Max's Primer

The Cost to Business of Premature Birth

2007-02-21T13:50:00.000-08:00

The March of Dimes reports:

A Major Financial Drain

Eleven percent of newborns covered by employer health plans are born prematurely.
Direct health care costs to employers for a premature baby average $41,610 —15 times higher than the $2,830 for a healthy, full-term delivery.
Additional costs to employers in lost productivity average $2,766.
New Data
The costs of prematurity are considerable. New data from Medstat's MarketScan database, developed for the March of Dimes, illustrate the serious and far-reaching impact of this national problem (1).

Direct Employer Health Care Costs: $41,610
The direct health care costs to employers for premature babies during the first year of their lives average $41,610, compared to $2,830 for babies born healthy and full term.

Table 1. Costs Paid by Employers (1, 2)
Full-term delivery, no complications Delivery with diagnosis of prematurity

Inpatient (hospital) $1,210 $35,034
Physician office visits $1,518 $6,079
Drugs $102 $497
$2,830 $41,610

Cost of Low Productivity: $2,766
On average, premature babies covered by employer plans spend 16.8 days in the hospital during the 12 months following birth, compared to 2.3 days for full-term babies. In addition, premature babies make an average of nine visits to the doctor's office during the first year of life, compared to six visits for healthy, full-term babies. All of this means time away from work for the parents. Mothers of premature babies spend more time on short-term disability (average of 29.1 days) over the six months following delivery than mothers of full-term babies (average of 18.9 days) (3).

The simple wage-related costs to employers of the extra time on short-term disability average $1,513. In terms of lost productivity and teamwork synergy, the estimated impact may be much greater: as much as $2,766. Either way, the costs to employers are considerable (4)

Table 2. Average Days on Short-Term Disability
(first six months following delivery)
Mothers of premature infants 29.1
Mothers of full-term, healthy newborns 18.9
Difference 10.2 days

Wage-related cost of difference $1,513
Productivity/synergy loss $2,766

Total Additional Costs: $41,456
When the costs of prematurity are added together, the impact on employers becomes clear:

Table 3. Average Cost Differential:
Premature Infant
(first 12 months of life only)

Hospital expenses $33,824
Physician office visits $4,561
Drug expenses $395
Productivity/synergy loss $2,766

Average additional cost to employer per
premature birth vs. full-term birth
(when mother is an employee) $41,546
No one knows the total annual cost of prematurity to all U.S. employers, but we do know that the hospital bills alone are substantial. Based on estimates from the national Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, in 2002, approximately $7.4 billion in hospital charges for premature infants, almost half the U.S. total, were billed to employers and other private insurers (5).

The Bottom Line
A national crisis calls for a united response
The March of Dimes is leading the fight to defeat prematurity with a multiyear, multimillion-dollar national campaign to help the nation reduce the rate of premature births from 12.1 percent in 2002 (6) to the national Healthy People 2010 objective of no more than 7.6 percent.

We're attacking the problem from all vantage points by:

Funding vital research into ways to prevent and treat premature birth
Educating women about risk reduction including the signs of preterm labor
Assisting health professionals in evaluating patient risks
Expanding access to health care
There is much that companies can do, as well, to address the problem of premature birth and help employees have healthy, full-term babies. Providing health insurance to cover adequate preconception and prenatal care for employees is vital. Other important steps to consider:

Offer access to comprehensive employee assistance programs
Create pregnancy-friendly worksites to reduce physical and environmental stressors for pregnant employees
Provide onsite educational opportunities such as seminars and access to materials relating to pregnancy, childbirth and infant care
Give information on relevant community or online resources
The March of Dimes offers businesses a free intranet-based pregnancy and newborn health information program called Healthy Babies Healthy Business. HBHB enables companies to provide their employees with accurate, up-to-date information on pregnancy and newborn health issues from a respected authority in the field. An online demonstration of Healthy Babies Healthy Business is available.

Everyone is affected by prematurity in some way—families, businesses, schools, health professionals, the nation as a whole. Everyone can and must help because when our nation’s babies are in danger, a united and zealous response is called for.

Brochure Available
The March of Dimes has published a brochure on the costs of premature birth to business (item #37-1929-05). To order, call (800) 367-6630 or (770) 280-4115 outside the United States. Funding for this publication was provided by an unrestricted grant from Adeza Biomedical.

Thomson Medstat conducted and underwrote the research upon which this article is based.

Notes

Based on analysis of births in 2001 followed for 12 months. Expenditures have been adjusted to 2004 dollars using the medical component of the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Population weights were developed using age, sex, and region strata from the 2002 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Database. Medstat's MarketScan research database is constructed from privately insured, paid medical and prescription drug claims. Data contributors are generally large self-insured U.S. employers.

All employer-based dollar amounts are based on 2001 figures adjusted to 2004 using the medical component of the CPI.

Analysis tracks short-term disability for a six-month period following any birth occurring in the 2000-2002 timeframe.

Wage-related cost is computed on the basis of 70% of national average hourly wages and benefits, assuming a 40-hour workweek. The national average value of wages and benefits is currently estimated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to be $24.15. (Data contributors to Medstat's Health and Productivity Management Database pay, on average, 70% of total wages and benefits to their employees on short-term disability). Productivity and synergy losses are computed at 128% of the wages of absent workers per the methodology described by Nicholson et al., in "Measuring the Effects of Workloss Productivity with Team Production," National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 10632.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2002 Nationwide Inpatient Sample, prepared by March of Dimes Perinatal Data Center, 2004.

National Center for Health Statistics. Final 2002 natality data.

What 'Israel's Right to Exist' Means to Palestinians

2007-02-02T23:48:00.000-08:00

Recognition would imply acceptance that they deserve to be treated as subhumans.

The Christian Science Monitor reports:

Since the Palestinian elections in 2006, Israel and much of the West have asserted that the principal obstacle to any progress toward Israeli-Palestinian peace is the refusal of Hamas to "recognize Israel," or to "recognize Israel's existence," or to "recognize Israel's right to exist."

These three verbal formulations have been used by Israel, the United States, and the European Union as a rationale for collective punishment of the Palestinian people. The phrases are also used by the media, politicians, and even diplomats interchangeably, as though they mean the same thing. They do not.

"Recognizing Israel" or any other state is a formal legal and diplomatic act by one state with respect to another state. It is inappropriate – indeed, nonsensical – to talk about a political party or movement extending diplomatic recognition to a state. To talk of Hamas "recognizing Israel" is simply to use sloppy, confusing, and deceptive shorthand for the real demand being made of the Palestinians.

"Recognizing Israel's existence" appears on first impression to involve a relatively straightforward acknowledgment of a fact of life. Yet there are serious practical problems with this language. What Israel, within what borders, is involved? Is it the 55 percent of historical Palestine recommended for a Jewish state by the UN General Assembly in 1947? The 78 percent of historical Palestine occupied by the Zionist movement in 1948 and now viewed by most of the world as "Israel" or "Israel proper"? The 100 percent of historical Palestine occupied by Israel since June 1967 and shown as "Israel" (without any "Green Line") on maps in Israeli schoolbooks?

Israel has never defined its own borders, since doing so would necessarily place limits on them. Still, if this were all that was being demanded of Hamas, it might be possible for the ruling political party to acknowledge, as a fact of life, that a state of Israel exists today within some specified borders. Indeed, Hamas leadership has effectively done so in recent weeks.

"Recognizing Israel's right to exist," the actual demand being made of Hamas and Palestinians, is in an entirely different league. This formulation does not address diplomatic formalities or a simple acceptance of present realities. It calls for a moral judgment.

There is an enormous difference between "recognizing Israel's existence" and "recognizing Israel's right to exist." From a Palestinian perspective, the difference is in the same league as the difference between asking a Jew to acknowledge that the Holocaust happened and asking him to concede that the Holocaust was morally justified. For Palestinians to acknowledge the occurrence of the Nakba – the expulsion of the great majority of Palestinians from their homeland between 1947 and 1949 – is one thing. For them to publicly concede that it was "right" for the Nakba to have happened would be something else entirely. For the Jewish and Palestinian peoples, the Holocaust and the Nakba, respectively, represent catastrophes and injustices on an unimaginable scale that can neither be forgotten nor forgiven.

To demand that Palestinians recognize "Israel's right to exist" is to demand that a people who have been treated as subhumans unworthy of basic human rights publicly proclaim that they are subhumans. It would imply Palestinians' acceptance that they deserve what has been done and continues to be done to them. Even 19th-century US governments did not require the surviving native Americans to publicly proclaim the "rightness" of their ethnic cleansing by European colonists as a condition precedent to even discussing what sort of land reservation they might receive. Nor did native Americans have to live under economic blockade and threat of starvation until they shed whatever pride they had left and conceded the point.

Some believe that Yasser Arafat did concede the point in order to buy his ticket out of the wilderness of demonization and earn the right to be lectured directly by the Americans. But in fact, in his famous 1988 statement in Stockholm, he accepted "Israel's right to exist in peace and security." This language, significantly, addresses the conditions of existence of a state which, as a matter of fact, exists. It does not address the existential question of the "rightness" of the dispossession and dispersal of the Palestinian people from their homeland to make way for another people coming from abroad.

The original conception of the phrase "Israel's right to exist" and of its use as an excuse for not talking with any Palestinian leaders who still stood up for the rights of their people are attributed to former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. It is highly likely that those countries that still employ this phrase do so in full awareness of what it entails, morally and psychologically, for the Palestinian people.

However, many people of goodwill and decent values may well be taken in by the surface simplicity of the words, "Israel's right to exist," and believe that they constitute a reasonable demand. And if the "right to exist" is reasonable, then refusing to accept it must represent perversity, rather than Palestinians' deeply felt need to cling to their self-respect and dignity as full-fledged human beings. That this need is deeply felt is evidenced by polls showing that the percentage of the Palestinian population that approves of Hamas's refusal to bow to this demand substantially exceeds the percentage that voted for Hamas in January 2006.

Those who recognize the critical importance of Israeli-Palestinian peace and truly seek a decent future for both peoples must recognize that the demand that Hamas recognize "Israel's right to exist" is unreasonable, immoral, and impossible to meet. Then, they must insist that this roadblock to peace be removed, the economic siege of the Palestinian territories be lifted, and the pursuit of peace with some measure of justice be resumed with the urgency it deserves.

Cost Balloons When 'Surge' Support Troops Are Counted

2007-02-01T23:56:00.000-08:00

CBO says costs can go as high as $27 billion.

A report from the Congressional Budget Office says President Bush's plan for a troop increase in Iraq could cost up to $27 billion for a 12-month deployment.

The plan could mean sending thousands of support troops in addition to the 20,000-plus combat troops the Defense Department has set for deployment.

The numbers come in a letter to Rep. John Spratt, chairman of the House Budget Committee, in response to a request from Spratt's office. (Watch anti-surge Senate resolution draw fire from both sides )

"CBO's report concludes that the cost of the president's plan to 'surge' troops will be higher than previously indicated, both in dollar terms and in the burdens it places on our military," Spratt, D-South Carolina, said in a written statement.

The report notes that the Defense Department has identified only combat troops for deployment in the increase but says, "U.S. military operations also require substantial support forces, including personnel to staff headquarters, serve as military police and provide communications, contracting, engineering, intelligence, medical and other services."

The report notes the Defense Department expects to use fewer support troops than in the past.

It estimates that under past proportions, 28,000 support troops would be added to the 20,000 combat troops. But it revises that figure to 15,000 support troops for a new deployment.

That would bring the total number of forces being added in Iraq to between 35,000 and 48,000 troops, the report said.

The report estimates that a four-month deployment of the additional troops -- both combat and support -- could cost $9 billion to $13 billion and a 12-month deployment could cost $20 billion to $27 billion.

The White House estimated that the troop increase would cost $5.6 billion.

"What the CBO found concerns me," said Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "The cost of the troop increase could be significantly higher than what the administration has been saying in the press."

Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Massachusetts, chairman of the Armed Services subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said the administration was being "irresponsible" in its estimates.

"The CBO report only confirms what we already know: The president has continually tried to hide the true costs of this war, both in terms of money spent and lives affected," Meehan said.

"This Democratic Congress and the House Armed Services Committee will not let the president get away with saying whatever he wants without checking his facts anymore."

Dianne Feinstein's Iraq Conflict

2007-01-27T23:53:00.000-08:00

As a member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, Sen. Feinstein voted for appropriations worth billions to her husband's firms.

Bohemian.com reports:

In the November 2006 election, the voters demanded congressional ethics reform. And so, the newly appointed chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is now duly in charge of regulating the ethical behavior of her colleagues. But for many years, Feinstein has been beset by her own ethical conflict of interest, say congressional ethics experts.

As chairperson and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee (MILCON) from 2001 through the end of 2005, Feinstein supervised the appropriation of billions of dollars a year for specific military construction projects. Two defense contractors whose interests were largely controlled by her husband, financier Richard C. Blum, benefited from decisions made by Feinstein as leader of this powerful subcommittee.

Each year, MILCON's members decide which military construction projects will be funded from a roster proposed by the Department of Defense. Contracts to build these specific projects are subsequently awarded to such major defense contractors as Halliburton, Fluor, Parsons, Louis Berger, URS Corporation and Perini Corporation. From 1997 through the end of 2005, with Feinstein's knowledge, Blum was a majority owner of both URS Corp. and Perini Corp.

While setting MILCON agendas for many years, Feinstein, 73, supervised her own staff of military construction experts as they carefully examined the details of each proposal. She lobbied Pentagon officials in public hearings to support defense projects that she favored, some of which already were or subsequently became URS or Perini contracts. From 2001 to 2005, URS earned $792 million from military construction and environmental cleanup projects approved by MILCON; Perini earned $759 million from such MILCON projects.

In her annual Public Financial Disclosure Reports, Feinstein records a sizeable family income from large investments in Perini, which is based in Framingham, Mass., and in URS, headquartered in San Francisco. But she has not publicly acknowledged the conflict of interest between her job as a congressional appropriator and her husband's longtime control of Perini and URS--and that omission has called her ethical standards into question, say the experts.

Insider Information
The tale thickens with the appearance of Michael R. Klein, a top legal adviser to Feinstein and a long-time business partner of Blum's. The vice-chairman of Perini's board of directors, Klein was a partner in Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, a powerful law firm with close ties to the Democratic Party, for nearly 30 years. Klein and Blum co-own ASTAR Air Cargo, which has military contracts in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Klein also sits on the board of SRA International, a large defense contractor.

In an interview with this reporter in September, Klein stated that, beginning in 1997, he routinely informed Feinstein about specific federal projects coming before her in which Perini had a stake. The insider information, Klein said, was intended to help the senator avoid conflicts of interest. Although Klein's startling admission was intended to defuse the issue of Feinstein's conflict of interest, it had the effect of exacerbating it.

Klein said that he regularly gave Feinstein's chief of staff, Mark Kadesh, lists of Perini's current and upcoming contractual interests in federal legislation, so that the senator would not discuss, debate, vote on or participate in matters that could affect projects in which Perini was concerned. "Earmarks, you know, set asides, you name it, there was a system in place which on a regular basis I got notified, I notified her office and her office notified her," Klein said.

"We basically identified any bid that Perini was going for and checked to see whether it was the subject of already appropriated funds or funds yet to be appropriated, and if it was anything that the senator could not act on, her office was alerted and she did not act on it."

This is an extraordinary thing for Klein and the senator to do, since the detailed project proposals that the Pentagon sent to Feinstein's subcommittee for review do not usually name the firms already contracted to perform specific projects. Nor do defense officials typically identify, in MILCON hearings, which military construction contractors are eligible to bid on upcoming work.

In theory, Feinstein would not know the identity of any of the companies that stood to contractually benefit from her approval of specific items in the military construction budget--until Klein told her.

Klein explained, "They would get from me a notice that Perini was bidding on a contract that would be affected as we understood it by potential legislation that would come before either the full congress or any committee that she was a member of. And she would as a result of that not act, abstain from dealing with those pieces of legislation."

However, the public record shows that contrary to Klein's belief, Feinstein did act on legislation that affected Perini and URS.

According to Klein, the Senate Select Committee on Ethics ruled, in secret, that Feinstein did not have a conflict of interest with Perini because, due to the existence of the bid and project lists provided by Klein, she knew when to recuse herself. Klein says that after URS declined to participate in his conflict-of-interest prevention plan, the ethics committee ruled that Feinstein could act on matters that affected URS because she did not have a list of URS' needs. That these confidential rulings are contradictory is obvious and calls for explanation.

Klein declined to produce copies of the Perini project lists that he transmitted to Feinstein. And neither he nor Feinstein would furnish copies of the ethics committee rulings, nor examples of the senator recusing herself from acting on legislation that affected Perini or URS. But the Congressional Record shows that as chairperson and ranking member of MILCON, Feinstein was often involved in supervising the legislative details of military construction projects that directly affected Blum's defense-contracting firms.

After reviewing the results of this investigation, Wendell Rawls, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C., observes that by giving Feinstein notice of Perini's business objectives, Klein achieved the opposite of preventing a conflict of interest.

Rawls comments, "Sen. Feinstein has had a serious conflict of interest, a serious insensitivity to ethical considerations. The very least she should have done is to recuse herself from having conversations, debates, voting or any other kind of legislative activity that involved either Perini Corporation or URS Corporation or any other business activity where her husband's financial interests were involved.

"I cannot understand how someone who complains so vigorously as she has about conflicts of interest in the government and Congress can have turned such a deaf ear and a blind eye to her own. Because of her level of influence, the conflict of interest is just as serious as the Halliburton-Cheney connection."

Called into Question
Here are a few examples from the Congressional Record of questionable intersections between Feinstein's legislative duties and her financial interests:

At a MILCON hearing in 2001, Feinstein interrogated defense officials about the details of constructing specific missile defense systems, which included upgrading the early warning radar system at Cobra Dane radar on Shemya Island, Alaska. In 2003, Perini reported that it had completed a contract to upgrade the Cobra Dane radar system. It has done similar work at Beale Air Force Base in California and in the United Kingdom. URS also bids on missile defense work.

In the 2002 MILCON hearings, Feinstein questioned an official about details of the U.S. Army's chemical demilitarization program. URS is extensively involved in performing chemical demilitarization work at key disposal sites in the United States.

At that same hearing, Feinstein asked about the possibility of increasing funding for anti-terrorism-force protection at Army bases. The following year, on March 4, 2003, Feinstein asked why the antiterrorism-force protection funds she had advocated for the year before had not yet been spent. On April 21, 2003, URS announced the award of a $600 million contract to provide, among other services, anti-terrorism-force protection for U.S. Army installations.

Beginning in 2003, both Perini and URS were awarded a series of open-ended contracts for military construction work around the world, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. Under Feinstein's leadership, MILCON regularly approved specific project "task orders" that were issued to Perini and URS under these contracts.

At a March 30, 2004, MILCON hearing, Feinstein grilled Maj. Gen. Dean Fox about whether or not the Pentagon intended to prioritize funding the construction of "beddown" maintenance facilities for its new airlifter, the C-17 Globemaster. After being reassured by Fox that these funds would soon be flowing, Feinstein said, "Good, that's what I really wanted to hear. Thank you very much. Appreciate it very much, General." Two years later, URS announced a $42 million award to build a beddown maintenance facility for the C-17 at Hickam Air Base in Hawaii as part of a multibillion dollar contract with the Air Force. Under Feinstein's leadership, MILCON approved the Hickam project.

In mid-2005, MILCON approved a Pentagon proposal to fund "overhead coverage force protection" in Iraq that would reinforce the roofs of U.S. Army barracks to better withstand mortar rounds. On Oct. 13, 2005, Perini announced the award of a $185 million contract to provide overhead coverage force protection to the Army in Iraq.
In the 2005 MILCON hearings, Feinstein earmarked MILCON legislation with $25 million to increase environmental remediation at closed military bases. Year after year, Feinstein has closely overseen the environmental cleanup and redevelopment of McClellan Air Force Base near Sacramento, frequently requesting that officials add tens of millions of dollars to that project. URS and its joint ventures have earned tens of millions of dollars cleaning up McClellan. And CB Richard Ellis, a real estate company headed by Feinstein's husband Richard Blum, is involved in redeveloping McClellan for the private sector.

This investigation examined thousands of pages of documents, including transcripts of congressional hearings, U.S. Security and Exchange Commission filings, government audits and reports, federal procurement data and corporate press releases. The findings were shared with contracting and ethics experts at several nonpartisan, Washington, D.C.-based government oversight groups. Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit organization that analyzes defense contracts and who examined our evidence says, "The paper trail showing Sen. Feinstein's conflict of interest is irrefutable."

On the face of it, there is nothing objectionable about a senator closely examining proposed appropriations or advocating for missile defense or advancing the cleanup of a toxic military base. Blum profitably divested himself of ownership of both URS and Perini in 2005, ameliorating the conflict of interest. But Feinstein's ethical dilemma arose from the fact that, for five years, the interests of Perini and URS and CB Richard Ellis were inextricably entwined with her leadership of MILCON, which last year approved $16.2 billion for military construction projects.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington, remarks, "There are a number of members of Congress with conflicts of interest. [California Republican Congressman John T.] Doolittle, for example, hired his wife as a fundraiser, and she skimmed 15 percent off of all campaign contributions. Others, like [former] Speaker [Dennis] Hastert and Cong. [Ken] Calvert were earmarking federal money for roads to enhance the value of property held by their families.

"But because of the amount of money involved," Sloan continues, "Feinstein's conflict of interest is an order of magnitude greater than those conflicts."

Family Matters
Californians elected San Francisco's former mayor Dianne Feinstein to the Senate in 1992. She was overwhelmingly reelected in November 2006. She is well-liked by both liberals and conservatives. She supports abortion rights and gun control laws. She politicked this year for renewal of the Patriot Act and sponsored a constitutional amendment to ban American flag burning. She is currently calling for President Bush to set a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq, but she strongly supported the invasions, occupations and "reconstructions" of both Iraq and Afghanistan. She sits on the Defense Appropriations subcommittee and the Senate Intelligence Committee, and she is a consistent hawk on matters military.

And she is wealthy. In 2005, Roll Call calculated Feinstein's wealth, including Blum's assets, at $40 million, up 25 percent from the year before. That made her the ninth wealthiest member of Congress. Feinstein's latest Public Financial Disclosure Report shows that in 2005 her family earned income of between $500,000 and $5 million from capital gains on URS and Perini stock combined. From CB Richard Ellis, Blum earned between $1.3 million to $4 million. (The report allows for disclosure of dollar amounts within ranges, which accounts for the wide variance.)

The mansion that the war built.

A talented financier and deal-broker, Blum, 70, presides over a global investment empire through a labyrinth of private equity partnerships. His flagship entity is a merchant banking firm, Blum Capital Partners, L.P., of which he is the chairman and general partner. Through this bank, Blum bought a controlling share of Perini in 1997, when it was nearly broke. He named his close associate, the attorney Michael R. Klein, to represent his interest on the board of directors. Blum declined to comment for this story. Perini CEO, Robert Band, deferred to Klein for comment.

In 2000, according to public records, Perini--which partly specializes in erecting casinos--earned a mere $7 million from federal contracts. Post-9-11, Perini transformed into a major defense contractor. In 2004, the company earned $444 million for military construction work in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as for improving airfields for the U.S. Air Force in Europe and building base infrastructures for the U.S. Navy around the globe. In a remarkable financial recovery, Perini shot from near penury in 1997 to logging gross revenues of $1.7 billion in 2005.

In December 2005, Perini publicly identified one of its main business competitors as Halliburton. The company attributed its growing profitability, in large part, to its Halliburton-like military construction contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the company warned investors that if Congress slammed the brakes on war and occupation in the Middle East, Perini's stock could plummet.

According to Klein and to public records, Blum's firm originally paid $4 a share for a controlling interest in Perini's common stock. After a series of complicated stock transactions, Blum ended up owning 13 percent of the company, a majority interest. In mid and late 2005, Blum and his firm took their profits by selling about 3 million Perini shares for $23.75 per share, according to Klein and reports filed with the SEC. Klein says Blum personally owned 100,000 of the vastly appreciated shares when they were sold. Shortly thereafter, Feinstein began calling for winding down the Iraq war while urging that the "global war on terror" continue indefinitely.

Perini
It is estimated that Perini now holds at least $2.5 billion worth of contracts tied to the worldwide expansion of American militarism. Its largest Department of Defense contracts are "indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity" or "bundled" contracts carrying guaranteed profit margins. As is all too common, competitive bidding was minimal or nonexistent for many of these contracts.

In June, Cong. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, released a report by the House Committee on Government Reform criticizing the Pentagon's growing use of bundled contracts. Waxman complained that these contracts give companies an incentive to increase costs. One of the "problem contracts" identified by Waxman was a no-bid, $500 million contract held by Perini to reconstruct southern Iraq's electrical grid.

In fact, bundled military construction contracts fueled Perini's transformation from casino builder to major war contractor. As of May 2006, Perini held a series of bundled contracts awarded by the Army Corps of Engineers for work in the Middle East worth $1.725 billion. Perini has also been awarded an open-ended contract by the U.S. Air Force for military construction and cleaning the environment at closed military bases. Perini shares that $15 billion award with several other firms, including URS.

Perini regularly performs military construction jobs from Afghanistan to Alaska. It built a biological warfare laboratory for the Navy in Virginia. It built fuel tanks and pipelines for the Navy in North Africa. Details of these projects are typically examined and approved or disapproved by MILCON.

At a 2001 MILCON hearing, Feinstein, attending to a small item, told Maj. Gen. Earnest O. Robbins that she would appreciate receiving an engineering assessment on plans to build a missile transport bridge at Vandenberg Air Force Base. He said he would give it to her. She also asked for and received a list of unfunded construction projects, which prioritize military construction wish lists down to the level of thousand-dollar light fixtures. While there is no evidence to point to nefarious intent behind Feinstein's request for these details, it is worth noting that Perini and URS have open-ended contracts to perform military construction for the Air Force. The senator could have chosen to serve on a subcommittee where she had no potential conflict of interests at all.

In 2003 hearings, MILCON approved various construction projects at sites where Perini and/or URS are contracted to perform engineering and military construction work. The sites included: Camp Lejeune; the Underwater Systems Lab in Newport, R.I.; Hill Air Force Base, Utah; the Naval facilities at Dahlgren, Va.; projects at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Ind., and Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, and military bases in Guam, Diego Garcia and Crete.

There are some serious problems with Perini's work in Iraq. In June 2004, the Government Accountability Office reported that Perini's electrical reconstruction contract in southern Iraq suffered from mismanagement and lack of competition. In 2006, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found that Perini was paid to construct multimillion dollar electrical substations in the desert that could not be connected to the electrical grid. And the company was billing the government for purchasing and subcontracting costs that were not justified, according to the Defense Contract Audit Agency. An October 2005 audit by the Defense Department's Inspector General criticized the execution of Perini's cost-plus military construction work in Afghanistan, saying, "The contractor had an incentive to increase costs, because higher costs resulted in higher profit."

URS & McClellan
URS dwarfs Perini. With more than 100 subsidiaries, it employs nearly 30,000 engineers and workers worldwide. The firm's largest customer is the U.S. Army, from which it booked $791 million in work in 2005 out of a total revenue of $3.9 billion.

URS is not just a construction company; it also develops and maintains advanced weapons systems. In 2002, URS purchased weaponry firm EG&G Technical Services from the Carlyle Group, in which former President George H. W. Bush was a principal. But as profitable as its arms dealing division is, URS reports that its growth sectors are military construction, homeland security and environmental services for military sites under existing defense department contracts.

According to a database of federal procurement records made available for this investigation by Eagle Eye Publishers of Fairfax, Va., URS's military construction work in 2000 earned it a mere $24 million. The next year, when Feinstein took over as MILCON chair, military construction earned URS $185 million. On top of that, the company's architectural and engineering revenue from military construction projects grew from $108,726 in 2000 to $142 million in 2001, more than a thousand-fold increase in a single year.

As Congress gave the Bush administration the green light on military spending after 9-11, the value of Blum's investment in URS skyrocketed. Between 2003 and 2005, URS' share price doubled. In late 2005, Blum resigned from the URS board of directors, after 30 years as a member. Simultaneously, he sold 5.5 million URS shares, worth about $220 million at market price.

The Congressional Record shows that in year after year of MILCON hearings, Feinstein successfully lobbied defense officials to increase the budget for military base cleanup and redevelopment, especially at the decommissioned McClellan Air Force Base. The detoxification of McClellan is a plum job: it is estimated to cost $1.3 billion and take many years to complete. There is, of course, nothing unusual about a senator advocating for projects that improve environmental health, particularly when the project is in her home state; and the Pentagon is notoriously lax about cleaning up its Superfund sites.

It turns out, though, that URS specializes in environmental consulting and engineering work at military installations. It holds a $69 million contract to manage the cleanup of Hill Air Force Base in Utah, which was awarded in 2004. It has a $320 million contract to remediate pollution at U.S. Army bases in the United States and the Caribbean, which was awarded in 2005. And from 2000 to 2005, URS and its partners were paid $204 million for work at McClellan Air Force Base, according to Eagle Eye.

At a MILCON hearing in 2001, Feinstein cited the environmental work at McClellan as needing more money. "That is a base that I am very familiar with, and I am glad that we were able to provide that funding so that work at McClellan can proceed," she said. Feinstein then asked for and received detailed information concerning the Pentagon's projected schedule to finish the McClellan cleanup and the effect of delaying cleanup upon its potential for commercial reuse.

At a MILCON hearing in March 2002, Chairman Feinstein interrogated Assistant Secretary of Defense Nelson F. Gibbs:

Sen. Feinstein. Is the Air Force capable of executing greater [cleanup] funding in 2003 at McClellan?

Mr. Gibbs. Yes, ma'am.

Feinstein. And how much would that be? How about $22 million?

Gibbs. That would be very close. That would be almost exact as a matter of fact. . . . If you would like, I can provide for you a list of those individual projects.

Feinstein. I would. If you would not mind. Thank you very much.

The next week, Gibbs sent Feinstein a memo showing the addition of $23 million to the McClellan environmental budget, mostly for groundwater remediation, URS' specialty.

In the 2003 MILCON hearings, Feinstein told Dov S. Zakheim, then the Defense Department comptroller, that she "was really struck by the hit that environmental remediation [at McClellan Air Force Base] took. . . . However, I have just [received] a list from the Air Force of what they could use to clean up . . . McClellan, and one other base, and it is 64 million additional dollars this year."

Dr. Zakheim replied, "Well, let me first say that I remember your concern last year, and I am glad that we took care of [McClellan]. That is important." Feinstein remarked that the Pentagon had already spent $7 billion on environmental cleanup of closed bases, and that another $3.5 billion should be immediately allocated so that the clean bases can be transferred to the private sector. Demonstrating her grasp of technical details, she remarked, "I am particularly concerned with the dilapidated condition of the sewer line at McClellan that continues to impede significant economic redevelopment of the base."

That is where CB Richard Ellis comes in.

The real estate firm is politically well-connected. Sen. Feinstein's husband chairs the board of directors. Bill Clinton's secretary of commerce, Michael Kantor, joined in 2004. Former Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle signed on in 2005. The firm specializes in consulting with local governments and developers from California to Puerto Rico on how best to redevelop cleaned-up military bases. It also brokers the sale and lease of redeveloped base lands to the private sector. Since Blum took over CB Richard Ellis, for example, the company has closed deals leasing tens of thousands of square feet of commercial space on cleaned-up portions of McClellan to private developers.

In a 2003 MILCON hearing, Sacramento County redevelopment official Robert B. Leonard told Feinstein, "We wanted to express our appreciation for your efforts over the last year in supporting our needs at McClellan." During the five years that Feinstein led the subcommittee, support for the McClellan cleanup and the redevelopment deals were particular focuses of her attention.

URS declined to comment for this story. The sole comment that Feinstein's office made in response to a series of written questions about significant facts reported in this story is that "Sen. Feinstein has never had any knowledge nor has she exercised any influence on the award of environmental cleanup contracts under the jurisdiction of the Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee."

Let the Sunlight In
Last week, the Senate voted to close some significant loopholes in its ethics rules. But it stopped short of creating an office of public integrity, which would independently monitor lobbyists and members of congress for ethical compliance. Setting her own limits on the extent of reform she will countenance, Feinstein says she is opposed to the creation of an independent congressional ethics watchdog. "If the law is clear and precise, members will follow it," she assured the New York Times on Nov. 18, 2006.

The problem with the existing rules governing congressional ethics is that they are neither clear nor precise, and neither are they effective. Senate rules governing conflicts of interest are so vaguely worded, say government watchdogs, that short of stashing cash bribes in the refrigerator, the line between serving constituents and serving oneself is often blurred. The public record shows that Feinstein has a history of crossing that blurry line.

Charles Tiefer is a professor of law specializing in legislation and government contracting at the University of Baltimore in Maryland. He served as solicitor and deputy counsel to the House of Representatives for 11 years. He has taught at Yale Law School and written books on congressional procedures and separation of powers. Tiefer observes that, unlike the executive and judiciary branches of government, Congress does not have enforceable conflict of interest rules. It is up to Sen. Feinstein's constituents, Tiefer says, to decide if she has a conflict of interest and to take whatever action they want. To make that possible, Feinstein should have publicly disclosed the details of her family investments in Perini, URS and CB Richard Ellis as they related to her actions on MILCON. Tiefer avers that when Klein gave Feinstein lists of Perini's interests, he worsened her conflict of interest.

"The senator should, at a minimum, have posted Klein's lists on her Senate website, so that the press and the public would be warned of her potential conflicts," Tiefer says, noting that she should also make public her correspondence with the Senate Ethics Committee.

As the arbiter of Senate rules on ethics, it is incumbent on Feinstein to provide the public with an explanation of why she did not recuse herself from acting on MILCON details that served her financial interests, and why she failed to resign from the subcommittee after she recognized the potential for conflicts of interest, which, unfortunately, materialized in an obvious way and over a long period of time.

Israeli & Syrian Representatives Reach Secret Understandings

2007-01-16T20:30:00.000-08:00

Haaretz reports:

In a series of secret meetings in Europe between September 2004 and July 2006, Syrians and Israelis formulated understandings for a peace agreement between Israel and Syria.

The main points of the understandings are as follows:

An agreement of principles will be signed between the two countries, and following the fulfillment of all commitments, a peace agreement will be signed.

As part of the agreement on principles, Israel will withdraw from the Golan Heights to the lines of 4 June, 1967. The timetable for the withdrawal remained open: Syria demanded the pullout be carried out over a five-year period, while Israel asked for the withdrawal to be spread out over 15 years.

At the buffer zone, along Lake Kinneret, a park will be set up for joint use by Israelis and Syrians. The park will cover a significant portion of the Golan Heights. Israelis will be free to access the park and their presence will not be dependent on Syrian approval.

Israel will retain control over the use of the waters of the Jordan River and Lake Kinneret.

The border area will be demilitarized along a 1:4 ratio (in terms of territory) in Israel's favor.

According to the terms, Syria will also agree to end its support for Hezbollah and Hamas and will distance itself from Iran.

The document is described as a "non-paper," a document of understandings that is not signed and lacks legal standing - its nature is political. It was prepared in August 2005 and has been updated during a number of meetings in Europe.

The meetings were carried out with the knowledge of senior officials in the government of former prime minister Ariel Sharon. The last meeting took place during last summer's war in Lebanon.

Government officials received updates on the meetings via the European mediator and also through Dr. Alon Liel, a former director general at the Foreign Ministry, who took part in all the meetings.

The European mediator and the Syrian representative in the discussions held eight separate meetings with senior Syrian officials, including Vice President Farouk Shara, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, and a Syrian intelligence officer with the rank of "general."

The contacts ended after the Syrians demanded an end to meetings on an unofficial level and called for a secret meeting at the level of deputy minister, on the Syrian side, with an Israeli official at the rank of a ministry's director general, including the participation of a senior American official. Israel did not agree to this Syrian request.

The Syrian representative in the talks, Ibrahim (Abe) Suleiman, an American citizen, had visited Jerusalem and delivered a message to senior officials at the Foreign Ministry regarding the Syrian wish for an agreement with Israel. The Syrians also asked for help in improving their relations with the United States, and particularly in lifting the American embargo on Syria.

For his part, the European mediator stressed that the Syrian leadership is concerned that the loss of petroleum revenues will lead to an economic crash in the country and could consequently undermine the stability of the Assad regime.

According to Geoffrey Aronson, an American from the Washington-based Foundation for Middle East Peace, who was involved in the talks, an agreement under American auspices would call for Syria to ensure that Hezbollah would limit itself to being solely a political party.

He also told Haaretz that Khaled Meshal, Hamas' political bureau chief, based in Damascus, would have to leave the Syrian capital.

Syria would also exercise its influence for a solution to the conflict in Iraq, through an agreement between Shi'a leader Muqtada Sadr and the Sunni leadership, and in addition, it would contribute to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the refugee problem.

Aronson said the idea of a park on the Golan Heights allows for the Syrian demand that Israel pull back to the June 4 border, on the one hand, while on the other hand, the park eliminates Israeli concerns that Syrians will have access to the water sources of Lake Kinneret.

"This was a serious and honest effort to find creative solutions to practical problems that prevented an agreement from being reached during Barak's [tenure as prime minister] and to create an atmosphere of building confidence between the two sides," he said.

It also emerged that one of the Syrian messages to Israel had to do with the ties between Damascus and Tehran. In the message, the Alawi regime - the Assad family being members of the Alawi minority - asserts that it considers itself to be an integral part of the Sunni world and that it objects to the Shi'a theocratic regime, and is particularly opposed to Iran's policy in Iraq. A senior Syrian official stressed that a peace agreement with Israel will enable Syria to distance itself from Iran.

Liel refused to divulge details about the meetings but confirmed that they had taken place. He added that meetings on an unofficial level have been a fairly common phenomenon during the past decade.

"We insisted on making the existence of meetings known to the relevant parties," Liel said. "Nonetheless, there was no official Israeli connection to the content of the talks and to the ideas that were raised during the meetings."

Prior to these meetings, Liel was involved in an effort to further secret talks between Syria and Israel with the aid of Turkish mediation - following a request for assistance President Assad had made to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

That attempt failed following Israel's refusal to hold talks on an official level - and a Syrian refusal to restrict the talks to an "academic level," similar to the framework of the talks that had preceded the Oslo accords.

There was no initial formal response from the Prime Minister's Office after the story broke early on Tuesday. But the Israel Radio quoted unnamed senior Israeli officials as stating that Israel is not holding contacts with Syria.

More on the Israel-Syria contacts:
The full text of the draft document
BACKGROUND: From Turkey, via Europe, to Damascus
Timeline of talks

It seems that Bush got in the way.

Niger Uranium Forgery Mystery Solved?

2005-10-19T20:02:00.000-07:00

The Fitzgerald/Plame investigation goes in a new direction:

Amid all the brouhaha over whether I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Karl Rove, or any number of Bush administration insiders had a hand in leaking the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame, the essential crime at the core of the investigation – and its probable starting point – often gets lost in the shuffle. The "outing" of Plame was not an end in itself: the outers didn't just one day decide that they were going to go after her and Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, her husband, because they were in a vindictive mood. They were out to get them because Wilson drew attention to the provenance of the infamous "16 words" uttered by President Bush in his 2003 state of the union address, in which Bush claimed that Iraq had sought out uranium in "an African country" in order to make a nuclear bomb. Perhaps without knowing it, Wilson – in taking an interest in this subject – was getting too close to the enormous fraud at the center of the War Party's propaganda campaign.

The African country Bush spoke of is Niger, where much of the world's uranium is mined under the watchful eye of a French consortium – and where it would be extremely difficult, if not close to impossible, for the Iraqis to walk off with the tons of uranium required to produce weapons-grade materials. This accountability issue was no doubt a major reason for the skepticism the Niger uranium story engendered in Ambassador Wilson, who was sent to Niger by the CIA to check out the facts – and came back with a negative report. Wilson was therefore shocked to hear the president reiterate a claim that had been previously and definitively debunked, and went public with his mission and its results – but not before the source of that claim had been brutally and publicly refuted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In early October 2002, Italian journalist Elisabetta Burba, a writer for Italy's Panorama magazine, delivered some documents to the U.S. embassy in Rome: a cache of letters and other papers purporting to be correspondence between officials of the Niger government and the Iraqis relating to the acquisition of uranium "yellowcake." The documents soon found their way to Washington, D.C., where key administration officials were quick to incorporate them into their "talking points" for war with Iraq – and into Bush's Jan. 28, 2003 speech.

When the IAEA asked to see evidence of the administration's contentions, they were put off, until finally the Niger uranium documents were handed over. It took IAEA scientists just a few hours to demonstrate that the documents were not only forgeries, but were particularly crude ones at that – an amateur could have debunked them using Google. As the Washington Post reported, one administration official's response was "We fell for it."

And how! – but that wasn't the end of it, by any means. After all, someone had deliberately set up the American government with false information and badly embarrassed George W. Bush, who had taken the Niger uranium canard and run with it in a very public way. An investigation was launched just as Robert Novak's column outing Plame appeared – mid-July 2003. Whoever leaked Plame's name and CIA affiliation was trying to scare off any further inquiries into the whole Niger uranium funny business, underscoring the key question in all this: who was behind the Niger uranium forgeries?

Even as the FBI was following the trail of the forgers, the Italians were looking into the matter from their end. A parliamentary committee was charged with investigating, and they issued a heavily redacted report: now, I am told by a former CIA operations officer, the report has aroused some interest on this side of the Atlantic. According to a source in the Italian embassy, Patrick J. "Bulldog" Fitzgerald asked for and "has finally been given a full copy of the Italian parliamentary oversight report on the forged Niger uranium document," the former CIA officer tells me:

"Previous versions of the report were redacted and had all the names removed, though it was possible to guess who was involved. This version names Michael Ledeen as the conduit for the report and indicates that former CIA officers Duane Clarridge and Alan Wolf were the principal forgers. All three had business interests with Chalabi."

Alan Wolf died about a year and a half ago of cancer. He served as chief of the CIA's Near East Division as well as the European Division, and was also CIA chief of station in Rome after Clarridge. According to my source, "he and Clarridge and Ledeen were all very close and also close to Chalabi." The former CIA officer says Wolf "was Clarridge's Agency godfather. Significantly, both Clarridge and Wolf also spent considerable time in the Africa division, so they both had the Africa and Rome connection and both were close to Ledeen, closing the loop."

A veteran of the Iran-Contra scandal, Ledeen played an important role in the "arms for hostages" scheme by setting up meetings between the American government and the Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. Not all that unexpected coming from a self-proclaimed advocate of Machiavelli's amoralism. Today, Ledeen is among the most visible and radical neoconservative ideologues whose passion for a campaign of serial "regime-change" in the Middle East is undiminished by the Iraqi debacle. Just as the Roman senator Cato the Elder finished his perorations with the command "Carthage must be destroyed," so Michael "Creative Destruction" Ledeen closes his hopped-up warmongering essays with "Faster, please!," an exhortation presumably addressed to his confreres in the Bush administration.

Ledeen has kept the neocon faith – and the same friends – for all these years. He's still buddies with Ghorbanifar. In December 2001, he had a meeting in Rome with Ghorbanifar in the company of the Pentagon's top Iran specialist, Larry Franklin, and Harold Rhode, assigned to the Office of Net Assessment, a Pentagon think tank. Also at the Rome conclave: a number of Ghorbanifar's Iranian friends, including a former senior official of the Revolutionary Guard. Rounding out the distinguished guest list, we have the Italian delegation, consisting of SISMI head honcho Nicolo Pollari, the head of Italy's military intelligence agency, and Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino, a neocon favorite. Once again, Ledeen plays the middleman – but what kind of a deal was he trying to negotiate?

Franklin, we now know, was busy spying for Israel during this period, handing over classified information to AIPAC officials Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman: he has been indicted and has turned state's evidence: the trial is set to begin in January. To this day, Franklin maintains he was just trying to get AIPAC's assistance in moving a more pro-Israel agenda in policymaking circles.

Rhode is an ideologue of a similar coloration. Together with Franklin, Rhode helped set up the Defense Department's Office of Special Plans, which stove-piped phony "intelligence" provided by Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress and hyped the case for war. Rhode and Franklin worked hand in hand with Chalabi, and, as United Press International intelligence correspondent Richard Sale reports, they had certain interests in common:

"According to one former senior U.S. intelligence official who maintained excellent contacts with serving U.S. intelligence officials in the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, 'Rhode practically lived out of (Ahmed) Chalabi's office.' This same source quoted the intelligence official with the CPA as saying, 'Rhode was observed by CIA operatives as being constantly on his cell phone to Israel,' and that the information that the intelligence officials overheard him passing to Israel was 'mind-boggling,' this source said. It dealt with U.S. plans, military deployments, political projects, discussion of Iraq assets, and a host of other sensitive topics, the former senior U.S. intelligence official said."

No wonder my source tells me that "Fitzgerald asked the Italians if he could share the report with Paul McNulty," the prosecutor in the AIPAC case. There are plenty of links between the two investigations: they are, in a sense, the same investigation, since many of the same people are involved. McNulty is delving into a single aspect of the cabal's activities, while Fitzgerald seems to have broadened his probe to include not only the outing of Plame, but also the origin of the Niger uranium forgeries and other instances of classified information leakage via the vice president's office.

I am hardly the first to implicate Ledeen in connection with the Niger uranium forgeries. Former CIA counterterrorism officials Vince Cannistraro and Larry Johnson have pointed the finger in Ledeen's direction. As the latter put it:

"Italy's SISME [sic] also reportedly had a hand in producing the forged documents delivered to the U.S. embassy in Rome in early October 2003 [sic: should be 2002 – Ed.] that purported to show a deal with Iraq to buy uranium. Many in the intelligence community are convinced that a prominent neocon with long-standing ties to SISME played a role in the forgery. The truth of that proposition remains to be proven. This much is certain, either SISME or someone with ties to SISME, helped forge and circulate those documents which some tried to use to bolster the case to go to war with Iraq."

Cannistraro, asked by an interviewer if Ledeen was involved with the forgers, said "you'd be very close."

The cast of characters involved in Niger-gate is like old home week in the government scandal sweepstakes. Aside from Ledeen, whose storied (or is that checkered?) history is well-known, we have Clarridge, first head of the Counterterrorism Center set up by Bill Casey under Reagan, who deserves a column all by himself. His close relationship with Ledeen dates from his time as chief of station in Rome in the late 1970s. Clarridge was indicted for lying to prosecutors during the Iran-Contra imbroglio, but given a presidential pardon. His book, A Spy for All Seasons, was the first real "tell-all" book about the Agency. During the Reagan administration, he purportedly was the intellectual author of the notorious "Psychological Operations in Guerilla Warfare," a CIA how-to manual instructing the Nicaraguan contras in the fine art of terrorism, including bombings, assassinations, and violence directed at noncombatants. It was Clarridge who came up with the bright idea of mining Nicaragua's harbors, which led to the unprecedented condemnation of the U.S. government's actions in the World Court. He was reportedly slated to become a top counterterrorism official in the National Security Council, but was nixed. He now lives in San Diego, Calif., and pursues a number of business and ideological interests, including Dax Resources Corp., which runs a 24-hour Global Response Center and advertises its facility at kidnap prevention and counterterrorism, noting that "we can also undertake special operations, including technical countermeasures."

The Niger uranium forgeries surely qualify as "technical countermeasures," popping up as they did just as the administration's assertions about Iraq's alleged nuclear ambitions and capability were being questioned. As Seymour Hersh pointed out, CIA director George Tenet appeared at a crucial congressional briefing, on the eve of the vote on authorizing the war, and

"Declared, as he had done before, that a shipment of high-strength aluminum tubes that was intercepted on its way to Iraq had been meant for the construction of centrifuges that could be used to produce enriched uranium. The suitability of the tubes for that purpose had been disputed, but this time the argument that Iraq had a nuclear program under way was buttressed by a new and striking fact: the CIA had recently received intelligence showing that, between 1999 and 2001, Iraq had attempted to buy five hundred tons of uranium oxide from Niger, one of the world's largest producers."

The story of how the Niger uranium forgeries got past all the safeguards, how the actual documents were never seen by the CIA until after the president's 2003 speech, and who was pushing to include a reference to Saddam's alleged efforts to procure uranium in "an African nation" as one of the president's major talking points – these are all subjects of interest to a prosecutor attempting to prove charges of conspiracy to lie us into war. There must be a special law that covers government employees, including high officials, who transmit tainted information and poison the well of U.S. intelligence-gathering efforts. I'm sure Fitzgerald will have no trouble finding it.

Fitzgerald's reported interest in the Italian parliamentary report indicates just how his investigation is broadening. The forgeries, the lies fed to us by Ahmed Chalabi and his fellow "heroes in error," the leakage of vital U.S. secrets to the Iranians – all point to the existence of the conspiracy the prosecutor is tasked with uncovering. In the course of their campaign of deception, the conspirators not only outed a CIA agent who was working in the vital area of nuclear proliferation, they also passed on classified information to foreign nationals, including the Israelis and the Iranians. They committed forgery and God knows what other crimes.

Before Fitzgerald is done, we'll see the warlords of Washington hauled before a court of the people. We'll hear the whole sordid story of how a band of exiles, at least two foreign intelligence agencies, and a cabal of neoconservatives inside the Pentagon and the vice president's office bamboozled Congress and the American people into going to war. As the indictments come down, so will the elaborate narrative so carefully constructed by the War Party in the run-up to war be exposed as a tissue of fabrication, forgery, and fraud.

Is The Pentagon Training & Leading Death Squads in Iraq?

2005-01-14T17:59:00.000-08:00

Nuns pray over the bodies of four American sisters killed by the military in El Salvador in 1980, AP

‘The Salvador Option’
The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Hirsh and John Barry
Newsweek
Updated: 5:59 p.m. AKT Jan 14, 2005
Jan. 8 - What to do about the deepening quagmire of Iraq? The Pentagon’s latest approach is being called "the Salvador option"—and the fact that it is being discussed at all is a measure of just how worried Donald Rumsfeld really is. "What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are," one senior military officer told NEWSWEEK. "We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defense. And we are losing." Last November’s operation in Fallujah, most analysts agree, succeeded less in breaking "the back" of the insurgency—as Marine Gen. John Sattler optimistically declared at the time—than in spreading it out.

Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success—despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. (Among the current administration officials who dealt with Central America back then is John Negroponte, who is today the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Under Reagan, he was ambassador to Honduras. There is no evidence, however, that Negroponte knew anything about the Salvadoran death squads or the Iran-Contra scandal at the time. The Iraq ambassador, in a phone call to NEWSWEEK on Jan. 10, said he was not involved in military strategy in Iraq. He called the insertion of his name into this report "utterly gratuitous.")

Following that model, one Pentagon proposal would send Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria, according to military insiders familiar with the discussions. It remains unclear, however, whether this would be a policy of assassination or so-called "snatch" operations, in which the targets are sent to secret facilities for interrogation. The current thinking is that while U.S. Special Forces would lead operations in, say, Syria, activities inside Iraq itself would be carried out by Iraqi paramilitaries, officials tell NEWSWEEK.

Also being debated is which agency within the U.S. government—the Defense department or CIA—would take responsibility for such an operation. Rumsfeld’s Pentagon has aggressively sought to build up its own intelligence-gathering and clandestine capability with an operation run by Defense Undersecretary Stephen Cambone. But since the Abu Ghraib interrogations scandal, some military officials are ultra-wary of any operations that could run afoul of the ethics codified in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. That, they argue, is the reason why such covert operations have always been run by the CIA and authorized by a special presidential finding. (In "covert" activity, U.S. personnel operate under cover and the U.S. government will not confirm that it instigated or ordered them into action if they are captured or killed.)

Meanwhile, intensive discussions are taking place inside the Senate Intelligence Committee over the Defense department’s efforts to expand the involvement of U.S. Special Forces personnel in intelligence-gathering missions. Historically, Special Forces’ intelligence gathering has been limited to objectives directly related to upcoming military operations—"preparation of the battlefield," in military lingo. But, according to intelligence and defense officials, some Pentagon civilians for years have sought to expand the use of Special Forces for other intelligence missions.

Pentagon civilians and some Special Forces personnel believe CIA civilian managers have traditionally been too conservative in planning and executing the kind of undercover missions that Special Forces soldiers believe they can effectively conduct. CIA traditionalists are believed to be adamantly opposed to ceding any authority to the Pentagon. Until now, Pentagon proposals for a capability to send soldiers out on intelligence missions without direct CIA approval or participation have been shot down. But counter-terrorist strike squads, even operating covertly, could be deemed to fall within the Defense department’s orbit.

Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte, center, was ambassador to Honduras during the Reagan years - Alaa Al-Raya / AP

The interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is said to be among the most forthright proponents of the Salvador option. Maj. Gen.Muhammad Abdallah al-Shahwani, director of Iraq’s National Intelligence Service, may have been laying the groundwork for the idea with a series of interviews during the past ten days. Shahwani told the London-based Arabic daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat that the insurgent leadership—he named three former senior figures in the Saddam regime, including Saddam Hussein’s half-brother—were essentially safe across the border in a Syrian sanctuary. "We are certain that they are in Syria and move easily between Syrian and Iraqi territories," he said, adding that efforts to extradite them "have not borne fruit so far."

Shahwani also said that the U.S. occupation has failed to crack the problem of broad support for the insurgency. The insurgents, he said, "are mostly in the Sunni areas where the population there, almost 200,000, is sympathetic to them." He said most Iraqi people do not actively support the insurgents or provide them with material or logistical help, but at the same time they won’t turn them in. One military source involved in the Pentagon debate agrees that this is the crux of the problem, and he suggests that new offensive operations are needed that would create a fear of aiding the insurgency. "The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it is giving to the terrorists," he said. "From their point of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that equation."

Pentagon sources emphasize there has been no decision yet to launch the Salvador option. Last week, Rumsfeld decided to send a retired four-star general, Gary Luck, to Iraq on an open-ended mission to review the entire military strategy there. But with the U.S. Army strained to the breaking point, military strategists note that a dramatic new approach might be needed—perhaps one as potentially explosive as the Salvador option.

With Mark Hosenball

EDITOR'S NOTE: This report, initially published on Jan. 8, was updated on Jan. 10 to include Negroponte's comments to NEWSWEEK.

And at a news conference on Jan. 11, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the idea of a Salvador option was "nonsense" and denied that U.S. Special Forces were going into Syria. But when asked whether such a policy was under consideration, he replied, "Why would I even talk about something like that?"

Online Mail Call

Readers, including a U.S. Congressman, react to NEWSWEEK.com’s report that old El Salvador tactics may be used in Iraq, the withering of the mainstream media and maintaining faith in the wake of catastrophic natural disasters

Updated: 5:56 p.m. AKT Jan 14, 2005
Jan. 14 - In “The Salvador Option,” Michael Hirsh and John Barry write that "NEWSWEEK has learned the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported 'nationalist' forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success." One new Pentagon plan, they write, would adapt that model by sending "Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria, according to military insiders familiar with the discussions."

And in his “Shadowland” column this week, “Death-Squad Democracy,” Christopher Dickey writes that "having watched the slaughter in El Salvador first hand during the early 1980s, having lost many friends and acquaintances to the butchers there ... and having been targeted myself, I have something of a personal interest in this notion." Dickey argues that the Bush administration has a bad record when it comes to drawing the right lessons from the past when it comes to Iraq, and El Salvador fits into that pattern. "What those of us in El Salvador learned was that American policy might call for surgical action, but once the local troops are involved, they’re as likely to use a chain-saw as a scalpel. And that, too, can serve American ends. In almost any counterinsurgency, the basic message the government or the occupiers tries to get across to the population is brutally simple: 'We can protect you from the guerrillas, but the guerrillas can’t protect you from us, and you’ve got to choose sides.' Sometimes you can win the population’s hearts and minds; sometimes you just have to make them more frightened of you than they are of the insurgents."

Reader response to these pieces fell into two camps: those who were shocked to learn that the Pentagon might be considering such a plan and those who questioned the report.

U.S. Rep. James McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, writes that the Salvador option "was a bad idea in El Salvador, and it's a bad idea for Iraq. The Bush administration has already greatly diminished U.S. credibility on human rights. Historically, the creation of military assassination teams—or death squads as they were known in El Salvador—has not only led to a greater loss of innocent civilians, but also increased the disaffection of the civilian population with its own government and with the United States. It is a certain, proven prescription for failure."

"Contrary to the article's assertion," he continues, "that the Salvadoran insurgency 'was quelled,' the war in El Salvador did not end because the U.S. won militarily. It ended, in fact, when the U.S. Congress, in the aftermath of the murder by the Salvadoran army of six Jesuit priests in 1989, began to cut U.S. military aid to the Salvadoran armed forces." The congressman concludes that "There is no military victory to be had in Iraq. For the sake of our country and the Iraqi people, let us not go back down the road that makes a mockery of human rights and further undermines the possibility of a more peaceful future for Iraq."

A fellow Massachusetts reader concurs with Dickey's assessment of the Bush administration's ability to learn from history.

"The Bush administration can't seem to learn anything," he writes. "Since they blithely repeated all the mistakes of Vietnam, why be surprised that the chickenhawks want to recruit thugs to do the dirty work for them?" Another reader who, like Dickey, was in El Salvador during that time writes to say, "Thank God somebody is writing about the atrocity committed in El Salvador. I lived through the death squads as a child and adolescent. I have [posttraumatic stress disorder] because of this and [it] is always hard to listen to those Reagan lovers speak of him as a hero ... Unfortunately, the U.S. government has not learned the lesson taught by its policies. God help the Iraqis."

But other readers question the accuracy of NEWSWEEK's assessment of Salvadoran history. A reader identifying himself as Donald R. Hamilton, the U.S. Embassy spokesman at the time, writes,

"There was a ‘Salvador Strategy’ and it worked. As NEWSWEEK repeatedly reported at the time, the critical challenge to U.S. policy in El Salvador was stopping the death squads (see your November 1983 cover story by Robert Rivard: 'Death Squads: Can They Be Stopped?') so that the communist insurgency could be quelled. Saying that there was a Reagan administration secret policy to train Salvadoran death squads betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the facts. The death squads got their start and did most of their killing during the Carter administration ... While it is retrospectively clear to me that the Salvadoran death squad operators believed the Reagan administration would turn a blind eye to their depredations, it was the Reagan administration—pressured by many Democrats in Congress—who put them out of business. I am not aware of any persuasive evidence that the Reagan administration (much less the Carter administration) ever supported the death squads. Indeed, even bitter opponents of U.S. policy in El Salvador said the U.S. turned a blind eye to death squads; there were no serious contemporaneous claims that death squads were a creation of the United States."

And finally, a reader in Huntington, N.Y., writes,

"I have read your commentary purportedly comparing Salvadoran death squads killing innocent citizens to what I presume are American Special Ops operations in Iraq aimed at taking out terrorist insurgents who are killing innocent civilians in a murderous effort to thwart efforts to establish a peaceful, democratic state in Iraq. The difference is obvious to anyone with half a brain. The difference escapes you because you suffer from an anti-Americanism that afflicts left-wingers such as you who ostensibly are intelligent and experienced but write truly stupid things."

Vice Presidential Debate

2004-10-05T23:40:00.000-07:00

Transcript of the vice presidential debate that took place October 5, 2004 at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, between Dick Cheney and John Edwards. Gwen Ifill of PBS moderated:

IFILL: Good evening from Case Western Reserve University's Veale Center here in Cleveland, Ohio.

I'm Gwen Ifill of "The NewsHour" and "Washington Week" on PBS, and I welcome you to the first and the only vice presidential debate between Vice President Dick Cheney, the Republican nominee, and Senator John Edwards, the Democratic nominee.

These debates are sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Tonight's will last 90 minutes, following detailed rules of engagement worked out by representatives of the candidates. I have agreed to enforce the rules they have devised for themselves to the best of my ability.

The questions tonight will be divided between foreign and domestic policy, but the specific topics were chosen by me. The candidates have not been told what they are.

IFILL: The rules: For each question, there can be only a two- minute response, a 90-second rebuttal and, at my discretion, a discussion extension of one minute.

A green light will come on when 30 seconds remain in any given answer, yellow at 15 seconds, red at five seconds, and then flashing red means time's up. There's also a back-up buzzer system, if needed.

Candidates may not direct questions to one another. There will be two-minute closing statements, but no opening statements.

There is an audience here in the hall, but they have been instructed to remain silent throughout.

The order of the first question was determined by the candidates in advance, and the first one goes to Vice President Cheney.

Vice President Cheney, there have been new developments in Iraq, especially having to do with the administration's handling.

IFILL: Paul Bremer, the former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, gave a speech in which he said that we have never had enough troops on the ground, or we've never had enough troops on the ground.

Donald Rumsfeld said he has not seen any hard evidence of a link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Was this approved -- of a report that you requested that you received a week ago that showed there was no connection between Abu Musab Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein?

CHENEY: Gwen, I want to thank you, and I want to thank the folks here at Case Western Reserve for hosting this tonight. It's a very important event, and they've done a superb job of putting it together.

It's important to look at all of our developments in Iraq within the broader context of the global war on terror. And, after 9/11, it became clear that we had to do several things to have a successful strategy to win the global war on terror, specifically that we had to go after the terrorists where ever we might find them, that we also had to go after state sponsors of terror, those who might provide sanctuary or safe harbor for terror.

CHENEY: And we also then finally had to stand up democracies in their stead afterwards, because that was the only way to guarantee that these states would not again become safe harbors for terror or for the development of deadly weapons.

Concern about Iraq specifically focused on the fact that Saddam Hussein had been, for years, listed on the state sponsor of terror, that they he had established relationships with Abu Nidal, who operated out of Baghdad; he paid $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers; and he had an established relationship with al Qaeda.

Specifically, look at George Tenet, the CIA director's testimony before the Committee on Foreign Relations two years ago when he talked about a 10-year relationship.

The effort that we've mounted with respect to Iraq focused specifically on the possibility that this was the most likely nexus between the terrorists and weapons of mass destruction.

The biggest threat we faced today is the possibility of terrorists smuggling a nuclear weapon or a biological agent into one of our own cities and threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

What we did in Iraq was exactly the right thing to do. If I had it to recommend all over again, I would recommend exactly the same course of action. The world is far safer today because Saddam Hussein is in jail, his government is no longer in power. And we did exactly the right thing.

IFILL: Senator Edwards, you have 90 seconds to respond.

EDWARDS: Thank you.

Thank you, Gwen, for moderating this debate. Thank you to the folks of Case Western and all the people in Ohio for having us here.

Mr. Vice President, you are still not being straight with the American people. I mean, the reality you and George Bush continue to tell people, first, that things are going well in Iraq -- the American people don't need us to explain this to them, they see it on their television every single day. We lost more troops in September than we lost in August; lost more in August than we lost in July; lost more in July than we lost in June.

The truth is, our men and women in uniform have been heroic. Our military has done everything they've been asked to do.

And it's not just me that sees the mess in Iraq. There are Republican leaders, like John McCain, like Richard Lugar, like Chuck Hagel, who have said Iraq is a mess and it's getting worse.

And when they were asked why, Richard Lugar said because of the incompetence of the administration.

What Paul Bremer said yesterday is they didn't have enough troops to secure the country. They also didn't have a plan to win the peace. They also didn't put the alliances together to make this successful.

We need a fresh start. We need a president who will speed up the training of the Iraqis, get more staff in for doing that. We need to speed up the reconstruction so the Iraqis see some tangible benefit. We need a new president who has the credibility, which John Kerry has, to bring others into this effort.

IFILL: You have 30 seconds to respond, Mr. Vice President.

CHENEY: We've made significant progress in Iraq.

We've stood up a new government that's been in power now only 90 days. The notion of additional troops is talked about frequently, but the point of success in Iraq will be reached when we have turned governance over to the Iraqi people; they have been able to establish a democratic government. They're well on their way to doing that. They will have free elections next January for the first time in history.

We also are actively, rapidly training Iraqis to take on the security responsibility.

Those two steps are crucial to success in Iraq. They're well in hand, well under way. And I'm confident that, in fact, we'll get the job done.

IFILL: You have 30 seconds, Senator.

EDWARDS: Yes.

Mr. Vice President, there is no connection between the attacks of September 11th and Saddam Hussein. The 9/11 Commission has said it. Your own secretary of state has said it. And you've gone around the country suggesting that there is some connection. There is not.

And in fact the CIA is now about to report that the connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein is tenuous at best.

And, in fact, the secretary of defense said yesterday that he knows of no hard evidence of the connection.

We need to be straight with the American people.

IFILL: Time for a new question but the same topic. And this time to you, Senator Edwards.

You and Senator Kerry have said that the war in Iraq is the wrong war at the wrong time.

Does that mean that if you had been president and vice president that Saddam Hussein would still be in power?

EDWARDS: Here's what it means: It means that Saddam Hussein needed to be confronted. John Kerry and I have consistently said that. That's why we voted for the resolution. But it also means it needed to be done the right way.

And doing it the right way meant that we were prepared; that we gave the weapons inspectors time to find out what we now know, that in fact there were no weapons of mass destruction; that we didn't take our eye off the ball, which are al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, the people who attacked us on September the 11th.

EDWARDS: Now, remember, we went into Afghanistan, which, by the way, was the right thing to do. That was the right decision. And our military performed terrifically there.

But we had Osama bin Laden cornered at Tora Bora. We had the 10th Mountain Division up in Uzbekistan available. We had the finest military in the world on the ground. And what did we do?

We turned -- this is the man who masterminded the greatest mass murder and terrorist attack in American history. And what did the administration decide to do?

They gave the responsibility of capturing and/or killing Saddam -- I mean Osama bin Laden to Afghan warlords who, just a few weeks before, had been working with Osama bin Laden.

Our point in this is not complicated: We were attacked by al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

We went into Afghanistan and very quickly the administration made a decision to divert attention from that and instead began to plan for the invasion of Iraq.

And these connections -- I want the American people to hear this very clearly. Listen carefully to what the vice president is saying. Because there is no connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of September 11th -- period.

The 9/11 Commission has said that's true. Colin Powell has said it's true. But the vice president keeps suggesting that there is. There is not. And, in fact, any connection with al Qaeda is tenuous at best.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President, you have 90 seconds to respond.

CHENEY: The senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11, but there's clearly an established Iraqi track record with terror.

And the point is that that's the place where you're most likely to see the terrorists come together with weapons of mass destruction, the deadly technologies that Saddam Hussein had developed and used over the years.

Now, the fact of the matter is, the big difference here, Gwen, is they are not prepared to deal with states that sponsor terror. They've got a very limited view about how to use U.S. military forces to defend America.

We heard Senator Kerry say the other night that there ought to be some kind of global test before U.S. troops are deployed preemptively to protect the United States. That's part of a track record that goes back to the 1970s when he ran for Congress the first time and said troops should not be deployed without U.N. approval.

Then, in the mid-'80s, he ran on the basis of cutting most of our major defense programs. In 1991, he voted against Desert Storm.

It's a consistent pattern over time of always being on the wrong side of defense issues.

A little tough talk in the midst of a campaign or as part of a presidential debate cannot obscure a record of 30 years of being on the wrong side of defense issues.

And they give absolutely no indication, based on that record, of being wiling to go forward and aggressively pursue the war on terror with a kind of strategy that will work, that will defeat our enemies and will guarantee that the United States doesn't again get attacked by the likes of al Qaeda.

IFILL: You will respond to that topic, but first I want to ask you for two minutes, Vice President Cheney.

Tonight we mentioned Afghanistan. We believe that Osama bin Laden is hiding perhaps in a cave somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

If you get a second term, what is your plan to capture him and then to neutralize those who have sprung up to replace him?

CHENEY: Gwen, we've never let up on Osama bin Laden from day one. We've actively and aggressively pursued him. We've captured or killed thousands of al Qaeda in various places around the world and especially in Afghanistan. We'll continue to very aggressively pursue him, and I'm confident eventually we'll get him.

The key to success in Afghanistan has been, again, to go in and go after the terrorists, which we've done, and also take down the Taliban regime which allowed them to function there, in effect sponsors, if you will, of the al Qaeda organization.

John Edwards, two and a half years ago, six months after we went into Afghanistan announced that it was chaotic, the situation was deteriorating, the warlords were about to take over.

Here we are, two and a half years later, we're four days away from a democratic election, the first one in history in Afghanistan. We've got 10 million voters who have registered to vote, nearly half of them women.

That election will put in place a democratically elected government that will take over next December.

We've made enormous progress in Afghanistan, in exactly the right direction, in spite of what John Edwards said two and a half years ago. He just got it wrong.

The fact is, as we go forward in Afghanistan, we will pursue Osama bin Laden and the terrorists as long as necessary. We're standing up Afghan security forces so they can take on responsibility for their own security. We'll keep U.S. forces there -- we have about 16,000 there today -- as long as necessary, to assist the Afghans in terms of dealing with their security situation.

But they're making significant progress. We have President Karzai, who is in power. They have done wonders writing their own constitution for the first time ever. Schools are open. Young girls are going to school. Women are going to vote. Women are even eligible to run for office. This is major, major progress. There will be democracy in Afghanistan, make no doubt about it. Freedom is the best antidote to terror.

IFILL: Senator Edwards: You have 90 seconds.

EDWARDS: Someone did get it wrong. But it wasn't John Kerry and John Edwards. They got it wrong. When we had Osama bin Laden cornered, they left the job to the Afghan warlords. They then diverted their attention from the very people who attacked us, who were at the center of the war on terror, and so Osama bin Laden is still at large.

Now, I want to go back to something the vice president said just a minute ago, because these distortions are continuing.

He said that -- made mention of this global test. What John Kerry said -- and it's just as clear as day to anybody who was listening -- he said: We will find terrorists where they are and kill them before they ever do harm to the American people, first.

We will keep this country safe. He defended this country as a young man, he will defend this country as president of the United States.

He also said very clearly that he will never give any country veto power over the security of the United States of America.

Now, I know the vice president would like to pretend that wasn't said, and the president would too. But the reality is it was said.

Here's what's actually happened in Afghanistan, regardless of this rosy scenario that they paint on Afghanistan, just like they do with Iraq. What's actually happened is they're now providing 75 percent of the world's opium.

Not only are they providing 75 percent of the world's opium, large-cut parts of the country are under the control of drug lords and warlords. Big parts of the country are still insecure.

And the reality is the part of Afghanistan, eastern Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden is, is one of the hardest places to control and the most insecure, Gwen.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President, 30 seconds.

CHENEY: Twenty years ago we had a similar situation in El Salvador. We had -- guerrilla insurgency controlled roughly a third of the country, 75,000 people dead, and we held free elections. I was there as an observer on behalf of the Congress.

The human drive for freedom, the determination of these people to vote, was unbelievable. And the terrorists would come in and shoot up polling places; as soon as they left, the voters would come back and get in line and would not be denied the right to vote.

And today El Salvador is a whale of a lot better because we held free elections.

The power of that concept is enormous. And it will apply in Afghanistan, and it will apply as well in Iraq.

EDWARDS: The vice president just said that we should focus on state sponsors of terrorism. Iran has moved forward with its nuclear weapons program. They're more dangerous today than they were four years ago.

North Korea has moved forward with their nuclear weapons program, gone from one to two nuclear weapons to six to eight nuclear weapons. This vice president has been an advocate for over a decade for lifting sanctions against Iran, the largest state sponsor of terrorism on the planet.

It's a mistake. We should not only not lift them, we should strengthen those sanctions.

IFILL: New question to you, Senator Edwards, but I don't want to let go of the global test question first, because...

EDWARDS: Sure.

IFILL: ... I want people to understand exactly what it is, as you said, that Senator Kerry did say.

He said, "You've got to do" -- you know, he was asked about preemptive action at the last debate -- he said, "You've got to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons." What is a global test if it's not a global veto?

EDWARDS: Well, let me say, first, he said in the same segment -- I don't remember precisely where it was connected with what you just read -- but he said, point blank, "We will never give anyone a veto over the security of the United States of America."

What he's saying is we're going to go back to the proud tradition of the United States of America and presidents of the United States of America for the last 50 to 75 years.

First, we're going to actually tell the American people the truth. We're going to tell them the truth about what's happening.

We're not going to suggest to them that things are going well in Iraq or anyplace else when, in fact, they're not.

We're going to make sure that the American people know the truth about why we are using force and what the explanation for it is.

And it's not just the American people. We're also going to make sure that we tell the world the truth.

Because the reality is, for America to lead, for America to do what it's done for 50 years before this president and vice president came into office, it is critical that we be credible.

It is critical that they believe that when America takes action, they can trust what we're doing, what we say, what we say at the United Nations, what we say in direct conversations with leaders of the world -- of other countries.

They need to know that the credibility of the United States is always good, because they will not follow us without that.

And unfortunately, we're seeing the consequences of that right now.

It's one of the reasons that we're having so much difficulty getting others involved in the effort in Iraq.

You know, we've taken 90 percent of the coalition casualties. American taxpayers have borne 90 percent of the costs of the effort in Iraq.

And we see the result of there not being a coalition: The first Gulf War cost America $5 billion. We're at $200 billion and counting.

John Kerry will never give up control over the security of the United States of America to any other country. We will not outsource our responsibility to keep this country safe.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President, you have 90 seconds to respond.

CHENEY: Well, Gwen, the 90 percent figure is just dead wrong. When you include the Iraqi security forces that have suffered casualties, as well as the allies, they've taken almost 50 percent of the casualties in operations in Iraq, which leaves the U.S. with 50 percent, not 90 percent.

With respect to the cost, it wasn't $200 billion. You probably weren't there to vote for that. But $120 billion is, in fact, what has been allocated to Iraq. The rest of it's for Afghanistan and the global war on terror.

The allies have stepped forward and agreed to reduce and forgive Iraqi debt to the tune of nearly $80 billion by one estimate. That, plus $14 billion they promised in terms of direct aid, puts the overall allied contribution financially at about $95 billion, not to the $120 billion we've got, but, you know, better than 40 percent. So your facts are just wrong, Senator.

You also have a situation where you talk about credibility.

It's awfully hard to convey a sense of credibility to allies when you voted for the war and then you declared: Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time. You voted for the war, and then you voted against supporting the troops when they needed the equipment, the fuel, the spare parts and the ammunition and the body armor.

You're not credible on Iraq because of the enormous inconsistencies that John Kerry and you have cited time after time after time during the course of the campaign. Whatever the political pressures of the moment requires, that's where you're at. But you've not been consistent, and there's no indication at all that John Kerry has the conviction to successfully carry through on the war on terror.

EDWARDS: May I respond briefly?

What the vice president has just said is just a complete distortion. The American people saw John Kerry on Thursday night. They don't need the vice president or the president to tell them what they saw.

They saw a man who was strong, who had conviction, who is resolute, who made it very clear that he will do everything that has to be done to find terrorists, to keep the American people safe.

He laid out his plan for success in Iraq, made it clear that we were committed to success in Iraq. We have to be, because we have troops on the ground there and because they have created a haven for terrorists.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President, you have 30 seconds.

CHENEY: Your rhetoric, Senator, would be a lot more credible if there was a record to back it up. There isn't.

And you cannot use "talk tough" during the course of a 90-minute debate in a presidential campaign to obscure a 30-year record in the United States Senate and, prior to that by John Kerry, who has consistently come down on the wrong side of all the major defense issues that he's faced as a public official.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President, a new question for you. You have two minutes to respond.

When the president says that Senator Kerry is emboldening enemies and you say that we could get hit again if voters make the wrong choice in November, are you saying that it would be a dangerous thing to have John Kerry as president?

CHENEY: I'm saying specifically that I don't believe he has the qualities we need in a commander in chief because I don't think, based on his record, that he would pursue the kind of aggressive policies that need to be pursued if we're going to defeat these terrorists. We need to battle them overseas so we don't have to battle them here at home.

I'm not challenging John Kerry's patriotism. I said in my acceptance speech in New York City at the Republican convention that we respected his service in Vietnam, and I got applause for that.

We've never criticized his patriotism. What we've questioned is his judgment.

And his judgment's flawed, and the record's there for anybody who wants to look at it.

In 1984, when he ran for the Senate he opposed, or called for the elimination of a great many major weapons systems that were crucial to winning the Cold War and are important today to our overall forces.

When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and occupied it in 1990 and '91, he stood up on the floor of the Senate and voted against going in to liberate Kuwait and push Saddam Hussein back to Iraq.

The problem we have is that, if you look at his record, he doesn't display the qualities of somebody who has conviction.

And with respect to this particular operation, we've seen a situation in which, first, they voted to commit the troops, to send them to war, John Edwards and John Kerry, then they came back and when the question was whether or not you provide them with the resources they needed -- body armor, spare parts, ammunition -- they voted against it.

I couldn't figure out why that happened initially. And then I looked and figured out that what was happening was Howard Dean was making major progress in the Democratic primaries, running away with the primaries based on an anti-war record. So they, in effect, decided they would cast an anti-war vote and they voted against the troops.

Now if they couldn't stand up to the pressures that Howard Dean represented, how can we expect them to stand up to al Qaeda?

IFILL: Senator Edwards, you have 90 seconds to respond.

EDWARDS: Thank you.

One thing that's very clear is that a long resume does not equal good judgment. I mean, we've seen over and over and over the misjudgments made by this administration.

I want to go back to what the vice president just said, because it's a continuation of the things he's been doing, unfortunately, on the campaign trail; it's a continuation of what he began his first answer with tonight.

John Kerry has voted for the biggest military appropriations bill in the country's history. John Kerry has voted for the biggest intelligence appropriations in the country's history.

This vice president, when he was secretary of defense, cut over 80 weapons systems, including the very ones he's criticizing John Kerry for voting against. These are weapons systems, a big chunk of which, the vice president himself suggested we get rid of after the Cold War.

The reality is that John Kerry has consistently supported the very men that he served with in Vietnam and led.

On the $87 billion, it was clear at the time of that vote that they had no plan to win the peace. We're seeing the consequences of that everyday on the ground right now.

We stood up and said: For our troops, we must have a plan to win the peace.

We also thought it was wrong to have a $20 billion fund out of which $7.5 billion was going to go to a no-bid contract for Halliburton, the vice president's former company.

It was wrong then. It's wrong now.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President, you have 30 seconds.

CHENEY: Well, Gwen, I think the record speaks for itself. These are two individuals who have been for the war when the headlines were good and against it when their poll ratings were bad.

We have not seen the kind of consistency that a commander in chief has to have in order to be a leader in wartime and in order to be able to see the strategy through to victory.

If we want to win the war on terror, it seems to me it's pretty clear the choice is George Bush, not John Kerry.

IFILL: And 30 seconds...

EDWARDS: John Kerry has been absolutely clear and consistent from the beginning that we must stay focused on the people who attacked us; that Saddam Hussein was a threat that needed to be addressed directly; that the weapons inspectors needed to have time to do their job.

Had they had time to do their job, they would have discovered what we now know, that in fact Saddam Hussein had no weapons, that in fact Saddam Hussein has no connection with 9/11, that in fact Saddam Hussein has little or no connection with al Qaeda.

IFILL: Senator Edwards, new question to you, and you have two minutes to respond.

Part of what you have said and Senator Kerry has said that you are going to do in order to get us out of the problems in Iraq is to internationalize the effort.

Yet French and German officials have both said they have no intention even if John Kerry is elected of sending any troops into Iraq for any peacekeeping effort. Does that make your effort or your plan to internationalize this effort seem kind of naive?

EDWARDS: Well, let's start with what we know. What we know is that the president and the vice president have not done the work to build the coalition that we need -- dramatically different than the first Gulf War. We know that they haven't done it, and we know they can't do it.

They didn't, by the way, just reject the allies going into lead- up to the war. They also rejected them in the effort to do the reconstruction in Iraq, and that has consequences.

What we believe is, as part of our entire plan for Iraq -- and we have a plan for Iraq.

They have a plan for Iraq too: more of the same.

We have a plan for success. And that plan includes speeding up the training of the military. We have less than half of the staff that we need there to complete that training.

Second, make sure that the reconstruction is sped up in a way that the Iraqis see some tangible benefit for what's happening.

And by the way, if we need to, we can take Iraqis out of Iraq to train them. It is not secure enough. It's so dangerous on the ground that they can't be trained there. We can take them out of Iraq for purposes of training.

We should do whatever has to be done to train the Iraqis and to speed up that process.

That works in conjunction with making sure the elections take place on time.

Right now, the United Nations, which is responsible for the elections in January, has about 35 people there. Now, that's compared with a much smaller country like East Timor, where they had over 200 people on the ground.

You need more than 35 people to hold an election in Cleveland, much less in Iraq.

And they keep saying the election's on schedule, this is going to happen.

The reality is we need a new president with credibility with the rest of the world and who has a real plan for success. Success breeds contribution, breeds joining the coalition.

Not only that, I want to go back to what the vice president said. He attacks us about the troops. They sent 40,000 American troops into Iraq without the body armor they needed. They sent them without the armored vehicles they needed. While they were on the ground fighting, they lobbied the Congress to cut their combat pay. This is the height of hypocrisy.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President, you have 90 seconds.

CHENEY: Well, Gwen, it's hard to know where to start; there are so many inaccuracies there.

The fact of the matter is the troops wouldn't have what they have today if you guys had had your way.

You talk about internationalizing the effort. They don't have a plan. Basically, it's an echo.

You made the comment that the Gulf War coalition in '91 was far stronger than this. No. We had 34 countries then; we've got 30 today. We've got troops beside us.

It's hard, after John Kerry referred to our allies as a coalition of the coerced and the bribed, to go out and persuade people to send troops and to participate in this process.

You end up with a situation in which -- talk about demeaning. In effect, you demean the sacrifice of our allies when you say it's the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time, and oh, by the way, send troops.

Makes no sense at all. It's totally inconsistent. There isn't a plan there.

Our most important ally in the war on terror, in Iraq specifically, is Prime Minister Allawi. He came recently and addressed a joint session of Congress that I presided over with the speaker of the House.

And John Kerry rushed out immediately after his speech was over with, where he came and he thanked America for our contributions and our sacrifice and pledged to hold those elections in January, went out and demeaned him, criticized him, challenged his credibility.

That is not the way to win friends and allies. You're never going to add to the coalition with that kind of attitude.

IFILL: Senator Edwards, 30 seconds.

EDWARDS: Thank you.

The vice president suggests that we have the same number of countries involved now that we had in the first Gulf War. The first Gulf War cost the American people $5 billion.

And regardless of what the vice president says, we're at $200 billion and counting. Not only that, 90 percent of the coalition casualties, Mr. Vice President, the coalition casualties, are American casualties. Ninety percent of the cost of this effort are being borne by American taxpayers. It is the direct result of the failures of this administration.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President?

CHENEY: Classic example. He won't count the sacrifice and the contribution of Iraqi allies. It's their country. They're in the fight. They're increasingly the ones out there putting their necks on the line to take back their country from the terrorists and the old regime elements that are still left. They're doing a superb job. And for you to demean their sacrifices strikes me as...

EDWARDS: Oh, I'm not...

CHENEY: ... as beyond...

EDWARDS: I'm not demeaning...

CHENEY: It is indeed. You suggested...

EDWARDS: No, sir, I did not...

CHENEY: ... somehow they shouldn't count, because you want to be able to say that the Americans are taking 90 percent of the sacrifice. You cannot succeed in this effort if you're not willing to recognize the enormous contribution the Iraqis are increasingly making to their own future.

We'll win when they take on responsibility for governance, which they're doing, and when the take on responsibility for their own security, which they increasingly are doing.

IFILL: New question, similar topic, because I want to circle back to a question which I'm not quite certain we got an answer to.

But I will direct it to you first, Senator Edwards.

EDWARDS: Thanks.

IFILL: It's a question of American intelligence.

If this report that we've read about today is true, and if Vice President Cheney ordered it and asked about this, do you think that, in the future, that your administration or the Bush administration would have sufficient and accurate enough intelligence to be able to make decisions about where to go next?

EDWARDS: Well, let me speak, first of all, to what the vice president just said, and then I'll answer that question.

This, unfortunately -- what the vice president is telling people is inconsistent with everything they see every single day. It's a continuation of, "Well, there's a strong connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein."

It's not true. It's a continuation of at least insinuating that there's some connection between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. It's not true.

It's saying to the American people, as the president said last Thursday, and the vice president continues to say tonight, that things are going well in Iraq, contrary to what people who have been there have seen, including Republican leaders, contrary to what everyone in America sees on their television every day -- Americans being kidnapped, people being beheaded, parts of the country under the control of insurgents, even today, under the control of the insurgents.

The vice president has still not said anything about what Mr. Bremer said, about the failure to have adequate troops, the failure to be able to secure the country in the short term.

You know, remember "shock and awe"?

Look at where we are now. It is a direct result of the failure to plan, the failure to have others involved in this effort. This is not an accident.

Now, let me go back to your question.

If we want to do the things that need to be done to keep this country safe, we can't be dragged kicking and screaming to it.

One thing that everybody does agree on is that 9/11 did change things.

But what's happened is this administration opposed the creation of a 9/11 Commission to find out why it happened and what we needed to do.

They opposed the creation of a Department of Homeland Security, and then they were for it.

We can't react that way. We must be more aggressive.

With John Kerry as president of the United States, we are committed to immediately implementing all of the reforms suggested by the 9/11 Commission, so that we have the information we need to find terrorists and crush them before hey hurt us.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President?

CHENEY: Gwen, the story that appeared today about this report is one I asked for. I ask an awful lot of questions as part of my job as vice president. A CIA spokesman was quoted in that story as saying they had not yet reached the bottom line and there is still debate over this question of the relationship between Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein.

The report also points out that at one point some of Zarqawi's people were arrested. Saddam personally intervened to have them released, supposedly at the request of Zarqawi

But let's look at what we know about Mr. Zarqawi.

We know he was running a terrorist camp, training terrorists in Afghanistan prior to 9/11. We know that when we went into Afghanistan that he then migrated to Baghdad. He set up shop in Baghdad, where he oversaw the poisons facility up at Khurmal, where the terrorists were developing ricin and other deadly substances to use.

We know he's still in Baghdad today. He is responsible for most of the major car bombings that have killed or maimed thousands of people. He's the one you will see on the evening news beheading hostages.

He is, without question, a bad guy. He is, without question, a terrorist. He was, in fact, in Baghdad before the war, and he's in Baghdad now after the war.

The fact of the matter is that this is exactly the kind of track record we've seen over the years. We have to deal with Zarqawi by taking him out, and that's exactly what we'll do.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President, in June of 2000 when you were still CEO of Halliburton, you said that U.S. businesses should be allowed to do business with Iran because, quote, "Unilateral sanctions almost never work."

After four years as vice president now, and with Iran having been declared by your administration as part of the "Axis of Evil," do you still believe that we should lift sanctions on Iran?

CHENEY: No, I do not. And, Gwen, at the time, I was talking specifically about this question of unilateral sanctions.

What happens when we impose unilateral sanctions is, unless there's a collective effort, then other people move in and take advantage of the situation and you don't have any impact, except to penalize American companies.

We've got sanctions on Iran now. We may well want to go to the U.N. Security Council and ask for even tougher sanctions if they don't live up to their obligations under the initial -- International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Proliferation Treaty.

CHENEY: We dealt with Iran differently than we have Iraq partly because Iran has not yet, as Iraq did, violated 12 years of resolutions by the U.N. Security Council.

We're working with the Brits and the Germans and the French, who've been negotiating with the Iranians.

We recently were actively involved in a meeting with the board of governors in the International Atomic Energy Agency. And as I say, there will be a follow-up meeting in November to determine whether or not Iran's living up to their commitments and obligations.

And if they aren't, my guess is then the board of governors will recommend sending the whole matter to the U.N. Security Council for the application of the international sanctions, which I think would be exactly the right way to go.

We're addressing North Korea on a similar basis, working with the Chinese, the South Koreans, the Japanese and others to try to bring them around.

One of the great by-products, for example, of what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan is that five days after we captured Saddam Hussein, Moammar Gadhafi in Libya came forward and announced that he was going to surrender all of his nuclear materials to the United States, which he has done.

This was one of the biggest sources of proliferation in the world today in terms of the threat that was represented by that. The suppliers network that provided that, headed by Mr. A.Q. Khan, has been shut down.

We've made major progress in dealing here with a major issue with respect to nuclear proliferation. And we'll continue to press very hard on the North Koreans and the Iranians as well.

IFILL: Senator Edwards?

EDWARDS: Well, the vice president talks about there being a member, or someone associated with al Qaeda, in Iraq. There are 60 countries who have members of al Qaeda in them.

How many of those countries are we going to invade?

Not only that, he talks about Iran. The reality about Iran is that Iran has moved forward with their nuclear weapons program on their watch. They ceded responsibility to dealing with it to the Europeans.

Now, the vice president, as you pointed out, spoke out loudly for lifting the sanctions on Iraq. John Kerry and I believe we need to strengthen the sanctions on Iraq, including closing the loophole that allows companies to use a subsidiary, offshore subsidiaries to do business with Iran.

I mentioned Halliburton a few minute ago in connection with the $87 billion, and you raised it in this question. This is relevant, because he was pushing for lifting sanctions when he was CEO of Halliburton.

Here's why we didn't think Halliburton should have a no-bid contract.

While he was CEO of Halliburton, they paid millions of dollars in fines for providing false information on their company, just like Enron and Ken Lay.

They did business with Libya and Iran, two sworn enemies of the United States.

They're now under investigation for having bribed foreign officials during that period of time.

Not only that, they've gotten a $7.5 billion no-bid contract in Iraq, and instead of part of their money being withheld, which is the way it's normally done, because they're under investigation, they've continued to get their money.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President?

CHENEY: I can respond, Gwen, but it's going to take more than 30 seconds.

IFILL: Well, that's all you've got.

(LAUGHTER)

CHENEY: Well, the reason they keep mentioning Halliburton is because they're trying to throw up a smokescreen. They know the charges are false.

They know that if you go, for example, to factcheck.com [sic], an independent Web site sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, you can get the specific details with respect to Halliburton.

It's an effort that they've made repeatedly to try to confuse the voters and to raise questions, but there's no substance to the charges.

IFILL: Thirty seconds.

EDWARDS: These are the facts.

The facts are the vice president's company that he was CEO of, that did business with sworn enemies of the United States, paid millions of dollars in fines for providing false financial information, it's under investigation for bribing foreign officials.

The same company that got a $7.5 billion no-bid contract, the rule is that part of their money is supposed to be withheld when they're under investigation, as they are now, for having overcharged the American taxpayer, but they're getting every dime of their money.

I'm happy to let voters make their own decision about this.

IFILL: Senator Edwards, as we wrap up the foreign policy part of this, I do want to talk to you about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Today, a senior member of Islamic Jihad was killed in Gaza. There have been suicide bombings, targeted assassinations, mortar attacks, all of this continuing at a time when the United States seems absent in the peace-making process.

What would your administration do?

First of all, do you agree that the United States is absent? Maybe you don't.

But what would your administration do to try to resolve that conflict?

EDWARDS: Well, first of all, I do agree that we've been largely absent, not entirely absent, but largely absent from the peace-making process over the last four years.

And let me just say a couple of preliminary things and then talk about where we are now.

First, the Israeli people not only have the right to defend themselves, they should defend themselves. They have an obligation to defend themselves.

I mean, if I can, just for a moment, tell you a personal story. I was in Jerusalem a couple of years ago, actually three years ago, in August of 2001, staying at the King David Hotel.

We left in the morning, headed to the airport to leave, and later in the day I found out that that same day, not far from where we were staying, the Sbarro Pizzeria was hit by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem. Fifteen people were killed. Six children were killed.

What are the Israeli people supposed to do? How can they continue to watch Israeli children killed by suicide bombers, killed by terrorists?

They have not only the right to the obligation to defend themselves.

Now, we know that the prime minister has made a decision, an historic decision, to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza. It's important for America to participate in helping with that process.

Now, if Gaza's being used as a platform for attacking the Israeli people, that has to be stopped. And Israel has a right to defend itself. They don't have a partner for peace right now. They certainly don't have a partner in Arafat, and they need a legitimate partner for peace.

And I might add, it is very important for America to crack down on the Saudis who have not had a public prosecution for financing terrorism since 9/11.

And it's important for America to confront the situation in Iran, because Iran is an enormous threat to Israel and to the Israeli people.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President, 90 seconds.

CHENEY: Gwen, I want to go back to the last comment, and then I'll come back to Israel-Palestine.

The reason they keep trying to attack Halliburton is because they want to obscure their own record.

And Senator, frankly, you have a record in the Senate that's not very distinguished. You've missed 33 out of 36 meetings in the Judiciary Committee, almost 70 percent of the meetings of the Intelligence Committee.

You've missed a lot of key votes: on tax policy, on energy, on Medicare reform.

Your hometown newspaper has taken to calling you "Senator Gone." You've got one of the worst attendance records in the United States Senate.

Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the president of Senate, the presiding officer. I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session.

The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.

In respect to Israel and Palestine, Gwen, the suicide bombers, in part, were generated by Saddam Hussein, who paid $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers.

I personally think one of the reasons that we don't have as many suicide attacks today in Israel as we've had in the past is because Saddam is no longer in business.

We've been strong supporters of Israel. The president stepped forward and put in place a policy basically that said we will support the establishment of two states. First president ever to say we'll establish and support a Palestinian state nextdoor to Israelis.

But first, there has to be an interlocutor you can trust and deal with. And we won't have that, we don't have it now, in a Yasser Arafat. There has to be reform of the Palestinian system.

IFILL: Senator Edwards, it's your turn to use 30 seconds for a complicated response...

EDWARDS: That was a complete distortion of my record. I know that won't come as a shock.

The vice president, I'm surprised to hear him talk about records. When he was one of 435 members of the United States House, he was one of 10 to vote against Head Start, one of four to vote against banning plastic weapons that can pass through metal detectors.

He voted against the Department of Education. He voted against funding for Meals on Wheels for seniors. He voted against a holiday for Martin Luther King. He voted against a resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela in South Africa.

It's amazing to hear him criticize either my record or John Kerry's.

IFILL: Thirty seconds.

CHENEY: Oh, I think his record speaks for itself. And frankly, it's not very distinguished.

IFILL: In that case, we'll move on to domestic matters. And this question, I believe, goes to Senator -- to Vice President Cheney.

The Census Bureau...

CHENEY: I think it goes to Senator Edwards.

IFILL: It goes to the Senator. I see you. I just asked him about Israel, even though we didn't actually talk about it much.

CHENEY: I concede the point.

(LAUGHTER)

EDWARDS: No, I did talk about it, Israel. He's the one who didn't talk about it.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President, the Census Bureau ranked Cleveland as the biggest poor city in the country, 31 percent jobless rate.

You two gentlemen are pretty well off. You did well for yourselves in the private sector. What can you tell the people of Cleveland, or people of cities like Cleveland, that your administration will do to better their lives?

CHENEY: Well, Gwen, there are several things that I think need to be done and are being done.

We've, of course, been through a difficult recession, and then the aftermath of 9/11, where we lost over a million jobs after that attack.

But we think the key is to address some basic, fundamental issues that the president's already working on.

I think probably the most successful thing we can do with respect to ending poverty is to get people jobs. There's no better antidote to poverty than a good, well-paying job that allows somebody to take care of their own family.

To do that, we have to make America the best place in the world to do business. And that means we've got to deal effectively with tax policy. We've got to reduce the litigation costs that are built into our society. We've got to provide the adequate medical care and make certain that we can, in fact, create the opportunities that are vital to that process.

I'd zero in, in particular, on education. I think the most important thing we can do is have a first-class public school system. I'm a product of public schools.

And the president, his first legislative priority was the No Child Left Behind Act. It was the first piece of legislation we introduced.

We got it passed that first summer on a bipartisan basis. We even had Ted Kennedy on board for the effort.

And it does several things. It establishes high standards. It, at the same time, sets up a system of testing with respect to our school system, so we can establish accountability to parents and make certain that they understand how well their students are doing. And they have the opportunity to move students out of poorly performing schools to good schools.

It strikes me that that is absolutely the heart of what needs to be done from the standpoint of education.

It's also important, as we go forward in the next term, we want to be able to take what we've done for elementary education and move it into the secondary education.

It's working. We've seen reports now of a reduction in the achievement gap between majority students and minority students. We're making significant progress.

IFILL: Senator Edwards, you have 90 seconds.

EDWARDS: Gwen, your question was about jobs?

IFILL: It was about jobs, and it was about poverty.

EDWARDS: I thought it was about jobs and poverty. I hope we get a chance to talk about education, but that's what the vice president talked about.

Here's what's happened: In the time that they have been in office, in the last four years, 1.6 million private sector jobs have been lost, 2.7 million manufacturing jobs have been lost. And it's had real consequences in places like Cleveland.

Cleveland is a wonderful, distinguished city that's done a lot of great things, but it has the highest poverty rate in the country. One out of almost two children in Cleveland are now living in poverty.

During the time that the vice president and the president have been in office, 4 million more Americans have fallen into poverty.

During the time that the vice president and the president have been in office, 4 million more Americans have fallen into poverty.

And what the most striking and startling thing is, they are the first presidency in 70 years -- and I'm talking Democrats, Republican, presidents who led us through World War, through the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Cold War -- every one of them created jobs until this president.

We have to do better. We have a plan. We're going to get rid of -- by the way, they're for outsourcing jobs. I want to make sure people hear that, the fundamental difference with us. The administration says over and over that the outsourcing of millions of American jobs is good. We're against it.

We want to get rid of tax cuts for companies sending jobs overseas. We want to balance this budget, get back to fiscal responsibility. And we want to invest in the creative, innovative jobs of the future.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President?

CHENEY: Gwen, we've got 111 million American taxpayers that have benefited from our income tax cuts.

We've got 33 million students who've benefited from No Child Left Behind.

We've got 40 million seniors who benefited from the reform of the Medicare system. The Democrats promised prescription drug benefits. For years they've run on that platform. They never got it done. The president got it done.

We also dropped 5 million people totally off the federal income tax rolls, so they no longer have to pay any federal income tax at all.

So the story, I think, is a good one.

And the data he's using is old data. It's from 2003. It doesn't include any of the gains that we've made in the last years. We've added 1.7 million jobs to the economy.

IFILL: Thirty seconds.

EDWARDS: The vice president and president like to talk about their experience on the campaign trail. Millions of people have lost their jobs. Millions have fallen into poverty. Family incomes are down, while the cost of everything is going up.

Medical costs are up the highest they've ever been over the last four years. We have this mess in Iraq.

Mr. Vice President, I don't think the country can take four more years of this kind of experience.

IFILL: This next question goes to you, Senator Edwards.

Senator Kerry said in a recent interview that he absolutely will not raise taxes on anyone under -- who earns under $200,000 a year. How can he guarantee that and also cut the deficit in half, as he's promised?

EDWARDS: Because we will do what they've not done. You know, if you look at what's happened over the last four years, we have gone from a $5 trillion projected surplus when George Bush took office to a $3 trillion projected deficit.

They promised they were going to put $2 trillion of the surplus aside from Social Security. Not done.

Not only that, it's the biggest fiscal turnaround in American history.

And there's no end in sight. The Washington Post just reported they have several trillion dollars of additional tax cuts and spending, no suggestion of what they're going to do about it.

John Kerry and I believe we have a moral responsibility not to leave trillions of debt to our children and our grandchildren.

So here's what we're going to do, to answer you question.

To pay for the things that we believe need to be done -- and I hope to get the chance to talk about health care and also about education, because we have plans on both of those subjects -- what we're going to do is roll back tax cuts.

And I want everyone to hear this, because there have been exaggerations made on the campaign trail: Roll back tax cuts for people who make over $200,000 a year; we will do that.

We want to keep the tax cuts that are in place for people who make less than $200,000 a year and give additional tax cuts to those middle-class families, tax cuts for health care, tax cuts to help families pay for their college tuition, tax cuts for child care.

These families are struggling and hurting, and they need more tax relief, not less tax relief.

But to help get us back on the path to a balanced budget, we also want to get rid of some of the bureaucratic spending in Washington.

One of the amazing things that's happened is they've actually layered on more supervisory people, people at the supervisory level, in this government.

We also want to close some corporate loopholes.

Now, I want to be honest with people. We can't eliminate this deficit. People have heard that over and over and over in four years. We cannot do it. We're in too deep a hole.

But we can cut the deficit in half. And if we move, we can move this country back on a path to fiscal responsibility.

IFILL: You have 90 seconds, Mr. Vice President.

CHENEY: Gwen, the Kerry record on taxes is one basically of voting for a large number of tax increases -- 98 times in the United States Senate.

There's a fundamental philosophical difference here between the president and myself, who believe that we ought to let the American people keep more of what they earn and we ought to empower them to have more control over their own lives -- I think the Kerry-Edwards approach basically is to raise taxes and to give government more control over the lives of individual citizens.

We think that's the wrong way to go. There's a fundamental difference of opinion here.

They talk about the top bracket and going after only those people in the top bracket.

Well, the fact of the matter is a great many of our small businesses pay taxes under the personal income taxes rather than the corporate rate. And about 900,000 small businesses will be hit if you do, in fact, do what they want to do with the top bracket.

That's not smart because seven out of 10 new jobs in America are created by small businesses.

You do not want to tax them. It's a bad idea to increase the burden on those folks.

The senator himself said, during the course of the primaries, that the Kerry plan would drive us deeper into deficit. Those were the senator's word about his running-mate.

The fact of the matter is, the president and I will go forward to make the tax cuts permanent. That's good policy. That's what we ought to do. But with fiscal restraint, we'll also drive the deficit down 50 percent in the course of the next five years.

IFILL: Thirty seconds, Senator Edwards.

EDWARDS: We are committed to cutting back anything in our programs that need to be cut back to get us back on a path to fiscal responsibility.

John Kerry, Mr. Vice President, has voted or co-sponsored over 600 times tax cuts for the American people -- over 600 times.

And there is a philosophical difference between us and them.

We are for more tax cuts for the middle class than they're for, have been for the last four years. But we are not for more tax cuts for multimillionaires. They are.

And it is a fundamental difference in what we think needs to be done in this country.

IFILL: You have 30 seconds, Mr. Vice President.

CHENEY: Yesterday, the president signed an extension of middle- class tax cuts, the 10 percent bracket, the marriage penalty relief and the increase in the child tax credit.

Senators Kerry and Edwards weren't even there to vote for it when it came to final passage.

IFILL: The next question goes to you, Mr. Vice President.

I want to read something you said four years ago at this very setting: "Freedom means freedom for everybody." You said it again recently when you were asked about legalizing same-sex unions. And you used your family's experience as a context for your remarks.

Can you describe then your administration's support for a constitutional ban on same-sex unions?

CHENEY: Gwen, you're right, four years ago in this debate, the subject came up. And I said then and I believe today that freedom does mean freedom for everybody. People ought to be free to choose any arrangement they want. It's really no one else's business.

That's a separate question from the issue of whether or not government should sanction or approve or give some sort of authorization, if you will, to these relationships.

Traditionally, that's been an issue for the states. States have regulated marriage, if you will. That would be my preference.

In effect, what's happened is that in recent months, especially in Massachusetts, but also in California, but in Massachusetts we had the Massachusetts Supreme Court direct the state of -- the legislature of Massachusetts to modify their constitution to allow gay marriage.

And the fact is that the president felt that it was important to make it clear that that's the wrong way to go, as far as he's concerned.

Now, he sets the policy for this administration, and I support the president.

IFILL: Senator Edwards, 90 seconds.

EDWARDS: Yes. Let me say first, on an issue that the vice president said in his last answer before we got to this question, talking about tax policy, the country needs to know that under what they have put in place and want to put in place, a millionaire sitting by their swimming pool, collecting their statements to see how much money they're making, make their money from dividends, pays a lower tax rate than the men and women who are receiving paychecks for serving on the ground in Iraq.

Now, they may think that's right. John Kerry and I do not.

We don't just value wealth, which they do. We value work in this country. And it is a fundamental value difference between them and us.

Now, as to this question, let me say first that I think the vice president and his wife love their daughter. I think they love her very much. And you can't have anything but respect for the fact that they're willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter, the fact that they embrace her. It's a wonderful thing. And there are millions of parents like that who love their children, who want their children to be happy.

And I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, and so does John Kerry.

I also believe that there should be partnership benefits for gay and lesbian couples in long-term, committed relationships.

But we should not use the Constitution to divide this country.

No state for the last 200 years has ever had to recognize another state's marriage.

This is using the Constitution as a political tool, and it's wrong.

IFILL: New question, but same subject.

As the vice president mentioned, John Kerry comes from the state of Massachusetts, which has taken as big a step as any state in the union to legalize gay marriage. Yet both you and Senator Kerry say you oppose it.

Are you trying to have it both ways?

EDWARDS: No. I think we've both said the same thing all along.

We both believe that -- and this goes onto the end of what I just talked about -- we both believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.

But we also believe that gay and lesbians and gay and lesbian couples, those who have been in long-term relationships, deserve to be treated respectfully, they deserve to have benefits.

For example, a gay couple now has a very difficult time, one, visiting the other when they're in the hospital, or, for example, if, heaven forbid, one of them were to pass away, they have trouble even arranging the funeral.

I mean, those are not the kind of things that John Kerry and I believe in. I suspect the vice president himself does not believe in that.

But we don't -- we do believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

And I want to go back, if I can, to the question you just asked, which is this constitutional amendment.

I want to make sure people understand that the president is proposing a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage that is completely unnecessary.

Under the law of this country for the last 200 years, no state has been required to recognize another state's marriage.

Let me just be simple about this. My state of North Carolina would not be required to recognize a marriage from Massachusetts, which you just asked about.

There is absolutely no purpose in the law and in reality for this amendment. It's nothing but a political tool. And it's being used in an effort to divide this country on an issue that we should not be dividing America on.

We ought to be talking about issues like health care and jobs and what's happening in Iraq, not using an issue to divide this country in a way that's solely for political purposes. It's wrong.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President, you have 90 seconds.

CHENEY: Well, Gwen, let me simply thank the senator for the kind words he said about my family and our daughter.

I appreciate that very much.

IFILL: That's it?

CHENEY: That's it.

IFILL: OK, then we'll move on to the next question.

This one is for you, Mr. Vice President. President Bush has derided in John Kerry for putting a trial lawyer on the ticket. You yourself have said that lawsuits are partly to blame for higher medical costs. Are you willing to say that John Edwards, sitting here, has been part of the problem?

(LAUGHTER)

CHENEY: Well, Gwen...

IFILL: Mr. Vice President?

(LAUGHTER)

CHENEY: First of all, I'm not familiar with his cases. My concern is specifically with what's happened to our medical care system because of rising malpractice insurance rates, because we failed to adequately reform our medical liability structure.

I was in New Mexico the other day and met with a group of OB/GYN docs.

And they were deeply concerned because they were fearful that there'd be another increase in malpractice insurance rates as a result of what they believe are frivolous lawsuits and that that would put them out of business.

And one doctor indicated that her rates have gone up so much that she's now to the point where she is screening patients. She won't take high-risk patients anymore because of the danger that that will generate a lawsuit, and a lawsuit will put her out of business.

This has had a devastating impact in a lot of communities. My home state of Wyoming, we've lost the top insurer of malpractice insurance in the state. The rates for a general practitioner have gone from $40,000 a year to $100,000 a year for an insurance policy.

We think this has a devastating impact on the quality of health care.

As I say, high risk patients don't get covered anymore. We've lost one out of eleven OB/GYN practitioners in the country. We think it can be fixed, needs to be fixed.

Now, specifically, what we need to do is cap non-economic damages, and we also think you need to limit the awards that the trial attorneys take out of all of this. Over 50 percent of the settlements go to the attorneys and for administrating overhead.

We passed medical liability reform through the House of Representatives. It's been blocked in the Senate. Senator Kerry's voted 10 times against medical liability reform, and I don't believe Senator Edwards supports it, either, not the kind that would be meaningful.

IFILL: Senator Edwards?

EDWARDS: Yes. Well let me say, first of all, I'm proud of the work I did on behalf of kids and families against big insurance companies, big drug companies and big HMOs.

We do have too many lawsuits. And the reality is there's something that we can do about it.

John Kerry and I have a plan to do something about it. We want to put more responsibility on the lawyers to require, before a case, malpractice, which the vice president just spoke about, have the case reviewed by independent experts to determine if the case is serious and meritorious before it can be filed; hold the lawyers responsible for that, certify that and hold the lawyer financially responsible if they don't do it; have a three-strikes-and-you're-out rule so that a lawyer who files three of these cases without meeting this requirement loses their right to file these cases.

That way we keep the cases out of the system that don't belong in the system. They talk about frivolous cases. We believe cases that don't belong in the system should never be in the system.

But we don't believe that we should take away the right of people like Valerie Lakey, who was the young girl who I represented, five years old, severely injured for life, on a defective swimming pool drain cover.

It turns out the company knew of 12 other children who had either been killed or severely injured by the same problem. They hid it. They didn't tell anybody. They could have fixed it with a 2-cent screw. That's wrong.

John Kerry and I are always going to stand with the Valerie Lakeys of the world, and not with the insurance companies.

IFILL: Senator Edwards, new question to you, same topic. Do you feel personally attacked when Vice President Cheney talks about liability reform and tort reform and the president talks about having a trial lawyer on the ticket?

EDWARDS: Am I personally attacked?

I think the truth is that what they're doing is talking about an issue that really doesn't have a great deal to do with what's happening with medical policy in this country, which I think is a very serious issue.

And I would be the first to say that what the vice president described a few minutes ago, problems with malpractice premiums, that's true, it's real. It's very real. What doctors talk about is very serious.

And they're getting squeezed from both sides. I mean, because, they have trouble getting reimbursed, first of all, for the care that they provide, you know, from the government or from health-care companies. And, on the flip side, their malpractice costs are going up.

That's very real, which is why we have proposed a plan to keep cases out of the system that don't belong there.

But it's very important to put this in context. Because, in context, everything they're proposing, according to the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office, amounts to about half of 1 percent of health-care costs in this country -- half of 1 percent.

We have double-digit inflation in health care costs. We've seen the largest rise in medical costs in the last four years in the country's history: $3,500 nationally. And nobody who's watching this debate needs me to explain this to them. They know it.

Medicare premiums are up 17 percent on their watch. Again, largest increase in Medicare premiums in the history of Medicare.

We think we have a plan to keep cases that don't belong in the system out, but we also do what they haven't done.

Five million Americans have lost their health care coverage. Medical costs are skyrocketing. We have a serious health care plan to bring down costs for everybody, to cover millions more Americans and to actually stand up to drug companies and insurance companies which this administration has been unwilling to do.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President?

CHENEY: Gwen, we think lawsuit abuse is a serious problem in this country. We think we badly need tort reform.

I was in Minnesota the other day, where I visited an aircraft manufacturing plant. It's a great success story. This is a company that started 20 years ago with nothing. Today they're the second- leading producer of piston-driven aircraft in the country.

He told me that if it weren't for the increased cost of his liability insurance, in this case product liability, he could hire 200 more people in his factory. We've built into the system enormous costs as a result of our practice with respect to litigation. We have to find ways to get a handle on it.

He mentioned Medicare up 17 percent, somehow that that was something we caused. No. The 17 percent increase in Medicare premiums was the direct result of a statute adopted in 1997. John Kerry voted for it.

It establishes the formula for Part B of Medicare that says, in effect, it has to cover 25 percent of the cost of the program. And the reason the money had to go into the trust fund was to make certain that we could cover those eligible for benefits.

While you were in private practice in law and as a senator, you had the advantage of a special tax loophole, Subchapter S corporation, which you set up so you could avoid paying $600,000 in Medicare taxes that would have gone into the fund.

And it's those kinds of loopholes that necessitate a premium increase under the law that was enacted in 1997, supported by John Kerry.

IFILL: You have 30 seconds to respond.

EDWARDS: Well, first of all, I have paid all the taxes that I owe.

When the vice president was CEO of Halliburton, they took advantage of every offshore loophole available. They had multiple offshore companies that were avoiding taxes.

Those are the kind of things that ought to be closed. They ought to be closed. They ought to be closed for anybody. They ought to be closed whether they're personal, and they ought to be closed whether they apply to a corporation.

But the reality is health care costs are going up every day for the American people, and I hope we're going to get a chance to talk more about health care.

IFILL: Thirty seconds, Mr. Vice President.

CHENEY: We've done a lot to reduce the cost of health care. The Medicare drug benefit that we'll be providing to seniors beginning in '06 will provide upwards to $1,300 a year to help them buy prescription drugs.

The drug savings -- drug discount card that's now available saves an estimated 15 percent to 30 percent off the cost of prescription drugs for senior citizens.

So we're moving in as many areas as we can to make certain we hold down and reduce the health care costs.

IFILL: I will talk to you about health care, Mr. Vice President. You have two minutes. But in particular, I want to talk to you about AIDS, and not about AIDS in China or Africa, but AIDS right here in this country, where black women between the ages of 25 and 44 are 13 times more likely to die of the disease than their counterparts.

What should the government's role be in helping to end the growth of this epidemic?

CHENEY: Well, this is a great tragedy, Gwen, when you think about the enormous cost here in the United States and around the world of the AIDS epidemic -- pandemic, really. Millions of lives lost, millions more infected and facing a very bleak future.

In some parts of the world, we've got the entire, sort of, productive generation has been eliminated as a result of AIDS, all except for old folks and kids -- nobody to do the basic work that runs an economy.

The president has been deeply concerned about it. He has moved and proposed and gotten through the Congress authorization for $15 billion to help in the international effort, to be targeted in those places where we need to do everything we can, through a combination of education as well as providing the kinds of medicines that will help people control the infection.

Here in the United States, we've made significant progress. I have not heard those numbers with respect to African- American women. I was not aware that it was -- that they're in epidemic there, because we have made progress in terms of the overall rate of AIDS infection, and I think primarily through a combination of education and public awareness as well as the development, as a result of research, of drugs that allow people to live longer lives even though they are infected -- obviously we need to do more of that.

IFILL: Senator Edwards, you have 90 seconds.

EDWARDS: Well, first, with respect to what's happening in Africa and Russia and in other places around the world, the vice president spoke about the $15 billion for AIDS. John Kerry and I believe that needs to be doubled.

And I might add, on the first year of their commitment, they came up significantly short of what they had promised.

And we probably won't get a chance to talk about Africa. Let me just say a couple of things.

The AIDS epidemic in Africa, which is killing millions and millions of people and is a frightening thing not just for the people of Africa but also for the rest of the world, that, combined with the genocide that we're now seeing in Sudan, are two huge moral issues for the United States of America, which John Kerry spoke about eloquently last Thursday night.

Here at home we need to do much more. And the vice president spoke about doing research, making sure we have the drugs available, making sure that we do everything possible to have prevention. But it's a bigger question than that.

You know, we have 5 million Americans who've lost their health care coverage in the last four years; 45 million Americans without health care coverage. We have children who don't have health care coverage.

If kids and adults don't have access to preventative care, if they're not getting the health care that they need day after day after day, the possibility of not only developing AIDS and having a problem -- having a problem -- a life-threatening problem, but the problem of developing other life-threatening diseases is there every day of their lives.

IFILL: OK, we'll move on.

This goes to you, Senator Edwards, and you have two minutes.

Ten men and women have been nominees of their parties since 1976 to be vice president. Out of those ten, you have the least governmental experience of any of them.

What qualifies you to be a heartbeat away?

EDWARDS: The American people want in their president and in their vice president basically three things: They want to know that their president and their vice president will keep them safe. They want to know that they have good judgment. And they want to know that you'll tell them the truth.

John Kerry and I will tell the American people the truth.

During the time that I have served on the Intelligence Committee in the Senate, traveling to some of the places we've talked about tonight -- Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East, Turkey -- meeting with the leaders of NATO, I have a very clear idea of what has to be done to keep this country safe.

The threats we face: terrorism, killing terrorists and stopping them before they can do damage to us, making sure that we stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

I agree with John Kerry from Thursday night, that the danger of nuclear weapons getting in the hands of terrorists is one of the greatest threats that America faces.

But the one thing that we know from this administration is -- and I -- first of all, I don't claim to have the long political resume that Vice President Cheney has. That's just the truth, and the American people know that and deserve to know it. But what we know from this administration is that a long resume does not equal good judgment.

Here are the judgments I would make: My first priority would be to keep this country safe. I would find terrorists where they are and stop them and kill them before they do harm to us.

We would stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

And we would also strengthen this military, which means providing the equipment and training that they need.

We want to raise the active-duty forces by 40,000, double the special forces so we can find terrorists where they are, and provide the kind of support for families -- health care, housing -- that they deserve while their loved ones are serving and protecting us.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President, you have 90 seconds.

CHENEY: You want me to answer a question about his qualifications?

IFILL: That was the question.

CHENEY: I see.

Well, I think the important thing in picking a vice president probably varies from president to president. Different presidents approach it in different ways.

When George Bush asked me to sign on, it obviously wasn't because he was worried about carrying Wyoming. We got 70 percent of the vote in Wyoming, although those three electoral votes turned out to be pretty important last time around.

What he said he wanted me to do was to sign on because of my experience to be a member of the team, to help him govern, and that's exactly the way he's used me.

And I think from the perspective of the nation, it's worked in our relationship, in this administration. I think it's worked in part because I made it clear that I don't have any further political aspirations myself. And I think that's been an advantage.

I think it allows the president to know that my only agenda is his agenda. I'm not worried about what some precinct committeemen in Iowa were thinking of me with respect to the next round of caucuses of 2008.

It's a very significant responsibility when you consider that at a moment's notice you may have to take over as president of the United States and make all of those decisions. It's happened several times in our history.

And I think that probably is the most important consideration in picking a vice president, somebody who could take over.

IFILL: You have 30 seconds, if you'd like to respond to that.

EDWARDS: I think the most important thing I've learned from this process is what I now know about John Kerry. I knew him before. I know him better now.

He's the one candidate who's led troops in battle. He was a prosecutor, putting people behind bars to protect neighborhoods from crime. He fought for 100,000 cops on the street, and went with John McCain to Vietnam to find out what happened to our POWs.

And the American people saw for themselves on Thursday night the strength, resolve, and backbone that I, myself, have seen in John Kerry.

He is ready to be commander in chief.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President, you have 30 seconds to respond.

CHENEY: Well, I clearly believe that George W. Bush would be a better commander in chief. He's already done it for four years.

And he's demonstrated, without question, the conviction, the vision, the determination to win this war against terror. He understands it's a global conflict that reaches from the United States all the way around the globe to Jakarta.

And those very special qualities are vital in a commander in chief. And I think the president has them, and I'm not at all convinced his opponent does.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President, picking up on that, you both just sang the praises of the tops of your ticket.

Without mentioning them by name at all, explain to us why you are different from your opponent, starting with you, Mr. Vice President.

CHENEY: Why I am different from John Edwards. Well, in some respects, I think, probably there are more similarities than there are differences in our personal story.

I don't talk about myself very much, but I've heard Senator Edwards, and as I listen to him, I find some similarities.

I come from relatively modest circumstances. My grandfather never even went to high school. I'm the first in my family to graduate from college.

I carried a ticket in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for six years. I've been laid off, been hospitalized without health insurance. So I have some idea of the problems that people encounter.

So I think the personal stories are, in some respects, surprisingly similar.

With respect to how we've spent our careers, I obviously made a choice for public service. And I've been at it for a good long time now, except for those periods when we lost elections. And that goes with the turf, as well, too.

I'm absolutely convinced that the threat we face now, the idea of a terrorist in the middle of one of our cities with a nuclear weapon, is very real and that we have to use extraordinary measures to deal with it.

I feel very strongly that the significance of 9/11 cannot be underestimated. It forces us to think in new ways about strategy, about national security, about how we structure our forces and about how we use U.S. military power.

Some people say we should wait until we are attacked before we use force. I would argue we've already been attacked. We lost more people on 9/11 than we lost at Pearl Harbor. And I'm a very strong advocate of a very aggressive policy of going after the terrorists and those who support terror.

IFILL: Senator Edwards, you have 90 seconds.

EDWARDS: Mr. Vice President, we were attacked. But we weren't attacked by Saddam Hussein. And one thing that John Kerry and I would agree with you about is that it is...

IFILL: You just used John Kerry's name.

EDWARDS: Oh, I'm sorry. I broke the rule.

One thing that we agree about is the need to be offensive in going after terrorists.

The reality is that the best defense is a good offense, which means leading -- America returning to its proud tradition of the last 75 years, of once again leading strong coalitions so we can get at these terrorist cells where they are, before they can do damage to us and to the American people.

John Kerry made clear on Thursday night that -- I'm sorry, I broke the rules. We made clear -- we made clear on Thursday night that we will do that, and we will do it aggressively.

But there are things that need to be done to keep this country safe that have not yet been done.

For example, three years after 9/11, we find out that the administration still does not have a unified terrorist watch list. It's amazing. Three years. What are we waiting for? You know, we still don't have one list that everyone can work off of to see if terrorists are entering this country.

We're screening our passengers going onto airplanes, but we don't screen the cargo.

There are so many things that could be done to keep this country safe.

You have to be strong, and you have to be aggressive. But we also have to be smart. And there are things that have not been done that need to be done to keep the American people safe.

IFILL: Would you like to respond? Thirty seconds.

CHENEY: No.

IFILL: OK, we'll move on. This goes to Senator Edwards.

Flip-flopping has become a recurring theme in this campaign, you may have noticed.

Senator Kerry changed his mind about whether to vote to authorize the president to go to war. President Bush changed his mind about whether a homeland security department was a good idea or a 9/11 Commission was a good idea.

What's wrong with a little flip-flop every now and then?

EDWARDS: Well, first of all, let me say that John Kerry has -- I can use his name now?

IFILL: Yes.

EDWARDS: OK. John Kerry has been, as have I, been completely consistent about Iraq. We've made very clear from the beginning -- and not an afterthought; we said it at the time -- that we had to confront Saddam Hussein and that we had to have a coalition and a plan to be successful.

And the vice president didn't say much about it in your earlier question, but Paul Bremer has now made clear that they didn't have enough troops and they didn't have a plan.

And the American people are seeing the results of that every single day, in spite of the proud and courageous service of our men and women in uniform.

Now, flip-flops: They should know something about flip-flops. They've seen a lot of it during their administration.

They were first against the 9/11 Commission; then they were for it. They were for a department of homeland security -- I mean, they were against the Department of Homeland Security; then they were for it.

They said they were going to put $2 trillion of the surplus when they came into office aside to protect Social Security; then they changed their minds. They said that they supported the troops; and then while our troops were on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, they went to the Congress and lobbied to have their combat pay cut.

They said that they were going to do something about health care in this country. And they've done something: They've made it worse.

They said that they were going to fund their No Child Left Behind; $27 billion short today.

Over and over, this administration has said one thing and done another.

This president said -- I listened to him the other night at his 2000 debate saying: I'm for a national patients bill of rights.

I know something about this. John McCain and Senator Kennedy and I wrote it, got it passed in the Senate. We don't have a patients bill of rights because of one man today, the president of the United States. They've gone back and forth.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President?

CHENEY: Well, Gwen, I can think of a lot of words to describe Senator Kerry's position on Iraq; "consistent" is not one of them.

I think if you look at the record from voting for sending the troops then voting against the resources they needed when they got there, then saying I actually voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it, saying in response to a question knowing everything I know now, yes, I would have cast exactly the same vote and then shortly after that saying wrong war, wrong place, wrong time, consistency doesn't come to mind as I consider that record.

The question of troops is an interesting and important one. We have looked to our commanders on the ground in Iraq for guidance on what they think they need. If they need more troops, they'll ask us.

But the key here is not to try to solve the problems in Iraq by putting in more American troops. The key is to get the Iraqis to take on the responsibility for their own security. That's exactly what we're doing.

If you put American troops in there in larger number and don't get the Iraqis into the fight, you'll postpone the day when you can in fact bring our boys home. It's vital that we deal with any need for additional troops by putting Iraqis into the effort.

Forty-nine percent increase in funding for elementary and secondary education under No Child Left Behind; that's a lot of money even by Massachusetts' standards.

IFILL: You have 30 seconds if you choose.

EDWARDS: Yes, but they didn't fund the mandates that they put on the schools all over this country. That's the reason 800 teachers -- one of the reasons -- 800 teachers have been laid off, right here in Cleveland. One-third of our public schools are failing under this administration. Half of African-Americans are dropping out of high school. Half of Hispanic-American are dropping out of high school.

John and I have -- and I don't have the time now -- but we have a clear plan to improve our public schools that starts with getting our best teachers into the schools where we need them the most by creating incentives for them to go there.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President?

CHENEY: Gwen, No Child Left Behind, they were for it; now they're against it. They voted for it; now they're opposed to it.

We are making significant progress there. We are closing the achievement gap. The results coming in from a number of studies show, without question, that on math and reading, that in fact our minority students, our Hispanic and African-American students are doing better, and that gap between them and the majority population is, in fact, closing.

So we are doing exactly the right thing. They're the ones who have been for the Patriot Act and against it, for No Child Left Behind and then against it.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President, our final -- I'm sorry, you have 30 seconds, Senator Edwards.

EDWARDS: Are you sure -- yes, he started. Yes, 30 seconds, please, yes.

We are for accountability, and we are for high standards. John and I voted for No Child Left Behind because we thought that accountability and standards were the right thing to do.

But they make -- did you figure out you were wrong?

IFILL: I did figure out I was wrong.

EDWARDS: Well, in fairness, if you feel like you need to go to him, we'll -- I'll stop.

IFILL: Well, I do, because we're actually on the final question. I apologize for giving you an extra 15 seconds there. I go now to Vice President Cheney.

IFILL: Whichever one of you is elected in November -- you mentioned those three electoral votes in Wyoming and how critical they've turned out to be.

But what they're a sign of also is that you're going to inherit a very deeply divided electorate, economically, politically, you name it.

How will you set out, Mr. Vice President, in a way that you weren't able to in these past four years, to bridge that divide?

CHENEY: Well, I must say it's one of the disappointments of the last four years, is that we've not been able to do what the president did in Texas, for example, when he was able to reach across the aisle and bring Democrats along on major issues of the day.

We had some success early on, I think, in No Child Left Behind, when we, in fact, had broad, bipartisan support.

We had a lot of support for the Patriot Act, when we passed that on a bipartisan basis. Now we're seeing objection to that by the other side. All I know is to continue to try to work it.

It's a disappointment, in a sense, that I remember from my earlier service when things worked much differently, when, in fact, some of my best friends in the Congress were people I worked with, like Tom Foley, who was a majority leader and later speaker of the House. One of my strongest allies in Congress when I secretary of defense was Jack Murtha, a Democrat who is chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.

We used to be able to do more together on a bipartisan basis than seems possible these days. I'm not sure exactly why. I think, in part, it may be the change in the majority-minority status in the Senate has been difficult for both sides to adjust to.

And the Senate, of course, has been very evenly divided, 50-50, then 51-49, then 49-51 the other way.

We'll keep working at it.

I think it's important for us to try. I believe that it is essential for us to do everything we can to garner as much support from the other side of the aisle as possible. We've had support -- we had our keynote address at our convention was delivered by Zell Miller. So there are some Democrats who agree with our approach.

And hopefully in a second term, we'll see an improvement along those lines.

IFILL: Senator, there's 90 seconds.

EDWARDS: Thank you.

The president said that he would unite this country, that he was a uniter, not a divider.

Have you ever seen America more divided? Have you ever seen Washington more divided?

The reality is it is not an accident. It's the direct result of the choices they've made and their efforts that have created division in America. We can do better than that in this country.

Now I want to go back to the whole issue of health care, because we touched it, but I think the American people deserve to know what we would do different.

I mean, 5 million people losing their health care -- everyone who's watching this knows health insurance premiums are through the roof.

We need to talk about what we will do that they haven't done.

First, we're going to make the same health care that's available to members of Congress available to all Americans. We're going to cover all kids.

Not only that, we're going to bring down costs by pooling the catastrophic costs so we bring down premiums.

And we're going to give tax breaks directly to families, save them up to $1,000 a year, and to businesses -- the vice president talked about that a few minutes ago -- so that they can provide health care to their employees.

And we're also going to finally do something about the cost of prescription drugs.

They've blocked allowing prescription drugs into this country from Canada. We're going to allow it.

They would not allow the government to use its negotiating power to get discounts for seniors. We're going to allow it.

We're also going to stand up to the drug companies and do something about these drug company ads on television which are out of control.

IFILL: You have 30 seconds to respond to that, Mr. Vice President.

CHENEY: Well, Gwen -- I'm sorry, it's hard to know where to start.

The fact of the matter is, the most important and significant change in health care in the last several years was the Medicare reform bill this year. It's the most sweeping change in 40 years.

Medicare used to pay for heart bypass surgery but didn't pay for the prescription drugs that might allow you to avoid it.

The fact is that when that came up, Senator Kerry and Senator Edwards voted against it. It'll provide prescription drug benefits to 40 million senior citizens. It's a very, very significant piece of legislation.

IFILL: Thirty seconds.

EDWARDS: They had a choice on allowing prescription drugs into this country from Canada, of being with the American people or with the drug companies. They were with the drug companies.

They had a choice on negotiating discounts in the Medicare prescription drug bill of being with the American people or with the drug companies. They were with the drug companies.

They had a choice on the patients' bill of rights, allowing people to make their own health care decisions and not having insurance companies make them, be with the American people, be with the big insurance companies.

They're with the insurance companies.

John Kerry and I will always fight for the American people.

IFILL: As previously agreed, we'll go to closing statements now, two minutes each.

Coin toss, Senator Edwards, you begin.

EDWARDS: Thank you.

Thank you, Gwen.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President, for being here.

You know, when I was young and growing up, I remember coming down the steps into the kitchen, early in the morning, and I would see the glow of the television.

And I'd see my father sitting at a table. He wasn't paying bills, and he wasn't doing paperwork from work.

What he was doing was learning math on television.

Now, he didn't have a college education, but he was doing what he could do to get a better job in the mill where he worked. I was proud of him. I'm still proud of him.

And I was also hopeful, because I knew that I lived in a country where I could get a college education.

Here's the truth: I have grown up in the bright light of America.

But that light is flickering today.

Now, I know that the vice president and the president don't see it, but you do.

You see it when your incomes are going down and the cost of everything -- college tuition, health care -- is going through the roof. You see it when you sit at your table each night and there's an empty chair because a loved one is serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. What they're going to give you is four more years of the same.

John Kerry and I believe that we can do better. We believe in a strong middle-class in this country. That's why we have a plan to create jobs, getting rid of tax cuts for companies outsourcing your jobs; give tax cuts to companies that'll keep jobs here in America.

That's why we have a health care plan. That's why we have a plan to keep you safe and to fix this mess in Iraq.

The truth is that every four years you get to decide. You have the ability to decide where America's going to go. John Kerry and I are asking you to give us the power to fight for you, to fight to keep that dream in America, that I saw as a young man, alive for every parent sitting at that kitchen table.

IFILL: Vice President Cheney?

CHENEY: Gwen, I want to thank you.

It's been a privilege to serve as your vice president these last four years and to work alongside President Bush to put our economy on an upward path.

We've cut taxes, added 1.7 million new jobs in the last year, and we'll continue to provide opportunities for business and for workers.

We won't be happy until every American who wants to work can find a job.

We believe that all Americans ought to have access to available -- to medical care and that they ought to have access to the finest schools in the world.

We'll do everything we can to preserve Social Security and to make certain that it's there for future generations.

I've worked for four presidents and watched two others up close, and I know that there's no such thing as a routine day in the Oval Office.

We saw on 9/11 that the next president -- next decision a president has to make can affect the lives of all of us.

Now we find ourselves in the midst of a conflict unlike any we've ever known, faced with the possibility that terrorists could smuggle a deadly biological agent or a nuclear weapon into the middle of one of our own cities.

That threat -- and the presidential leadership needed to deal with it -- is placing a special responsibility on all of you who will decide on November 2nd who will be our commander in chief.

The only viable option for winning the war on terrorism is the one the president has chosen, to use the power of the United States to aggressively go after the terrorists wherever we find them and also to hold to account states that sponsor terror.

Now that we've captured or killed thousands of al Qaeda and taken down the regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, it's important that we stand up democratically elected governments as the only guarantee that they'll never again revert to terrorism or the production of deadly weapons.

This is the task of our generation. And I know firsthand the strength the president brings to it.

The overall outcome will depend upon the ability of the American people and the strong leadership of the president to meet all the challenges that we'll face in the days and years ahead.

CHENEY: I'm confident we can do it.

IFILL: And with that, we come to the end of tonight's debate.

On behalf of the commission and the candidates, I'd like to extend a special thank you to the students and administration here at Case Western Reserve University.

A reminder: The second presidential debate takes place this coming Friday at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Charles Gibson of ABC News will serve as moderator of that encounter, where the candidates will field questions from an audience.

Then, on October 13th, from Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, Bob Schieffer of CBS News will moderate a debate on domestic issues.

For now, thank you, Vice President Cheney, Senator Edwards.

From Cleveland, Ohio, I'm Gwen Ifill. Thank you, and goodnight.

Oops, Novak Does It Again

2003-10-01T22:03:00.000-07:00

Novak Leaks The Name of the Fake Cover Corporation Valerie Plame and Other CIA Operatives Claimed To Work For

Robert Novak writes:

I had thought I never again would write about retired diplomat Joseph Wilson's CIA-employee wife, but feel constrained to do so now that repercussions of my July 14 column have reached the front pages of major newspapers and led off network news broadcasts. My role and the role of the Bush White House have been distorted and need explanation.

The leak now under Justice Department investigation is described by former Ambassador Wilson and critics of President Bush's Iraq policy as a reprehensible effort to silence them. To protect my own integrity and credibility, I would like to stress three points. First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was not much of a secret.

The current Justice investigation stems from a routine, mandated probe of all CIA leaks, but follows weeks of agitation. Wilson, after telling me in July that he would say nothing about his wife, has made investigation of the leak his life's work -- aided by the relentless Sen. Charles Schumer of New York. These efforts cannot be separated from the massive political assault on President Bush.

This story began July 6 when Wilson went public and identified himself as the retired diplomat who had reported negatively to the CIA in 2002 on alleged Iraq efforts to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger. I was curious why a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton's National Security Council (NSC) was given this assignment. Wilson had become a vocal opponent of President Bush's policies in Iraq after contributing to Al Gore in the last election cycle and John Kerry in this one.

During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue.

At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name. I used it in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission.

How big a secret was it? It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Republican activist Clifford May wrote Monday, in National Review Online, that he had been told of her identity by a non-government source before my column appeared and that it was common knowledge. Her name, Valerie Plame, was no secret either, appearing in Wilson's "Who's Who in America" entry.

A big question is her duties at Langley. I regret that I referred to her in my column as an "operative," a word I have lavished on hack politicians for more than 40 years. While the CIA refuses to publicly define her status, the official contact says she is "covered" -- working under the guise of another agency. However, an unofficial source at the Agency says she has been an analyst, not in covert operations.

The Justice Department investigation was not requested by CIA Director George Tenet. Any leak of classified information is routinely passed by the Agency to Justice, averaging one a week. This investigative request was made in July shortly after the column was published. Reported only last weekend, the request ignited anti-Bush furor.

Clifford May Steps Up To Back Up Novak

2003-09-29T20:46:00.000-07:00

Clifford D. May writes:

It's the top story in the Washington Post this morning as well as in many other media outlets. Who leaked the fact that the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV worked for the CIA?

What also might be worth asking: "Who didn't know?"

I believe I was the first to publicly question the credibility of Mr. Wilson, a retired diplomat sent to Niger to look into reports that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium for his nuclear-weapons program.

On July 6, Mr. Wilson wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in which he said: "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

On July 11, I wrote a piece for NRO arguing that Mr. Wilson had no basis for that conclusion - and that his political leanings and associations (not disclosed by the Times and others journalists interviewing him) cast serious doubt on his objectivity.

On July 14, Robert Novak wrote a column in the Post and other newspapers naming Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative.

That wasn't news to me. I had been told that - but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhanded manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of.

I chose not to include it (I wrote a second NRO piece on this issue on July 18) because it didn't seem particularly relevant to the question of whether or not Mr. Wilson should be regarded as a disinterested professional who had done a thorough investigation into Saddam's alleged attempts to purchase uranium in Africa.

What did appear relevant could easily be found in what the CIA would call "open sources." For example, Mr. Wilson had long been a bitter critic of the current administration, writing in such left-wing publications as The Nation that under President Bush, "America has entered one of it periods of historical madness" and had "imperial ambitions."

What's more, he was affiliated with the pro-Saudi Middle East Institute and he had recently been the keynote speaker for the Education for Peace in Iraq Center, a far-Left group that opposed not only the U.S. military intervention in Iraq but also the sanctions and the no-fly zones that protected Iraqi Kurds and Shias from being slaughtered by Saddam.

Mr. Wilson is now saying (on C-SPAN this morning, for example) that he opposed military action in Iraq because he didn't believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and he foresaw the possibility of a difficult occupation. In fact, prior to the U.S. invasion, Mr. Wilson told ABC's Dave Marash that if American troops were sent into Iraq, Saddam might "use a biological weapon in a battle that we might have. For example, if we're taking Baghdad or we're trying to take, in ground-to-ground, hand-to-hand combat."

Equally, important and also overlooked: Mr. Wilson had no apparent background or skill as an investigator. As Mr. Wilson himself acknowledged, his so-called investigation was nothing more than "eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people" at the U.S. embassy in Niger. Based on those conversations, he concluded that "it was highly doubtful that any [sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq] had ever taken place."

That's hardly the same as disproving what British intelligence believed - and continues to believe: that Saddam Hussein was actively attempting to purchase uranium from somewhere in Africa. (Whether Saddam succeeded or not isn't the point; were Saddam attempting to make such purchases it would suggest that his nuclear-weapons-development program was active and ongoing.)

For some reason, this background and these questions have been consistently omitted in the Establishment media's reporting on Mr. Wilson and his charges.

There also remains this intriguing question: Was it primarily due to the fact that Mr. Wilson's wife worked for the CIA that he received the Niger assignment?

Mr. Wilson has said that his mission came about following a request from Vice President Cheney. But it appears that if Mr. Cheney made the request at all, he made it of the CIA and did not know Mr. Wilson and certainly did not specify that he wanted Mr. Wilson put on the case.

It has to be seen as puzzling that the agency would deal with an inquiry from the White House on a sensitive national-security matter by sending a retired, Bush-bashing diplomat with no investigative experience. Or didn't the CIA bother to look into Mr. Wilson's background?

If that's what passes for tradecraft in Langley, we're in more trouble than any of us have realized.

What Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson Didn't Find In Africa

2003-07-06T22:26:00.000-07:00

Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson writes:
Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?

Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

For 23 years, from 1976 to 1998, I was a career foreign service officer and ambassador. In 1990, as chargé d'affaires in Baghdad, I was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein. (I was also a forceful advocate for his removal from Kuwait.) After Iraq, I was President George H. W. Bush's ambassador to Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe; under President Bill Clinton, I helped direct Africa policy for the National Security Council.

It was my experience in Africa that led me to play a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs. Those news stories about that unnamed former envoy who went to Niger? That's me.

In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office.

After consulting with the State Department's African Affairs Bureau (and through it with Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the United States ambassador to Niger), I agreed to make the trip. The mission I undertook was discreet but by no means secret. While the C.I.A. paid my expenses (my time was offered pro bono), I made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting on behalf of the United States government.

In late February 2002, I arrived in Niger's capital, Niamey, where I had been a diplomat in the mid-70's and visited as a National Security Council official in the late 90's. The city was much as I remembered it. Seasonal winds had clogged the air with dust and sand. Through the haze, I could see camel caravans crossing the Niger River (over the John F. Kennedy bridge), the setting sun behind them. Most people had wrapped scarves around their faces to protect against the grit, leaving only their eyes visible.

The next morning, I met with Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick at the embassy. For reasons that are understandable, the embassy staff has always kept a close eye on Niger's uranium business. I was not surprised, then, when the ambassador told me that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq — and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington. Nevertheless, she and I agreed that my time would be best spent interviewing people who had been in government when the deal supposedly took place, which was before her arrival.

I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.

Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Moreover, because the two mines are closely regulated, quasi-governmental entities, selling uranium would require the approval of the minister of mines, the prime minister and probably the president. In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired.

(As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors — they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government — and were probably forged. And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)

Before I left Niger, I briefed the ambassador on my findings, which were consistent with her own. I also shared my conclusions with members of her staff. In early March, I arrived in Washington and promptly provided a detailed briefing to the C.I.A. I later shared my conclusions with the State Department African Affairs Bureau. There was nothing secret or earth-shattering in my report, just as there was nothing secret about my trip.

Though I did not file a written report, there should be at least four documents in United States government archives confirming my mission. The documents should include the ambassador's report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy staff, a C.I.A. report summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). While I have not seen any of these reports, I have spent enough time in government to know that this is standard operating procedure.

I thought the Niger matter was settled and went back to my life. (I did take part in the Iraq debate, arguing that a strict containment regime backed by the threat of force was preferable to an invasion.) In September 2002, however, Niger re-emerged. The British government published a "white paper" asserting that Saddam Hussein and his unconventional arms posed an immediate danger. As evidence, the report cited Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium from an African country.

Then, in January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa.

The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them. He replied that perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation. I didn't know that in December, a month before the president's address, the State Department had published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case.

Those are the facts surrounding my efforts. The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer. I did so, and I have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate officials within our government.

The question now is how that answer was or was not used by our political leadership. If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand (though I would be very interested to know why). If, however, the information was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses. (It's worth remembering that in his March "Meet the Press" appearance, Mr. Cheney said that Saddam Hussein was "trying once again to produce nuclear weapons.") At a minimum, Congress, which authorized the use of military force at the president's behest, should want to know if the assertions about Iraq were warranted.

I was convinced before the war that the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein required a vigorous and sustained international response to disarm him. Iraq possessed and had used chemical weapons; it had an active biological weapons program and quite possibly a nuclear research program — all of which were in violation of United Nations resolutions. Having encountered Mr. Hussein and his thugs in the run-up to the Persian Gulf war of 1991, I was only too aware of the dangers he posed.

But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us about? We have to find out. America's foreign policy depends on the sanctity of its information. For this reason, questioning the selective use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq is neither idle sniping nor "revisionist history," as Mr. Bush has suggested. The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already. We have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons.

Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson on CNN: "Bush's Entire Case Against Iraq Is Tainted"

2003-03-08T22:32:00.000-08:00

Transcript of CNN Sunday interview with Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson:

RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: Diplomats are burning up the phone lines today trying to win votes for or against the latest U.N. resolution on Iraq. The resolution would give Iraq until March 17 to disarm or be disarmed by force. Richard Roth joins us now from the United Nations -- Richard.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN SR. U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Yes, President Bush is going to start making calls on Monday. He made a call to Chile's president on Friday. Chile, one of the undecided six, so-called swing votes that remain on the Security Council. And it's going to be hard in the next couple of days to find out exactly where countries are leaning, because the U.S., you never know, could make changes to the resolution yet again.

Friday, some amendments added, basically a big deadline added. March 17, for Iraq to turn over all of its weapons of mass destruction.

Here at the United Nations, it's quiet, but phone calls are being made around the world. The French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, is traveling to three African countries, the three swing African votes, Guinea, Cameroon, Angola. Angola's representative yesterday said he wasn't really happy with the draft resolution. Angola and Chile believing that Iraq should be given more time, that the 17th of March just comes up too soon.

The U.S. says it could call for a vote as early as Tuesday, which would give Iraq less than a week to turn over weapons of mass destruction. The impact of such a deadline on the weapons inspectors certainly would give them less time to be in the country to certify that Iraq is in the clear.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOHAMED ELBARADEI, DIRECTOR GENERAL, IAEA: On the one hand, there is a lot of indication in the intelligence community that there are -- Iraq still has chemical and biological weapons. On the other hand, none of the inspectors are able to find any of these weapons. So there is no smoking gun.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: That's Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency saying that the weapons inspectors on his side and Dr. Blix have not found a smoking gun, that Iraq is beginning to cooperating more. And as for the war, well, it means that they will never be able to certify with certainty that Iraq's nuclear program has not been revived, though there are no indications right now about that.

What else is Mr. ElBaradei reporting to the Security Council? Well, it drew little notice, because of the high powered debate and arguments among the big powers, but the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that his group has certified that documents provided by countries that allege possibly that the Iraqis were doing deals with the African nation of Niger to get enriched uranium for nuclear production were fakes, were forgeries. They refused to say whether it was the U.S. that gave them all the documents or Britain, but they're just saying what they were given to examine shows no confirmation that Iraq, as President Bush alleged in his State of the Union address, was getting enriched uranium in a potential deal with the African nation of Niger -- Renay.

SAN MIGUEL: Well, Richard, back in the region that we're talking about here, there are reports that the United Nations is pulling out some of its observers from Kuwait?

ROTH: That's right. Civilian staff being moved away while the U.N. mission along the Iraq/Kuwait Demilitarized Zone remains in place. The U.N. operation there is called UNICOM (ph), and you're going to see this over the next few days. The United Nations humanitarian team has been pared down dramatically in Iraq. Basically, UNICOM's (ph) 195 observers will stay in place the 775th Bangladeshi military support unit will be there.

Also of note along that demilitarized zone, in the last few days, civilians, said to be Kuwaiti construction workers, but some Marines in the area, cutting holes in the fence, an electric fence along that border, holes as wide as 75 feet. You can certainly bring a lot of big military vehicles through that, and also perhaps 75 gaps in all.

The U.N. reported this as a violation of the Security Council resolution. It's up to the Security Council what to do with it. The U.S. defends this action. If there's any link to the U.S. government, and no doubt there is, because they say Iraq has been a threat to Kuwait for more than 12 years. Stay tuned -- Renay.

SAN MIGUEL: As we certainly will. Richard Roth, thank you very much.

Now, as Richard just said, during his report yesterday, Mohamed ElBaradei said some of the evidence that Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the U.N. was apparently faked. Joining us now from our Washington bureau is Joseph Wilson, who was acting ambassador to Iraq when the first Gulf War began. Mr. Wilson, thank you so much for joining us today.

JOSEPH WILSON, FORMER AMB. TO IRAQ: Hi, Renay. How are you.

SAN MIGUEL: Just fine. How could this happen? It is the perception that documents like these are vetted to within an inch of their life by intelligence agencies. How do you think this managed to slip by?

WILSON: Well, this particular case is outrageous. I actually started my foreign service career in Niger and ended my foreign service career doing -- in charge of Africa in the Clinton White House. We know a lot about the uranium business in Niger, and for something like this to go unchallenged by U.S. -- the U.S. government is just simply stupid. It would have taken a couple of phone calls. We have had an embassy there since the early '60s. All this stuff is open. It's a restricted market of buyers and sellers. The Nigerians (sic) have always been very open with us.

For this to have gotten to the IAEA is on the face of it dumb, but more to the point, it taints the whole rest of the case that the government is trying to build against Iraq.

SAN MIGUEL: I was just going to ask you, I mean, I got the idea from your answer about this, but just how damaging is this to the U.S. case with the stakes being as high as they are?

WILSON: Well, you know what it's like when you go into court. A prosecutor comes up with some evidence that is obviously false, it casts doubt on every other bit of evidence that he produces. And I think it's safe to say that the U.S. government should have or did know that this report was a fake before Dr. ElBaradei mentioned it in his report at the U.N. yesterday.

SAN MIGUEL: There's also another courtroom saying that, you know, lawyers like to say, never ask a question that you don't know the answer to. That could play into this as well.

But Mr. ElBaradei did tell our Richard Roth today, during an interview, that the intelligence isn't just coming from the U.S., that there were other countries involved. Which other countries do you think, and how is it that all of these intelligence agencies or intelligence agencies from these countries that were involved could be taken in by these forgeries?

WILSON: Well, the report I saw said that the Brits were involved. Maybe it was the British that passed this report on. I don't know who else might have been involved, but I can tell you this: The report in "The Washington Post" today said -- quoted a U.S. official as saying, "we just fell for it."

That's just not good enough. Either he's being disingenuous, or he shouldn't be drawing a government paycheck.

SAN MIGUEL: So how do you play this, then? I mean, what, do you admit it, do you just move on? Do you try to get these things verified if you do believe, indeed, that Iraq was trying to buy this material from Niger? I mean, how do you handle this? What's the damage control on this?

WILSON: I have no idea. I'm not in the government. I would not want to be doing damage control on this. I think you probably just fess up and try to move on and say there's sufficient other evidence to convict Saddam of being involved in the nuclear arms trade. But Dr. ElBaradei yesterday was pretty clear. He doesn't see that this is happening.

SAN MIGUEL: We'll have to leave it there. Joseph Wilson, former acting ambassador to Iraq for the U.S., thank you very much for your time.

WILSON: Good to be with you.

NOW With Bill Moyers: Moyers Talks With Joe Wilson, February 28, 2003

2003-02-28T23:54:00.000-08:00

Transcript of Bill Moyers interview with Joseph C. Wilson:

MOYERS: With war in Iraq more imminent than ever, we're going to talk tonight to the last senior American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein. Joseph Wilson was the Deputy Chief of Mission, the acting ambassador at the US Embassy in Iraq 12 years ago during Desert Shield, the lead-up to the first Gulf War.

He was a member of the American Foreign Service for 23 years. Our ambassador to two African countries. And served as the political advisor to the Commander in Chief of US Forces in Europe. He now heads his own international business firm and is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington. Thank you for joining us.

WILSON: Oh, it's my pleasure.

MOYERS: Here we are, what one could reading our papers, say is the eve of war. What do you think is going through Saddam Hussein's mind this weekend?

WILSON: Well, I think Saddam Hussein is probably if the Gulf War is any example, I think has probably resigned themselves at some point that the war is going to happen. There may be one or two more games that they'll try and play, give out a few more missiles, allow more U.N. inspectors, or offer to allow Peacekeepers and inspectors in.

But ultimately, I think they've probably resigned themselves to the fact that they're going to be attacked. I suspect Saddam, being the survivalist he is, hopes that he will survive to fight another day. And I think that he probably believes that if he doesn't survive he will want to go down in history as somebody who actually confronted the West.

Because you know, in the Arab world, it has been enough to confront the West. You haven't had to defeat the West. You've just had to confront the West to achieve a certain status in the Arab world.

MOYERS: But if the United States attacks, he's a dead man.

WILSON: Well, I'm not sure about that. He's been preparing his security apparatus for 30 years. He knows his country. He may well have an out.

As the senior American diplomat 12 years ago in Iraq, did you support the effort to remove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait by force?

WILSON: I supported the effort to get Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. And I understood fully that in order to get him out of Kuwait you had to have the credible threat of force. And in order for that force to be credible, you had to be prepared to use it.

MOYERS: Diplomacy had failed there as because he was so intransigent.

WILSON: That's right. That's right.

MOYERS: He's still just as intransigent.

WILSON: And I fear diplomacy is going to fail again.

MOYERS: What is the trip wire in your opinion for the use of force? What is your trip wire?

WILSON: Well, I've always said it's the first time he poses an obstacle to your conducting an inspection then you go in and you use force against that particular site. But you keep the use of force focused on disarmament. Let me give you an example.

When Colin Powell was up at the United Nations, he showed a couple of pictures of the site. He said, "This is a chemical weapons site and this is the trucks going out of that site just before the inspectors arrive at the front door. The trucks are going out the back door." That becomes a legitimate target for additional action on the part of the United Nations and the US. For example, that truck convoy leaving the site, as far as I'm concerned, becomes a legitimate target as does the site itself.

MOYERS: You're not against using force. So help me understand the distinction between the quantity of force you would use and the quantity of force that George W. Bush is proposing to you.

WILSON: Well, first of all, I think there's a question of objective. I'm not against the use of force for the purposes of achieving the objective that has been agreed upon by the United Nations in the international community, disarmament. If and when it becomes necessary. I think that is legitimate. Essentially, you could a lot of that just by the air. You do…

MOYERS: Precision bombing?

WILSON: …precision bombing. They've got more surveillance planes out there now. You've got the U2s. The French or moving some Mirages on. You've got the place blanketed.

MOYERS: You are calling for coercive inspections.

WILSON: That's right. Muscular disarmament, coercive inspections, coercive containment, whatever you want to call it. I don't think containment's the right word because we're really talking about disarmament.

MOYERS: Does it seem to you that the President, George Bush, is prepared to accept a disarmed Hussein? Or does he want a dead Hussein?

WILSON: I think he wants a dead Hussein. I don't think there's any doubt about it.

MOYERS: President Bush's recent speech to the American Enterprise Institute, he said, let me quote it to you. "The danger posed by Saddam Hussein and his weapons cannot be ignored or wished away." You agree with that?

WILSON: I agree with that. Sure. I…

MOYERS: "The danger must be confronted." You agree with that? "We would hope that the Iraqi regime will meet the demands of the United Nations and disarm fully and peacefully. If it does not, we are prepared to disarm Iraq by force. Either way, this danger will be removed. The safety of the American people depends on ending this direct and growing threat." You agree with that?

WILSON: I agree with that. Sure. The President goes on to say in that speech as he did in the State of the Union Address is we will liberate Iraq from a brutal dictator. All of which is true. But the only thing Saddam Hussein hears in this speech or the State of the Union Address is, "He's coming to kill me. He doesn't care if I have weapons of mass destruction or not. His objective is to come and overthrow my regime and to kill me." And that then does not provide any incentive whatsoever to disarm.

MOYERS: All of us change in 12 years and obviously Saddam Hussein has changed since you last saw him. But what do you know about him that would help us understand what might be going through his mind right now?

WILSON: Well, I think, first of all, it's important to understand that he's a creature of his-- of his country and of his region. His worldview is very limited. It is essentially what he sees from his palace and what his sycophants come and tell him.

So he does not have a broad vision of what's going on around him. There's, I think, a tendency to think of the world as rotating around not just Iraq but around his own palace. Secondly, he's a coldly rational political actor. But given that his worldview is limited, there is a tendency to develop a logical argument where the premise is skewed.

MOYERS: Such as?

WILSON: So he will, for example — four days after he invaded Kuwait when I saw him in August of 1990 — he said that the United States lacked the intestinal fortitude and the stamina to confront his invasion in Kuwait. And it was clear to me that he was drawing upon his interpretation of our experiences in Vietnam, Beirut and possibly Tehran. And he had drawn exactly the wrong lessons from that.

We, in fact, stayed in Vietnam far longer than we should have perhaps. We were there for 15 years. And we suffered 50,000 casualties. We did not cut and run. We did spill the blood of our soldiers for many, many years. Give you another example, the whole decision to go into Kuwait was, from his perspective, rational based upon his understanding of the region and of what the international community would do.

MOYERS: His decision to go…

WILSON: His decision to go into Kuwait. The only reason he had Ambassador Gillespie in to see him and then me in to see him four days after the invasion. Both were unprecedented meetings. He would normally meet only with senior diplomats resident in Baghdad when they were accompanying envoys from their respective capitals. So for him to have Ambassador Gillepsie and then me was really a first.

And it was clear that what he wanted to do in that is he wanted to deflect attention from what he really intended to do. And that's what he did with April Gillespie. He lied to her. He lied to President Mubarak that he was going to allow the negotiating process to go forward.

And with me, he wanted to make sure that the United States would not respond unilaterally. And so that he would get this thrown into the United Nations. And the reason he wanted it in the United Nations was because his experience was with Israeli-Palestinian issues, specifically Resolutions 242 and 338, which related to occupation of Palestinian territories. And as most people know, the Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories has not taken place even though those territories were occupied in the '60s and early '70s.

MOYERS: So what does he conclude from that?

WILSON: He concludes from that that if it goes into the United Nations system, he's got 25 or 30 years to occupy Kuwait during which time he can flag Kuwait City with Iraqis, pump all their oil, steal all their money and then submit it to a referendum which he would have stacked the odds for his victory.

MOYERS: So President Bush is not being naive to think that the UN may backfire on him. He's not being naive when he thinks that Saddam Hussein is lying to us, deceiving us, right?

WILSON: One should never believe Saddam Hussein. We certainly have enough experience with his deception and his lies not to be too trusting with him. With respect to the United Nations, it seems to me that the United Nations has far more often acted in a way that is-- that is consistent with our interests. And it has a obstacle to our interests. And it is our interests who have a broad international support for an objective.

And in order to get that broad international support, you have to frame your goals in such a way that you can get the allies as we did in the Gulf War.

MOYERS: So you're saying that it is important to enforce United Nations resolutions.

WILSON: Absolutely.

MOYERS: You think war is inevitable?

WILSON: I think war is inevitable. Essentially, the speech that the President gave at the American Enterprise Institute was so much on the overthrow of the regime and the liberation of the Iraqi people that I suspect that Saddam understands that this is not about disarmament.

MOYERS: Most Americans, including yours truly, know very little about Iraq. You've lived there. Tell me what we should know about it.

WILSON: Well, first of all, it is a wonderful country. It is the heart of Mesopotamia and everything that everybody understands about Mesopotamia…

MOYERS: The old biblical culture.

WILSON: And the breadbasket of that part of the world for many years. Two of the great rivers of history flow through it.

MOYERS: Tigris and the Euph…

WILSON: Tigris and Euphrates. It's got a population of about 25 million. Iraqis are wonderful people. They are imbued with a sense of their own history. They know who they are. They're fiercely nationalistic. They're a proud people.

They have tribal and ethnic cleavages that are difficult for outsiders to understand but which make up the fabric of politics and make it a very, very difficult place to govern as history has shown. That said they are educated. There is — was, when I was there, a vibrant commercial class, a vibrant educated class.

They grow dates. They produce oil. There was a wonderful construction industry. And, of course, we've seen from their ability to retrofit arms that they are active in the development of exotic weaponry. Which means that they've got engineering skills and science skills which have been put, unfortunately, to the wrong uses.

MOYERS: A great culture except that it's ruled by a dictator.

WILSON: As it has been for way too many years, for sure.

MOYERS: Tell me what you think we should do about Baghdad, the city, because apparently the strategy will be for — Saddam's strategy will be to defend Baghdad and make the war so bloody that he will create a worldwide reaction. And the United States is considering something called "Shock and Awe." Have you heard of that?

WILSON: I have. Yeah. And I've heard American military officials talk about how Baghdad would not be a safe place to be during the first several days of the air campaign. From what I understand about shock and awe, it will be a several day air assault in which they will drop as much ordinance in four or five days as they did during the 39-day bombing campaign of the Gulf War.

MOYERS: Missiles, bombs…

WILSON: Missiles, bombs, precision bombs. I believe the President and our military officials, when they say they will do everything to minimize casualties to the civilian population. But it was difficult to imagine dropping that much ordinance on a population of four million people without having a lot of casualties that are unanticipated. A lot of civilian casualties.

MOYERS: As I understand this concept of shock and awe, the United States would fire 100, maybe thousands of missiles the first day to shock…

WILSON: That's right.

MOYERS: …the Baghdad and the Iraqi population. And then wait to see what happens. Hoping that they might rise up against Saddam. Or the Republican Guards, his elite troops might flee in fear. Do you think that's a viable concept given what you know?

WILSON: Well, I think that from everything that I know about Iraq, Saddam will probably be surrounded by between 80 and 100,000 hardcore Republican Guard fighters who are prepared to die with him and who understand that their future is with him, live or die. And so they will probably defend him pretty close to the bitter end.

Now, defending Saddam Hussein will give them license to take on anybody who attempted to overthrow Saddam. So you might well have a bloody uprising in Baghdad in which pits essentially the Iraqi population against the Republican Guard in Saddam's palace. I think far more likely, is that most Baghdadis will just simply go into hiding and try and avoid getting hit by this American ordinance and/or getting killed by the Republican Guard.

Remember that Saddam Hussein, in his own mind, personifies Iraq. He is Iraq and Iraq is him. And so long as he's Iraq…

MOYERS: Just as Hitler with Germany. Hitler saw himself as Germany.

WILSON: And that permits him — that permits, in his own mind, to send as many Iraqis to their deaths as necessary so long as he survives.

MOYERS: Knowing this about — why do you think knowing this that the President Bush is so eager for war?

WILSON: Well, that's a — I think that's a very good question. I think that there is a sense in the administration that the time has run out for Saddam Hussein and the only way that they can achieve the disarmament objective that they want is to go in. But more importantly…

MOYERS: And you agree with that, don't you?

WILSON: Well, no, I don't think that that's the only way. That's where I disagree. I mean, I think that there are several other steps that can be taken before you have to go to total war for the purposes of achieving disarmament.

MOYERS: Coercive…

WILSON: But I think disarmament is only one of the objectives. And the President has touched repeatedly and more openly on the other objectives in recent speeches including this idea of liberating Iraq and liberating its people from a brutal dictator. And I agree that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator.

And I agree along with everybody else that the Iraqi people could — would well be far better off without Saddam Hussein. The problem really is a war which has us invading, conquering and then subsequently occupying Iraq may not achieve that liberation that we're talking about.

MOYERS: So this is not just about weapons of mass destruction.

WILSON: Oh, no, I think it's far more about re-growing the political map of the Middle East.

MOYERS: What does that mean?

WILSON: Well, that basically means trying to install regimes in the Middle East that are far more friendly to the United States — there are those in the administration that call them democracies. Somehow it's hard for me to imagine that a democratic system will emerge out of the ashes of Iraq in the near term. And when and if it does, it's hard for me to believe that it will be more pro-American and more pro-Israeli than what you've got now.

MOYERS: Tell me what you think about the arguments of one of those men, Richard Perle, who is perhaps the most influential advocate in the President's and the administration's ear arguing to get rid of Saddam Hussein. What do you think about his argument?

WILSON: Well, he's certainly the architect of a study that was produced in the mid-'90s for the Likud Israeli government called "a clean break, a new strategy for the realm." And it makes the argument that the best way to secure Israeli security is through the changing of some of these regimes beginning with Iraq and also including Syria. And that's been since expanded to include Iran.

MOYERS: So this was drawn up during the '90s…

WILSON: Right. During the '90s, absolutely.

MOYERS: By men outside of all this?

WILSON: Outside of all this, yeah.

MOYERS: And…

WILSON: Now, Richard Perle's been outside of office since the Reagan years.

MOYERS: And this, you're saying that this has become a blueprint for the Bush Administration?

WILSON: Well, I think this is part of what has been the underpinning of the-- of the philosophical argument that calls for basically radically changing the political dynamics in the Middle East and…

MOYERS: To favor Israel?

WILSON: Well, to favor American national security interests and Israeli national security interests which are tied. I mean, we have…

MOYERS: How so?

WILSON: We have an important strategic responsibility to ensure the territorial integrity of Israel. It's one that we've accepted since 1948. It's one that's been increasingly close. There are those who believe that perhaps we've confused our responsibilities with the slavish adherence to the Likud strategy.

MOYERS: Likud, the party.

WILSON: It's the party in power right now. And certainly when the President or when Sharon comes — the Prime Minister comes to Washington and says that George Bush is the best friend that Israel ever had. And George Bush calls him a man of peace, calls Sharon a man of peace, there are those who wonder about the depth of our ties and the extent to which our national security responsibilities may somehow be confused with our support for the current government in Israel.

MOYERS: So help us understand why removing Saddam Hussein and expanding that movement, throughout the Middle East which would benefit Israel?

WILSON: Well, I think those are the sorts of questions that you need to ask to Richard Perle. The argument that I would make…

MOYERS: We asked him but he didn't want to come on the show.

WILSON: Yeah. The argument that it seems to me — I've done democracy in Africa for 25 years. And I can tell you that doing democracy in the most benign environments is really tough sledding. And the place like Iraq where politics is a blood sport and where you have these clan, tribal, ethnic and confessional cleavages, coming up with a democratic system that is pluralistic, functioning and, as we like to say about democracies, is not inclined to make war on other democracies, is going to be extraordinarily difficult.

And let me just suggest a scenario. Assuming that you get the civic institutions and a thriving political culture in the first few iterations of presidential elections, you're going to have Candidate A who is likely going to be a demagogue. And Candidate B who is likely going to be a populist. That's what emerges from political discourse.

Candidate A, Candidate B, the demagogue and the populist, are going to want to win elections of the presidency. And the way to win election is enflame the passions of your population. The easy way for a demagogue or a populist in the Middle East to enflame the passion of the population is to define himself or herself by their enemies.

And the great enemy in the Middle East is Israel and its supplier, the United States. So it's hard to believe, for me, that a thriving democracy certainly in the immediate and near-term and medium-term future is going to yield a successful presidential candidate who is going to be pro-Israel or pro-America.

MOYERS: So you anticipate many unanticipated consequences to a war with Iraq?

WILSON: Not to anticipate unanticipated consequences is a dangerous thing to do. And my military planners used to always tell me, "Hope is not a plan of action." So you don't want to base things on how you hope the outcome is going to turn out.

MOYERS: Talk to me a moment about the notion of preemptive action and regime change. Preemptive action means an attack.

WILSON: That's right. That's right. We have historically reserved as part of our right of legitimate self-defense the authority to go in and take out an enemy before that enemy has an opportunity to take us out. Now what I worry about most is that we've lose focus on the war on terrorism where we've actually gone after al Qaeda and where we should continue to go after al Qaeda both in militarily as well as with our intelligence and our police assets.

We've got lost focus on that. The game has shifted to Iraq for reasons that are confused to everybody. The millions of people who are on the streets of our country and of Europe, as I said the other day, it strikes me as — it may prove that Abraham Lincoln is right. You cannot fool all the people all the time.

They have been sold. We have been sold a war on disarmament or terrorism or the nexus between terrorism and weapons of mass destruction or liberation. Any one of the four. And now with the President's speeches, you clearly have the idea that we're going to go in and take this preemptive action to overthrow a regime, occupy its country for the purposes, the explicit purposes of fostering the blossoming of democracy in a part of the world where we really have very little ground, truth or experience.

And, certainly, I hope along with everybody that the President in his assessment is correct. And that I am so wrong that I'm never invited to another foreign policy debate again.

MOYERS: You're not likely to be after this. (LAUGHTER)

WILSON: Because if I am right, this could be a real disaster. If I am wrong and the President is right, and you do have the democratic state that emerges, and you do have the power of the United States there as an arbiter, and you have a renewed commitment, as the President suggested in his speech to moving the Israeli-Palestinian process forward, then it could go well.

But I do believe — and it could be good for Israel. But I continue to believe that the path to peace in the Middle East goes through Jerusalem far more than it goes through Baghdad.

MOYERS: To a peaceful settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis…

WILSON: Not just that. But that is the thorn that has to be pulled from the region in order for, in my judgment, the evolution of other governments in a more modern way. So long as you have the Palestinian — the Israeli-Palestinian problem there, any of these governments can use that…

MOYERS: Sure.

WILSON: …as the external enemy against which they mobilize their own populations.

MOYERS: And…

WILSON: And avoid responsibility for their own destinies.

MOYERS: Yeah. Joseph Wilson, thank you very much for this conversation.

WILSON: It's my pleasure.

Scott Ritter Condemns Sex Arrest 'Smears'

2003-01-24T23:22:00.001-08:00

"Nothing that transpired this week, nothing that's been spewed across the airwaves changes the fact that I am one of the foremost experts on the issue of Iraq" ~Scott Ritter

Ritter accuses the Bush administration of warmongering:

Former UN weapons inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter has condemned US media reports that he was arrested in 2001 in an alleged internet sex sting.

Mr Ritter - an outspoken critic of current US policy towards Iraq - said the publicity had forced him to cancel a planned trip to Baghdad this week.

Although he admitted that he was arrested, he said the fact that the case against him was dismissed and the files sealed obliged him not to discuss the details.

Defending his reputation on US TV shows, he questioned the timing of the leaks - which first appeared at the weekend in a New York state newspaper.

"It's a shame that somebody would bring up this old matter now... this dismissed matter, and seek to silence me at this time.

"The timing does stink," he said.

He had no way of knowing why this happened, "but the effect is obvious," he said.

"I was supposed to fly to Baghdad on a personal initiative that could have had great ramifications in regards issues of war and peace," he told CNN.

'Responsibilities'

He said he did not know who was responsible for the leaks, but insisted that they should answer for them.

"Let's not forget, we're on the verge of a major conflict... and I was a leading voice of opposition to this," he said.

In his television appearances Mr Ritter declined to go into the details of his arrest, saying he had to respect his "legal and ethical responsibilities and not discuss issues pertaining to that case".

Ritter has challenged claims that Iraq is still a major threat

"I have already stood before a judge, I've already been held accountable to the rule of law. The case was dismissed, the file was sealed," he told Wrgb TV.

Mr Ritter joined the UN weapons inspection body Unscom - the precursor of Unmovic - in 1991.

He quit as head of the inspection team in Iraq in August 1998 after a serious confrontation between Baghdad and the UN.

At the time he accused the Security Council and the US of caving in to the Iraqis.

Mr Ritter was renowned for his tough line and intrusive searches, and was not always popular with the Iraqi authorities.

However he later accused Washington of using the UN mission to spy on Iraq. He has since been a vocal critic of US policy.

Scott Ritter Condemns Sex Arrest 'Smears'

2003-01-24T23:22:00.000-08:00

Former UN weapons inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter has condemned US media reports that he was arrested in 2001 in an alleged internet sex sting.

Mr Ritter - an outspoken critic of current US policy towards Iraq - said the publicity had forced him to cancel a planned trip to Baghdad this week.

Although he admitted that he was arrested, he said the fact that the case against him was dismissed and the files sealed obliged him not to discuss the details.

Defending his reputation on US TV shows, he questioned the timing of the leaks - which first appeared at the weekend in a New York state newspaper.

"It's a shame that somebody would bring up this old matter now... this dismissed matter, and seek to silence me at this time.

"The timing does stink," he said.

He had no way of knowing why this happened, "but the effect is obvious," he said.

"I was supposed to fly to Baghdad on a personal initiative that could have had great ramifications in regards issues of war and peace," he told CNN.

'Responsibilities'

He said he did not know who was responsible for the leaks, but insisted that they should answer for them.

"Let's not forget, we're on the verge of a major conflict... and I was a leading voice of opposition to this," he said.

In his television appearances Mr Ritter declined to go into the details of his arrest, saying he had to respect his "legal and ethical responsibilities and not discuss issues pertaining to that case".

Ritter has challenged claims that Iraq is still a major threat

"I have already stood before a judge, I've already been held accountable to the rule of law. The case was dismissed, the file was sealed," he told Wrgb TV.

Mr Ritter joined the UN weapons inspection body Unscom - the precursor of Unmovic - in 1991.

He quit as head of the inspection team in Iraq in August 1998 after a serious confrontation between Baghdad and the UN.

At the time he accused the Security Council and the US of caving in to the Iraqis.

Mr Ritter was renowned for his tough line and intrusive searches, and was not always popular with the Iraqi authorities.

However he later accused Washington of using the UN mission to spy on Iraq. He has since been a vocal critic of US policy.

How Saddam Thinks

2002-10-13T21:28:00.000-07:00

Joe Wilson writes:

President Bush has made his preference clear: He wants Saddam Hussein’s scalp, or at least wants him run out of town—an approach that virtually ensures a bloody American invasion and long occupation of Iraq. And Congress late last week gave the president broad authority to launch that war, with or without United Nations involvement.

The U.N. Security Council, meanwhile, is pursuing a business-as-usual policy, reluctant to put any teeth into the possible resumption of weapons inspections until Saddam cheats yet again.

Both the U.S. and U.N. approaches are dangerously flawed. They ignore crucial lessons we learned in the Persian Gulf War about how Saddam thinks.

If history is any guide, “regime change” as a rationale for military action will ensure that Saddam will use every weapon in his arsenal to defend himself. You need look no further for evidence than his use of chemical weapons to repel Iranian invaders during the Iran–Iraq war. As the just-released cia report suggests, when cornered, Saddam is very likely to fight dirty.

But history also shows that the less-confrontational approach favored by some on the Security Council—France and Russia—isn’t likely to work, either. Saddam has, after all, repeatedly flouted U.N. resolutions and ignored its demands to let weapons inspectors back into the country for almost four years.

Twelve years ago, I was in charge of the American Embassy in Baghdad. On Aug. 6, 1990, four days after the invasion of Kuwait, I met with Saddam for nearly two hours and listened to him gloat at the overthrow of the Kuwaiti government and threaten to “spill the blood of 10,000 American soldiers in the sands of the Arabian desert” should we counterattack. Over the next several months, my staff and I worked day and night to try to persuade him not just to leave Kuwait, but also to allow Americans in Kuwait and Iraq to go home and to release the hundreds of foreign hostages, including Americans, whom he had taken as “human shields.” The lessons we gleaned during that period are applicable to today’s looming conflict.

What we learned firsthand is what the cia psychiatrists have said for years: Saddam is an egomaniacal sociopath whose penchant for high-risk gambles is exceeded only by a propensity for miscalculation. Those psychiatrists, who study the characters of world leaders, believe that he suffers from what is popularly called “malignant narcissism,” a sense of self-worth that drives him to act in ways that others would deem irrational, such as invading neighboring countries.

But the trait also makes him highly sensitive to direct confrontation and embarrassment, even as he is contemptuous of compromise.

“In your face” approach

Shortly after the invasion, I met with my senior staff to game out possible outcomes, given the history of Iraq in times of conflict. When the monarchy was overthrown in 1958, foreigners, including Americans, had been dragged from their hotels and hanged in public. At the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, a visiting delegation of Iranians disappeared in Baghdad, never to be seen again. Our conclusion was that some of us attending that meeting would not survive.

We also recognized that the traditional diplomatic methods had not worked; Ambassador April Glaspie had been severely, albeit unjustly, criticized for not being tough enough in her meeting with Saddam just days before the invasion. What she did at that meeting was follow longstanding instructions from Washington to urge, but not demand, that Iraq’s dispute with Kuwait over border and oil issues be settled diplomatically. She then left for official business in Washington.

After the invasion, those of us still at the embassy opted for a confrontational “in your face” approach opposite to diplomatic convention, but well-suited to Saddam’s understanding of the world. Whenever Saddam tried to garner international sympathy or support, we pushed back hard. Saddam would never yield to traditional diplomatic persuasion, because he equates compromise with weakness. Therefore, we let no action go uncriticized and sought to embarrass him whenever possible, to shame him into concessions.

The first test of this approach came when Saddam tried to portray himself as a host rather than hostage-taker when he appeared on television with a young British boy and his terrified family. We immediately issued statements that true Arab knights, as Saddam liked to be called, did not hide behind women’s skirts—mocking his masculinity. Our comments were broadcast to the world and repeated by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a speech. Just days after Thatcher chided him, Saddam released all women and children. While we could never prove cause and effect, we knew we had succeeded.

Later, when the Iraqi government circulated a diplomatic note threatening to summarily execute anybody harboring foreigners—at a time when the embassy was providing refuge to 125 Americans stuck in Baghdad—I wore a hangman’s noose in lieu of a tie to a news briefing. I shared the note with the international media and told them that if the Iraqis wanted to execute me for protecting Americans, I would bring my own rope.

The Iraqis were furious at my black joke and harangued me publicly. Then they withdrew the diplomatic note—another indication that Saddam was thin-skinned in the face of aggressive opposition.

Confrontation worked

At one point, Saddam sought to justify the invasion of his neighbor as a step toward the liberation of Palestine and, in a particularly ludicrous assertion, he claimed to be the champion of the Muslim world against the Christian infidel capitalists. We countered that several hundred thousand Muslim Pakistanis, Indians and Sri Lankans were languishing in Iraqi refugee camps. Within days, Saddam released all of them.

As we applied these tactics to the task of attempting to reverse the invasion of Kuwait, we understood that the only way to try to avoid a war was to be credible in threatening one. Saddam had announced the annexation of Kuwait on Aug. 8, but by the end of September he was squirming, trying to retain as much of his conquest as possible as we kept beating the drums of war.

We told Saddam that the United States had accepted the fact that the men he was still holding hostage would be killed and convinced him that they were not of any worth to him. On the contrary, we said, they were a liability; if the Iraqis brutalized any of them, American outrage could well trigger a war to avenge the mistreatment.

He released the hostages in early December. Our entire embassy staff and virtually all other foreigners who wanted to leave also were allowed to go before the start of war.

In each case, taking a tough stand worked.

In the end, of course, the United States didn’t succeed in peacefully dislodging Iraqi troops from Kuwait. But in the days leading up to Operation Desert Storm the United States again took a confrontational approach that may well have prevented an even deadlier war.

A week before the United States launched the assault on Iraqi forces in Kuwait, Secretary of State James Baker met with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz in Geneva. Throughout December it had become clear that Saddam would fight a military battle that he knew he would lose, calculating that in defeat he could still win the political war. In a region that feels deeply the humiliations it has suffered over centuries at the hands of imperialists, conquerors and more recently Israel, merely standing up to the West is considered a victory.

It fell to Baker to try to deter Saddam from using chemical or biological weapons. In the meeting, Baker made it clear that if Iraq attempted to defend itself in Kuwait by using weapons of mass destruction, the United States would respond by “eliminating the current Iraqi regime”—a not-so-veiled reference to a nuclear strike.

During the war, Saddam launched Scud missiles against Saudi Arabia, set fire to the Kuwaiti oil fields and did everything he could to draw Israel into a broader conflict. But he did not use chemical or biological weapons against our troops. In the end, he prized his own survival above all.

You could argue—and some liberals have—that deterrence alone could work again now, and that neither war nor tough inspections are needed. But effective deterrence requires that world leaders issue ultimatums backed by the credible threat of force, which they have not been willing to do so far.

Build on experience

So the question remains: Can we disarm Saddam this time without risking a chemical attack or a broader regional war that threatens our allies?

The answer, I think, is yes, but only if we reject the approaches favored by many in the Bush administration and by France and Russia, and build instead on the experiences of the gulf war.

An aggressive U.N.-sanctioned campaign to disarm Iraq—bolstered by a militarily supported inspection process—would combine the best of the U.S. and U.N. approaches, a robust disarmament policy with the international legitimacy the United States seeks. Secretary of State Colin Powell is pushing the Security Council to adopt such an approach.

But he will have to overcome French and Russian concerns that other harsh demands in the U.S.–British draft resolution leave Saddam little room to save face and avoid war.

One of the strongest arguments for a militarily supported inspection plan is that it doesn’t threaten Saddam with extinction, a threat that could push him to fight back with the very weapons we’re seeking to destroy. If disarmament is the goal, Saddam can be made to understand that only his arsenal is at stake, not his survival.

Our message to Saddam can be simple: “You are going to lose your weapons-of-mass-destruction capability either through the inspections or through a sustained cruise-missile assault on the 700 suspicious sites the United Nations has already identified. If you rebuild them, we will attack again. And if you use weapons of mass destruction or attack another country in the region, we will destroy you and your regime.” The decision to live or die then becomes his to make.

The ultimate lesson of the gulf war may be that when offered the choice, Saddam will sacrifice almost everything before sacrificing his own life or grip on power.

Lynn Cheney-Joe Lieberman Group Puts Out a Blacklist

2001-12-13T23:44:00.000-08:00

The San Jose Mercury News reports:

An aggressive attack on freedom has been launched upon America's college campuses. Its perpetrators seek the elimination of ideas and activities that place Sept. 11 in historical context, or critique the so-called war on terrorism.
The offensive, spearheaded by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a Washington-based group, threatens free speech, democratic debate and the integrity of higher education. In an incendiary report, ``Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America,'' the American Council claims that ``colleges and university faculty have been the weak link in America's response'' to Sept. 11. It also asserts that ``when a nation's intellectuals are unwilling to defend its civilization, they give comfort to its adversaries.''

The report documents 117 campus incidents as ``evidence'' of anti-Americanism. More than 40 professors are named, including the president of Wesleyan University, who suggested in an open letter that ``disparities and injustices'' in American society and the world can lead to hatred and violence.

Other examples abound. A Yale professor is criticized for saying, ``It is from the desperate, angry and bereaved that these suicide pilots came.'' A professor emeritus from the University of Oregon is listed for recommending that ``we need to understand the reasons behind the terrifying hatred directed against the U.S. and find ways to act that will not foment more hatred for generations to come.''

Dozens more comments, taken out of context and culled from secondary sources, are presented as examples of an unpatriotic academy.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni was founded in 1995 by Lynne Cheney, the vice president's wife, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Its Website claims that it contributed $3.4 billion to colleges and universities last year, making it ``the largest private source of support for higher education.'' Cheney is cited several times in the report, and is reportedly a close associate of its authors, Jerry Martin and Anne Neal.

Although the council's stated objectives include the protection of academic freedom, the report resembles a blacklist. In a chilling use of doublespeak, it affirms the right of professors to speak out, yet condemns those who have attempted to give context to Sept. 11, encourage critical thinking, or share knowledge about other cultures. Faculty are accused of being ``short on patriotism'' for attempting to give students the analytical tools they need to become informed citizens.

Many of those blacklisted are top scholars in their fields, and it appears that the report represents a kind of academic terrorism designed to strike fear into other academics by making examples of respected professors.

The report might also function to extend control over sites of democratic debate -- our universities -- where freedom of expression is not only permitted but encouraged.

At my campus, symposiums, teach-ins and lectures about religion, terrorism, central Asia, the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy have been organized recently. A teach-in entitled ``Background for Understanding'' drew hundreds of students, faculty and citizens from many political and intellectual perspectives. The audience had the opportunity to ask questions and comment freely. The discussion was lively and at times contentious.

As a microcosm of society, the university is a place where people of different ethnicities, religions, generations, and class backgrounds exchange ideas and opinions. Anyone who has visited Bay Area colleges knows that they are especially rich places for intercultural exchange.

The vigorous and often heated debates typical of such encounters are a hallmark of democratic processes. On most campuses this can still be done freely, but official accusations of anti-Americanism might intimidate and silence some voices.

That is not patriotism, but fascism. The American Council's position is inaccurate and irresponsible. Critique, debate, and exchange -- not blind consensus or self-censorship -- have characterized America since its inception.

Our universities are not failing America. On the contrary, they are among the few institutions offering alternatives to canned mainstream media reports.

The targeting of scholars who participate in civic debates might signal the emergence of a new McCarthyism directed at the academy. Before it escalates into a full-blown witch hunt in the name of ``defending civilization,'' faculty, students and citizens should speak out against these acts of academic terrorism.

Conservatives Denounce Dissent

2001-11-13T23:37:00.000-08:00

Two months past the terroristic attacks and dissent is the first casualty of rights targeted:

A conservative academic group founded by Lynne Cheney, the wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, fired a new salvo in the culture wars by blasting 40 college professors as well as the president of Wesleyan University and others for not showing enough patriotism in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

''College and university faculty have been the weak link in America's response to the attack,'' say leaders of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni in a report being issued today. The report names names and criticizes professors for making statements ''short on patriotism and long on self-flagellation.''

Several of the scholars singled out in the report said yesterday they felt blacklisted, complaining that their words had been taken out of context to make them look like enemies of the state.

''It's a little too reminiscent of McCarthyism,'' said Hugh Gusterson, an associate professor of anthropology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was named in the report for his comments at a campus peace rally where he made a connection between American suffering after Sept. 11 and the suffering in war-torn Afghanistan.

''This kind of document reminds me of the Soviet Union, where officials weren't satisfied until 98 or 99 percent of people voted with them,'' Gusterson said.

Lynne Cheney, who was a powerful voice for conservative intellectuals as chief of the National Endowment of the Humanities during the first Bush administration, is not an author of the new report. But it is peppered with quotations stating her views, and it was prepared by two close allies. She was until recently the chairwoman of the council, a private nonprofit organization based in Washington. Her agenda - to promote Western civilization and American culture as the bedrocks of US education - continues to guide the group's activities.

The report lists 117 comments or incidents as evidence that campuses are hostile to the US government and out of step with most Americans who, according to polls, support the war in Afghanistan. ''Indeed,'' the report says, ''the message of much of academe was clear: BLAME AMERICA FIRST.''

While there have been some campus antiwar protests recently - such as the burning of two American flags at Amherst College - these have been relatively rare, and most were criticized by college officials concerned about other students and alumni who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Anne Neal, an author of the report and council official, said that while she is sure many professors and students support the US government, they are afraid that if they speak out, liberal colleagues might shout them down.

''For the most part, public comments in academia were equivocal and often pointing the finger at America rather than the terrorists,'' Neal said. ''It's hard for non-tenured professors to speak up when there's such a chorus on the other side.''

Among the scholars named in the report, however, several said yesterday the council was carrying out its own political agenda: painting higher education as a bastion of political correctness and trying to silence any criticism of the Bush administration.

''These kinds of attacks will only discourage professors from speaking out and opening up dialogues about what's happening overseas, and why,'' said Kevin Lourie, a professor at the Brown University School of Medicine.

The council cited Lourie for writing, in a Brown news service opinion article, that the United States may be ''paying an accumulated debt for centuries of dominance and intervention far from home.'' Lourie said he was attempting to explain how other nations and societies may view the United States.

Douglas Bennet, the president of Wesleyan, was named for a Sept. 14 letter to the Wesleyan community. The letter condemned the terrorist attacks, but the council singled out one passage in which Bennet voiced his concern that ''disparities and injustices'' in American society and the world can lead to hatred and violence, and that societies should try to see the world ''through the sensitivities of others.''

Bennet complained that the report's authors took his comments out of context. He said that he strongly supports the Bush administration's response to the terrorist attacks and that an American flag has hung on the door of his house since Sept. 11.

''I don't know where this group gets off extracting language from my statement,'' Bennet said. ''They're trying to perpetuate cliches that belong to an earlier era. I don't think it'll wash - we all have important, real work to do as a nation.''