Guest guest Posted August 14, 2004 Report Share Posted August 14, 2004 > Thu, 12 Aug 2004 08:52:33 -0700 > Progress Report: More Administration Scare > Tactics > " American Progress Action Fund " > <progress Center for American Progress - Progress Report by David Sirota, Christy Harvey, Judd Legum and Jonathan Baskin August 12, 2004 IRAQ Major Combat Operations Have Begun HEALTH CARE Warning #8211; More Administration Scare Tactics Under the Radar CORRECTION: In yesterday's Progress Report, we erroneously stated Gov. Tom Vilsack had sweeping new education proposals for Illinois. Vilsack's plan was actually for his home state of Iowa. Our apologies. IRAQ Major Combat Operations Continue More than 15 months after President Bush triumphantly declared that " major combat operations in Iraq have ended, " the U.S. is leading " major operations " in Najaf. It#160; is part of an effort led by U.S. troops " to crush an uprising led by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose fighters have been battling U.S. troops in Shiite strongholds across Iraq for a week. " The operation is particularly sensitive it is centered in the city of Najaf, home of the " revered Imam Ali shrine and its vast cemetery. " The new offensive risks " enraging Iraq's Shiite majority #8211; including those who do not support the uprising #8211; if it targets the shrine, where many of the insurgents have taken refuge. " Already, operations by U.S. forces in Najaf have " ignit[ed] mass street protests in at least two other cities. " For those concerned about the administration's failure to locate WMD, obtain more assistance from international troops or stabilize Iraq, Bush offered this assurance: " I know what I'm doing when it comes to winning this war. " NO EASY VICTORY IN NAJAF: There are no clear solutions to resolve the revolt in Najaf led by al-Sadr. The Christian Science Monitor explains if al-Sadr " is killed while fighting in such a holy site, he would become a martyr, drawing thousands of Shiites to his cause. If American and Iraqi forces pull back from a final assault on Najaf - and indeed, intense negotiations have been conducted since the beginning - and create another truce with Sadr, Sadr may be seen by many as a man who stood up to the Americans. " TEXAS NATIONAL GUARD SHIPPING OUT: The San Antonio Express News reports that in " the largest combat mobilization of Texas Army National Guard troops since World War II, about 3,000 soldiers are bound for Iraq. " The soldiers will be required to remain in Iraq for up to two years. Across the country, " about 102,000 reservists, or 29 percent of all guard troops, are now mobilized. " While the call-up has been expected in recent weeks, " the advance notice didn't keep tears from flowing over the prospect of loved ones being separated by the 17-month-old war that continues to claim lives long after major combat operations were deemed over. " MEDIA LOSES INTEREST IN IRAQ: Distressingly, " until the recent flare-up in Najaf, Iraq had faded from the front pages. " The paucity of coverage in the six weeks since sovereignty was handed over to Iraq has occurred even as " the country has been gripped in escalating violence, forcing some coalition countries and private contractors to flee for safety. " As a result of the instability, " Iraq's national conference #8211; critical to the eventual implementation of free elections #8211; has been postponed. " Nevertheless, there has been far more attention to Martha Stewart, Laci Peterson and Kobe Bryant. THE POST'S MEA CULPA: The Washington Post prints a long self-critique today of its coverage leading up to the Iraq war that acknowledges the paper was hesitant to print pieces that didn't mesh with the Bush administration's message or agenda. According to Post Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks, " Administration assertions were on the front page. Things that challenged the administration were on A18 on Sunday or A24 on Monday. There was an attitude among editors: Look, we're going to war, why even worry about all this contrary stuff. " The Post's Executive Editor Leonard Downie said the failure to give more prominence to articles questioning the administration's rationale " was a mistake on my part. " Read the full article HERE. HEALTH CAREWarning #8211; More Administration Scare Tactics Once again, when faced with a serious political challenge, the White House has resorted to invoking the fear of terrorism to justify its behavior. Yesterday, Sen. John Kerry demanded the Bush administration approve a bipartisan plan allowing seniors to purchase lower priced medicines from Canada. Also, Vermont's Republican Governor announced he was suing the administration to allow his state to initiate its own reimportation plan. In response, the White House deployed the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration Lester Crawford to claim that imported prescription drugs are now the top weapon that al Qaeda plans to use in an attack on America. The FDA announcement was so cynical, baseless and transparent that the Department of Homeland Security immediately issued a statement saying, " we have no specific information now about any al-Qaida threats to our food or drug supply. " In fact, the move appears specifically designed to hide the Bush administration's adamant desire to protect the same pharmaceutical industry profits that #160;fund its campaign. ANOTHER PERFECTLY TIMED TERRORISM ANNOUNCEMENT: Yesterday's perfectly timed terror announcement by the FDA comes on the heels of other examples of the Bush administration using the fear of terrorism for its own political gain. Last week, the administration raised the terror alert in three states just after the Democratic National Convention, even though it later revealed it was basing the move on old information and had outed its own al Qaeda intelligence source in the process. A week before, the administration announced the capture of a top al Qaeda suspect hours before Kerry's keynote address to the Democratic National Convention. Pakistani intelligence sources had previously asserted the administration was pressuring them to come up with an arrest during the convention, and it soon came out that the administration specifically delayed the announcement of the capture for five days. In May, the very same week the president's approval ratings hit an all time low, Attorney General John Ashcroft held a dramatic press conference warning Americans about the general threat of terrorism, but administration officials quickly admitted, " There's no real new intelligence. " IN DESPERATION, FDA CITES UNRELATED ISSUES: Desperate to defend the administration's opposition to reimportation, the FDA chairman yesterday actually invoked wholly unrelated examples when pressed to substantiate his terrorism warning. The Associated Press reports that, as proof of his claims, " Crawford noted the 1982 Tylenol case, in which packages of the extra-strength variety of the leading painkiller were removed from store shelves on Chicago's west side, filled with cyanide and returned to stores for purchase. " Of course, that incident was wholly confined to the domestic economy and thus has absolutely nothing to do with a the highly regulated reimportation system being proposed in Congress. Crawford himself has admitted that it would cost just $58 million a year to establish a safe reimportation system that would then save seniors billions a year on medicine. GOP GOVERNOR IGNORES WHITE HOUSE'S BOGUS FEAR TACTICS: Vermont's Republican Gov. Jim Douglas yesterday announced he is taking the Bush administration to court in a fight to force the White House to give seniors access to lower-priced FDA-approved medicines from Canada. Along with invoking the fear of terrorism, the administration has parroted the pharmaceutical industry line that reimportation by states and city governments is supposedly unsafe. Bush's own FDA officials have been unable to provide any evidence to support that assertion. As Douglas said yesterday, " The claims on which they've based this [denial of the Vermont reimportation program] are, in our view, unsubstantiated, and we have no choice but to pursue any and all legal remedies.'' COMPANIES FIGHTING REIMPORTATION GAVE BIG TO BUSH: The Kansas City Star reports that Eli Lilly, Glaxo SmithKline and Pfizer are at the forefront of the fight against reimportation, taking the ethically questionable step of restricting supplies of medicine to keep prices high. Pfizer, for instance, has restricted supplies of the cholesterol drug Lipitor because, as one industry spokesman said, the industry must " protect the huge investment they make developing new drugs. " What he didn't say was that Lipitor and many other medicines now being held hostage were originally developed with billions of dollars of taxpayer money. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has done nothing, instead pocketing huge campaign contributions from these three companies. Pfizer's CEO is a Bush Pioneer (someone who has raised over $100,000), Pfizer executives have given the Bush campaign more than $110,000, and the company has given the RNC more than $2.5 million in soft money since 2000. Eli Lilly executives have given the Bush campaign more than $53,000, and the company has given the RNC more than $1.4 million in soft money since 2000. And Glaxo executives have given the Bush campaign more than $23,000, while the company has given the RNC more than $1.4 million in soft money since 2000. MORE BUSH OFFICIALS HEAD TO DRUG INDUSTRY: The Sydney Morning Herald reports two top U.S. trade negotiators are going to work for the same health care/drug industries that they went to bat for in finalizing the newly minted U.S.-Australia trade agreement. Ralph Ives, assistant U.S. trade representative for pharmaceutical policy, next month " becomes vice-president for global strategy at AdvaMed, " a medical products industry group. Simiarly, negotiator Claude Burcky " is now director of global government affairs at the pharmaceutical company Abbott Laboratories. " These two officials spearheaded the Bush administration's demands that the trade deal include provisions that " would allow pharmaceutical companies to prevent imports of drugs to the United States. " The deal also " watered down " the Australian government's ability to negotiate lower medicine prices from drug companies #8211; an ability the Bush administration barred the U.S. government from having when it wrote its new Medicare bill. The Bush administration-drug industry revolving door is not new #8211; Bush Medicare chief Tom Scully immediately went to work for the health care/drug industry after passage of the new Medicare bill, which gave away billions of dollars to the health care/drug industry. See more from American Progress on how Bush administration policy is bought and sold by the drug industry. Under the Radar MORE OBLIGATIONS FOR TROOPS MEANS MORE NO-BID CONTRACTS: Because the military is stretched thin by continued obligations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere " the Army has resorted to hiring private security guards to help protect dozens of military bases. " Alarmingly, much of the work is being performed by companies who " got the contracts without having to bid competitively. " Those companies figured out how " to abuse a law intended to aid impoverished Alaska natives. " The Army awarded contracts " worth as much as $1 billion...to two small Alaska Native firms with little previous security experience...which operate under special contracting laws enabling them to avoid competitive bidding. " Those firms, in turn, " subcontracted part of the work to two of the country's largest security firms: Wackenhut Services Inc. and Vance Federal Security Services. " Wackenhut and Vance lost out on similar contracts when they faced open competition against other companies. When Wackenhut provided security guards for the Department of Energy, the company " manipulated the results of drills by altering testing equipment and passing information to low-ranking guards prior to simulated attacks. " ELECTION #8211; RIGHT-WING PLAYS RACIAL POLITICS: The Washington Post reports that a group financed by a major Republican contributor -- who is raking in a windfall from President Bush's Medicare legislation -- has begun running ads in about a dozen cities attacking Sen. John F. Kerry by playing the race card. The ads attack Kerry as " rich, white and wishy-washy " and mock his wife for talking about her African roots. The group running the ads " has substantial financial backing from J. Patrick Rooney, the former chairman of Golden Rule Insurance Co. and the founder of a new firm, Medical Savings Insurance Co. Both firms specialize in medical savings accounts, created by Republican-backed 1996 legislation, and health savings accounts, which were created by President Bush's 2003 Medicare prescription drug legislation. " #160; ENVIRO #8211; DRYING OUT THE WETLANDS: According to a new report, the Bush administration " has allowed developers to drain thousands of acres of wetlands under a policy adopted last year. " The report, issued by four environmental groups, based its findings on information gained from Freedom of Information Act requests, and " represents the first accounting of how the administration's interpretation of a 2001 Supreme Court decision affected isolated wetlands in states from New Mexico to Delaware. " The directive " put millions of acres of rivers, streams, lakes and wetlands at risk, and the report identified more than a dozen cases in which the Corps of Engineers subsequently approved development in areas described as ecologically sensitive. " ETHICS #8211; KERRY, THE LIFE SAVER: Sen. John Kerry didn't only save the lives of troops in Vietnam; he also saved the life of one of his colleagues in the Senate. Former U.S. Sen. Chic Hecht of Nevada -- a staunch Republican #8211; " thanks his lucky stars for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. " The story: " On July 12, 1988, Hecht was attending a weekly Republican luncheon when a piece of apple lodged firmly in his throat. Hecht stumbled out of the room, thinking he might vomit but not wanting to do it in front of his colleagues. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., thumped his back, but Hecht quickly passed out in the hallway. Just then, Kerry stepped off an elevator, rushed to Hecht's side and gave him the Heimlich maneuver -- four times. The lifesaving incident made international news, and Dr. Henry Heimlich, who invented the maneuver in 1974, called Hecht to say that had Kerry intervened just 30 seconds later Hecht might have been in a vegetative state for life. " Asked about the life-saving event, Hecht said, " He knew exactly what to do. But a lot of people know what to do. They just don't size up the situation immediately. " Features DON'T MISS DAILY TALKING POINTS: Major Najaf Offensive Signals Iraq War Far From Over MEDICARE POLICY: Highlights from the Medicare Prescription Drug Regulation: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly ECONOMY: The New York Times editorial page opines, " Policy makers have run out of tools for stewarding an economy that -- nearly three years into a recovery -- has yet to flourish and may even be downshifting to neutral#8230; If Mr. Bush continues on the tax-cut path, continuing high deficits will further threaten job creation and living standards. " ECONOMY: President of Economic Future Group, Jonathan Tasini, explores how the Wal-Martization of America leaves pensions in peril. CONVENTION: Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor at Slate magazine, criticizes the attempts to prevent protests at the Republican National Convention, calling the use of the Secret Service to silence pacifist protesters " an abuse of executive power. " DAILY GRILL " Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. " - President George Bush, 5/1/03 VERSUS " Major operations...have begun. " - U.S. Marine Maj. David Holahan, 8/12/04 DAILY OUTRAGE White House exploits terrorism concerns to frighten Americans about safety surrounding reimportation of prescription drugs, despite Homeland Security Department admission that " we have no specific information now about any al-Qaida threats to our food or drug supply. " Archives Progress Report Opportunity The Center for American Progress is now accepting intern applications for the fall semester. 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