Virtually no daylight between Democrats and Republicans

booman expresses his serious frustration with democratic inaction on phase II of the pre-war intelligence investigation... remember that...? i had quite honestly forgotten...

Remember when Harry Reid was Minority Leader and he used some procedural move to shut-down the Senate until the Republicans would agree to move forward with Phase II investigation over pre-war intelligence? How's that Phase II investigation going now that Harry Reid controls the Senate?

Still, another Intelligence panel Democrat, Dianne Feinstein of California, said the status of the Phase II investigation was a “good question.” Feinstein said she has not “been at a meeting where it’s come up. But I can’t make every meeting.”

[Intelligence Chairman Jay] Rockefeller said last week that the investigation is “chugging along very nicely,” but quietly, “without pyrotechnics,” a reference to the fights of recent years.

Not so, said Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, the top Republican on the Intelligence panel. “They haven’t scheduled any time on it,” he said.

The Phase II investigation is supposed to focus on two things: "examining the role of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans and...contrasting the statements of public officials with what the intelligence community was saying at the time."

The Democrats' excuse is that they are working on more pressing matters, like the FISA bill...which they passed out of committee last week with retroactive immunity for the telecommunications corporations.

The FISA bill is important, but not nearly as important as holding the criminals that got us into this catastrophic war accountable. The Dems are more concerned with covering the ass of the Establishment than they are with getting us out of this war.

i got chewed out royally last january by a woman friend of mine who does serious legwork for the dems in a rural county... i was expressing dismay that the new democratic congress wasn't picking up the ball in nearly the way i had hoped... she hit the ceiling and told me i was being unreasonable, that i needed to give them some time, that they had a strong "first 100 days" agenda and that they were getting things in place to make sure it all happened...

my expectation, which i now see to have been pure fantasy, was that a dem congress would take serious, forceful steps to remedy a downhill luge run to an authoritarian state... i was heartened when the investigations under waxman, conyers and leahy got rolling, although i still couldn't understand why, with clearly impeachable offenses just sitting out there beckoning, we weren't taking that step... then came the white house and doj stonewalling of congressional committee requests, followed by the subpoenas, followed by more stonewalling... and now...? crickets chirping...

the inaction on phase II is part and parcel of the whole pattern that's emerged, the truly horrifying part of which is that there's virtually no daylight between the dems and the r's... is the 2008 election, a democratic president and a stronger democratic presence in congress going to remedy this...? color me highly dubious...

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Pre-Iraq invasion plan to control news surfaces

sometimes known as propaganda*...

In the run-up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon planned to create a 'Rapid Reaction Media Team' (RRMT) designed to ensure control over major Iraqi media while providing an Iraqi 'face' for its efforts, according to a ‘White Paper' obtained by the independent National Security Archive (NSA) which released it Tuesday.

The partially redacted, three-page document was accompanied by a longer power point presentation that included a proposed six-month, 51 million-dollar budget for the RRMT operation, apparently the first phase in a one-to-two-year "strategic information campaign".

Among other items, the budget called for the hiring of two U.S. "media consultants" who were to be paid 140,000 dollars each for six months' work. A further 800,000 dollars were to be paid for six Iraqi "media consultants" over the same period.

Both the paper and the slide presentation were prepared by two Pentagon offices -- Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, which, among other things, specialise in psychological warfare, and the Office of Special Plans under then undersecretary of defence for policy, Douglas Feith -- in mid-January, 2003, two months before the invasion, according to NSA analyst Joyce Battle.

and it looks very much like it was at least partially executed...

Whether the plan was implemented as described in the paper is not clear, although the NSA Tuesday also released an audit by the Pentagon's Inspector-General regarding two dozen, mostly non-competitive contracts totalling 122.5 million dollars awarded by the defence department to three defence contractors that carried out media-related activities in Iraq after the invasion.

The contractors included The Rendon Group and Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC) which received a 25 million-dollar contract to create an Iraqi Media Network whose aims appear to be roughly consistent with those laid out in the White Paper, but which largely fell apart after about six months as a result of alleged incompetence and infighting.

and who do we find skulking** in the shadows...?

SAIC is the same company that hired World Bank communications staffer Shaha Ali Riza at the reported behest of then deputy defence secretary (now World Bank President) Paul Wolfowitz with whom she was romantically involved. Riza worked for SAIC from March to May, 2003, as part of a "Democracy and Governance" team.

i am SO not surprised...

* note in particular #2 below...

pro·pa·gan·da
Pronunciation: "prä-p&-'gan-d&, "prO-
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin, from Congregatio de propaganda fide Congregation for propagating the faith, organization established by Pope Gregory XV died 1623
1 capitalized : a congregation of the Roman curia having jurisdiction over missionary territories and related institutions
2 : the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person
3 : ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause; also : a public action having such an effect

** i like this one too...

skulk
Pronunciation: 'sk&lk
Function: intransitive verb
Etymology: Middle English, of Scandinavian origin; akin to Norwegian dialect skulka to lie in wait, lurk
1 : to move in a stealthy or furtive manner
2 a : to hide or conceal something (as oneself) often out of cowardice or fear or with sinister intent

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