| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
19 Feb 2005 03:22:20 PM |
| Object: |
OT: Nixon had Kissinger... |
....and Shrub has Negroponte.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2281&ncid=742&e=5&u=/thenation/20050218/cm_thenation/32203
Given how well Negrponte buried the facts in the past to hide
human rights abuses, it's no wonder he was given the same job
again.
Bob Dog
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Negroponte's Dark Past
Fri Feb 18,12:43 PM ET
David Corn
How many times can I write the same piece about John Negroponte?
Today George W. Bush named him to the new post of Director of
National Intelligence. Previously, Bush had hired Negroponte to
be UN ambassador and then US ambassador to the new Iraq. On each
of those earlier occasions, I noted that Negroponte's past
deserved scrutiny. After all, during the Reagan years, when he
was ambassador to Honduras, Negroponte was involved in what was
arguably an illegal covert quid pro quo connected to the Iran/
contra scandal, and he refused to acknowledge significant human
rights abuses committed by the pro-US military in Honduras. But
each time Negroponte's appointment came before the Senate, he
won easy confirmation. Now that he's been tapped to lead the
effort to reorganize and reform an intelligence community that
screwed up 9/11 and the WMD-in-Iraq assignment, Negroponte will
likely sail through the confirmation process once again.
His previous exploits, though, warrant more attention than ever.
He has been credibly accused of rigging a human rights report
that was politically inconvenient. This is a bad omen. The
fundamental mission of the intelligence community is to provide
policymakers with unvarnished and valuable information-even if it
causes the policymakers headaches. But there's reason to believe
that Negroponte did the opposite in tough circumstances. If that
is the case, he would not be the right man to oversee an
intelligence community that needs solid leaders who are committed
to truth-finding. Rather than rewrite my previous work on
Negroponte, I am posting below the article I did after Bush named
him the viceroy of Baghdad. It's more relevant today than when it
first appeared. But I doubt Negroponte's dark history will
finally trigger a confirmation debate within the Senate. He has
skated in the past; he'll likely do so again.
Bush's New Iraq Viceroy
by DAVID CORN
May 10, 2004 issue
Like dirty money, tainted reputations can be laundered, as the
Administration fervently hopes in the case of John Negroponte.
Now UN ambassador, Negroponte has been chosen by George W. Bush
to be the first ambassador to post-Saddam Iraq. When Bush
selected Negroponte to be his UN representative in 2001,
Negroponte was one of several Iran/contra figures being
resurrected by the Bush crowd. As Honduras ambassador in the
early 1980s, Negroponte, a career diplomat, participated in a
secret and possibly illegal quid pro quo in which the Reagan
Administration bribed the Honduran government with economic and
military assistance to support the contras fighting the socialist
Sandinistas of Nicaragua. Perhaps more significant, while
Negroponte served in Honduras, he denied or downplayed serious
human rights abuses by government security forces. This past
threatened his confirmation as UN ambassador. But 9/11 rescued
Negroponte. At the time of the attack, his nomination was pending,
and the Senate moved quickly to approve him.
These days Negroponte's tenure in Honduras is old news. The
Washington Post's front-page story on his nomination did not
mention his stint there. Senate staffers say that his record in
Honduras won't be a focus of the confirmation hearings. But his
tour of duty there is worth scrutiny, for it raises questions
about his credibility and his ability to handle tough situations
and inconvenient truths. While he was in Honduras and for years
afterward, Negroponte refused to acknowledge the human rights
abuses. In a 1982 letter to The Economist he said it was "simply
untrue to state that death squads have made their appearance in
Honduras." The next year he maintained, "There is no indication
that the infrequent human rights violations that do occur are
part of deliberate government policy." And during his 2001
confirmation he stated, "I do not believe then, nor do I believe
now, that these abuses were part of a deliberate government
policy. To this day, I do not believe that death squads were
operating in Honduras." How then does he account for a 1997 CIA
Inspector General investigation that concluded, "The Honduran
military committed hundreds of human rights abuses since 1980,
many of which were politically motivated and officially
sanctioned" and linked to "death squad activities"?
Not only has Negroponte declined to acknowledge the obvious; when
he was ambassador, the State Department rigged its Honduras human
rights reports to Congress. As a 1995 Baltimore Sun series noted,
"A comparison of the annual human rights reports prepared while
Negroponte was ambassador with the facts as they were then known
shows that Congress was deliberately misled." The Sun reported,
"Time and again...Negroponte was confronted with evidence that a
Honduran army intelligence unit, trained by the CIA, was stalking,
kidnapping, torturing and killing suspected subversives." But this
didn't make it into State Department reports. Had Honduras been
found to be engaging in systematic abuses, it could have lost its
US aid--thwarting the Reagan Administration's use of Honduras to
support the contras.
Negroponte has claimed "there was no effort to soft pedal" abuses
in Honduras. Yet in public statements he repeatedly conveyed a
misleading appearance, and in the years since he has held tight--
in the face of compelling evidence--to the view that the abuses
that did occur were merely unfortunate exceptions. Negroponte's
confirmation hearing will provide senators a chance to probe
Bush's plans (or lack thereof) in Iraq. But if Negroponte's
record as an abuse denier is not questioned, as seems likely, he
will once again be able to escape his haunted past.
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