Domino Effect Brings Down Bush House of Cards
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18744674/
Few missed the coincidence of Paul Wolfowitz resigning
from the World Bank on the same day Tony Blair was
bidding farewell to Washington. Nor did the travails
of Alberto Gonzales, the US attorney-general,
who faces a vote of no confidence in the Senate next week,
and who is closely associated with the alleged US excesses
in the "war on terror", escape parallel.
Seven Republican senators have joined the Democrats in calling
for Mr Gonzales to go over the alleged politically motivated firing
of eight federal prosecutors late last year. One way or another
most of the hardliners who dominated the first Bush administration
have fallen by the wayside in the past 20 months – although for
largely unrelated reasons.
The first was Douglas Feith, the undersecretary for defence,
who attained notoriety for predicting that Iraqis would greet US
soldiers with flowers but who will also be remembered "as the
stupidest [expletive] guy I ever met", in the unfortunate words of
Tommy Franks, the general in charge of the invasion.
Then came Scooter Libby, the chief of staff to ***** Cheney,
who resigned last year when he was indicted by a grand jury
for perjury over the leaking of the name of a serving CIA officer
in an attempt to discredit her husband's finding that Iraq
had not been seeking nuclear weapons.
Next to go was Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defence,
who was abruptly ejected from the Pentagon by Mr Bush last
November the day after the Republican party's heavy defeat in
mid-term congressional elections. Mr Rumsfeld will be
remembered for many phrases. But his "stuff happens" description
of the incipient Iraqi insurgency may linger for a while.
Like Mr Rumsfeld, who had resisted a crescendo of resignation calls,
John Bolton appeared to draw energy from the increasingly strident
clamour of his detractors. But the Democratic victory in November
removed any prospect Mr Bolton would be confirmed as US ambassador
to the United Nations, a body from which he did little to conceal
his disdain. He resigned in January.
Others, including J.D. Crouch, the neoconservative deputy
national security adviser, who announced last month that he would
be stepping down, are quitting the Bush administration for
uncontroversial reasons, such as fatigue or the desire to earn a
decent salary. The roll call of departures includes moderates,
such as Meghan O'Sullivan, Mr Crouch's colleague, and Tim Adams,
the number three at the US Treasury.
Nor do the departures of so many hardliners mean the Bush
administration has none left. Health permitting, ***** Cheney will
stay with Mr Bush until he leaves on 20 January 2009. And few
expect Elliot Abrams, Mr Bush's hawkish Middle East adviser, to
move to an investment bank.
Meanwhile, Zalmay Khalilzad, the new US ambassador to the UN,
was a formerprotégé of Mr Wolfowitz at the Pentagon in the
early 1990s.
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FEMA's Michael Brown, Tom Delay, Bernard Kerik, Chalabi ...
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good-bye.
Countries which do not have extradition treaties with the U.S.
Marshall Islands
Saudi Arabia
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