Politics and Press

Bush and the Germans; Rendition and Iraq

The German judiciary is looking to indict several CIA operatives for their kidnapping of a German-Lebanese citizen suspected of terrorist activities. He was sent to a prison in Afghanistan where he was questioned and – according to him tortured - for five months before being told that “whoops – we got the wrong guy” and sent home.

There are some interesting insights into the CIA program and the run-up to the Iraq invasion in an interview of the former chief of the CIA’s Europe Division (Tyler Drumheller) on the website of the German news weekly, Der Spiegel. Drumheller is the author of On the Brink, a memoir of his time in the CIA. A few quotes from the interview are below. The full interview can be read here.

Drumheller: It was Vice President Dick Cheney who talked about the “dark side” we have to turn on. When he spoke those words, he was articulating a policy that amounted to “go out and get them.” His remarks were evidence of the underlying approach of the administration, which was basically to turn the military and the agency loose and let them pay for the consequences of any unfortunate — or illegal — occurrences.

Drumheller: …I once had to brief Condoleezza Rice on a rendition operation, and her chief concern was not whether it was the right thing to do, but what the president would think about it. …

SPIEGEL: One of the crucial bits of information the Bush administration used to justify the invasion was the supposed existence of mobile biological weapons laboratories. …

Drumheller: … Curveball was an Iraqi who claimed to be an engineer working on the biological weapons program. … Curveball was a sort of clever fellow who carried on about his story and kept everybody pretty well convinced for a long time. … The administration wanted to make the case for war with Iraq. They needed a tangible thing, they needed the German stuff. They couldn’t go to war based just on the fact that they wanted to change the Middle East. They needed to have something threatening to which they were reacting.

SPIEGEL: …it turned out to be the centerpiece in Powell’s presentation — and nobody had told him about the doubts.

Drumheller: I turned on the TV in my office, and there it was. So the first thing I thought, having worked in the government all my life, was that we probably gave Powell the wrong speech.

An American Original, Molly Ivins: RIP

Molly Ivins died yesterday after a seven-year battle with breast cancer. Thinking about the mainstream press with its suck-up approach to authority and its inability to write with true wit, her death is a giant loss. Who else would report on a Pat Buchanan screed on America’s “culture wars” by commenting that “it probably sounded better in its original German”. And is there another former NY Times reporter who lost his or her job by referring to a community chicken killing as a “gang pluck”?

Her reporting on Texas politics was legendary and prepared her well for the odious task of reporting on the Dubya Bush presidency, a task that allowed her to be one of a small number of journalists who saw through all the smoke and mirrors that has given us the Iraq fiasco.

A few choice quotes published in the Houston Chronicle follow:

“If you think his daddy had trouble with ‘the vision thing,’ wait’ll you meet this one,” Ivins on George W. Bush in “The Progressive,” June 1999.

“If left to my own devices, I’d spend all my time pointing out that he’s weaker than bus-station chili,” on Bill Clinton, from the introduction to You Got to Dance With Them What Brung You

“The poor man who is currently our president has reached such a point of befuddlement that he thinks stem cell research is the same as taking human lives, but that 40,000 dead Iraqi civilians are progress toward democracy,” from a July 2006 column urging commentator Bill Moyers to run for president.

“….our very own dreaded [Texas] Legislature is almost upon us. Jan. 9 and they’ll all be here, leaving many a village without its idiot,” from a December 2000 column.