At least twice a month I try to head over to George Washington University’s National Security Archive site to see what fascinating new documents they have succeeded in getting declassified. This month, they have a nice collection. One cache is not ready to view, yet, but will be thanks to successful court fight: Court Rejects Chiquita’s Bid to Hide Terror Payment Records. For those of you who don’t know, Chiquita used to be called the United Fruit Company of Dulles Brothers fame. If I get the free time (somewhat unlikely), I will do a post about this.
The second cache is right up my alley. The documents focus on the Ford administration’s internal strategy for dealing with the congressional investigations (the Senate Church Committee and House Pike Committee) into the intelligence community beginning in 1975. It turns out that Deputy Chief of Staff (at the time) Dick Cheney was the point man for obstructing these investigations.
I’ve written about this before on more than one occasion…
I have developed a theory that Dick Cheney has made it a personal mission to eliminate every piece of legislation that was enacted post-Watergate to rein in the intelligence community. –Martin Longman, January 4th, 2007.
…but I never had this kind of documentary proof.
I wish we had been armed with more of this kind of information back in 2000 when Dick Cheney was still somewhat unknown and when memories of the fights of the 1970’s weren’t quite so stale. His behavior once in the vice-presidency struck many, including me, as a departure from what we expected. More familiarity with his role in the Ford administration would have prepared us better for what was to come. We might even have been able to raise enough doubt about Cheney’s judgment to swing the election.
Lord knows, it wouldn’t have taken much to do that.
I’m glad someone does this, Boo.
I mean look at the declassified docs.
Yes, and that photo of Dick Cheney with hair.
Great thing about Cheney’s plan to cut the intelligence community loose is that it gave him the chance to flood the zone with bad intelligence that served his purposes.
If we look at his bullshit during the 80’s. the Team B crap on Soviet Weapons, Cheney arguing the opposite of the CIA, that the Soviets were maintaining their nukes, even increasing them, along with lots of other threat inflation, we can see that that was all just practice for Iraq.
Or, he was really upset he didn’t get to do his Dr. Strangelove routine with the Soviets, so he took it out on Iraq.
I agree with your first paragraph, but not your tongue-in-cheek last paragraph! I never bought the idea that Bush wanted to invade Iraq because they tried to kill his father; psychological hogwash. Cheney et al wanted to go after Iraq because they thought it was an easy target. They were afraid of and wouldn’t stand up against a real power such as China or Russia or North Korea or (I thought) even Iran. (Post-Shah Iran was not much of a military power–they barely survived the Iran-Iraq war–and I’m not sure how powerful they are today; in terms of population and physical geography, they would apparently be a harder country to conquer.)
Cheney et al thought Iraq was easy pickings and a way to get a war on without danger of losing. Well, we lost, but most Americans don’t seem to realize that. And the GOP is still full of bluster about “easy” threats and not so full when it comes to “difficult” threats.
In the 2000 election, one argument I made for voting for Gore is that GWB had Iraq and Saddam on his “to do list” if he were elected. Had I been familiar with the 1998 PNAC document, I would have known the genesis of this item on his list. Can’t say that I was, but Bush did make a statement that he would do Iraq. Whatever I heard or knew back then, it’s not my habit to simply make something up to construct an argument either for or against a candidate and if it’s simply speculative projection on my part, I frame it as such. Surely I couldn’t have been the only person in 2000 that no doubt as to this intention of Bush.
○ The Bushies and Saddam Hussein
President Bill Clinton launched 23 Tomahawk cruise missiles against Baghdad, in part for the attempt to kill Mr and Mrs Bush on their visit to Kuwait in April 1993.
The proof of an assassination attempt has often been disputed.
Interesting read …
○ The CIA and the Culture of Failure: U.S. Intelligence from the End of the Cold War to the Invasion of Iraq
Has anyone made a list of all the US strikes on Iraq during Clinton’s tenure? Including the coup against or assassination attempt on Saddam.
Can those strikes be divided into “enforcing the sanctions” and “flexing US military power?” (Evidence is good that those sanctions killed half a million Iraqi children.)
Seriously doubt that Clinton gave a fig about some murky and merely alleged assassination attempt on the Bushes. At least not way back in 1993 before he was buds with the old man.
Well, if the Gulf War was to put an end to “The Vietnam Syndrome,” why would we bother our exceptional minds with the revelations and truths that the Pike and Church Committees exposed?
Hell, the majority has yet to wrap their minds around the fact that while they loved the results of The New Deal, they still don’t get that it was socialism and continue to freak out at the mere mention of the word.
Sanders has a very steep hill to climb — but at least he’s climbing it unlike most Democratic politicians today and for the past sixty odd years.
Everything you say.
Booman wrote: “Lord knows, it wouldn’t have taken much to do that.” The fact that so many people voted for Bush that the election was even close scared me at the time. As Marie says, any revelations about Cheney wouldn’t have made any difference.
“We might even have been able to raise enough doubt
about Cheney’s judgment to swing the election.
Lord knows, it wouldn’t have taken much to do that.”
That “we” wern’t aware of the Cheney escapades … don’t blame yourself! Dick Cheney and the whole gang of neoconservatives weren’t unknowns in Washingto DC in the election year 2000. Cheney and gang were known knowns … Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith! Remember Alexander Haig … and certainly our Congressional members of the Democratic party should have been aware.They are all insiders … perhaps not much light between the two parties on many issues of “national security” and “foreign policy.”
○ President Gerald R. Ford – White House Staff
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