'Talkin' Texan' Means Lyin' Big

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Sun, 05 Feb 2006 20:00:57 -0500

'Talkin' Texan' Means Lyin' Big

 

 

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George W. Bush told an audience at the Grand Ole Opry that he would

explain his warrantless wiretap program in " Texan, " presumably

straight-shootin' talk. He then proceeded to give a fictional account

of how his special spying program only targets Americans who are

calling al-Qaeda operatives. The reality is much different, with vast

amounts of data from Americans being mined for leads that almost

invariably turn out to be worthless.

 

For the full story of how Bush's " talkin' Texan " is reminiscent of

Wild West tall tales about Pecos Bill, go to Consortiumnews.com at

http://www.consortiumnews.com .

 

(Please forward this message to friends who might be interested. Thanks)

 

To make a tax-deductible donation to help support this investigative

Web site, you can contribute by credit card at the Web site or by

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http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/020506.html

 

'Talkin' Texan' Means Lyin' Big

 

By Robert Parry

February 5, 2006

 

On Feb. 1, the day after his State of the Union Address, George W.

Bush stood on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry and delighted his

audience by talking " Texan, " which in Bush's lexicon must mean lying big.

 

Bush's biggest lie that day was his claim that his warrantless

wiretaps inside the United States were needed to intercept calls in

which " one of the people making the call has to be al-Qaeda, suspected

al-Qaeda, and/or affiliate. "

 

The President said, " Let me put it to you in Texan: If al-Qaeda is

calling into the United States, we want to know. " His listeners

laughed and applauded.

 

With his folksy style, Bush again got away with his false assertion

that existing law wouldn't let U.S. intelligence intercept these

al-Qaeda telephone calls when, in fact, the Foreign Intelligence

Surveillance Act of 1978 set up procedures for just such intercepts

and even let the Executive tap first and get approval from a secret

court later.

 

But " talkin' Texan " is apparently like telling tall tales about Paul

Bunyan or Pecos Bill, except Texas-sized.

 

Bush's wiretap lie was abetted a day later, when Deputy Director of

National Intelligence Michael Hayden refused to divulge to the Senate

Intelligence Committee – even in closed session – how many Americans

were subjected to Bush's warrantless wiretaps.

 

By keeping the scope of the operation secret, Hayden protected Bush's

account, since the President had depicted the eavesdropping as

" limited, " affecting only a " few " people who supposedly were in direct

touch with al-Qaeda operatives.

 

If Hayden had admitted the truth – that many thousands of Americans

had been spied on under Bush's warrantless wiretaps and few, if any,

had any links to al-Qaeda – Bush's story would collapse.

 

So, Bush administration officials have contended they can't divulge

the numbers or other details to avoid " helping al-Qaeda. " But people

knowledgeable about U.S. eavesdropping capabilities say the number

would be of no help to al-Qaeda, nor was the New York Times disclosure

in December 2005 that Bush was conducting wiretaps without warrants.

 

Al-Qaeda operatives have long assumed the United States has the

capacity to intercept their phone calls and e-mails, so they go to

great lengths to deliver messages face-to-face or to send messages by

courier. When they do communicate electronically, they make only brief

cryptic references because they expect the message may well be

intercepted.

 

Sept. 11 Prevention

 

Bush and Hayden also have tried to justify the warrantless wiretaps by

speculating that the Sept. 11 terror attacks might have been prevented

if this extra-legal " terrorist surveillance " program was in place in 2001.

 

But the September 11th Commission found that the failure to stop the

terrorist attacks resulted from the U.S. government fumbling the

interpretation of available evidence, not from a lack of electronic

eavesdropping.

 

Bush's first counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke faulted the

President for failing to show decisive leadership and " shake the

trees " of the federal bureaucracy after being warned in August 2001

about an impending al-Qaeda attack.

 

Yet, Bush appears to be counting on the weak memories of Americans and

their susceptibility to emotional arguments. To make that work,

however, Bush has had to keep the numbers of wiretaps secret so he can

mislead about the scope of the operation.

 

What the domestic spying actually seems to entail is the National

Security Agency scooping up conversations and e-mails of vast numbers

of Americans – possibly in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions

– and then mining that data.

 

Federal officials told the New York Times that this wiretap data

generates thousands of tips each month, which are then passed on to

the FBI for further investigation.

 

" But virtually all of [the tips], current and former officials say,

led to dead ends or innocent Americans, " the Times reported. " FBI

officials repeatedly complained to the spy agency that the unfiltered

information was swamping investigators. … Some FBI officials and

prosecutors also thought the checks, which sometimes involved

interviews by agents, were pointless intrusions on Americans'

privacy. " [NYT, Jan. 17, 2006]

 

In other words, this widespread wiretapping of Americans is not

restricted to a small number of people who are chatting with al-Qaeda

associates; it is prying into the communications of innocent Americans

and burdening U.S. law enforcement with worthless tips that divert

investigative resources away from more promising leads.

 

An investigation by the Washington Post reached a similar conclusion.

 

" Intelligence officials who eavesdropped on thousands of Americans in

overseas calls under authority from President Bush have dismissed

nearly all of them as potential suspects after hearing nothing

pertinent to a terrorist threat, according to accounts from current

and former government officials and private-sector sources with

knowledge of the technologies in use, " the Post reported on Feb. 5, 2006.

 

The Post cited two " knowledgeable sources " who said the number of

Americans spied on through the warrantless wiretaps was in the

thousands, with one source putting the number at about 5,000.

 

But the Post added, " the program has touched many more Americans than

that " because the technology sifts through hundreds of thousands of

e-mails, faxes and phone calls before selecting Americans for closer

examination.

 

These depictions of a vast program don't square with Bush's down-home

claims about the government having the phone numbers of some al-Qaeda

operatives and just wanting to know who they're talking to in the

United States.

 

Caught Lying

 

Though Bush is telling the American people to trust him, he already

has been caught lying about this wiretapping program, which he first

authorized in 2002. Two years later, he went out of his way to give

assurances that he was following the law and getting warrants for

terrorism-related wiretaps.

 

In 2004, Bush told a crowd in Buffalo, N.Y., that " by the way, any

time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it

requires – a wiretap requires a court order. … Nothing has changed, by

the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're

talking about getting a court order before we do so. "

 

On New Year's Day 2006, Bush lied again, insisting that his

warrantless wiretaps only involved communications from suspicious

individuals abroad who were contacting people in the United States.

Bush said the eavesdropping was " limited to calls from outside the

United States to calls within the United States. "

 

But Bush's explanation was at odds even with what his own

administration had previously admitted to journalists – that the

wiretaps also covered calls originating in the United States. The

White House soon " clarified " Bush's remarks to acknowledge that his

warrantless wiretaps did, indeed, involve communications from the

United States. [NYT, Jan. 2, 2006]

 

But Bush apparently has decided that – if framed right – the wiretap

issue can help him politically. Bush's aides have begun

counterattacking, accusing Democrats and the news media of

jeopardizing the safety of Americans.

 

" Let me be as clear as I can be: President Bush believes if Al Qaeda

is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security

interest to know who they're calling and why, " declared deputy White

House chief of staff Karl Rove in a speech on Jan. 20. " Some important

Democrats clearly disagree. "

 

Rove didn't specify who any of these " important Democrats " were, most

likely because no prominent Democrat has disagreed with the need to

know who al-Qaeda is calling or why. They only are saying that the

existing FISA law set legal standards for permitting this surveillance

and that Bush has chosen to circumvent the law.

 

For his part, Bush is painting his detractors as helping the enemy by

just mentioning the wiretaps.

 

While talkin' Texan at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tenn., Bush

said, " I'm sure you can understand why you don't want the President or

anybody talking about the operating details. … If you're at war, and

you're trying to stop an enemy from attacking you, why in the world

would you want to tell the enemy what they're doing to stop them,

because they'll adjust. "

 

Bush then assured the appreciative crowd, " We are safeguarding your

liberties. "

 

Killing Children

 

Bush also bathed his Grand Ole Opry listeners in feel-good rhetoric

about the fundamental decency of the American people.

 

" What a fantastic country, " Bush said. " We deeply care about every

human life. The life of a child in Baghdad is precious. And so when we

see these killers kill somebody – a young child outside a hospital

where one of our soldiers is handing out candy, we weep, because

Americans have a deep compassion for every human being. "

 

But Bush didn't mention how his invasion of Iraq has led to the

killing and maiming of tens of thousands of civilians, including many

children.

 

For instance, at the start of the war, Bush authorized the bombing of

a restaurant in Baghdad because some faulty intelligence suggested

that Saddam Hussein might be having dinner there. As it turned out,

Hussein wasn't there, but 14 civilians were killed, including seven

children. One mother collapsed when her decapitated daughter was

pulled from the rubble.

 

Some legal scholars have cited this bombing and similar incidents as

evidence of war crimes committed by Bush, but the President has never

apologized for killing civilians in Iraq, instead claiming that

Hussein was the one who " chose war. "

 

Bush reprised that favorite chapter of his revisionist history during

his Grand Ole Opry speech, too.

 

" We gave Saddam Hussein a chance to deal with the world in good faith

by honoring the United Nations Security Council resolutions, " Bush

said. " He chose – it was his choice – he chose to defy the

resolutions. And so we took action. "

 

In other speeches, Bush has gone even further, rewriting the history

to say that Hussein hadn't let the U.N. inspectors in, even though the

inspection teams entered Iraq in November 2002 and were citing good

Iraqi cooperation before Bush forced them to leave in March 2003 so

the invasion could proceed. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com's

" President Bush, With the Candlestick… " ]

 

New evidence also has emerged in Great Britain, revealing that Bush

planned to invade Iraq regardless of what the U.N. inspectors

discovered or whether the U.N. Security Council approved a war resolution.

 

" The US would put its full weight behind efforts to get another

resolution and would `twist arms' and `even threaten'. But [bush] had

to say that if ultimately we failed, military action would follow

anyway, " according to minutes of the Jan. 31, 2003, meeting obtained

by human rights lawyer Philippe Sands for a new edition of his book,

Lawless World. The minutes were reviewed by British Channel 4 News.

 

Bush and Blair also discussed the possibility of creating a pretext

for war. According to Bush, " The US was thinking of flying U2

reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN

colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach " of U.N.

resolutions.

 

" It was also possible that a defector could be brought out who would

give a public presentation about Saddam's WMD, and there was also a

small possibility that Saddam would be assassinated, " Bush said,

according to the minutes.

 

At the meeting, Bush added that after the invasion, he " thought it

unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between the different

religious and ethnic groups. "

 

Though Bush was wrong about Iraq's WMD stockpiles and the likelihood

of sectarian violence under the U.S. occupation, he continues to urge

the American people to trust his judgment on a plan for " victory in Iraq. "

 

Talkin' Texan at the Grand Ole Opry, Bush said, " I want to describe

right quick our plans for victory in Iraq. First of all, anytime we

put our troops in harm's way we got to go in with victory in mind. "

The audience responded with warm applause.

 

In his Nashville remarks, Bush did back away from one longtime canard

that he's used to justify seizing broad powers domestically, invading

Iraq and ignoring international law. In speech after speech, Bush has

insisted that before Sept. 11, 2001, Americans thought the Atlantic

and Pacific oceans protected them from foreign attack.

 

But no American growing up during the Cold War felt that way. They

knew that Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles could obliterate

American cities in minutes.

 

At the Grand Ole Opry, Bush finally took note of complaints about this

misleading argument by acknowledging the fact that the oceans really

wouldn't have protected Americans from nuclear attack.

 

" When we grew up, oceans protected us, it seemed like, " Bush said. " We

felt pretty safe and secure from an attack on American soil. We were

concerned about a nuclear threat, but nevertheless, we felt secure

because we were isolated from threats it seemed like. "

 

In " talkin' Texan, " the phrase " it seemed like " must be synonymous

with " almost the same as true. "

 

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for

the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy &

Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be

ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com,

as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press &

'Project Truth.'