Trial Spotlights Cheney’s Power as an Infighter

Related
Closing Arguments Set in CIA Leak Case
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February 20, 2007

WASHINGTON, Feb. 19 — A picture taking shape from hours of testimony and reams of documents in the trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr. shatters any notion that the White House was operating as a model of cohesion throughout President Bush’s first term.

The trial against Mr. Libby has centered on a narrow case of perjury, with days of sparring between the defense and prosecution lawyers over the numbing details of three-year-old conversations between White House officials and journalists. But a close reading of the testimony and evidence in the case is more revelatory, bringing into bolder relief a portrait of a vice president with free rein to operate inside the White House as he saw fit in order to debunk the charges of a critic of the war in Iraq.

The evidence in the trial shows Vice President Dick Cheney and Mr. Libby, his former chief of staff, countermanding and even occasionally misleading colleagues at the highest levels of Mr. Bush’s inner circle as the two pursued their own goal of clearing the vice president’s name in connection with flawed intelligence used in the case for war.

The testimony in the trial, which is heading for final arguments as early as Tuesday, calls into question whether Mr. Cheney, known as a consummate inside player, operated as effectively as his reputation would hold. For all of his machinations, Mr. Cheney’s efforts sometimes faltered as he tried, with the help of Mr. Libby, to push back against critics during a crucial period in the early summer of 2003, when Mr. Bush’s initial case for war was beginning to fall apart. In some of their efforts, Mr. Cheney and his agent, Mr. Libby, appeared even maladroit in the art of news management.

While others on the White House team were primarily concerned about Mr. Bush, the evidence has shown that Mr. Libby had a more acute concern about his own boss. Unbeknownst to their colleagues, according to testimony, the two carried out a covert public relations campaign to defend not only the case for war but also Mr. Cheney’s connection to the flawed intelligence.

In doing so, they used some of the most sensitive and classified intelligence data available, information others on Mr. Bush’s team was not yet prepared to put to use in a public fight against a war critic.

A Quiet Scramble

By JIM RUTENBERG

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Leak: Iraq to be split into three regions

Sunday, February 18, 2007

The New Iraqi Oil: Leaked

The last few of weeks were very busy. I spent a couple of weeks in Malaysia and South Korea, and I'll share two of my pictures with you below.Publish

But more importantly, I spent the weekend translating this leaked copy of the Iraqi oil law with niki (thank you salam for sending me the link). Translating legal documents can be really hard!

We just finished the translation, and you can download it by clicking here.

Please feel free to widely distribute this document. It's important to start a stronger debate and to try to educate Iraqis and Americans about this catastrophic law that will facilitate the further looting of Iraqi oil, and will achieve nothing other than increasing the levels of violence and anger in Iraq.

This law legalizes PSAs (production sharing agreements) in Iraq. Iraq will be the only country in the middle east with such contracts privatising Iraqi oil and giving foreign companies crazy rates of profit that may reach to more than three fourth of the general revenue. Iraq and Iraqis need every Dinar that comes from oil sales. In addition to the financial aspects of this law, it can be considered the funding tool for splitting Iraq into three states. It undermines the central government and distributes oil revenues directly to the three regions, which sets the foundations for what Iraq's enemies are trying to achieve in terms of establishing three independent states.

Privatizing Iraq's oil and splitting Iraq into three regions are just two negative features of this 29 pages law. I am translating some important analysis written by Iraqis and other Arabs, and am also working with British and U.S. experts to publish more analysis soon.

Cheney Authorized Leak Campaign: "Get The Full Story Out"

Trial exposes White House crisis machine

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer Fri Feb 9, 9:22 PM ET

David Addington, chief legal adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, says he was taken aback when the White House started making public pronouncements about the CIA leak investigation.

In the fall of 2003, President Bush's press secretary was categorically denying that either Karl Rove or I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was involved in exposing the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA employee married to a critic of the war in Iraq.

"Why are you making these statements?" Addington asked White House communications director Dan Bartlett.

"Your boss is the one who wanted" them, Bartlett replied, referring to Cheney.

With that, "I shut up," Addington recalled recently for jurors in Libby's CIA leak trial, which begins its fourth week on Monday with Libby's lawyers calling their first witnesses.

So far, the testimony of Addington and other administration aides, along with documents and Libby's audiotaped grand jury testimony, have provided a rare glimpse of how the Bush White House scrambled to respond to a political crisis as it intersected a criminal investigation.

At the intersection was Cheney, along with Rove and Libby, who were working in the summer of 2003 to rebut claims by Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, that Bush had misled the nation about prewar intelligence on Iraq.

The White House denials on behalf of Rove and Libby came just before Rove secretly began acknowledging to the FBI that he had confirmed Plame's identity for conservative columnist Bob Novak, who first published her name and relationship to Wilson.

About the same time, Libby came under suspicion because NBC News Washington bureau chief Tim Russert had talked to the FBI, contradicting Libby's version of a conversation between the two men that would become the heart of the perjury and obstruction charges against Libby.

Bush and Cheney made a common mistake in their public handling of the Plame affair, says presidential scholar and University of Texas government professor Bruce Buchanan, who has watched Bush's career since his days as Texas governor.

"They're in a high-stakes game of poker, the immediate pressure is political and the people in charge are political people," Buchanan said. "If there is a legal issue it will dawn, but by then someone is out on a limb."

Testimony and documents in the trial show Rove joining Cheney in trying to undercut Wilson's claim that the administration had twisted prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

"We're a day late in getting responses to the story," Rove told a staff meeting, according to Libby's notes.

"Get the full story out," Cheney told aides, according to Libby's grand jury testimony.

There were glitches in the leak campaign against Wilson.

New York Times reporter Judith Miller never wrote a story about it, even after Cheney persuaded Bush to declassify prewar intelligence so it could be shared with Miller. The intelligence report said Iraq was vigorously trying to acquire uranium from the African nation of Niger.

"It was a totally failed effort," Libby told the grand jury of his meetings with Miller.

But there were successes too.

Libby recalled asking Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz to reach out to The Wall Street Journal.

"I don't have as good a relationship with The Wall Street Journal as Secretary Wolfowitz did," Libby told the grand jury. "I talked to Secretary Wolfowitz about trying to get that point across, and he undertook to do so."

The Journal ran an editorial focusing on the theme Libby wanted. The editorial stated that the prewar intelligence the newspaper was describing had not come from the White House, "which to our mind has handled this story in a hamhanded fashion."

In the Libby trial, Bush comes across mostly as an interested observer.

According to Libby's notes, some of which surfaced at the trial, Bush expressed interest in a May 6, 2003 New York Times column critical of the administration and referencing an unnamed former ambassador, who turned out to be Wilson.

In questioning Libby before the grand jury, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald juxtaposed Bush's public statements condemning leakers and Libby's contacts with reporters, some of whom have testified against him.

"Were you at all concerned that while the president was stating that there's no White House involvement in any leaks whatsoever, that you were one of the people who may have been referred to" in press reports about possible White House leakers? asked Fitzgerald.

In the grand jury recordings, the prosecutor also asked Libby about his interaction with Rove a few days before Novak exposed Plame's CIA identity. Libby said Rove "was animated that Novak was animated about this." Libby added that Rove "thought it was a good thing that somebody was writing about" Wilson and his wife.

Cheney told Libby early in the effort to deal with Wilson that his wife worked at the CIA. And while the Cheney-Libby team worked in lockstep attacking Wilson in July 2003, Libby said he faced a somewhat distant vice president when the affair came under investigation, first by the Justice Department, then by Fitzgerald.

Regarding his discussions with reporters about Wilson's wife, "I would have been happy to unburden myself" to Cheney, Libby told the grand jury, but "he didn't want to hear it."

The Trial of Dick Cheney

January 24, 2007

Scooter's in the dock – but his boss is the one being accused

by Justin Raimondo

The opening statements in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby struck official Washington like twin thunderbolts, opening up a huge fissure in the Bush administration at the same time that everything else – the security situation in Iraq, the Republican Party, the president's approval rating – is falling apart at the seams. With Scooter under fire from federal prosecutors and caught in a furious fusillade of mutual recriminations, what it all augurs is the final collapse of the War Party. The defense fired off its big guns on the first day, with Libby's lawyer, Ted Wells, rebutting Patrick J. Fitzgerald's contention that Libby had a motive to lie because the president had declared that anyone who leaked would be fired. (I note here that I'm citing not the "mainstream" media's account of the proceedings, but that of a blogger who has gained entry to the trial as a reporter, the anonymous "Emptywheel," whose reportage on the background of this case is surely one of the investigative wonders of the blogging world): "Mr. Libby was not concerned about losing his job. He was concerned about being set up. He was concerned about being the scapegoat. "Mr. Libby said to the VP, 'I think the White House people are trying to set me up, people want me to be the scapegoat. People in the White House want me to protect Karl Rove.' … "Cheney made notes of what Libby said. Notes show Libby telling the Vice President that he was not involved in leak. … "Cheney's note: 'Not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others.' "The person who was to be protected was Karl Rove. Karl Rove was President Bush's right hand person. Karl Rove was the person most responsible for making sure Bush stayed in office. He had to be protected…." But who, exactly, is being set up here? Surely not just Libby, but also Libby's boss. Libby is named in the indictment, yet it is the vice president who is really on trial here, as the prosecutor's pretrial tactics and opening statement make clear. After all, it wasn't just Scooter out there on his own planting stories in the media discrediting Ambassador Joe Wilson, implying that he'd been sent to the African nation of Niger on a "junket" at the behest of his wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame. Behind Libby stood the shadowy figure of the vice president, directing the action from an undisclosed location. Yet the trial of his former chief of staff threatens to disclose his location at the very center of the conspiracy to "out" Plame. Libby's defense is (1) Rove did it, and he, Libby, is a "sacrificial lamb," the fall guy for the White House, and (2) he had no reason to lie about the Plame matter, that this was at the extreme periphery of his concerns, and, in "recalling" how he came upon the information that Plame was in fact a CIA agent, he simply failed to remember with any degree of accuracy because of all the weighty matters that he had to deal with in his capacity as chief of staff at the OVP. Fitzgerald, for his part, will show that this is simply not the case, that the Plame matter was one of Libby's central concerns, and that both he and Cheney could almost be said to be obsessed with Wilson's accusations that the administration was cooking the intelligence to fit a preordained conclusion. In his opening statement, Fitzgerald drew a portrait of an administration under increasing pressure to explain the provenance of the intelligence that fooled Congress and the American people into going along with the decision to invade and occupy Iraq. One key part of this intelligence was contained in the infamous "16 words" of Bush's 2003 State of the Union address: shortly after the address was delivered, however, it came out that the story about Saddam seeking uranium in Niger was completely bogus and the documents supposedly backing up this tale had been forged. Yet the White House had been stuck with this tar baby and couldn't get rid of it. Questions about the "16 words" were being asked, uncomfortable questions, and the White House was having a hard time answering them: finally, they issued a statement admitting – for the first time ever! – that they had been wrong. In the end, George Tenet took the fall – but, then again, he hadn't been the source of the "16 words." So where did these allegations come from? In the meantime, however, other questions began to be raised, such as: who forged the Niger uranium documents? The forgeries, after all, were fairly crude, which is what enabled IAEA scientists to quickly debunk them using Google. Who was trying to lie us into war using such transparently dubious methods? Someone had pulled a fast one on the president – but who? It had to have been someone fairly high up. Or else how had such garbage made it onto the president's desk? The CIA triggered the investigation into how and by whom Plame and her operation were exposed, but it seems likely the probe might have been an outgrowth of a broader counterintelligence investigation into the entire affair, including the provenance of the Niger uranium allegations. If this could be traced back to the OVP, where so much of the bad "intelligence" originated, then that would explain the peculiar intensity of Scooter's determined campaign against the Wilsons. This president went to war on the strength of allegations that later turned out to be completely wrong. There were no WMD, no links to al-Qaeda, and no real chance that anything remotely approaching a liberal democracy could take root in the country once it had been "liberated" from the Ba'athist grip. They knew all this, yet they went ahead and did it anyway – or, at least, that's the strong impression the American public is getting. A full 58 percent believe the Bush administration deliberately misled Congress and the people on the WMD question. Yet the great bulk of the ersatz intelligence came from the vice president and his cronies. Scooter's trial is payback time for the Bush loyalists, who – rightly – feel betrayed. Feelings of betrayal are not limited, however, to the president's camp, as Libby's lawyer made clear in his opening statement. Poor Scooter, the "sacrificial lamb" – he's taking the fall for his boss, who is really the one on trial here. Cheney is appearing as a witness for the defense, and his cross-examination by Fitzgerald promises to be one of those epic moments when truth is spoken to power. Cheney's role in all this, as the behind-the-scenes manipulator of intelligence and master leaker of classified information, is going to be exposed for all the world to see. What remains to be seen is whether this classic confrontation will result in yet more indictments, and investigations, into matters not covered in this trial. Fitzgerald, you'll remember, once compared Libby's obstruction of the investigation to throwing sand in the investigators' faces so that they couldn't see who had exposed Plame or why. Yet this trial may go a long way toward clearing the air, so that finally investigators – perhaps Fitzgerald himself – can see their way to filing new charges, and not only against Libby. This trial goes to the very heart of key questions now vexing the American public, the answers to which threaten – or promise – to change the face of our politics: how did we wind up in the middle of a civil war in Iraq? Who lied us into war? How did they do it – and why did they do it? Before this trial is over, we may well have some pretty strong clues as to the answers. Now that the Middle East democratization-by-force-of-arms project is sinking fast, the rats are deserting the ship with unseemly speed, and it's every rodent for himself. The neocons, if they aren't repudiating their past views, à la Fukuyama, are repudiating Bush. He didn't put enough troops in, his "surge" isn't big enough, he's holding back from attacking Syria and Iran – instead of going "faster, please!" as one neocon ideologue puts it. To hear the neocons tell it, the president's crusade to "liberate" the Middle East from itself has stalled, due not to the limitations of American military power, but to a lack of presidential will. Their strategy of preemptive aggression didn't fail, the neocons claim: this president failed. I hate to say I told you so, but I did tell you so: "The neocons who ginned up this war and committed crimes in the process have no loyalty to party, or even to ideology. Always single-minded in pursuit of their objective – war in the Middle East – they latched onto the GOP solely as a matter of convenience, and never bet all their chips on one party or the other. They have no more personal loyalty to George W. Bush than an intestinal worm has to its host. Less, as a worm infestation rarely leads to death, while this plague of neocons spells real trouble – both legal and political – for the Bushies and the Republican Party, both of which stand to be discredited in the eyes of the voters – and of history – for a long time to come." Oh, and one more thing: all that pretrial talk about a presidential pardon for Scooter seems pretty silly now that his lawyers are aiming their main fire at the White House. It seems the Libby defense team is employing what I have called the "Samson option" – and that means the beginning of a vicious civil war within the War Party, with the Bush loyalists on one side and the neocons – nested in the OVP – on the other, with each trying to blame the other for the various debacles that have befallen this administration and now seem to be culminating in a veritable tsunami of ill tidings for the GOP. With the defection of Sen. John Warner and several other GOP big-hitters from the ranks of the pro-surge Republicans, the civil war inside the GOP – and the conservative movement – is going full blast. The neocons are desperately fighting to retain control over policy – particularly Iran policy – but their grip is loosening, and this trial may pry their fingers from the big prize, i.e., the vice president's office. When this scandal first came to light, I asked the following: "If Libby is implicated as having anything to do with Plame's 'outing,' then that, in turn, implicates Cheney, who must take responsibility. The vice president's resignation, under these circumstances, is a distinct possibility. Will we soon hear an announcement that he's retiring 'for health reasons'?" The only problem with this quasi-prediction was the word "soon" – we've had to wait over three years to come to the point where Cheney himself has come under increasing scrutiny, yet finally the day of reckoning approaches. In answer to all those who have written me, over the years, disdaining my hope that this trial would ever reveal anything about the inner workings of the War Party and their crimes, claiming that "they" would put a stop to it before anything of value saw the light of day, I have to say: you were wrong. The republic is not doomed: its defense mechanism is working, even if it took a while to rev it up. So pull up a chair, kick back, and get out the refreshments: it's not just Scooter and his boss who are in the dock. The War Party is on trial in Judge Walton's courtroom, and the odds are damn good that they'll get the verdict they so richly deserve.

CIA leak case figures reject Cheney immunity

NBC: CIA leak case figures reject Cheney immunity

Wilson, Plame claim that vice president is not shielded from civil lawsuit

By Joel Seidman

Producer

NBC News

Updated: 9:05 p.m. MT Jan 16, 2007

As jury selection began Tuesday in the criminal trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame, claim that the vice president cannot assert immunity from their complaint.

The Wilsons have sued Libby, Cheney, senior White House adviser Karl Rove, former deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and nine unnamed government officials, accusing them of conspiring to destroy Plame's career at the CIA.

The Wilsons claim they were seriously injured by "retaliatory revelation" in revealing Plame's CIA employment. The court filing states the Wilsons' "fear for their safety and for the safety of their children." And, the filing says, "disclosure of Mrs. Wilson's covert identity makes her and her family a target for those persons and groups who bear hostility to the United States and/or its intelligence officers."

Attorneys for the Wilsons write that, "No case ever has accorded the Vice President absolute immunity." The court filing states that the fact that Cheney is a part of the executive branch "does not warrant according him absolute immunity."

The Wilsons allege that Plame's name was leaked to reporters in retaliation for a July 2003 op-ed column published in The New York Times by Wilson, refuting U.S. pre-war intelligence on Iraq's nuclear program.

The Wilsons' attorney, Melanie Sloan, writes they are seeking "money damages as compensation for the substantial harms they have suffered from the violation of constitutional and common right laws."

Statements to 'Hardball'
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, who is presiding over Libby's criminal trial, strongly admonished Sloan on Dec. 20 for her appearance on the MSNBC program "Hardball," where she predicted a jury could find Libby guilty of making false statements.

Sloan told MSNBC's Chris Matthews, "I think a jury could easily still find him guilty without being the first to leak because that's not what he's been charged with. He's not charged with leaking. He's charged with making false statements."

Walton wrote in an opinion that "The Court would not tolerate this case being tried in the media."

Walton added that “making disparaging comments in a television interview about a criminal defendant in a highly publicized case on the eve of trial could cause potential members of the jury pool to engender negative attitudes about the defendant.”

In Tuesday's filing, Sloan writes that after syndicated columnist Robert Novak published Plame's name, Rove called Matthews and told him that Plame was "fair game."

Sloan adds, "Rove attempted to make this statement targeting Mrs. Wilson off the record and on the condition that he not be identified as its source, so as to avoid detection for the wrongdoing."

Motions to dismiss
Lawyers for Cheney and Libby have filed motions to dismiss the civil complaint. Cheney's attorneys argue that the suit should be dismissed on various grounds including that, "the Vice President is entitled to qualified immunity," and that Cheney is "absolutely immune from suits for civil damages."

The lawyers for the Vice President, who is expected to be a witness for Libby, also contend that the Wilsons' civil action arose after the statute of limitations for such filings had passed. Cheney's attorneys write that the Wilsons "have not pled that the Vice President ever made any public disclosure of Mrs. Wilson's alleged CIA employment status. The sole pertinent factual allegation is that the Vice President communicated the fact of her CIA employment to his national security advisor and chief of staff."

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has spent nearly three years investigating who revealed Plame's identity to Novak and Washington Post editor Bob Woodward in 2003, but no one was ever charged with that leak. Armitage last summer revealed that he was the first source of Plame to both reporters.

Joel Seidman is an NBC producer based in Washington, D.C.

© 2007 MSNBC Interactive© 2007 MSNBC Interactive

Syria in Bush's Crosshairs

Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2006

Exclusive: A classified document suggests the Administration is considering a plan to fund political opposition to the Damascus government. Some critics say it would be an unwarranted covert action

By ADAM ZAGORIN/WASHINGTON

The Bush Administration has been quietly nurturing individuals and parties opposed to the Syrian government in an effort to undermine the regime of President Bashar Assad. Parts of the scheme are outlined in a classified, two-page document which says that the U.S. already is "supporting regular meetings of internal and diaspora Syrian activists" in Europe. The document bluntly expresses the hope that "these meetings will facilitate a more coherent strategy and plan of actions for all anti-Assad activists."

The document says that Syria's legislative elections, scheduled for March 2007, "provide a potentially galvanizing issue for... critics of the Assad regime." To capitalize on that opportunity, the document proposes a secret "election monitoring" scheme, in which "internet accessible materials will be available for printing and dissemination by activists inside the country [Syria] and neighboring countries." The proposal also calls for surreptitiously giving money to at least one Syrian politician who, according to the document, intends to run in the election. The effort would also include "voter education campaigns" and public opinion polling, with the first poll "tentatively scheduled in early 2007."

American officials say the U.S. government has had extensive contacts with a range of anti-Assad groups in Washington, Europe and inside Syria. To give momemtum to that opposition, the U.S. is giving serious consideration to the election- monitoring scheme proposed in the document, according to several officials. The proposal has not yet been approved, in part because of questions over whether the Syrian elections will be delayed or even cancelled. But one U.S. official familiar with the proposal said: "You are forced to wonder whether we are now trying to destabilize the Syrian government."

Some critics in Congress and the Administration say that such a plan, meant to secretly influence a foreign government, should be legally deemed a "covert action," which by law would then require that the White House inform the intelligence committees on Capitol Hill. Some in Congress would undoubtedly raise objections to this secret use of publicly appropriated funds to promote democracy.

The proposal says part of the effort would be run through a foundation operated by Amar Abdulhamid, a Washington-based member of a Syrian umbrella opposition group known as the National Salvation Front (NSF). The Front includes the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization that for decades supported the violent overthrow the Syrian government, but now says it seeks peaceful, democratic reform. (In Syria, however, membership in the Brotherhood is still punishable by death.) Another member of the NSF is Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former high-ranking Syrian official and Assad family loyalist who recently went into exile after a political clash with the regime. Representatives of the National Salvation Front, including Abdulhamid, were accorded at least two meetings earlier this year at the White House, which described the sessions as exploratory. Since then, the National Salvation Front has said it intends to open an office in Washington in the near future.

"Democracy promotion" has been a focus of both Democratic and Republican administrations, but the Bush White House has been a particular booster since 9/11. Iran contra figure Elliott Abrams was put in charge of the effort at the National Security Council. Until recently, Elizabeth Cheney, daughter of the Vice President, oversaw such work at the State Department. In the past, the U.S. has used support for "democracy building" to topple unfriendly dictators, including Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic and Ukraine's Vladimir Kuchma.

However, in order to make the "election monitoring" plan for Syria effective, the proposal makes clear that the U.S. effort will have to be concealed: "Any information regarding funding for domestic [Syrian] politicians for elections monitoring would have to be protected from public dissemination," the document says. But American experts on "democracy promotion" consulted by TIME say it would be unwise to give financial support to a specific candidate in the election, because of the perceived conflict of interest. More ominously, an official familiar with the document explained that secrecy is necessary in part because Syria's government might retaliate against anyone inside the country who was seen as supporting the U.S.-backed election effort. The official added that because the Syrian government fields a broad network of internal spies, it would almost certainly find out about the U.S. effort, if it hasn't already. That could lead to the imprisonment of still more opposition figures.

Any American-orchestrated attempt to conduct such an election-monitoring effort could make a dialogue between Washington and Damascus — as proposed by the Iraq Study Group and several U.S. allies — difficult or impossible. The entire proposal could also be a waste of effort; Edward P. Djerejian, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria who worked on the Iraq Study Group report, says that Syria's opposition is so fractured and weak that there is little to be gained by such a venture. "To fund opposition parties on the margins is a distraction at best," he told TIME. "It will only impede the better option of engaging Syria on much more important, fundamental issues like Iraq, peace with Israel, and the dangerous situation in Lebanon."

Others detect another goal for the proposed policy. "Ever since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which Syria opposed, the Bush Administration has been looking for ways to squeeze the government in Damascus," notes Joshua Landis, a Syria expert who is co-director of the Center for Peace Studies at the University of Oklahoma. "Syria has appeared to be next on the Administration's agenda to reform the greater Middle East." Landis adds: "This is apparently an effort to gin up the Syrian opposition under the rubric of 'democracy promotion' and 'election monitoring,' but it's really just an attempt to pressure the Syrian government" into doing what the U.S. wants. That would include blocking Syria's border with Iraq so insurgents do not cross into Iraq to kill U.S. troops; ending funding of Hizballah and interference in Lebanese politics; and cooperating with the U.N. in the investigation of the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Senior Syrian government officials are considered prime suspects in Hariri case.

Money for the election-monitoring proposal would be channeled through a State Department program known as the Middle East Partnership Initiative, or MEPI. According to MEPI's website, the program passes out funds ranging between $100,000 and $1 million to promote education and women's empowerment, as well as economic and political reform, part of a total allocation of $5 million for Syria that Congress supported earlier this year.

MEPI helps funnel millions of dollars every year to groups around the Middle East intent on promoting reforms. In the vast majority of cases, beneficiaries are publicly identified, as financial support is distributed through channels including the National Democratic Institute, a non-profit affiliated with the Democratic Party, and the International Republican Institute (IRI), which is linked to the GOP. In the Syrian case, the election-monitoring proposal identifies IRI as a "partner" — although the IRI website, replete with information about its democracy promotion elsewhere in the world, does not mention Syria. A spokesperson for IRI had no comment on what the organization might have planned or underway in Syria, describing the subject as "sensitive."

U.S. foreign policy experts familiar with the proposal say it was developed by a "democracy and public diplomacy" working group that meets weekly at the State department to discuss Iran and Syria. Along with related working groups, it prepares proposals for the higher-level Iran Syria Operations Group, or ISOG, an inter-agency body that, several officials said, has had input from Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, deputy National Security Council advisor Elliott Abrams and representatives from the Pentagon, Treasury and U.S. intelligence. The State Department's deputy spokesman, Thomas Casey, said the election-monitoring proposal had already been through several classified drafts, but that "the basic concept is very much still valid."

Full Text of Rumsfeld’s Classified Memo of Options for Iraq War

December 3, 2006

Rumsfeld’s Memo of Options for Iraq War

Following is the text of a classified Nov. 6 memorandum that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sent to the White House suggesting new options in Iraq. The memorandum was sent one day before the midterm Congressional elections and two days before Mr. Rumsfeld resigned.

Nov. 6, 2006

SUBJECT: Iraq — Illustrative New Courses of Action
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Experts: U.S. National Security Adviser Clueless

Posted on Wed, Nov. 29, 2006
Experts question proposals in leaked Iraq memo By Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON - It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to implement most of the key ideas for quelling the Iraqi civil war that are outlined in a classified Nov. 8 memo to President Bush from National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, experts said Wednesday. Trying to push anti-U.S. Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr out of the ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, as the memo suggests, would be throwing gasoline on a fire, they said. Sadr's party is the largest in parliament, with 32 seats, and Maliki became prime minister only with his support. Sadr's Mahdi Army militia controls large parts of Baghdad and southern Iraq, and many Iraqi Shiites hail him as their only protection from attacks by rival Sunni Muslims, which American and Iraqi forces have failed to stop. "Sadr is aware of the considerable extent to which his forces ... constitute a significant part of the power in the streets, and there is no reason why he would simply want to surrender that leverage," said Paul Pillar, the former top U.S. intelligence analyst on the Middle East. In what appeared to be a warning from Sadr to Maliki, Sadr followers suspended their participation in the government and parliament to protest Maliki's plan to meet Bush on Wednesday in Jordan. Within an hour of the statement, Jordanian officials announced that the meeting had been postponed. Hadley's memo was leaked to The New York Times on the eve of the Bush-Maliki talks. He wrote the five-page classified document after meeting with Maliki on Oct. 30 in Baghdad. Since then, the violence in Iraq has surged to its worst level since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. It's been especially fierce in the capital since bombings last Thursday killed more than 200 people in Sadr City, a Shiite slum in Baghdad that the Mahdi Army controls. In the memo, Hadley expressed doubts about Maliki's ability or willingness to go beyond the Shiite sectarian agenda and forge a unity government. Hadley recommended steps that Maliki could take to curb the violence and measures that the United States could implement to strengthen him, including sending more forces into Baghdad. Hadley's central suggestion was to bring Maliki's political reliance on Sadr "to closure" and pursue Mahdi Army members who "do not eschew violence." Trying to force Sadr out of the government - in which his followers control some of the key ministries - and crack down on his militia almost certainly would lead to the government's collapse. It also would ignite a wave of violence by his militia and supporters in Baghdad and the Shiite-dominated south, much of it probably aimed at the U.S.-led multinational force. "Sadr is not going to rein in the Mahdi Army," said Vali Nasr of the Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, Calif., and the author of a new book on modern political Shiism. Hadley suggested that Maliki overhaul his Cabinet by replacing key members of Shiite and Sunni religious parties with "nonsectarian, capable technocrats." But the Iraqi Constitution requires that new ministers be approved by two-thirds of parliament, a vote that Sadr could block. A Cabinet shakeup also would unravel the power-sharing deal on controlling the ministries that took the religious parties months to negotiate. "The ministries are run like fiefdoms," Nasr said. "Most ministers don't even come to Cabinet meetings." Experts also were skeptical of a Hadley proposal that the United States provide "monetary support" for forming a new coalition of moderate Shiite, Sunni and ethnic Kurdish parliamentarians to keep Maliki in power if he's unable to cut loose from Sadr. Several experts wondered what moderates Hadley was referring to. Moreover, such an alliance would require Maliki to forge stronger bonds with Sadr's chief rival, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim. He's the head of another Shiite party that belongs to the ruling coalition and whose militia maintains even closer ties to the Islamic regime of neighboring Iran than the Mahdi Army does. Finding Sunnis to join such a grouping would be impossible, because Hakim has been a leading proponent of purging members of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from the bureaucracy and the military, Nasr said. Hakim met with Jordan's King Abdullah hours before Bush arrived in Amman, and was scheduled to travel to Washington, where he was expected to visit the White House. Maliki already has tried unsuccessfully to implement some of Hadley's ideas, several experts noted. These include attempts to purge the police and Interior Ministry of sectarian death squads and to disarm militias. Phebe Marr, a leading U.S. expert on Iraq, said that some of the more modest ideas that Hadley proposed in the memo - such as appointing technocrats to the government and cleaning up the Interior Ministry - were achievable. "I think these small steps can be done. I think Maliki is doing them. But we have very different perceptions of time and timetable," Marr said, referring to growing political pressure in the United States to withdraw troops. As for a "spectacular breakthrough" from the Iraqi government in the near future, "forget it," she said. Youssef reported from Amman, Jordan. Warren P. Strobel in Washington contributed to this report. --- In public, top Bush administration officials have taken a very different view of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki than the one expressed in a classified National Security Council memo: Sept. 30. Army Gen. George W. Casey in Baghdad: Maliki is "a determined, courageous leader taking on some very difficult issues. ... He has an awful lot of challenges facing him, and I do believe he is very much up to the task." Oct. 5. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Baghdad: "I do think he has the strength. I think he's a very good and strong prime minister." Oct. 24. Marine Gen. Pete Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: "I do know that Prime Minister Maliki is working very hard right now in his five-month-old government - he's working very hard to try to find those political agreements that would reconcile the needs of Sunni, Shia and Kurds so he can get on about being the unifying leader that he's trying to be." Oct. 25. President Bush: "I do believe Prime Minister Maliki is the right man to achieve the goal in Iraq." Nov. 8. Memo prepared by National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley and his aides after a visit to Baghdad: "Do we and Prime Minister Maliki share the same vision for Iraq? If so, is he able to curb those who seek Shia hegemony or the reassertion of Sunni power? "... Despite Maliki's reassuring words, repeated reports from our commanders on the ground contributed to our concerns about Maliki's government. Reports of nondelivery of services to Sunni areas, intervention by the prime minister's office to stop military action against Shia targets and to encourage them against Sunni ones, removal of Iraq's most effective commanders on a sectarian basis and efforts to ensure Shia majorities in all ministries - when combined with the escalation of Jaish al-Mahdi's (JAM) (the Mahdi Army militia of militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr) killings - all suggest a campaign to consolidate Shia power in Baghdad. "... His intentions seem good when he talks with Americans, and sensitive reporting suggests he is trying to stand up to the Shia hierarchy and force positive change. But the reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action." Nov. 28. Rice in Riga, Latvia: "I think that if you meet these leaders of the central government, you recognize the challenges that they have, you will be quite impressed with what they have achieved and continue to achieve." -Compiled by researcher Tish Wells

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