Power Of Mischief: Condi Highlighted

[bigtree]

Hope folks can use this Condi Rice info from my book.

Ominously, in the fall of 2002 the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq 44 (Chairman of the Board, Bruce Jackson), was established in the Washington offices of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. 45 The CLI engaged in educational and advocacy efforts to mobilize U.S. and international support for policies aimed at ending the regime of Saddam Hussein.

This advocacy came at the same time that Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley were engaged in a series of briefings with foreign policy groups, Iraq specialists and other opinion makers that was termed as a "new phase," by a White House spokesman, who described the goal as building fresh public support for Bush administration policy vs. Iraq.

Members of the CLI met in November of 2002 with President Bush's national security adviser, Condi Rice, in an effort to mount "education and advocacy efforts to mobilize U.S. and international support freeing the Iraqi people from tyranny."
Condi Rice would be an unremarkable figure in this Bush administration, if she were judged solely on her work experience outside of government, in which she perfected the role of corporate promoter and apologist.

From her position at the Charles Schwab Corporation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the University of Notre Dame, the International Advisory Council of J.P. Morgan and the San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors, to the board rooms of the Transamerica Corporation, and Hewlett Packard, Rice forged the corporate relationships which propelled her into the White House executive club. Rice, is a former longtime member of the board of directors of Chevron Oil, which merged with Texaco. Rice has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.

Rice's contribution to the Bush dynasty began when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Bush I administration needed an experienced Sovietologist. She was basically bullish on the Soviets and she was appointed Director of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council.

She was undoubtably brought on board to teach George I and his clan the difference between Perestroika and Glasnost.

Rice has assumed the traditional role of an international affairs Svengali to George II - a role that has distinguished such past notables as, Colin Powell, John Poindexter and Robert Iran-Contra McFarland - and she dutifully adjusted our experience-deficient commander-in-chief to the doctrine of her conservative think-tank benefactors.

Her deputy sidekick, Stephen Hadley, has been advocating policies for many years which have, to no one's surprise, found their way into the ideological bulldozer which forms the doctrine of the Bush league's foreign policy.

Hadley worked closely with the Bush-Cheney campaign as a foreign policy advisor specializing in European and Russian affairs. He was a partner in Shea & Gardner, the Washington law firm representing Lockheed Martin. He was a member of the Vulcans, an eight-person foreign policy team formed during the Bush campaign that included Condoleezza Rice and Richard Perle.

Hadley is the fluky bungler who took the blame for the insertion of the phony Iraq/Niger uranium charges in the president's State of the Union address, claiming that he ‘forgot' to relay CIA objections.

Members of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq included, John McCain, Newt Gingrich, William Kristol, General Barry McCaffrey, and former CIA director James Woolsey. (Woolsey recently proposed the reinstatement of a constitutional monarchy in Iraq, in which a king would appoint the prime minister.)

George Shultz, Amb. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, and Elliot Abrams were also involved with the group. Abrams and Bolton are founding members of the CLI.

Elliot Abrams is a senior Bush official on the National Security Council. He was formally head of President Reagan's efforts in the Middle East. Abrams, was convicted for President Reagan's crimes in the Iran-Contra scandal and then pardoned by Bush I.

As assistant secretary of state for Inter-American affairs under President Reagan, Abrams was responsible for the controversial policies of that administration in Nicaragua and El Salvador during the 1980s, and played a key role in the U.S. relationship with Manuel Noriega. In 2000, Abrams was made the improbable president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. In 2001 he was hired by Condolezza Rice for a position on the NSC overseeing Arab/ Israeli negotiations. 46

Among the other participants in the CLI were: president and executive director, Randy Scheunemann (Scheunemann served until recently as a consultant on Iraq to Donald Rumsfeld), Treasurer Julie Finley, Gary Schmitt (director of the conservative foundation, Project for the New American Century 47) and Richard Perle, (chairman of Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board 48), who is also closely associated PNAC.

In Dec. 2002 members of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq met with National Security Council officials to discuss the administration’s analysis of Iraq's declaration that it possessed no weapons of mass destruction.


Much More:http://www.returningsoldiers.us/PowerOfMischiefCondi.htm


This is an excerpt from my book, Power Of Mischief: http://www.returningsoldiers.us/pompage.htm

Download the book for free!
http://www.returningsoldiers.us/Power%20Of%20Mischief4.pdf


Here's my list of numbered, linked references for the book (253 links):
http://returningsoldiers.us/biblio.htm

Hope folks can use the info therein. I've been stepped on repeatedly in the process of publishing this book, in ways I'd rather not discuss. No one can stop me from giving it away though.

[bigtree]

1. sleepy kick

[NJCher]

2. covering their bases on TV

Hmmm, thanks for this info. I was unaware of how the relationship with Hadley worked. They have all been on television of late and just the other day I heard Hadley being interviewed, although at the time I did not know it was he. It was just when I heard his ridiculous positions that I said, "Who the eff is this? and then later I learned it was Hadley.

Also, Newt was on The Today Show this a.m., touting their line.


Cher

[bigtree]

3. Hadley

- Stephen Hadley, 53, served as assistant secretary of defense for international security policy from 1989 to 1993 and was responsible for defense policy on NATO and Western Europe, nuclear weapons and ballistic missile defense, and arms control. He was active in the negotiations that resulted in the START I and START II treaties.

Hadley was also a member of the National Security Council staff during the earlier Bush administration. Former Lockheed president, Bruce Jackson and former Lockheed counsel, Hadley have worked closely together on the Committee to Expand NATO. 68 Jackson was president of this entity, based in the Washington offices of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute; Hadley was its secretary.

As reported by Karl Grossman of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space 69, Stephen Hadley told an Air Force Association Convention in a speech September 11, 2000, "Space is going to be important. It has a great feature in the military," 70

Investigate the numbered references in italics with the linked biblio in the original post above.


More on Hadley:

http://www.bushwatch.org/uranium.htm

[NJCher]

4. Hadley is nothing but a shill for the arms industry

What a disgrace that he has ever had a position in government.


Cher

[bigtree]

5. Who is Bruce Jackson?

Another one of the advocates for the vanquished corporate executives is Bruce Jackson, the founder and president of the Project on Transitional Democracies 42, an organization which guided ‘newly independent', former Soviet provinces through the congressional appropriations process to connect the foreign leaders with U.S. tax dollars.

His influence has led to the acceptance of many of these countries into NATO compliance and membership. The introduction of these former provinces into the NATO resulted in a boon for weapon's manufacturers as the new republics were required to modernize their military forces to comply with NATO defense requirements.

U.S. ambassador to NATO, Nicholas Burns explained Jackson's role to the Dallas Morning News in 2002: "In Europe, he coaches officials of candidate countries on whom to see, what to say and how to behave in Washington. He also browbeats them on what reforms they need to make and what issues they must address, such as lingering anti-Semitism, if they expect the Senate to let them into NATO."

Bruce Jackson is a political veteran who thoroughly enmeshes himself in the focus and direction of our nation's foreign policy through the establishment of policy institutes and think-tanks which issue corporate-influenced policy documents and public statements that support, encourage, or echo legislative initiatives in Congress. He has described his think-tank activities outside of the corporate boardroom as "hobbies."

From 1979 to 1990, Jackson served in the United States Army as a Military Intelligence Officer. From 1986 to 1990, he served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in a variety of policy positions which involved our nuclear forces, strategic defenses and arms control management.

Upon leaving the Department of Defense in 1990, Mr. Jackson joined Lehman Brothers, an investment bank in New York, where he was a strategist in the firm's proprietary trading operations. Between 1993 and 2002, Mr. Jackson was Vice President for Strategy and Planning at Lockheed Martin Corporation 43.

During the Bush 2000 Presidential Campaign, he chaired the Foreign Policy Platform Committee. He also worked in Dick Cheney's office back when the vice-president was Secretary of Defense.

Ominously, in the fall of 2002 the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq 44 (Chairman of the Board, Bruce Jackson), was established in the Washington offices of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. 45 The CLI engaged in educational and advocacy efforts to mobilize U.S. and international support for policies aimed at ending the regime of Saddam Hussein.

After the conference, committee chairman Bruce Jackson stated that, "The administration has been forced to the unavoidable conclusion. The regime of Saddam Hussein has blatantly disregarded UN Security Council Resolution 1441 49 which calls for an "accurate, full and complete" account of its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction," he said. "The Iraqi Declaration is clearly non-compliant." 50

"Peaceful disarmament is not possible without the full cooperation of the Iraqi regime," said Jackson. This was echoed by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who testified before a Senate committee in Jan. 2003 that "without active cooperation, the peaceful disarmament of Iraq is not going to be possible." 51

Saddam, in fact, is the only adversary that I can recall that actually destroyed missiles before an anticipated attack. To date, the U.S. account of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction is a dismal sham; backsliding into doublespeak about finding the presence of weapon's programs, as opposed to locating actual weapons or any material which remotely threatened America.

The CLI lobbied for the installation of the so-called Iraqi National Congress to replace the Hussein dictatorship. 52 This group was the creation of the U.S. Congress which, following testimony from Ahmed Chalabi, and defense policy executive, Zalmay Khalilzad(Special Envoy to Afganistan), passed the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998, and sanctioned the new U.S. policy of regime change. Almost $100 million in taxpayer funds was provided to the group.

[bigtree]

6. Chalabi

The leader of the dissident organization, Chalabi, is a wealthy, U.S.-educated banker whose family fled Iraq when the monarchy was overthrown in 1958. Chalabi's CIA contacts led to the formation of the Iraqi National Congress in 1992.

Chalabi's influence in Washington comes from conservatives in and out of the administration who have been advocating for the deposition of Hussein and who are closely associated with the right-wing American Enterprise Institute and the Project for a New American Century.

Chalabi has been tried in exile by a Jordanian court and sentenced to 22 years in prison on 31 charges of embezzlement, theft of more than $70 million, misuse of depositor funds and currency speculation.

Chalabi's nephew, Salem Chalabi, has associated himself with the so-called Iraqi International Law Group, whose site boasts that their "clients number among the largest corporations and institutions on the planet."

And that: " . . . they have chosen IILG to provide them with real-time, on the ground intelligence they cannot get from inexperienced local firms or from overburdened coalition and local government officials."53

Here is a family (Chalabi) that has ingratiated themselves with monied influences, in and out of our government. Their administration benefactors spread our tax dollars around the world with abandon, yet treat the most urgent of our basic needs here at home with miserly neglect. Consistent with Ahmed's U.S. military escort back to his homeland, the Chalabis will assume whatever mandate for power, money, or influence that their Pentagon cabal will provide.

Some of Chalabi's influential friends in the White House include, twenty-year friend Richard Perle and Douglas Feith.

Douglas J. Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and Director of Iraq reconstruction is one of Chalabi's main shills in the Pentagon.

[bigtree]

7. Douglas J. Feith

Feith used Chalabi's web of misinformation about Iraqi WMD's to develop a rationale for war against Saddam; including the ‘intelligence' that Saddam was conspiring with bin Laden.

Feith is known for a 1996 paper he co-authored and presented to President Clinton advocating the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The letter was also signed by Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and others. 54

In the letter they argued that, "In the present climate in Washington, some may misunderstand and misinterpret strong American action against Iraq as having ulterior political motives. We believe, on the contrary, that strong American action against Saddam is in the national interest, that it must be supported, and that it must succeed."

Co-author Feith was one of about five members of the Bush administration who formed a separate ‘special plans office' in October 2001, whose purpose was to collect information from the CIA and the intelligence community to develop their own strategy for the war on terrorism. The group highlighted "interrelationships among terrorist organizations and state sponsors." They claimed "strategic alliances between Al-Qaeda and Iraq, despite the argument that such an alliance would have to withstand deep ideological and religious differences. 55


- Douglas J. Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and Director of Iraq Reconstruction is president and managing partner of former law firm, Feith & Zell; clients include Northrop-Grumman and Loral Space Communications 71. Feith created International Advisors Incorporated, a lobbying firm whose main client was the government of Turkey. The firm retained Richard Perle as an adviser between 1989 and 1994. 72

Feith owns shares of AT&T stock worth $500,00 to $1 million, (AT&T is the DOD's 43d largest contractor), Ford Motor Co. stock worth $250,001 to $500,000 (Ford is lobbying the DOD over appropriations), Verizon Communications stock worth $500,001 to $1 million, and Lucent Technologies stock worth $250,001 to $500,000.

Bechtel awarded a $25 million subcontract in October to shareholder Feith's Lucent Technologies to carry out ‘emergency' repair and rehabilitation of the communications network in Iraq. This was the first major communications infrastructure subcontract Bechtel awarded in Iraq. 73


Douglas Feith, head of reconstruction and other postwar activities, heads a lobbying and consulting group whose main client is Turkey. In 1989, Feith registered International Advisors Inc. as a foreign agent representing the Turkish government, according to the CPI. 199

According to a statement the International Advisors filed with the Justice Department, it would "assist in the efforts for the appropriation of U.S. military and economic assistance to Turkey." Douglas Feith is listed as the Chief Executive Officer of IA and its only stockholder. 200

[bigtree]

8. kick

kick

[bigtree]

9. Cheney

The election of George Bush and Dick Cheney was a watershed for the military corporations. Both had been stalwart supporters of the multibillion dollar military industry; Bush in his home state and Cheney, wherever he could exploit his tenure as defense secretary during the first Iraq war, and build on his past deal-making with the coalition members.

During the 2000 campaign Cheney complained that "developments of new military technologies (had) reached all-time lows." But that would only be a concern to the industry, not to the average American. The U.S. arsenal is full of high-tech weapons that don't work or that they don't use.

This call for a new generation of weapons is intended to facilitate the agendas of Bush administration hawks who would project U.S. influence around the globe like mercenary carpetbaggers; through intimidation from the force of our weaponry; with our soldiers; and through the supplying of ‘commercial’ armies whenever a commitment of our forces is politically difficult, or prohibited by Congress.

Cheney's lifetime immersion in governmental affairs has provided him ample opportunity to feather his own nest, and to lay the groundwork for the increased insinuation of his network of corporate partners and associates' pet projects into the military and government appropriations process.

Cheney began his government career in the Nixon administration working under Donald Rumsfeld, who was the improbable director of one of the nation's first anti-poverty programs, the Office of Economic Opportunity.

After a stint in Congress, Cheney was called back into the executive branch to serve as Secretary of Defense for Bush I. The wartime connections that he made with leaders of the Mideast oil countries, made him an attractive candidate for the Halliburton oil corporation, who had recently merged with Kellogg, Burton, and Root.

Kellogg, Brown, and Root was hired in 1992 for $3.9 million by then-Defense Secretary Cheney to present a report on the privatizing of certain army functions, such as building camps and providing food for soldiers. This move opened the door for the private support army which has enabled the Pentagon to (barely) maintain forces for President Bush's expanded military agenda. 40

Halliburton has been a major beneficiary of the expansion of U.S. military operations around the world in the aftermath of September 11. During Cheney's five years of employment there, the company doubled the amount of revenue it received from government contracts.

CorpWatch reported that, in 1998 Cheney took home $4.4 million in salary and benefits and in 1999 he was paid $1.92 million, according to the company's own financial reports. 41

In May 2000, he cashed in 100,000 Halliburton shares to net another $5.1 million and then sold the rest of his shares in August 2000 for $18.5 million, adding up to a total of almost $30 million in just two years. He's still on the payroll there.

[bigtree]

10. kick for more interest

:kick: