Not Scared Yet? Try Connecting These Dots

[Guest guest]

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/08/con04327.html

 

August 9, 2004

 

Not Scared Yet? Try Connecting These Dots

 

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

by Ray McGovern

 

" Pre-election period…pre-election plot…pre-election

threats: " These rolled off National Security Adviser

Condoleezza Rice’s lips no less than seven times

yesterday on CNN’s Late Edition as she discussed the

likely timing of a terrorist attack. She stayed on

message.

 

Dr. Rice said the government had actually " picked up

discussion " relating to " trying to do something in the

pre-election period, " and added that information on

the threat came from " active multiple sources. "

 

I found myself wondering if those sources are any

better than those cited by Attorney General John

Ashcroft on May 26, when he launched this campaign,

citing " credible intelligence from multiple sources

that al-Qaeda plans an attack on the United States "

before the November election. Ashcroft’s warning came

out of the blue, without the customary involvement of

the directors of the C.I.A. and Department of Homeland

Security (although the latter quickly fell in line).

 

In support of his warning, Ashcroft cited " an al-Qaeda

spokesman, " who the FBI later was embarrassed to admit

is " The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades. " Sinister sounding

though the name may be, this " group " is thought to

consist of no more than one person with a fax machine,

according to a senior U.S. intelligence official. That

fax is notorious for claiming credit for all manner of

death and destruction.

 

Are the recent warnings and heightened alerts

legitimate or contrived? Is this yet another case of

" intelligence " being conjured up to serve the

political purposes of President Bush and his top

advisers? The record of the past three years gives

rise to the suspicion that this is precisely what is

afoot.

 

Running Scared

 

While Iraq generally has moved off the front page,

those paying attention to developments there have

watched a transition from mayhem to bedlam in recent

days. Worse still, the U.S. economy is again faltering

as the election draws near.

 

Perhaps most worrisome of all from the

administration’s point of view are the fresh photos,

film footage, and other reporting of torture in

U.S.-run prisons in Iraq and elsewhere that will

surface in the coming weeks. This round is said to

include details of the rape and other abuse of some of

the Iraqi women and the hundred or so children—some as

young as 10 years old—held in jails like Abu Graib.

U.S. Army Sergeant Samuel Provance, who was stationed

there, has blown the whistle on the abuse of children

as well as other prisoners. He recounted, for example,

how interrogators soaked a 16-year-old, covered him in

mud, and then used his suffering to break the youth’s

father, also a prisoner, during interrogation.

 

I suspect it is the further revelations of torture

that worries the White House most. Adding to its woes,

last week over a hundred lawyers, including seven past

presidents of the American Bar Association and former

FBI Director William Sessions, issued a statement

strongly condemning the legal opinions of government

attorneys holding that torture might be legally

defensible. The lawyers called for an investigation

regarding whether there is a connection between those

legal opinions and the abuses at Abu Graib and

elsewhere.

 

While Bush administration officials have tried to

distance themselves from the opinions and claim that

the president did not authorize the torture of

suspected al-Qaeda or Taliban fighters, the

photographic evidence speaks for itself. And

neo-conservative William Kristol’s bragging Sunday on

ABC’s This Week that this administration’s

interrogation techniques have been successful because

they are " rougher than what John Kerry would approve

of " does not help the administration’s case.

 

With each new revelation of torture, the

" few-bad-apples " explanation strains credulity closer

to the breaking point. Nor can it be denied that the

abuse took place on this administration’s watch. Thus,

there are likely to be increasing demands that the

commander-in-chief—or at least his defense

secretary—take responsibility. Where is it that the

buck is supposed to stop?

 

Connecting Dots

 

What has all this to do with Condoleezza Rice’s

multiple mention of " pre-election threats? " Can these

two dots be connected? I fear they can.

 

When John Ashcroft fired the opening shot in this

campaign to raise the specter of a " pre-election "

terrorist event, it seemed to me that the

administration might be beginning to prepare the

American people to accept postponement or cancellation

of the November election as a reasonable option.

 

Tom Ridge’s warning in early July that Osama bin Laden

is " planning to disrupt the November elections " added

to my concern, as did;

 

-- Word that Ridge has asked the Department of

Justice to analyze what legal steps would be needed to

permit postponement of the election;

 

-- The request by the Director of the Election

Assistance Commission for Ridge to provide

" guidelines " for canceling or rescheduling the

election in the event of a terror attack;

 

-- The matter-of-fact tone of a recent vote on

CNN’s website: " Should the United States postpone the

election in the event of a terrorist attack? " That

vote seems to have been greeted more by yawns than by

any expression of outrage.

 

That the House of Representatives on July 22 passed a

resolution by a 419-2 vote denying any agency or

individual the authority to postpone a national

election suggests that many in Congress are taking the

various trial balloons and other hints seriously.

 

The Emperor’s New Suit of Clothes

 

It seems a safe bet that President Bush is not

sleeping as soundly as he did before the abuse of

prisoners came to light. He may feel thoroughly

exposed in the magic suit of sold him by Ashcroft’s

tailor/lawyers together with those working for White

House counsel Alberto Gonzales, and may wish he had

paid more attention to the strong cautions of

Secretary of State Colin Powell against playing fast

and loose with the Geneva Conventions on Prisoners of

War.

 

The president can take little consolation in Gonzales’

reassurance that there is a " reasonable basis in law "

that could provide a " solid defense, " should an

independent counsel at some point in the future

attempt to prosecute him under the U.S. War Crimes Act

of 1996 for exempting the Taliban and perhaps others

from the protections of the Geneva Conventions, to

which the War Crimes Act is inextricably tied.

 

Meaning? Meaning that if the president’s numbers look

no better in October than they do now, there will be

particularly strong personal incentive on the part of

the president, Rumsfeld, and Vice President Cheney to

pull out all the stops in order to make four more

years a sure thing. What seems increasingly clear is

that putting off the election is under active

consideration—a course more likely to be chosen to the

extent it achieves status as just another option.

 

How Would Americans React?

 

On Friday I listened to a reporter asking a tourist in

Washington, DC, whether he felt inconvenienced by all

the blockages and barriers occasioned by the

heightened alert. While the tourist acknowledged that

the various barriers and inspections made it difficult

to get from one place to another, he made his overall

reaction quite clear: " Safety first! I don’t want to

see another 9/11. Whatever it takes! " I was struck a

few hours later as I tuned into President Bush

speaking at a campaign rally in Michigan: " I will

never relent in defending America. Whatever it takes. "

 

How prevalent this sentiment has become was brought

home to me as Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) quizzed

9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey (a former Democrat

Senator from Nebraska) at a hearing last week on the

commission’s sweeping recommendation to centralize

foreign and domestic intelligence under a new National

Intelligence Director in the White House. Kerrey grew

quite angry as Kucinich kept insisting on an answer to

his question: " How do you protect civil liberties amid

such a concentration of information and power? "

 

Kerrey protested that the terrorists give no priority

to civil liberties. He went on to say that individual

liberties must, in effect, be put on the back burner,

while priority is given to combating terrorism.

Whatever it takes.

 

Does this not speak volumes? Would Kerrey suggest that

Americans act like the " good Germans " of the 1930s,

and acquiesce in draconian steps like postponement or

cancellation of the November election?

 

These are no small matters. It is high time to think

them through.

 

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

 

Ray McGovern worked as a CIA analyst for 27 years,

from the administration of John F. Kennedy to that of

George H. W. Bush. He is a member of the Steering

Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for

Sanity.