"La bouche de la vérité - Déjà Vu Le Prophéte"
<yessireeyesindeedydo@yahoo.ca> Spat the Words

http://here-now.org/shows/2005/01/20050117_1.asp

Yes, very interesting. Here's another piece from Hersh.

The Coming Bush Wars

by Seymour M. Hersh

George W. Bush's reelection was not his only victory last fall.
The President and his national-security advisers have consolidated
control over the military and intelligence communities' strategic
analyses and covert operations to a degree unmatched since the
rise of the post-Second World War national-security state. Bush
has an aggressive and ambitious agenda for using that control-against
the mullahs in Iran and against targets in the ongoing war on
terrorism-during his second term. The C.I.A. will continue to be
downgraded and the agency will increasingly serve, as one government
consultant with close ties to the Pentagon put it, as 'facilitators'
of policy emanating from President Bush and Vice-President *****
Cheney. This process is well under way.

Despite the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, the Bush
Administration has not reconsidered its basic long-range policy
goal in the Middle East: the establishment of democracy throughout
the region. Bush's re‘lection is regarded within the Administration
as evidence of America's support for his decision to go to war.
It has reaffirmed the position of the neoconservatives in the
Pentagon's civilian leadership who advocated the invasion, including
Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Douglas Feith,
the Under-secretary for Policy. According to a former high-level
intelligence official, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met with
the Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly after the election and told them,
in essence, that the naysayers had been heard and the American
people did not accept their message. Rumsfeld added that America
was committed to staying in Iraq and that there would be no
second-guessing.

"This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign.
The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone,"
the former high-level intelligence official told me. "Next, we're
going to have the Iranian campaign. We've declared war and the
bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last
hurrah-we've got four years, and want to come out of this saying
we won the war on terrorism."

Bush and Cheney may have set the policy, but it is Rumsfeld who
has directed its implementation and has absorbed much of the
public criticism when things went wrong-whether it was prisoner
abuse in Abu Ghraib or lack of sufficient armor plating for
G.I.s' vehicles in Iraq. Both Democratic and Republican
lawmakers have called for Rumsfeld's dismissal, and he is not
widely admired inside the military. Nonetheless, his
reappointment as Defense Secretary was never in doubt.

Rumsfeld will become even more important during the second term.
In interviews with past and present intelligence and military
officials, I was told that the agenda had been determined before
the Presidential election, and much of it would be Rumsfeld's
responsibility. The war on terrorism would be expanded, and
effectively placed under the Pentagon's control. The President
has signed a series of findings and executive orders authorizing
secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct
covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as
many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia.

The President's decision enables Rumsfeld to run the operations
off the books-free from legal restrictions imposed on the C.I.A.
Under current law, all C.I.A. covert activities overseas must be
authorized by a Presidential finding and reported to the Senate
and House intelligence committees. (The laws were enacted after
a series of scandals in the nineteen-seventies involving C.I.A.
domestic spying and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders.)
"The Pentagon doesn't feel obligated to report any of this to
Congress," the former high-level intelligence official said.
"They don't even call it 'covert ops'-it's too close to the
C.I.A. phrase. In their view, it's 'black reconnaissance.'
They're not even going to tell the cincs"-the regional American
military commanders-in-chief. (The Defense Department and the
White House did not respond to requests for comment on this
story.)

In my interviews, I was repeatedly told that the next strategic
target was Iran. "Everyone is saying, 'You can't be serious
about targeting Iran. Look at Iraq,'" the former intelligence
official told me. "But they say, 'We've got some lessons
learned-not militarily, but how we did it politically. We're
not going to rely on agency pissants.' No loose ends, and
that's why the C.I.A. is out of there." (more)
--posted 01.17.05

Subject: Re: Veeeeeeery Interesting: re; The Coming Wars by Seymour M
Hersh....
From: "R. Foreman"

http://here-now.org/shows/2005/01/20050117_1.asp

Yes, very interesting. Here's another piece from Hersh.



The Coming Bush Wars

by Seymour M. Hersh

George W. Bush's reelection was not his only victory last fall.
The President and his national-security advisers have consolidated
control over the military and intelligence communities' strategic
analyses and covert operations to a degree unmatched since the
rise of the post-Second World War national-security state. Bush
has an aggressive and ambitious agenda for using that control-against
the mullahs in Iran and against targets in the ongoing war on
terrorism-during his second term. The C.I.A. will continue to be
downgraded and the agency will increasingly serve, as one government
consultant with close ties to the Pentagon put it, as 'facilitators'
of policy emanating from President Bush and Vice-President *****
Cheney. This process is well under way.

Despite the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, the Bush
Administration has not reconsidered its basic long-range policy
goal in the Middle East: the establishment of democracy throughout
the region. Bush's re‘lection is regarded within the Administration
as evidence of America's support for his decision to go to war.
It has reaffirmed the position of the neoconservatives in the
Pentagon's civilian leadership who advocated the invasion, including
Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Douglas Feith,
the Under-secretary for Policy. According to a former high-level
intelligence official, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met with
the Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly after the election and told them,
in essence, that the naysayers had been heard and the American
people did not accept their message. Rumsfeld added that America
was committed to staying in Iraq and that there would be no
second-guessing.

"This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign.
The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone,"
the former high-level intelligence official told me. "Next, we're
going to have the Iranian campaign. We've declared war and the
bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last
hurrah-we've got four years, and want to come out of this saying
we won the war on terrorism."

Bush and Cheney may have set the policy, but it is Rumsfeld who
has directed its implementation and has absorbed much of the
public criticism when things went wrong-whether it was prisoner
abuse in Abu Ghraib or lack of sufficient armor plating for
G.I.s' vehicles in Iraq. Both Democratic and Republican
lawmakers have called for Rumsfeld's dismissal, and he is not
widely admired inside the military. Nonetheless, his
reappointment as Defense Secretary was never in doubt.

Rumsfeld will become even more important during the second term.
In interviews with past and present intelligence and military
officials, I was told that the agenda had been determined before
the Presidential election, and much of it would be Rumsfeld's
responsibility. The war on terrorism would be expanded, and
effectively placed under the Pentagon's control. The President
has signed a series of findings and executive orders authorizing
secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct
covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as
many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia.

The President's decision enables Rumsfeld to run the operations
off the books-free from legal restrictions imposed on the C.I.A.
Under current law, all C.I.A. covert activities overseas must be
authorized by a Presidential finding and reported to the Senate
and House intelligence committees. (The laws were enacted after
a series of scandals in the nineteen-seventies involving C.I.A.
domestic spying and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders.)
"The Pentagon doesn't feel obligated to report any of this to
Congress," the former high-level intelligence official said.
"They don't even call it 'covert ops'-it's too close to the
C.I.A. phrase. In their view, it's 'black reconnaissance.'
They're not even going to tell the cincs"-the regional American
military commanders-in-chief. (The Defense Department and the
White House did not respond to requests for comment on this
story.)

In my interviews, I was repeatedly told that the next strategic
target was Iran. "Everyone is saying, 'You can't be serious
about targeting Iran. Look at Iraq,'" the former intelligence
official told me. "But they say, 'We've got some lessons
learned-not militarily, but how we did it politically. We're
not going to rely on agency pissants.' No loose ends, and
that's why the C.I.A. is out of there." (more)
--posted 01.17.05