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On his third trip to Iraq, in September 2005, Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) knew the American mission was imperiled.
"We were up in Tikrit and went to a hospital, and it was guarded with guns and security to the point they were pushing weapons into women's faces," Wolf said. "I saw we can't be successful if we're going into an operating room with pistols and weapons."
The composition of the study group was also crucial.
"You had to get a group not connected to the administration, people who were not going to be campaigning and who could come to a consensus," he said. "We wanted a bipartisan group, people senior enough that they weren't looking to get placed in a law firm or good job. The test was: Do you love your country?"
Iraq Study Group, led by Republican former secretary of state James A. Baker III and Democratic former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (Ind.), who was a vice chairman of the panel that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
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not connected to the administration
According to the documents, Carlyle is seeking to secure as part of the deal an extraordinary $1bn investment from the Kuwaiti government.
The main proposal would transfer ownership of $57bn in unpaid Iraqi debts. The debts would be assigned to a foundation created and controlled by a consortium in which the key players are the Carlyle Group, the Albright Group (headed by another former secretary of state, Madeleine Albright) and several other well-connected firms.
Under the deal, Kuwait would also give the consortium $2bn to invest in a private equity fund devised by the consortium, with half of that going to Carlyle.
The consortium would then use its personal connections to persuade world leaders that Iraq must "maximize" its reparation payments to Kuwait. The more the consortium gets Iraq to pay over a period, the more Kuwait collects, with the consortium taking a 5% commission or more.
didn't we? And what was the other thing? Someone who wasn't
not connected to the administration
looking to get placed in a law firm or good job.
"The test was: Do you love your country?"
Wolf said he hopes that the group's recommendations, expected to be delivered to President Bush and Congress next month, will reconnect a nation splintered by war. (Is he talking about Iraq or the US? I can't tell* - r23)
"When our country is together, we're strong -- Truman and Roosevelt showed that," he said. "When we're divided, I think the country's going to be in trouble. I hope something good comes from this, that we can develop consensus."
a group not connected to the administration
Lee Herbert Hamilton (born April 20, 1931) was the vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, and currently serves on the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council
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not connected to the administration
"The test was: Do you love your country?"
As chair of the Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, Hamilton chose not to investigate President Ronald Reagan or President George H. W. Bush, stating that he did not think it would be "good for the country" to put the public through another impeachment trial.
organized by United States Institute of Peace, of which Hamilton is the Democratic co-chair, along with James Baker.
The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan, national institution established and funded by Congress. Its goals are to help prevent and resolve violent international conflicts, promote post-conflict stability and democratic transformations, and increase peacebuilding capacity, tools, and intellectual capital worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering others with knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by its direct involvement in peacebuilding efforts around the globe.
to help prevent and resolve violent international conflicts, promote post-conflict stability
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empowering others with knowledge, skills, and resources
Chartered as an independent nonprofit corporation, the Institute is governed by a bipartisan Board of Directors appointed by the president of the United States and confirmed by the Senate
“The ISG is independent, bipartisan, and open to all views,” Baker and Hamilton said. “We were pleased to meet with senior administration officials today and look forward to our consultations with some prominent Democrats tomorrow. We are working expeditiously to complete our report and recommendations.”
The other members of the study group include Lawrence S. Eagleburger, Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Edwin Meese III, Sandra Day O'Connor, Leon J. Panetta, William J. Perry, Charles S. Robb, and Alan K. Simpson. Robert Gates recently resigned from the Study Group upon his nomination to be Secretary of Defense.
This article is not journalism. It's something rather more insidious, but I don't have a name for it.
You have voted rich23 for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have one more vote left for this month.
"You don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect."
-- U.S. News and World Report, 10/14/85
Attorney General under Ronald Reagan, himself later the target of a federal grand jury investigation.
The Federalist Society states that it is founded on the principles that "the state exists to preserve freedom," that "the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution," and that the duty of the judicial branch is "to say what the law is, not what the law should be.
As chair of the Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, Hamilton chose not to investigate President Ronald Reagan or President George H. W. Bush, stating that he did not think it would be "good for the country" to put the public through another impeachment trial.
Attorney General Edwin Meese III became directly involved in the Reagan Administration's secret plan to sell weapons to Iran in January 1986, when he was asked for a legal opinion to support the plan. When the secret arms sales became exposed in November 1986, raising questions of legality and prompting congressional and public scrutiny, Meese became the point man for the Reagan Administration's effort, in Meese's words, "to limit the damage."
BUSH'S OTHER BRAIN
Karl Rove may have made George W. Bush president. But it was Ed Meese who defined his presidency
Another outcry lately has been over the uses of interrogation techniques that involve sleep deprivation and uncomfortable positions. Do you think that the Bush administration has pushed the boundaries on that?
I don't know. A lot of this has been classified. There have been a lot of accusations, but I haven't seen much evidence, so I really don't know enough to render a judgment. But my own belief is that the administration is committed not to engage in anything that we would call torture. They're committed to humane treatment.
It seems like some of these techniques, like waterboarding, are a long way from humane.
Well, again, I have a great deal of confidence that the administration would not engage in torture.
Would you call that torture?
I don't know. I don't know about waterboarding.
It's putting a wet rag over someone's mouth and making them think that they're going to drown.
Yeah, I don't know. As I said, I don't know enough about it to give a firm determination.
That doesn't necessarily sound like torture to you?
I don't know whether they're doing that.
And if they are?
I don't know, because I don't know enough about it.
I'm asking, if that is what they're doing, does that sound like torture?
Well, I'd have to find out how long they do it and whether it does create the impression of drowning. I've never heard of this using a washcloth in their mouth before.
You know, this is also the twentieth anniversary of the whole Iran-Contra nightmare.
Not really. Well, I guess it is.
When Mr. Meese had to sell his house in California in order to move to Washington he was not a wealthy man. Thomas Barrack loaned a purchaser of Mr. Meese’s house $70,000 so he could buy the house. The buyer gave the $70,000 to Mr. Meese as a down payment. Thereafter, Mr. Barrack received a job as deputy under secretary of the Interior Department. Thereafter, Mr. Barrack forgave the $70,000 loan.
John McKean was Mr. Meese’s CPA. He loaned Mr. Meese $60,000. When asked about the loan Mr. Meese said he paid interest in a timely fashion. Subsequent investigation showed that to have been a lie. No interest was paid by him until after the reporter inquired. According to the General Accounting Office, the unpaid interest should have been reported by Mr. Meese as a gift.
Instead of foreclosing on Mr. Meese’s California house when Mr. Meese missed 15 consecutive loan payments, a California bank loaned him an additional $20,000 so he could bring his payments current. The bank’s president became an alternate delegate to the United Nations. Another bank officer became chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board.
Who are the members?
· James A. Baker III, secretary of state under President George H.W. Bush
· Lee H. Hamilton, Democratic former representative from Indiana
· Lawrence Eagleburger, secretary of state under the first President Bush
· Vernon E. Jordan Jr., former adviser to President Bill Clinton
· Edwin Meese III, attorney general under President Ronald Reagan
· Sandra Day O'Connor, former Supreme Court justice
· Leon E. Panetta, chief of staff under Clinton, Democratic former representative from California
· William J. Perry, secretary of defense under Clinton
· Charles S. Robb, Democratic former senator from Virginia
· Alan K. Simpson, Republican former senator from Wyoming
source
Monday 14 April 2003
President Bush warned Syria last night not to harbour any fleeing Iraqi leaders and insisted that Damascus has chemical weapons.
But he stopped short of threatening military action, insisting: "They just need to co-operate."
.....
Lawrence Eagleburger, Secretary of State under George Bush Senior, said American public opinion would not tolerate action against Syria or Iran.
He was speaking as Colin Powell, the current Secretary of State, ramped up the pressure on Syria not to shield Saddam Hussein or his cronies.
Washington hawks are spoiling for a fight with Syria and Iran following the collapse of the Iraqi regime.
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday said there was "no question" that Syria was harbouring senior Iraqi figures. But Mr Eagleburger, who accused Syria of having an outrageous record on terror, said an extension of the war was unthinkable.
"You saw the furore that went on before the President got sufficient support to do this," he said. "This is still a democracy and public opinion rules. If George Bush decided he was going to turn troops on Syria now and then Iran he'd be in office about 15 minutes.
"If President Bush were to try it now, even I would feel he should be impeached. You can't get away with that sort of thing in a democracy."
There is no question but that this administration is much less interested in multilateralism than its predecessors were. This relates in particular to traditional ties between the United States and its Western European partners. It is not that Washington today wants to throw out those relationships. It is just far less concerned about the significance of those ties. There is much more of a tendency in Washington toward unilateralism, and I tend to agree with that approach. Whether we like it or not, now that we are the world’s only superpower, we have to expect what in fact happened as a consequence of Iraq. We were condemned by a good many of our traditional allies. The condemnation was the result more of a concern on their part that we were going off on our own, and that we were demonstrating an unfettered use of our strength, than on any objective judgment about the Iraq policy.
The French and the Germans took the lead in this in part because of jealousy, and in part because of legitimate concerns that they cannot influence American policies much in this new era. Some of this is obviously because, purely and simply, we are the only superpower now; whatever we do will result in a tendency to object.
Did the administration rush into the Iraq war without preparing the diplomatic groundwork well enough and by skewing intelligence about Iraq’s unconventional weapons?
I don’t think there was anything we could have done that would have convinced the chief NATO allies that this was a legitimate effort. That relates, of course, to their concerns about how we were using our strength. This is not to say we did a particularly good job with the allies in trying to convince them.
The Bretton Woods Committee is a bipartisan group of distinguished citizens dedicated to increasing understanding of the vital role the international financial institutions play in promoting growth and stability for the U.S. and global economy. We believe that the United States must work to maintain its leadership position and cooperate closely with other governments through the "Bretton Woods Institutions" -- the World Bank, the regional development banks, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization.
Any education that matters is liberal. All the saving truths, all the healing graces that distinguish a good education from a bad one or a full education from a half empty one are contained in that word.
The word liberal distinguishes whatever nourishes the mind and spirit from the training which is merely practical or professional or from the trivialities which are no training at all.
Here we can brag and bluster and blather and almost like a comic book character you could invent, Captain Bombast, pull the cape around the shoulders and shout the magic words, "Get him." And rise above it all in a blast of hot air.
those who travel the high road of humility in Washington are not bothered by heavy traffic.
There was the time, for instance, when he lashed the press corps for invading Gary Hart's privacy in the matter of his dalliance with Donna Rice, and for forgetting that everyone has his flaws -- even, presumably, Jesus Christ: "Where was he from the age of twelve .. . until the scribes picked him up again when he was about thirty? Likely . . . doing all the things we ever did." The comment created such a public furor that Simpson was forced to issue a clarification: "No possible extension of my remarks could be seen to equate Jesus to Gary Hart."
In 1984, Baker became treasury secretary, Reagan opened full diplomatic relations with Iraq, and Eagleburger became president of Henry Kissinger's corporate consultancy firm, Kissinger Associates.
Kissinger Associates participated in the U.S.-Iraq Business Forum through managing director Alan Stoga. The Forum was a trade association representing some 60 American companies, including Bechtel, Lockheed, Texaco, Exxon, Mobil, and Hunt Oil. The Iraqi ambassador to the United States told a Washington, D.C., audience in 1985, "Our people in Baghdad will give priority -- when there is a competition between two companies -- to the one that is a member of the Forum." Stoga appeared regularly at Forum events and traveled to Iraq on a Forum-sponsored trip in 1989 during which he met directly with Hussein. Many Kissinger clients were also members of the Forum and became recipients of contracts with Hussein.
This past July, U.S. Energy Secretary Bodman announced in Baghdad that senior U.S. oil company executives would not enter Iraq without passage of the new law. Petroleum Economist magazine later reported that U.S. oil companies put passage of the oil law before security concerns as the deciding factor over their entry into Iraq. Put simply, the oil companies are trying to get what they were denied before the war or at anytime in modern Iraqi history: access to Iraq's oil under the ground. They are also trying to get the best deal possible out of a war-ravaged and occupied nation. However, waiting for the law's passage and the need to guarantee security of U.S. firms once they get to work, may well be a key factor driving the one proposal by the Iraq Study Group that has received great media attention: extending the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq at least until 2008.