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The axis of evil endorsement 
Bush Receives Endorsement From Iran by Ali Akbar Dareini
The head of Iran's security council said Tuesday that the re-election of President Bush was in Tehran's best interests, despite the administration's axis of evil label, accusations that Iran harbors al-Qaida terrorists and threats of sanctions over the country's nuclear ambitions.
Historically, Democrats have harmed Iran more than Republicans, said Hasan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran's top security decision-making body.
"We haven't seen anything good from Democrats," Rowhani told state-run television in remarks that, for the first time in recent decades, saw Iran openly supporting one U.S. presidential candidate over another.
Though Iran generally does not publicly wade into U.S. presidential politics, it has a history of preferring Republicans over Democrats, who tend to press human rights issues.
"We do not desire to see Democrats take over," Rowhani said when asked if Iran was supporting Democratic Sen. John Kerry against Bush. [more]
Nonpartisanship
"I have made a commitment to nonpartisanship." -- Porter Goss in his confirmation hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee, September 14, 2004
The 9/11 Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket: The agency is withholding a damning report that points at senior officials by Robert Scheer
It is shocking: The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names. Although the report by the inspector general's office of the CIA was completed in June, it has not been made available to the congressional intelligence committees that mandated the study almost two years ago.
"It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the report told me, adding that "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward."
When I asked about the report, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she and committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) sent a letter 14 days ago asking for it to be delivered. "We believe that the CIA has been told not to distribute the report," she said. "We are very concerned."
According to the intelligence official, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, release of the report, which represents an exhaustive 17-month investigation by an 11-member team within the agency, has been "stalled." First by acting CIA Director John McLaughlin and now by Porter J. Goss, the former Republican House member (and chairman of the Intelligence Committee) who recently was appointed CIA chief by President Bush.
The official stressed that the report was more blunt and more specific than the earlier bipartisan reports produced by the Bush-appointed Sept. 11 commission and Congress.
"What all the other reports on 9/11 did not do is point the finger at individuals, and give the how and what of their responsibility. This report does that," said the intelligence official. "The report found very senior-level officials responsible."
By law, the only legitimate reason the CIA director has for holding back such a report is national security. Yet neither Goss nor McLaughlin has invoked national security as an explanation for not delivering the report to Congress.
"It surely does not involve issues of national security," said the intelligence official. [more]
We need a real patriot to leak this report--for the good of the country.
Are you scared enough yet?
Cheney: Terrorists May Bomb U.S. Cities by Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday evoked the possibility of terrorists bombing U.S. cities with nuclear weapons and questioned whether Sen. John Kerry could combat such a threat, which the vice president called a concept "you've got to get your mind around."
"The biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us -- biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans," Cheney said.
"That's the ultimate threat. For us to have a strategy that's capable of defeating that threat, you've got to get your mind around that concept," Cheney said.
Cheney, speaking to an invitation-only crowd as he began a bus tour through Republican strongholds in Ohio, said Kerry is trying to convince voters he would be the same type of "tough, aggressive" leader as President Bush in the fight against terrorism.
"I don't believe it," the vice president said. "I don't think there's any evidence to support the proposition that he would, in fact, do it." [more]
These people have no shame.
Lost my audience
Several months back the original host for Craig's BookNotes, weblogs.com, decided to get out of the weblog hosting business. I was "off-the-air" for a couple of weeks and then hosting was picked up by the very kind and merciful Rogers Cadenhead at his buzzword.com domain. I noted the change back then and soon forgot about the whole thing.
For the several intervening months between then and now, weblogs.com redirected traffic to the new domain and so the BookNotes audience which comes from sidebar links, etc. continued to find its way to this website. The rerouting has now been discontinued. Traffic to this site has dropped to about 25% of what it used to be. I had no idea so many people found their way here via those links on other peoples websites.
So what's my point? I don't really have one, but it you happen to notice an old/dead link to Craig's BookNotes and it's not too much trouble, could you notify me or the site with the old weblogs.com link? My email is phonetically spelled out (spam control) under my picture in the upper righthand corner.
Thanks.
Rewriting history
More Scrubbing of White House Website!!! Audio & Video Removed! by Brad Friedman
In addition to the documents removed from the White House website reported here previously, it looks like the White House is now removing even more content from their site! This time it's audio and video that has been taken down!
As with the last "disappeared" material, this one also includes info that directly rebuts a comment made in the Debates. In the 3rd Presidential Debate, Bush said:
BUSH: Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations.
Which was a direct contradiction to his March 13, 2002 statement at a White House Press Conference in which he said:
"Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. ... And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him."
The White House Website's posted transcript of that Press Conference is still available, for the moment, right here but the links to the Audio and Video of the Press Conference, links to which are still on that page, for the moment, are no longer available! They've been taken down! [more]
Here is the video clip, in Windows Media Format
Summer camp
A Letter Home From Camp
A British law student named Moazzam Begg wrote a letter that has become the first uncensored first-hand account by a Guantanamo Bay detainee released to the public during the detainee's incarceration. It is unclear how Begg managed to avoid the US's censors -- probably it was just a matter of luck and of sending hundreds of letters. Begg's lawyers gave the letter to the press a few weeks ago.
In his letter, Begg describes cruelties inflicted on him -- forced degradation before cameras -- that obviously resonate with the Abu Ghraib atrocities. Given that there is no way Moazzam Begg could have heard about the Abu Ghraib scandal, Moazzam Begg's letter supports the notion that what happened at Abu Ghraib was planned and ordered from above, not the work of a few bad apples.
Before arriving at Guantanamo Bay, Moazzam Begg was held at the Bagram Collection Point where he was tortured. While at Bagram, Begg claims to have witnessed -- or at least to have partially witnessed -- the murder of the two Taliban suspects I discussed in the previous post. Once again, given that Begg has been in solitary confinement for the past 600 days, there is no way he could have heard about the murders at Bagram through press reports.
Here is the complete text of Moazzam Begg's letter. Here it is as a PDF in his own handwriting. [more]
Bush's promises
Felling the Draft by Paul Krugman
Those who are worrying about a revived draft are in the same position as those who worried about a return to budget deficits four years ago, when President Bush began pushing through his program of tax cuts. Back then he insisted that he wouldn't drive the budget into deficit - but those who looked at the facts strongly suspected otherwise. Now he insists that he won't revive the draft. But the facts suggest that he will.
There were two reasons some of us never believed Mr. Bush's budget promises. First, his claims that his tax cuts were affordable rested on patently unrealistic budget projections. Second, his broader policy goals, including the partial privatization of Social Security - which is clearly on his agenda for a second term - would involve large costs that were not included even in those unrealistic projections. This led to the justified suspicion that his election-year promises notwithstanding, Mr. Bush would preside over a return to budget deficits.
It's exactly the same when it comes to the draft. Mr. Bush's claim that we don't need any expansion in our military is patently unrealistic; it ignores the severe stress our Army is already under. And the experience in Iraq shows that pursuing his broader foreign policy doctrine - the "Bush doctrine" of pre-emptive war - would require much larger military forces than we now have.
This leads to the justified suspicion that after the election, Mr. Bush will seek a large expansion in our military, quite possibly through a return of the draft. [more]
More vote fraud
Election officials warn of misleading calls to absentee voters by Amy F. Bailey
Michigan's top elections official on Monday said qualified voters can request absentee ballots until Nov. 1, citing fraudulent calls telling voters the application deadline already had passed.
Registered voters who qualify for an absentee ballot have until 4 p.m. on Nov. 1 to request one at their city or township clerk's office, Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land said. Voters have until 2 p.m. on Oct. 30 to request an absentee ballot be sent to their home.
Land said there have been some reports of calls made to Ann Arbor and southern Wayne County residents by people identifying themselves as members of the state bureau of elections or local clerk's offices. They are telling residents the deadline to apply for an absent voter ballot has passed and are asking that completed ballots be sent to the wrong place.
"This fraudulent activity is unconscionable," Land said in a news release. "While these activities appear to be extremely limited and do not represent what's going on throughout Michigan, it's important that residents do not release private information over the phone."
It's unclear who is making the calls. A message left with the secretary of state's office on Monday morning wasn't immediately returned.
Absentee ballots must be completed and returned to the clerk's office by 8 p.m. on Nov. 2, Election Day.
More on Bush's National Guard (dis)Service
Bush AWOL: Special payroll code shows Bush discharged as "unfit to serve" by Lambert
The story that will not die... If only because the Bush gang was so arrogant that they assumed nobody would actually examine the records they released (Are you listening, Dan Rather?)
However, AWOL Payroll Records Jedi Master Paul Lukasiak is still in the hunt, and these are his latest findings:
New information with regard to the meaning of a special code which appears on George W. Bush's Air National Guard discharge papers indicates that he was being thrown out of the Air National Guard for failing "to possess the required military qualifications for his grade or specialty, or does not meet the mental, moral, professional or physical standards of the Air Force." In other words, despite the fact that Bush had an unfulfilled six year Military Service Obligation, he was discharged from the Air National Guard not because he moved to Boston [the official White House line], but because he failed to meet his obligation to maintain his qualifications as an F102 pilot.
The special code is "PTI 961", and is found in the "Reason and Authority for Discharge" section of Bush's NGB-22, his "Report of Separation and Record of Service in the Air National Guard of Texas and as a Reserve of the Air Force."
"PTI" stands for "Personnel Transaction Identifier", a code which "identifies the controlled personnel management action being accomplished the personnel data system." And although the particular meaning of "PTI 961" remains unknown, all "900" series PTIs mean that someone is no longer considered part of "Air Force strength."
(...)
Wouldn't it be great if we had a free press in this country, and this story actually got covered? Maybe a reporter was actually paid to do this? [more]
Unfit for Service--The Myster of "PTI 961" Solved
Is this what Bush would call strong, decisive leadership?
'Catastrophic Success': The Strategy to Secure Iraq Did Not Foresee a 2nd War by Michael R. Gordon
(...)
Huddling in a drawing room with his top commanders, General Franks told them it was time to make plans to leave. Combat forces should be prepared to start pulling out within 60 days if all went as expected, he said. By September, the more than 140,000 troops in Iraq could be down to little more than a division, about 30,000 troops.
To help bring stability and allow the Americans to exit, President Bush had reviewed a plan the day before seeking four foreign divisions - including Arab and NATO troops - to take on peacekeeping duties.
As the Baghdad meeting drew to a close, the president in a teleconference congratulated the commanders on a job well done. Afterward, they posed for photos and puffed on victory cigars.
Within a few months, though, the Bush administration's optimistic assumptions had been upended. Many of the foreign troops never came. The Iraqi institutions expected to help run the country collapsed. The adversary that was supposed to have been shocked and awed into submission was reorganizing beyond the reach of overstretched American troops.
In the debate over the war and its aftermath, the Bush administration has portrayed the insurgency that is still roiling Iraq today as an unfortunate, and unavoidable, accident of history, an enemy that emerged only after melting away during the rapid American advance toward Baghdad. The sole mistake Mr. Bush has acknowledged in the war is in not foreseeing what he termed that "catastrophic success."
But many military officers and civilian officials who served in Iraq in the spring and summer of 2003 say the administration's miscalculations cost the United States valuable momentum - and enabled an insurgency that was in its early phases to intensify and spread.
"I think that there were Baathist Sunnis who planned to resist no matter what happened and at all cost, but we missed opportunities, and that drove more of them into the resistance," Jay Garner, the first civilian administrator of Iraq and a retired Army lieutenant general, said in an interview, referring to the Baath Party of Mr. Hussein and to his Sunni Muslim supporters. "Things were stirred up far more than they should have been. We did not seal the borders because we did not have enough troops to do that, and that brought in terrorists."
A senior officer who served in Iraq but did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of his position said: "The real question is, did there have to be an insurgency? Did we help create the insurgency by missing the window of opportunity in the period right after Saddam was removed from power?"
Looking back at that crucial time, those officers, administration officials and others provided an intimate and detailed account of how the postwar situation went awry. Civilian administrators of the Iraqi occupation raised concerns about plans to reduce American forces; intelligence agencies left American forces unprepared for the furious battles they encountered in Iraq's southern cities and did not emphasize the risks of a postwar insurgency. And senior American generals and civilians were at odds over plans to build a new Iraqi army, which was needed to impose order. [more]
This article, the first of three installments, is probably too long and complicated for the average Bush supporter. Indeed, it's too long and complicated for Bush himself.
Republicans with brains are endangered, but not yet extinct
Former GOP Governor Endorses Kerry Associated Press
Former Republican Gov. William Milliken of Michigan endorsed Democratic Sen. John Kerry for president on Monday, saying President Bush has pursued policies "pandering to the extreme right wing."
Milliken, governor from 1969-82, accused the Bush administration of rushing into the Iraq war, pushing tax cuts that benefit the rich and blocking meaningful stem-cell research.
"I felt so strongly about the direction of this country that in the end, it wasn't a difficult decision to make," Milliken said in an interview Monday with Traverse City Record-Eagle reporters and editors.
Milliken issued a three-page statement of his views about Bush and domestic and international issues.
"This president has pursued policies pandering to the extreme right wing across a wide variety of issues and has exacerbated the polarization and the strident, uncivil tone of much of what passes for political discourse in this country today," Milliken said in the statement. [more]
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