Roll out the barrel...

MSNBC and NBC NEWS:

Three U.S. officials told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell that an Iraqi scientist who was part of what Saddam called his “nuclear mujahadeen” had led intelligence officials to a barrel in the back yard of his home in Baghdad, where they found plans for a gas centrifuge and components of a uranium enrichment system.
The Associated Press, citing a U.S. intelligence official, identified the scientist later as Mahdi Shukur Obeidi, who headed Iraq’s program to make centrifuges that would enrich uranium for nuclear weapons before the 1991 Gulf War. NBC’s sources said the plans dated back to the end of the Gulf War, when Saddam was already widely known to be seeking such weapons, and came as no great surprise.
Richard Butler, the United Nations’ former chief weapons inspector, told MSNBC TV’s Lester Holt that he was “absolutely unsurprised” by the report. “We have known of [Saddam’s previous plans] for a decade,” he said.
Butler said that the discovery of components of a uranium enrichment system suggested that Iraq was far from production of actual weapons. The need for an enrichment system established that “Iraq does not have adequate sources of natural uranium,” he said. “... It has to be, above all, enriched to get weapons grade.”
“This all adds up and makes sense,” Butler said.

So the imminent threat would be where? This stuff is what, twelve years old?

MORE: From Joby Warrick of WaPo:

Mahdi Obeidi, who headed Iraq's uranium enrichment program in the late 1980s and early 1990s, turned over the documents to U.S. officials in Baghdad voluntarily and is now assisting the investigation of Iraq's former weapons program, according to officials of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nonprofit research group that advised the scientist in his decision to surrender the materials to the U.S. government.

Obeidi supplied U.S. officials with several components of a gas centrifuge, a machine used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, along with design plans for the machines, the institute's assistant director, Corey Hinderstein, said yesterday. The scientist, who contacted the group in late April, said he buried the materials in his yard in 1991 under orders from Hussein's son, Qusay.

"If the order was given, these documents and materials could be used to restart the program," Hinderstein said. She added: "Obeidi did not receive that order."

Despite assertions by Bush administration officials before the war that Iraq was rebuilding a nuclear program, U.S. officials have so far found no evidence that Hussein had reconstituted the advanced nuclear weapons program he developed throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

So this is the best Obedi has?!

And Now For Your Viewing And Reading Pleasure...

Don't know about you, but about now I need a pickmeup, and this gift from Jeff Koopersmith at American Politics Journal does it for me.

American Politics Journal invites its readers to help put some fiber in Tucker "Crossfire" Carlson's Diet!

The piece is called "EAT IT, TUCKER!," and that's just what happens. Go, enjoy.

Filibuster math

Helen Dewar in WaPo:

Because of a compromise struck when the Senate last changed its filibuster rules in the 1970s, it takes a two-thirds majority -- or 67 votes -- to break a filibuster against a proposed rules change. Republicans have a 51 to 49 majority in the Senate, meaning they need 16 Democratic votes to prevail, even if they suffered no defections.

There are rarely used procedures under which a rules change can be forced by a simple majority vote, but they are dubbed the "nuclear option" because of their likely effect on the Senate's fragile comity. A number of Republicans oppose such a course. Frist has neither ruled it out nor shown enthusiasm for it. ...

"It reminds me of a spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum," [Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.)] said in a written statement. As for the nuclear option, he said, it would "vaporize every bridge in sight -- bipartisan or otherwise."

Well, since the only way Frist can get what he want is to go nuclear, that's what he and Rove must be planning on doing, right?

Spinning the story on Dean's MTP appearance

Terry Neal continues the spin at WaPo.

But guess what? Remember what Atrios called your attention to ("Nothing new") this morning? The fact that Russert actually asked the Bush campaign at the White House to create talking points for him? That's not part of the story any more.

Who would have thought? Just half a news cycle, and down the ol' MW memory hole...

More On News Cycles: What We're Up Against

The story that Lambert links to re: predator drones and slow-off-the mark use of them was called to my attention last night by veteran Eschatonista, "Dave."

This should have been a stink bomb of a story for this administration. It isn't going to be, probably. And it's worth a second look at the full, much longer AP original to try and figure out why. So, at the risk of being accused of "fisking":

Officials: U.S. Slow on Bin Laden Drones

By TED BRIDIS and JOHN SOLOMON
Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When President Bush took office in January 2001, the White House was told that Predator drones had recently spotted Osama bin Laden as many as three times and officials were urged to arm the unmanned planes with missiles to kill the al-Qaida leader. But the administration failed to get drones back into the Afghan skies until after the Sept. 11 attacks later that year, current and former U.S. officials say.

(edit)

The disappearance in 2001 of U.S. Predators from the skies over Afghanistan is discussed in classified sections of Congress' report into pre-Sept. 11 intelligence failures and is expected to be examined by an independent commission appointed by the president and Congress, officials said.

Not holding your breath? Me neither. For all the usual reasons, but especially because the AP buried what should have been the lead of their own story.

Nearly a dozen current and former senior U.S. officials described to AP the extensive discussions in 2000 and 2001 inside the Clinton and Bush administrations about using an armed Predator to kill bin Laden. Most spoke only on condition of anonymity, citing the classified nature of the information. Two former national security aides also cite some of the discussion inside the Bush White House in a recent book they published on terrorism.

The officials said that within days of President Bush taking office in January 2001, his top terrorism expert on the National Security Council, Richard Clarke, urged National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to resume the drone flights to track down bin Laden, citing the successes of late 2000.

The drones were one component of a broader plan that Clarke, a career government employee, had devised in the final days of the Clinton administration to go after al-Qaida after the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. Clinton officials decided just before Christmas 2000 to forward the plan to the incoming Bush administration rather than implement it during Clinton's final days, the officials said.

Okay, you got that? Bush administration briefed by top terrorism guy, from previous administration, a career govt. employee, in January, 01.

After Clarke's briefing in January, the drone plan was discussed again in late April by national security deputies and the test on the mock-up of bin Laden's home was conducted in July. A Bush administration official said Rice was generally supportive of the idea as part of a broader strategy.

At a White House meeting of Bush's national security principals on Sept. 4, 2001, senior officials discussed several ideas, including use of the drones, as they finalized a plan to accelerate efforts to go after al-Qaida amid signs of a growing threat of a domestic attack.

Among those present were Rice, CIA Director George Tenet, soon-to-be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Clarke, then Bush's anti-terrorism chief inside the White House.

You got that? When the Bush administration took office in January of 2001, it proceeded as if nothing done to counter the threat of Al Quada by the previous administration was worth consideration. It proceeded to ignore it, all of it, including the warnings from Clinton Security Advisors that Al Quada was an imminent threat. Unless you think that "broader strategy" Ms. Rice was insisting the Predator drones be part of refers to anything Clinton, rather than whatever plan emerged, eventually, from the Vice President's brand spanking new terrorism commission.

The story manages to avoid making that point clearly; the reporters are more interested in the drama of that lost moment in which Osama might have been struck down. And that’s the story Channel 4000 culls from the original, the story that CNN and MSNBC are already going with.

I'm not suggesting a conspiracy, not the way most people conceive of that word.

The story of exactly how far along the Clinton administration was, as it left office, in thwarting Osama Bin Laden and what decisions were made by whom in the Bush administration to ignore the Clinton efforts, or to pretend there hadn't been any, hasn't been told because it doesn't fit into the narrative the Washington press corps has signed off on; a "bought off" probably belongs in there somewhere.

Does anyone reading this really think that were Tim Russert to be presented with a memo signed by persons of such stature, say, as General Clark, Secretary of State Albright, Gary Hart, President Carter, or (fill in the blank), suggesting what questions this story of the predator drones journalists should want to ask representatives of the administration, that Russert would pay the least bit of attention?

Do you sometimes have the feeling that anyone who gets regular airtime takes a knightly vow never to notice, see, understand, and God forbid, mention that this administration doesn't know what the hell it's doing. Granted, it helps that what the administration does know, par all previously imagined excellence - is how to look as if it does, and as if what it's actually doing has some connection to what it claims it's doing.

What we do about this I don't yet have a ready answer to.
Knowledge of the task is a first step. Recognition precedes action. But we sure as hell need to hurry up and damn well figure it out.

Mirror, Mirror

Of Justice Thomas' dissent in Grutter v. Bollinger, Michael Dorf observes:

It is difficult to know whether Justice Thomas intends this argument to be taken seriously....

In any event, the real heart of Justice Thomas's dissent in Grutter is more personal. He harbors an almost visceral hatred for what he terms "know-it-all elites." His dissent uses the word "elite" or "elites" no fewer than twenty times. How did this graduate of Yale Law School come to despise the sort of institution that opened so many doors for him?

The answer, it seems, is that he believes affirmative action stigmatizes not only its beneficiaries, but all people of color: "When blacks take positions in the highest places of government, industry, or academia," he asserts, "it is an open question today whether their skin color played a part in their advancement." [emphasis added]

I can only think of one such black, Clarence, and the question is about as "open" as a Texas "whites-only" primary.

All quiet on the Winnebago front

We haven't heard anything from aWol in the last few days on WMDs, since the last time he changed his story to say that the WMDs had been looted.... (And if so, where the heck are they and who has them?)

It's been quiet, too quiet... Did Rove gag him? Has he fallen off the wagon? Done too much Xanax?

Is aWol waiting for the WMDs to be planted? (Can any of our military readers say whether planting WMDs is even technically possible?)

UPDATE: Check the incomparable Daily Howler for how the SCLM is spinning this one. He's on this one all week.

Just a likeable guy with a growing credibility problem

In article titled Bush credibility gap - a slow, quiet crumble, Dante Chinni of the Christian Science Monitor writes:

Bush's support doesn't come from his positions; it comes from something more personal. People like him in large part because they believe he's being straight with them. If that changes, his ride toward reelection may have more than a few twists and turns.

If the reality is that people "like" Bush, what's to be done about it in terms of 2004, strategically? I'm so baffled that anyone could be taken in by him ...

How will Rove spend the money?

Jules Witcover in the Baltimore Sun:

Evidence of Mr. Bush's desire to kill a prospective political gnat with a howitzer is seen in his hot-dogs-at-$2,000-a-plate kickoff dinner to raise as much as $200 million in campaign funds -- which would be twice his record take of $100 million -- for a primary election period in which he doesn't even have an opponent.

By not accepting federal funding for this period, Mr. Bush will be free of spending limits imposed on the Democrats who accept it under federal campaign finance law. Under the same law, however, whatever he raises can only be spent up to the Republican National Convention, which starts Aug. 31, 2004. So in that period, from January through August, the Bush campaign can be expected to bombard the eventual Democratic nominee with an unprecedented assault of negative advertising while bolstering an already solid organizational base.

Reminds me of what Gray Davis did in California--bought himself the weakest possible opponent by intervening in the Republican primary. Will Rove do the same?

Looks like 2004 will be the ugliest election money can buy. Brace yourselves. And get ready for plenty more photo ops from President Codpiece.

GOP wants to you eat tainted meat

Dan Morgan in WaPo:

Backed by meatpackers, pork producers and grocery chains, House Republicans today will try to undo legislation that requires stores to tell consumers what country their meat and meat products come from, starting in October 2004.

Some countries have mad cow disease, some don't, right? Do I have to spell this out? Slow food is looking better all the time...

Judith Miller seems confused

Izvestia trashes Pravda... Anyhow, Howie Kurtz at WaPo writes that Judith Miller of The Newspaper of Record (not!) is a little confused about who works for her, and who she works for:

New York Times reporter Judith Miller played a highly unusual role in an Army unit [MET Alpha] assigned to search for dangerous Iraqi weapons, according to U.S. military officials, prompting criticism that the unit was turned into what one official called a "rogue operation." ...

On April 21, when the MET Alpha team was ordered to withdraw to the southern Iraqi town of Talil, Miller objected in a handwritten note to two public affairs officers. It said:

"I see no reason for me to waste time (or MET Alpha, for that matter) in Talil. . . . Request permission to stay on here with colleagues at the Palestine Hotel til MET Alpha returns or order to return is rescinded. I intend to write about this decision in the NY Times to send a successful team back home just as progress on WMD is being made."

One military officer, who says that Miller sometimes "intimidated" Army soldiers by invoking Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or Undersecretary Douglas Feith, was sharply critical of the note. "Essentially, she threatened them," the officer said, describing the threat as that "she would publish a negative story."

An Army officer, who regarded Miller's presence as "detrimental," said: "Judith was always issuing threats of either going to the New York Times or to the secretary of defense. There was nothing veiled about that threat," this person said, and MET Alpha "was allowed to bend the rules."

Times editor Rosenthal strongly disagreed, saying Miller's note sounded routine and that characterizing it as a threat is "a total distortion of that letter." ...

Miller formed a friendship with MET Alpha's leader, Chief Warrant Officer Gonzales, and several officers said they were surprised when she participated in a Baghdad ceremony in which Gonzales was promoted. She pinned the rank to his uniform, an eyewitness said ..

After returning from Iraq, Rosenthal noted, Miller and a colleague filed a report skeptical about claims that two trailers found in Iraq served as mobile germ labs.

Pinned his medals on?!

So who does Judith Miller think she works for? The Times? The Military? Officer Gonzales? Donald Rumsfeld? Maybe only Judith Miller?

Then again, since we taxpayers were paying for her, she works for us, but no one seems to bring that up.

qWagmire

WaPo:

An angry Iraqi crowd killed six British soldiers because the troops had slain four Iraqi civilians during a demonstration, police said Wednesday, a day after the shootings. ...

The violence at the police station came in the mostly Shiite south, where resentment toward Saddam Hussein’s government had been strong. There had been no substantial attacks there against U.S. or British forces since the end of the war, and British troops in the city of Basra had felt so secure that they had stopped wearing helmets and flak jackets.

The U.S. military said Tuesday there had been 25 attacks on coalition forces over a 24-hour period, including a firefight in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, that killed four Iraqis and wounded two American soldiers and two Iraqis.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, called the pro-Saddam forces “dead-enders” and said coalition troops were making progress against them.

Who'll put the "W" in qWagmire, I'd like to know...

aWol dropped the ball on OBL

Seems like bureaucratic infighting in that famously tight ship, the malAdministration, prevented action.
AP:

Sources say when President George W. Bush took office in January 2001, the White House was told that Predator drones had recently spotted Osama bin Laden as many as three times.

Officials were urged to arm the unmanned planes with missiles to kill the al-Qaida leader. But the sources say the administration failed to get drones back into the Afghan skies until after the Sept. 11 attacks. ... The sources say the administration failed to get drones back into the Afghan skies until after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Top administration officials discussed a Predator mission to kill bin Laden just a week before the suicide attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. But they didn't resolve a debate over whether the CIA or the Pentagon should handle the job, or whether Predators armed with missiles would be lethal enough to do the job.

Targeting bin Laden was legally permitted under secret orders and presidential findings signed by President Bill Clinton.

The disappearance in 2001 of U.S. Predators from the skies over Afghanistan is discussed in classified sections of Congress' report into pre-Sept. 11 intelligence failures. It's expected to be examined by an independent commission appointed by the president and Congress.

Say, what about that 911 report I keep hearing about? Some commission? Is aWol done censoring it yet?

Nothing New

People are shocked, shocked, that Tim Russert would use administration prepared talking points to go after Howard Dean. We´ve known for years that Russert and NBC would just put RNC oppo research on the air unchecked during the ´00 election.

Denial is not a river in Egypt

"America's Most Dangerous Liberal" writes:

There is no longer any serious doubt that Bush administration officials deceived us into war. The key question now is why so many influential people are in denial, unwilling to admit the obvious.

About the deception: Leaks from professional intelligence analysts, who are furious over the way their work was abused, have given us a far more complete picture of how America went to war. Thanks to reporting by my colleague Nicholas Kristof, other reports in The New York Times and The Washington Post, and a magisterial article by John Judis and Spencer Ackerman in The New Republic, we now know that top officials, including Mr. Bush, sought to convey an impression about the Iraqi threat that was not supported by actual intelligence reports.

In particular, there was never any evidence linking Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda; yet administration officials repeatedly suggested the existence of a link. Supposed evidence of an active Iraqi nuclear program was thoroughly debunked by the administration's own experts; yet administration officials continued to cite that evidence and warn of Iraq's nuclear threat.

And yet the political and media establishment is in denial, finding excuses for the administration's efforts to mislead both Congress and the public.

Why?

Part of the answer, of course, is raw partisanship. One important difference between our current scandal and the Watergate affair is that it's almost impossible now to imagine a Republican senator asking, "What did the president know, and when did he know it?"

But even people who aren't partisan Republicans shy away from confronting the administration's dishonest case for war, because they don't want to face the implications.

After all, suppose that a politician — or a journalist — admits to himself that Mr. Bush bamboozled the nation into war. Well, launching a war on false pretenses is, to say the least, a breach of trust. So if you admit to yourself that such a thing happened, you have a moral obligation to demand accountability — and to do so in the face not only of a powerful, ruthless political machine but in the face of a country not yet ready to believe that its leaders have exploited 9/11 for political gain. It's a scary prospect.

Yet if we can't find people willing to take the risk — to face the truth and act on it — what will happen to our democracy?

Good question. Any answers?

(OT: Krugman's great, a voice of sanity, but if he's the most dangerous liberal, the country is in real trouble. I'd hope that soon the National Review would bestow its coveted "most dangerous" accolade on an elected Democrat or candidate, not a newspaper columnist.)

Kerry stands up

Kerry:

I am prepared to filibuster, if necessary, any Supreme Court nominee who would turn back the clock on a woman’s right to choose, on civil rights and individual liberties, and on the laws protecting workers and the environment.

What a surprise! Frist wants to eliminate filibusters, but that has nothing to do with "fairness" at all... Instead, it's a two-fer: (a) pack the courts with wingers, and the beauty part: (b) deny the Dems air time, any air time.

Dean MTP transcript

Here.
He sounds pretty good to me, but then I'm not a Kewl Kid.

don’t believe them. This administration has not been candid about the impacts of this tax cut. A few months ago they had the deficit coming in at $290 billion. It’s at $400 billion. The administration simply has not been forthcoming and factual about the impact of their tax cuts. Setting aside whatever the real numbers might be, the accurate numbers, let’s look at what the tax cuts have done. Property taxes are going up in places in New Hampshire because the president has cut services, because he has not given the right amount of money to the states for special education, for No Child Left Behind, for all these unfunded mandates that he’s passed. The real effect of the Bush tax cuts has actually been to raise taxes on most middle-class people and to cut their services. Their public schools are suffering. Health care is suffering for middle-class kids. And that’s because of these tax cuts. These tax cuts are incredibly bad for the economy. I believe their purpose is essentially to defund the federal government so that Medicare and Social Security, the icons of the New Deal, will be undone. Karl Rove and others have talked about going back to the McKinley era before there was any kind of social safety net in this country. Really that’s what the campaign’s about. It’s to undo what I consider radical Republicanism.
Russert: But in the middle of an economic downturn, Howard Dean wants to raise taxes on the average of $1,200 per family.
Dean: So says the Republican Treasury Department which I think has very little credibility in this matter. Let’s look at the record.
Russert: But you would raise taxes?
Dean: I would go back to the Clinton era of taxes because I think most Americans would gladly pay the same taxes they paid when Bill Clinton was president if they could only have the same economy that they had when Bill Clinton was president.

Have at it...

Latent Collateral Damage

This isn't going to make life any easier for our troops either.

Officials: Hundreds of Iraqis Killed By Faulty Grenades
by Thomas Frank

WASHINGTON -- Hundreds and possibly thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed or maimed by outdated, defective U.S. cluster weapons that lack a safety feature other countries have added, according to observers, news reports and officials.

U.S. cluster weapons fired during the war in March and April dispersed thousands of small grenades on battlefields and in civilian neighborhoods to destroy Iraqi troops and weapons systems.

(edit)

Unexploded grenades remain potentially lethal for weeks and months after landing on the ground, where civilians can unwittingly pick them up or step on them. Many victims are children....

More parents with more broken children, more families with injured family members = less patience, less acceptance by Iraqi's of all stripes of an occupation that this administration's policies have ensured can only be seen as an All-American one.

Hillary was in town and her book's doing great

Here:

Hillaryphiles lined up before dawn for about 500 tickets, which the store handed out at its 8 a.m. opening. (Simon & Schuster estimates that about half of Living History's press run of 1 million is gone.)

Nobody seems to be listening to the chatter from the MWs and Kewl Kids that the book's dull. Heck, how could it be dull? To be on the receiving end of the right wing coup that surfaced during the ginned-up Clinton scandals and now runs the country -- how dull could that be? Unless you're on the inside, of course, and already know the story... Then it might seem dull....

"We Are A Better Country Than This"

So says Jeanne d'Arc at Body And Soul in reaction to a disturbing story about an Iraqi father pleading for medical treatment for his three children, burned from a fire set off by a bag of explosives left over from the war, being refused by two US Army doctors.

The good news is that we know about this horror because Sgt. David J. Borell, who called for medical help for the children, was so outraged by the callousness of the response that he couldn't hide it.

The incident came to light after an AP photographer took a picture of Borell being comforted by a colleague after the doctors refused to care for the children. When Borell's wife, Rachelle Douglas-Borell, saw the photo, she contacted AP with a copy of a letter he sent her describing what happened.

This is not about two bad army doctors; it's not about the US Army being a bad institution.

I can't improve on Jeanne's formulation of what it's about:

There are very good people in our military. And what they are being asked to do is shameful...We are a better country than this.

What they are being asked to do is also becoming increasingly impossible. For the British, too. Steve Gilliard explains at Daily Kos

Six British soldiers killed, eight wounded in Iraq

This is the largest loss of life in a single attack since "major combat" ended.

These attacks took place in the Shia heartland, unlikely places for Baath Party loyalists to hang about, causing trouble.

The British have been quietly smug about how they've been getting on with the locals, despite the occasional protest at their headquarters. Now it's clear that the resistance expects to take their war beyond the Sunni belt.

(edit)

CENTCOM would do well to admit that opposition in Iraq comes from many different factions, not just those pining for Saddam. Iraqis have neither forgotten nor forgiven our 1991 betrayal of the Shia or British colonialism enforced with poison gas.

(edit)

The Coalition Protection Authority lives in an isolated fantasy land where they think the free market cures all. The one thing which could send Iraqis into a rage is an attempt to denationalize the oil industry. Nationalization is widely seen as the one thing the Baath party got right and to undo is could spread resistance across the country as few things could.

Read this post, too, and you'll understand why Steve is becoming indispensable to a full understanding of post-war Iraq.

Linking to a series of articles published on the same day, he's able to give us a telling snapshot of the complex and tragic terrain of this occupation.

War by other means: the "reconstruction" of Iraq

....these articles, all running today, give a picture of absolute ineptitude now taking place in Iraq. While there was some effort to depict the war as a three week affair, the reality is that the enemy has changed shape and form and is still more than willing to engage Americans.

In the meanwhile, civil life is turning into a nightmare for the average Iraqi. No electricity, no secruity, random, violent encounters with Americans. Saddam may be gone and the police may not take you for a beating, but the environment of instabity and growing rage poses an ongoing danger to American troops.

The American viceroy, Paul Bremer, why mince words, was told directly at a World Economic Forum meeting in Jordan that the US needs to form an Iraqi government, not a hand selected council to advise on running the country.

But it's the picture of the US soldiers holding the bayonets to fend off the former Iraqi soldiers which has left people wondering about our policies in Iraq.

Read the whole thing, including the linked articles. We are a better country than this.