The Rag Blog

Reporting from inside the courtroom in the CIA leak-related trial of Scooter Libby this week revealed that former White House spokesman Ari Fleisher sought immunity from prosecution because he was worried he might have committed treason — and even fearred he was in jeopardy of receiving the death penalty:

It turns out Ari Fleischer will be the next witness, once court resumes Monday [Jan. 29, 2007]. The defense team wants to note — for the jury’s benefit — that Fleischer demanded immunity before he would agree to testify, because this might cast Fleischer’s testimony in a different light.

And here Fitzgerald makes a nice little chess move: Fine, he says, we can acknowledge that Fleischer sought immunity. As long as we explain why. Turns out Fleischer saw a story in the Washington Post suggesting that anyone who revealed Valerie Plame’s identity might be subject to the death penalty. And he freaked. Of course, if Fleischer was this worked up about it during the time period in question, that suggests Libby would have been, too. (Which again undermines the notion that Libby had much bigger fish to fry.)

Can we extrapolate from this that the normally uber-unctious Fleischer was feeling a wee bit — what’s the word — guilty?

With the prospect of a lethal injecution put to rest, Fleischer spilled the beans. In particular, he told prosecutors that he learned Plame’s identity from Libby in the summer of 2003. Now Libby’s lawyers are now firing back, questioning the conditions of Fleischer’s immunity deal:

Defense attorneys are skeptical [and] are preparing court documents demanding to know exactly what Fleischer promised in exchange for immunity.

“I’m not sure we’re getting the full story here,” defense attorney William Jeffress said in court.

It is doubtful anyone will be charged with treason in this matter, even though it is clear that exposing the identity of a secret agent was the aim of this enterprise, and that it was done on direct orders from the vice president.

In December, the writer John Le Carré along with Jason Stearns, analyst with the International Crisis Group think tank, wrote about the current situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They noted that the recent swearing in of Joseph Kabila as president of the Democratic Republic ended a peace process that had followed seven years of war. Close to 4 million people have died and even now, on average, 1,200 people a day are dying from disease and malnutrition that are the result of the war and logistical collapse.*

“But,” they write, “dubious mining deals between the Congolese government and international corporations may be threatening the nation’s chances of rising from the ashes.” They point out that 10 years ago the Congo ranked high among the world’s producers of cobalt, copper, coltan and industrial diamonds. However, now three quarters of the population live on less than a dollar a day. One quarter—15 million people—must survive on a single meal a day.

As part of the peace process, the World Bank has organised the privatisation of the Congo’s state-owned mining company, Gecamines. It paid out $45 million to retire 10,000 mining workers. While the bank was overseeing this transition, the Kabila-led government negotiated mining contracts in 2005 with three corporations: Phelps Dodge (recently bought by Freeport McMoran to form the world’s largest publicly traded copper company), Global Enterprises Company and Kinross-Forrest. The deals are said to amount to 75 percent of Gecamines’ mineral assets.

According to Le Carré and Stearns, two of these deals have been examined by the Canadian law firm, Fasken, Martineau and DuMoulin. They concluded that the share of the profits going to the Congolese government would be “minimal, if any.” They found that no competitive bidding process took place and that the price of the mining property sold was “guesswork.” Le Carré notes that for “a minimal return” the Congo regime has “signed away millions—if not billions—of dollars’ worth of copper and cobalt for 35 years.”

An internal memo dated September 2005, written by the World Bank’s mining expert Craig Andrews and sent to Pedro Alba, the bank’s director for the Congo, is quoted by both the Financial Times and Africa Confidential. It states that the deals had not been through a “thorough analysis, appraisal and evaluation” before being approved and that the assets transferred to the companies exceeded the “norms for rational and highest use of the mineral assets.” Andrews wrote that the World Bank could be seen as risking “perceived complicity and/or tacit approval” of the deals.

One of the NGOs that have followed the deals is Rights and Accountability in Development. Its director told the Financial Times that “those now in control of the process are the very same people who nodded through some of the most controversial deals of the last three years.”

Africa Confidential points out that a similar process to the sale of Gecamines has taken place with regard to the state diamond company, Société Minière de Bakwanga (MIBA). Several deals, they note, “have given politicians and managers kickbacks or stakes in private firms.” They state that many of the natural resource projects of the Congo are financed through the London Alternative Investments Market, where “inexperienced” companies “have reaped huge rewards.”

According to the Financial Times, the Congo government is set to review the contracts, but “in spite of the reviews, no substantial changes are expected.” The deal was in fact part of the peace process as warring factions of the Congo elite helped themselves to handouts derived from the sales. The Financial Times explains that the government “was seen by western diplomats as deeply corrupt, but necessary to put an end to war in a country central to the region’s stability.”

The American public and the US Congress are getting their backs up about the Bush Regime’s determination to escalate the war in Iraq. A massive protest demonstration is occurring in Washington DC today, and Congress is expressing its disagreement with Bush’s decision to intensify the war in Iraq.

This is all to the good. However, it misses the real issue – the Bush Regime’s looming attack on Iran.

Rather than winding down one war, Bush is starting another. The entire world knows this and is discussing Bush’s planned attack on Iran in many forums. It is only Americans who haven’t caught on. A few senators have said that Bush must not attack Iran without the approval of Congress, and postings on the Internet demonstrate world wide awareness that Iran is in the Bush Regime’s cross hairs. But Congress and the Media – and the demonstration in Washington – are focused on Iraq.

What can be done to bring American awareness up to the standard of the rest of the world?

In Davos, Switzerland, the meeting of the World Economic Forum, a conference where economic globalism issues are discussed, opened January 24 with a discussion of Bush’s planned attack on Iran. The Secretary General of the League of Arab States and bankers and businessmen from such US allies as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates all warned of the coming attack and its catastrophic consequences for the Middle East and the world.

Writing for Global Research, General Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Academy on Geopolitical Affairs and former Joint Chief of Staff of the Russian Armies, forecasted an American nuclear attack on Iranby the end of April. General Ivashov presented the neoconservative reasoning that is the basis for the attack and concluded that the world’s protests cannot stop the US attack on Iran.

There will be shock and indignation, General Ivashov concludes, but the US will get away with it. He writes:

“Within weeks from now, we will see the informational warfare machine start working. The public opinion is already under pressure. There will be a growing anti-Iranian militaristic hysteria, new information leaks, disinformation, etc…. The probability of a US aggression against Iran is extremely high. It does remain unclear, though, whether the US Congress is going to authorize the war. It may take a provocation to eliminate this obstacle (an attack on Israel or the US targets including military bases). The scale of the provocation may be comparable to the 9/11 attack in NY. Then the Congress will certainly say ‘Yes’ to the US president.”

The Bush Regime has made it clear that it is convinced that Bush already has the authority to attack Iran. The Regime argues that the authority is part of Bush’s commander-in-chief powers. Congress has authorized the war in Iraq, and Bush’s recent public statements have shifted the responsibility for the Iraqi insurgency from al-Qaeda to Iran. Iran, Bush has declared, is killing US troops in Iraq. Thus, Iran is covered under the authorization for the war in Iraq.

Both Bush and Cheney have made it clear in public statements that they will ignore any congressional opposition to their war plans. For example, CBS News reported (Jan. 25) that Cheney said that a congressional resolution against escalating the war in Iraq “won’t stop us.” According to the Associated Press, Bush dismissed congressional disapproval with his statement, “I’m the decision-maker.”

Everything is in place for an attack on Iran. Two aircraft carrier attack forces are deployed to the Persian Gulf, US attack aircraft have been moved to Turkey and other countries on Iran’s borders, Patriot anti-missile defense systems are being moved to the Middle East to protect oil facilities and US bases from retaliation from Iranian missiles, and growing reams of disinformation alleging Iran’s responsibility for the insurgency in Iraq are being fed to the gullible US media.

General Ivashof and everyone in the Middle East and at the Davos globalization conference in Europe understands the Bush Regime’s agenda.

Why cannot Americans understand?

Why hasn’t Congress told Bush and Cheney that they will both be instantly impeached if they initiate a wider war?

Jan. 24 – The White House has quietly amended a key executive order to tighten the president’s grip on federal agencies that enforce health, safety and environmental protections.

The new order, issued last Thursday, gives the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) enhanced tools to oversee and interfere with federal regulations on everything from warning labels on medicines to safety standards for construction worksites.

In a statement responding to the executive order, the watchdog group Public Citizen called the initiative “an appalling arrogation of power,” charging the White House with claiming more executive will over federal agencies while circumventing congressional oversight.

The new powers build on a Clinton-era executive order that authorized OIRA to use cost-benefit analysis and other market-based calculations to evaluate rules and regulations proposed by federal agencies. Under that order, OIRA can compel executive-branch agencies, like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Fish and Wildlife Service, to change proposed public-health, environmental and other regulations according to White House priorities.

When is a national healthcare plan almost as bad as no healthcare plan at all? When it’s proposed as a desperate PR gesture by a president with the lowest public approval rating (35%) since Richard Nixon got caught knee deep in the Watergate mudslide.

President George W. Bush is knee deep in it himself, though it’s not mud that he’s stuck in. He unveiled his version of “health care reform” during his January 23 State of the Union address before the new Democratically-controlled Congress. As difficult as it is to imagine, his take on universal healthcare is even worse than his plan to send 20,000 additional troops to Iraq. Bush’s idea of “healthcare reform” is nothing short of a huge giveaway to corporate America. It’s a slap in the face to working-class people who can barely make it in an economy that has left them poorer than they’ve been in a long time.

The Bush proposal in a nutshell: Employees who are fortunate enough to have heath insurance would suddenly have to pay taxes on it. All those healthcare benefits packages that have been won through long years of struggle by the labor movement would be considered taxable income. Companies, too, would be taxed on the portion of those benefits that they pay for their workers. Those without health benefits would allegedly have an incentive for buying insurance: They’d get a tax credit every year.

It’s funny how something completely unrelated can inform us on the thought process driving Bush’s decision to double down on his Iraq gamble. Twenty or so years ago I co-authored a book on the S&L crisis. It was back then, and in Texas, I learned something that explains everything about Bush’s “New Way Forward” in Iraq.

Back in the early 1980s when Ronald Reagan deregulated the savings and loan industry, Texas became the nation’s biggest cesspool of S&L crookery.

At the core of their thieving strategy was a little trick they described thusly:

“A rolling loan gathers no loss.”

These wily Texas coyotes had figured out a win/win situation. S&L operators could help their buddies “borrow” money from their S&Ls, not pay it back, and still allow the S&L to book loan fees and other profits, upon which the S&L executives based their salaries and bonuses.

Ah, you say, but wouldn’t bank regulators notice that the loans were in default? No. Because each time a loan came due the S&L would “roll it over” — renew it — adding all interest due into the new loan and booking it as income. The loans got bigger and bigger, and never got paid off. The bankers got rich, the borrowers got rich, American taxpayers got the bill. A classic Texas “win/win” business deal.

The other rule of Texas high-rollers back then was to never place your own money into risky deals. Instead use what they called “OPM,” Other People’s Money. In the case of the S&L debacle, the money stolen and squandered was taxpayer insured savings. .

That’s precisely the kind of deal Bush has had going in Iraq, and wants to extend. He’s not putting his own children’s lives at risk, but OPK – Other People’s Kids. And his rolling deployments gathers no loss. As long as he can keep feeding fresh troops into Iraq his project cannot be proven a failure. If Bush can just keep borrowing other people’s kids to place at risk, and rolling over – renewing — his Iraq policy for just two more years, he’s home free. It’s another Texas “win/win” in which the perp gets away and the American people pay the price.

There are other analogies with the Texas S&L debacle – because this really is almost uniquely a Texas mindset. For example, every single Texas S&L crook I interviewed after the feds closed their bankrupt thrift and/or foreclosed on their projects, made the same claim – almost word for word. It went like this:

“My S&L (or project) would not have failed if the feds had just let me complete my plan. If they had just funded it to completion it would not have failed. They caused the loss by stopping us from seeing the project through.”

And that’s precisely what Bush will claim if can just roll over his Iraq loans for two more years. He will leave office and go back to Crawford. The new administration will be forced to declare his Iraq project in default, bite the bullet and withdraw US troops. The lid will come off the already simmering Sunni/Shia civil war and that’s when we’ll hear from George again. He’s sidle out from this ranch house, cozy up to Fox News microphone and declare:

Plus, when you look at where US troops are being killed, it is in Sunni Arab al-Anbar Province, and Sunni Arab Salahuddin, Diyal, Mosul, and West Baghdad. Those Sunni guerrillas are not being helped by Iran. They are being helped by Sunnis in countries allied to the US.

And then, the US hold over 10,000 prisoners swept up on suspicion of insurgent activity in Iraq. What number of them is Iranians? Slim to none. More Syrians and Jordanians and Saudis by far than Iranians.

So if 99 percent of the problem is with the Sunni Arabs of Iraq, why all this big talk about Shiite Iran?

WASHINGTON // President Bush staunchly defended a tough new administration policy on Iran that is drawing criticism at home and anxiety abroad, insisting yesterday that it is only sensible for U.S. troops to move aggressively against Iranians who endanger them in Iraq.

Bush, appearing with military advisers at the White House, said the policy is not meant to spread U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into Iran, but asserted that U.S. troops have the right to seek out agents from Tehran, which he has accused of supporting Iraqi militants.

“It just makes sense that if somebody is trying to harm our troops or stop us from achieving our goal, or killing innocent civilians in Iraq, that we will stop them,” Bush said.

The nations of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries are selling U.S. Treasuries at the quickest pace in more than three years, according to U.S. Treasury Department data. Concerned analysts predict a dollar sell-off coupled with rising interest rates.

In the three months ending in November 2006, oil-exporting nations including Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela sold 9.4 percent of their U.S. government debt—a significant amount, considering these countries own more than $100 billion worth.

Over the past few years, oil producers have become very important dollar supporters, rivaling the United Kingdom, and even China and Japan.

Since most oil is sold in dollars, rising oil prices meant that opec countries’ dollar reserves ballooned. In fact, during 2006 alone, oil producers amassed a whopping $500 million in dollar-denominated savings. Fortunately for Americans, the dollar’s historic role as a stable store of wealth influenced many of the world’s oil exporters to either save those dollars or recycle them into U.S. Treasuries.

However, some economists worry that mounting dollar sales and slowing Treasury purchases indicate the dollar is losing its reputation as a stable reserve currency.

WASHINGTON – Vice President Dick Cheney exerted “constant” pressure on the Republican former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee to stall an investigation into the Bush administration’s use of flawed intelligence on Iraq, the panel’s Democratic chairman charged Thursday.

In an interview with McClatchy Newspapers, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia also accused President Bush of running an illegal program by ordering eavesdropping on Americans’ international e-mails and telephone communications without court-issued warrants.

In the 45-minute interview, Rockefeller said that it was “not hearsay” that Cheney, a leading proponent of invading Iraq, pushed Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., to drag out the probe of the administration’s use of prewar intelligence.

“It was just constant,” Rockefeller said of Cheney’s alleged interference. He added that he knew that the vice president attended regular policy meetings in which he conveyed White House directions to Republican staffers.

Republicans “just had to go along with the administration,” he said.

In an e-mail response to Rockefeller’s comments, Cheney’s spokeswoman, Lea McBride, said: “The vice president believes Senator Roberts was a good chairman of the Intelligence Committee.”

Roberts’ chief of staff, Jackie Cottrell, blamed the Democrats for the investigation remaining incomplete more than two years after it began.

“Senator Rockefeller’s allegations are patently untrue,” she said in an e-mail statement. “The delays came from the Democrats’ insistence that they expand the scope of the inquiry to make it a more political document going into the 2006 elections. Chairman Roberts did everything he could to accommodate their requests for further information without allowing them to distort the facts.”

“I’m not aware of any effort by the vice president, his staff or anyone in the administration to influence the speed at which the committee did its work,” said Bill Duhnke, who was Roberts’ staff director.