by the electorate on their representatives, and the questions asked the men and women who would be president.
Peter Dale Scott is the author of The Road to 9/11.
Notes.
1. Congressional Record, August 2, 2007. The text of National Security Presidential Directive 51 can be seen here.
2. Jeff Kosseff, The Oregonian, July 20, 2007.
3. Scott, The Road to 9/11, 183-87; citing Ross Gelbspan, Break-ins, Death Threats, and the FBI: The Covert War against the Central America Movement (Boston: South End Press, 1991), 184; Alfonso Chardy, Miami Herald, July 5, 1987.
4. The provisions of Executive Order 12656 of November 18, 1988, appear at 53 FR 47491, 3 CFR, 1988 Comp., p. 585, "Executive Order 12656-Assignment of Emergency Preparedness Responsibilities,". The Washington Post (Gellman and Schmidt, "Shadow Government Is at Work in Secret," March 1, 2002) later claimed, incorrectly, that Executive Order 12656 dealt only with "a nuclear attack."
5. Andrew Cockburn, Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy (New York: Scribner, 2007), 88)
6. 9/11 Commission Report, 326, cf. 38; Scott, Road to 9/11, 220-29.
7. Alfonso Chardy, "Reagan Aides and the `Secret' Government," Miami Herald, July 5, 1987.
8. National Security Presidential Directive 51.
9. Spencer S. Hsu, "Bush Changes Continuity Plan: Administration, Not DHS, Would Run Shadow Government," Washington Post, May 10, 2007,
10. Lewis Seiler and Dan Hamburg, San Francisco Chronicle (February 4, 2008).
http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=69665
http://www.infowars.net/articles/may2008/050507Pandemic.htm
http://rinf.com/alt-news/politics/secret-bush-finding-widens-war-on-iran/3327/
Secret Bush “Finding” Widens War on Iran
Friday, May 2nd, 2008
by Andrew Cockburn |
Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, “unprecedented in its scope.”
Bush’s secret directive covers actions across a huge geographic area – from Lebanon to Afghanistan – but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines – up to and including the assassination of targeted officials. This widened scope clears the way, for example, for full support for the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, the cultish Iranian opposition group, despite its enduring position on the State Department’s list of terrorist groups.
Similarly, covert funds can now flow without restriction to Jundullah, or “army of god,” the militant Sunni group in Iranian Baluchistan – just across the Afghan border — whose leader was featured not long ago on Dan Rather Reports cutting his brother in law’s throat.
Other elements that will benefit from U.S. largesse and advice include Iranian Kurdish nationalists, as well the Ahwazi arabs of south west Iran. Further afield, operations against Iran’s Hezbollah allies in Lebanon will be stepped up, along with efforts to destabilize the Syrian regime.
All this costs money, which in turn must be authorized by Congress, or at least a by few witting members of the intelligence committees. That has not proved a problem. An initial outlay of $300 million to finance implementation of the finding has been swiftly approved with bipartisan support, apparently regardless of the unpopularity of the current war and the perilous condition of the U.S. economy.
Until recently, the administration faced a serious obstacle to action against Iran in the form of Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon, who made no secret of his contempt for official determination to take us to war. In a widely publicized incident last January, Iranian patrol boats approached a U.S. ship in what the Pentagon described as a “taunting” manner. According to Centcom staff officers, the American commander on the spot was about to open fire. At that point, the U.S. was close to war. He desisted only when Fallon personally and explicitly ordered him not to shoot. The White House, according to the staff officers, was “absolutely furious” with Fallon for defusing the incident.
Fallon has since departed. His abrupt resignation in early March followed the publication of his unvarnished views on our policy of confrontation with Iran, something that is unlikely to happen to his replacement, George Bush’s favorite general, David Petraeus.
Though Petraeus is not due to take formal command at Centcom until late summer, there are abundant signs that something may happen before then. A Marine amphibious force, originally due to leave San Diego for the Persian Gulf in mid June, has had its sailing date abruptly moved up to May 4. A scheduled meeting in Europe between French diplomats acting as intermediaries for the U.S. and Iranian representatives has been abruptly cancelled in the last two weeks. Petraeus is said to be at work on a master briefing for congress to demonstrate conclusively that the Iranians are the source of our current troubles in Iraq, thanks to their support for the Shia militia currently under attack by U.S. forces in Baghdad.
Interestingly, despite the bellicose complaints, Petraeus has made little effort to seal the Iran-Iraq border, and in any case two thirds of U.S. casualties still come from Sunni insurgents. “The Shia account for less than one third,” a recently returned member of the command staff in Baghdad familiar with the relevant intelligence told me, “but if you want a war you have to sell it.”
Even without the covert initiatives described above, the huge and growing armada currently on station in the Gulf is an impressive symbol of American power.
Armed Might of US Marred By Begging Bowl to Arabs
Sometime in the next two weeks, fleet radar operator may notice a blip on their screens that represents something rather more profound: America’s growing financial weakness. The blip will be former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin’s plane commencing its descent into Abu Dhabi. Rubin’s responsibility these days is to help keep Citigroup afloat despite a balance sheet still waterlogged, despite frantic bail out efforts by the Federal Reserve and others, by staggering losses in mortgage bonds. The Abu Dhabi Sovereign Wealth Fund injected $7.5 billion last November (albeit at a sub-prime interest rate of eleven percent,) but the bank’s urgent need for fresh capital persists, and Abu Dhabi is where the money is.
Even if those radar operators pay no attention to Mr. Rubin’s flight, and the ironic contrast it illustrates between American military power and financial weakness, others will, and not just in Tehran. There’s not much a finding can do about that.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=SCO20080501&articleId=8864
Congress, the Bush Administration and Continuity of Government Planning--The Showdown
by Prof. Peter Dale Scott
Global Research, May 1, 2008
911truth.org - 2008-03-31
Email this article to a friend
Print this article
In August 2007, Congressman Peter DeFazio, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, told the House that he and the rest of his Committee had been barred from reviewing parts of National Security Presidential Directive 51, the White House supersecret plans to implement so-called "Continuity of Government" in the event of a mass terror attack or natural disaster. (1)
Norm Ornstein, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, commented, "I cannot think of one good reason" for denial. Ornstein added, "I find it inexplicable and probably reflective of the usual, knee-jerk overextension of executive power that we see from this White House." (2)
The story, ignored by the mainstream press, involved more than the usual tussle between the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. Government. What was at stake was a contest between Congress's constitutional powers of oversight, and a set of policy plans that could be used to suspend or modify the constitution.
There is nothing wrong with disaster planning per se. Like all governments, the U.S. government must develop plans for the worst contingencies. But Congress has a right to be concerned about Continuity of Government (COG) plans refined by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld over the past quarter century, which journalists have described as involving suspension of the constitution. (3)
In the 1980s, a secret group of planners inside and outside the government were assigned, by an Executive Order, to develop a response to a nuclear attack in which the U.S. government had been decapitated, forcing an alternative to the constitutional rules of succession. Two of these planners were Dick Cheney, then a Congressman, and Donald Rumsfeld, then a private citizen and CEO of the G.D. Searle drug company.
"One of the awkward questions we faced was whether to reconstitute Congress after a nuclear attack.It was decided that no, it would be easier to operate without them," said one of the COG planners in the 1980s, who spoke to James Mann (The Rise of the Vulcans, 141-42). James Bamford reported the same remark in his book Pretext for War (p. 74).
After the end of the Cold War, the urgency of coming up with plans faded. The COG nuclear planning project "has less than six months to live," reported Tim Weiner of the New York Times. (April 17, 1994). Mann and Bamford concluded, wrongly, that all the COG planning of the Reagan era had been abandoned.
In fact, Reagan's Executive Order 12656, issued in 1988, remained in effect. The order states that Continuity of Government procedures are called for in the event of "any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States." (4)
Under Clinton, some parts of the planning, presumably military, were continued by a group including Rumsfeld and others whose roster (according to Andrew Cockburn) was "filled almost exclusively with Republican hawks." Cockburn quotes one participant, a former Pentagon official, who said "They'd meet, do the exercise, but also sit around and castigate the Clinton administration in the most extreme way." (5)
According to the 9/11 Commission Report (p. 326; cf. p. 38), "Contingency plans for the continuity of government" were implemented on September 11, 2001. (6) But what measures were invoked remains unclear.
Some clues may be supplied by COG's past history. COG planning in the 1980s was handled by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its controversial director, Louis Giuffrida. According to a Miami Herald article by Alfonso Chardy on July 5, 1987, Giuffrida's plans included "suspension of the Constitution," along with detailed arrangements for the declaration of martial law. (7)
Those suspicious of what COG means today have pointed to a number of post 9/11 steps to facilitate the implementation of martial law, including the creation of a new military command (NORTHCOM) for the continental United States. They note also Homeland Security's strategic plan Endgame, whose stated goal is the creation of detention camps designed to "remove all removable aliens," including "potential terrorists."
Then in 2007 National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD 51), issued by the White House, empowered the President to personally ensure "continuity of government" in the event of any "catastrophic emergency." (8) According to the Washington Post (May 10, 2007), this directive "formalizes a shift of authority," from the Department of Homeland Security to the White House, in establishing " a shadow government" after an emergency. (9) Congress has yet to hold a single hearing on NSPD 51. (10)
NSPD 51 contains "classified Continuity Annexes" which shall "be protected from unauthorized disclosure." Congressman DeFazio twice requested to see these Annexes, the second time in a letter cosigned by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Christopher Carney. It was these requests that the White House denied.
Without full disclosure, such suspicions will only fester and distract from the real issue: the role of Congress in constitutional government. In the event of national emergency, Congress must be at the heart of the defense of democratic government and American territory. It is reasonable for the citizenry to ask, "How do Continuity of Government plans preserve and protect the role of the popularly chosen branch of government?" The answer is, we simply don't know.
DeFazio's inability to get access to the NSPD Annexes is less than reassuring. If members of the Homeland Security Committee cannot enforce their right to read secret plans of the Executive Branch, then the systems of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution would seem to be failing.
To put it another way, if the White House is successful in frustrating DeFazio, then Continuity of Government planning has arguably already superseded the Constitution as a higher authority.
Will Congress insist on its right of review COG planning? The answer to this question will depend on discussion in the blogosphere, the degree of pressure exerted by the electorate on their representatives, and the questions asked the men and women who would be president.
Peter Dale Scott is the author of The Road to 9/11.
Notes.
1. Congressional Record, August 2, 2007. The text of National Security Presidential Directive 51 can be seen here.
2. Jeff Kosseff, The Oregonian, July 20, 2007.
3. Scott, The Road to 9/11, 183-87; citing Ross Gelbspan, Break-ins, Death Threats, and the FBI: The Covert War against the Central America Movement (Boston: South End Press, 1991), 184; Alfonso Chardy, Miami Herald, July 5, 1987.
4. The provisions of Executive Order 12656 of November 18, 1988, appear at 53 FR 47491, 3 CFR, 1988 Comp., p. 585, "Executive Order 12656-Assignment of Emergency Preparedness Responsibilities,". The Washington Post (Gellman and Schmidt, "Shadow Government Is at Work in Secret," March 1, 2002) later claimed, incorrectly, that Executive Order 12656 dealt only with "a nuclear attack."
5. Andrew Cockburn, Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy (New York: Scribner, 2007), 88)
6. 9/11 Commission Report, 326, cf. 38; Scott, Road to 9/11, 220-29.
7. Alfonso Chardy, "Reagan Aides and the `Secret' Government," Miami Herald, July 5, 1987.
8. National Security Presidential Directive 51.
9. Spencer S. Hsu, "Bush Changes Continuity Plan: Administration, Not DHS, Would Run Shadow Government," Washington Post, May 10, 2007,
10. Lewis Seiler and Dan Hamburg, San Francisco Chronicle (February 4, 2008).
http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=69665
http://www.infowars.net/articles/may2008/050507Pandemic.htm
