marcosolo, 1. Februar 2004 um 00:28:36 MEZ

Bush überzieht US-Konto - remember Swissair

Dem Präsidenten sitzt das "Scheckbuch" locker: Die Verteidigungsausgaben belaufen sich in dem Entwurf für 2005 auf 401 Milliarden US-Dollar.

Washington - Die US-Regierung rechnet im Wahljahr mit einem weitaus größeren Defizit als bisher bekannt: Nach Angaben eines ranghohen Mitarbeiters der US-Regierung sieht der Budgetplan, den das Weiße Haus am Montag öffentlich vorstellen wird, für das Haushaltsjahr 2004 ein Defizit von 521 Milliarden Dollar (rund 417,9 Milliarden Euro) vor. In einem am vergangenen Montag vorgelegten Bericht war der Kongress noch von einem Minus von 477 Milliarden Dollar ausgegangen. Gleichzeitig will US-Präsident George W. Bush, der im Wahljahr wegen der explodierenden Neuverschuldung unter Druck steht, den Haushaltsentwurf 2005 vorstellen.

"Kampf gegen den Terrorismus"

Der Regierungsmitarbeiter, der die Angaben zum neuen Rekorddefizit 2004 machte, wollte ungenannt bleiben. Der Sprecher der Haushaltsabteilung des US-Präsidialamtes, Chad Kolton, teilte seinerseits mit, Bush werde für 2005 einen Budgetentwurf präsentieren, der "das Wirtschaftswachstum ankurbeln wird". Mit dem Haushaltsplan würden nationale Aufgaben wie der "Kampf gegen den Terrorismus" und der "Heimatschutz" finanziert. Im Jahr 2005 soll das Defizit nach Kongressangaben auf 362 Milliarden Dollar sinken. Das Weiße Haus strebt Kolton zufolge zudem eine Halbierung des Defizits in den nächsten fünf Jahren an.

ms: Jetzt hat Bush wohl einen neuen creative accountant gefunden, der ihm eine ähnliche Bilanzierungsmethode wie seinerzeit bei Enron und Worldcom angewendet wurde, empfohlen hat.

Wie soll denn das bitte mit den momentanen Entwicklungen vereinbart werden?

Kann mir jemand wenigstens eine einzige Prophezeiung unserer Pleitegeier vom weissen Haus aufzählen, die nachher eingetrofen ist?

Keinem Unternehmen in Nachlassstundung, und das ist die Regierung der Vereinigten Staaten bereits, würde auf privater Basis solch ein Budget von seinen Gläubigern je abgenommen werden. Leider haben aber die Bürger gegenüber dem Staat die schlechteren Karten als ihre Gesinnungsgenossen in der Privatwirtschaft.

Haushaltsüberschuss von Clinton übernommen

Als Bush im Jahr 2001 seine Präsidentschaft antrat, übernahm er einen Haushaltsüberschuss von 237 Milliarden Dollar vom damaligen demokratischen Präsidenten Bill Clinton. Die Finanzanalystin Veronique de Rugy vom konservativen Cato Institute sagte am Samstag, das neue Rekorddefizit demonstriere, dass der Bush-Regierung "Fiskalpolitik egal ist". Trotz aller Beteuerungen würde das Weiße Haus weiterhin Schulden machen.

Dean: Bushs Kreditkarte zerschneiden

Der demokratische Präsidentschaftsbewerber Howard Dean aus Vermont sagte vor einigen Tagen, die Kreditkarte von George W. Bush müsse "zerschnitten" werden. "Die Rechnungen, die er anhäuft, gehen zu Lasten unserer Kinder und Enkel", sagte Dean. "Wir sind es ihnen schuldig, dieser fiskalischen Rücksichtslosigkeit ein Ende zu machen."

ms: Bravo Mr. Dean, das ist genau die Lösung, die ich vorher angesprochen habe. Eine Grossbank würde dem Amerikanischen Staat bereits die Mittel zur weiteren Verschuldung entzogen haben und einen Konkursverwalter eingesetzt haben.

Mehr Geld für Raketenabwehr

Zusätzliche Mittel für die Raketenabwehr sieht unterdessen der Entwurf für den US-Haushalt 2005 vor. Nach am Freitag auf der Pentagon-Website veröffentlichten Zahlen sind dafür 9,1 Milliarden Dollar (7,4 Milliarden Euro) vorgesehen. Damit sind für die Raketenabwehr Mehrausgaben von 20 Prozent im Vergleich zum Haushalt 2004 geplant. Die Verteidigungsausgaben belaufen sich in dem Entwurf auf 401 Milliarden US-Dollar.

ms: Stoppt Bush solange ihr noch könnt. Woher hatte übrigens Hitler seinerzeit das viele Geld her, dass es gebraucht hat, um diesen irrsinnigen Krieg zu führen? Ausser von IG-Farben und Thyssen war da noch der Grossvater von unserem derzeiten Konkursiten George W. Bush, sein Grossvater Prescot Bush. Dieser half finanziell am drittkräftigsten mit, dass es für Hitler überhaupt möglich wurde, seine Aufrüstung und Propaganda zu diesem unwürdigen Diktatorstaat zu finanzieren. Soll er doch einmal sein Familienerbe ein bisschen anzapfen um die bisher ungestrafte Aktion seines Clans zurückzuzahlen.

 

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marcosolo, 31. Januar 2004 um 21:17:31 MEZ

Rice says prewar Iraq data flawed

By Adam Entous, Reuters, 1/30/2004 comments by marcosolo 1/31/2004

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's national security adviser yesterday acknowledged there may have been flaws in prewar intelligence about Iraq but brushed aside calls for an independent investigation into the matter.

ms: would Saddam have ordered an independent investigation into his own secret affairs? Unfortunately there exists no higher independent institution in the decomcracy of the United States wich could force these bankrupcy creators in the White House to allow all the curtains covering their ugly secrets to be lifted and thanks of Bush's earlier intervention there exists worldwide no international court which could order such an investigation

"I think that what we have is evidence that there are differences between what we knew going in and what we found on the ground," Condoleezza Rice told CBS.

But she added: "That's not surprising in a country that was as closed and secretive as Iraq, a country that was doing everything that it could to deceive the United Nations, to deceive the world."

isn't it remarkable how well she knows her enemy? Only murders know the feeling one has killing a person. How nice she describes the actions of her own country and all the circumstances since JFK, the moonlanding and the events of 9/11. You seem to be a real insider. Be careful that they will not start one day an insider investigation on your own person in exactly the same matter you just accused Iraq - killing their own people using weapons of WMD even if in your own case their were planes and bombs used for the same purpose.

Bush based his decision to invade Iraq last year on what he called a "grave and gathering danger" posed by Iraq's weapons. He acted without United Nations backing, cutting short efforts by UN inspectors to check out the weapons reports in Iraq.

a clear warcrime, governor bush. You will receive your punishment one day if not in this life latest after death in hell...

In a series of television interviews, Rice defended Bush's decision and said the United States may never learn the whole truth about Iraq's arms capabilities because of looting.

as with the cement and steel brought away from the WTC in a top secret manner and believe it or not, the steel was brought to China and the cement and other relicts are stored in a secret location. You and the hole Bush administration deserves an entry in the Guiness book of records for deceptions of the century

For months administration officials had expressed confidence banned weapons would be found.

But after the top US weapons hunter concluded Iraq had no stockpiles of biological or chemical weapons, the White House said on Monday it would review prewar intelligence. On Tuesday, Bush tempered his prewar insistence that Iraq had an arsenal of banned weapons.

The White House said Rice was not breaking any new ground yesterday. "As we've always said, intelligence is never perfect," said one senior administration official.

Rice said the US team hunting for Iraq's weapons would "gather all of the facts that we possibly can," leaving open the possibility that its findings may be inconclusive.

She blamed gaps in data on looters who sacked government offices after the invasion and on ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who she said was so secretive that "he allowed the world to continue to wonder" what weapons he still had.

as in your case with the role of your administration and the secret services in the events of 9/11

Critics say the administration did little to secure sensitive sites immediately after the invasion, undercutting efforts to find the evidence of weapons.

 

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marcosolo, 31. Januar 2004 um 13:27:33 MEZ

Think Again: 9/11 and the Bush Administration: Is Ignorance Bliss?

by Eric Alterman January 28, 2004

Eric Alterman

Flying under the political radar of a media obsessed with New Hampshire voters and missing weapons of mass destruction is the story of the White House's nearly successful campaign to quiet all criticism of its handling of the terrorist threat, pre-9/11. Every time a political figure raises the question of whether Bush and company might have been able to prevent the attacks if only they had been a little bit more on the ball, the Republican attack machine goes into hyperdrive to shut them down. Now the president and his allies in Congress are seeking to ensure that the 9/11 investigatory commission - whose work they have sought to undermine at every turn - will not have sufficient time to complete a thorough investigation. One wonders just what frightens them so much.

The commission has been given only three months to complete its review of 200 interviews and 2 million documents, many of which had to be pried loose from an uncooperative executive branch that has done nearly everything  it could to frustrate the commission's purpose. As former Commissioner Max Cleland, a former Democratic senator from Georgia, told Eric Boehlert of Salon last November: "I think the White House has made it darn near impossible to get full access to the documents by May, much less get a full report out analyzing those documents by May." The commission has requested a 60-day extension, which would place the report date uncomfortably close to the 9/11-anniversary-timed Republican convention in September 2004. Obviously, the administration will do everything it can to avoid that, and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has already announced that he "can't imagine a situation where they get an extension."

In the meantime, the right-wing spin machine is doing its darndest to ensure that any criticism of the president and his administration's lack of action to defend the country before 9/11 are ruled out of political bounds. And much of the media seems willing to cooperate. When retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark opined that "I think the record's going to show he [President Bush] could have done a lot more to have prevented 9/11 than he did," and that as president, Clark would do more, Fox's Sean Hannity termed the general's statement "reckless and irresponsible." Tim Russert of "Meet the Press" tried to shift the blame to the Clinton administration. And Ann Coulter - who oughta know - called Clark "crazier than a March hare."

But anyone who studies the record with any care will know that there were any number of moments when it would have been possible for a more alert administration to intervene in such a fashion as to interfere and quite possibly thwart the hijackers' purposes. Here are just a few:

What if Bush's National Security Agency had translated on Sept. 10, 2001 - instead of Sept. 12 - disturbing Arabic intercepts that referred to phrases "tomorrow is the zero hour" and "the match is about to begin"?

What if the FBI had acted on the Phoenix memo and aggressively investigated - and arrested potential terrorists and illegal aliens who were taking flight lessons for the purpose of hijacking?

What if the CIA had received and acted upon the Minneapolis memo, and combined with the FBI to apply its vast knowledge of al Qaeda operations to break up the U.S.-based network of fliers?

What if the FBI and CIA had not mysteriously decided to drop their investigations of the whereabouts of hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar who, following their return from an al Qaeda planning meeting, continued live and work under their own names in San Diego?

What if Bush and Cheney had seized upon the recommendations of the Hart/Rudman Commission rather ignoring - and pretending to review - them?

What if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had agreed to the Senate and House Armed Services committee's request to reprogram $800 million from missile defense to terrorism protection?

What if Bush's National Security Council had carefully studied the evolution of terrorist threats: to hide bombs on 12 U.S.-bound airliners and crash an explosive-laden airline into the CIA; to crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives into the Pentagon, CIA or the White House; and crash a plane into the Eiffel Tower or to the Genoan castle where Western leaders met in spring 2001?

What if the same NSC had taken seriously the recommendations of Clinton counterterrorism chief Richard C. Clarke to institute an aggressive program in order to: attack the financial network that supported the terrorists, freezing its assets and exposing its phony charities, and arrest their personnel; offer help to such disparate nations as Uzbekistan, the Philippines and Yemen to combat al Qaeda forces; increase U.S. support for the Northern Alliance in their fight to overthrow the Taliban's repressive regime; and institute special operations inside Afghanistan and bombing strikes against terrorist training camps?

What if the Bush Treasury Department had taken a less indulgent view of the kind of money-laundering operations that support terrorist networks and worked with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development to try to curb it?

What if Secretary Rumsfeld had green-lighted the use of the CIA's Predator surveillance plane over Osama bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan, armed with Hellfire missiles?

What if Attorney General John Ashcroft had taken the initiative in speeding up the FBI request to add 149 field agents, 200 analysts and 54 translators to its counterterrorism effort, instead of vetoing it entirely to focus on his higher priorities?

What if Attorney General Ashcroft, instead of simply deciding not to fly commercial like the rest of us, persuaded the administration to institute an emergency program to improve airport security to prevent hijackers from reaching their targeted weapons?'

The administration and its allies rule all such questions out of order, going to extraordinary lengths to ensure they don't enjoy any political traction. When the issue was first raised, back in 2002, Vice President Cheney termed all suggestions "incendiary," and "thoroughly irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in a time of war," Even the usually apolitical Laura Bush got into the act by calling the questions about what the administration might have done as an attempt to "prey upon the emotions of people." But Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), former chairman of the Senate intelligence panel and co-chairman of the inquiry, had a different answer. "The attacks of Sept. 11 could have been prevented if the right combination of skill, cooperation, creativity and some good luck had been brought to task."

And because of the success of the administration's efforts to keep the commission from getting at truth-as well as a decided incuriosity on the part of the mass media, it's likely we will never know. Apparently, that would suit the Bush administration just fine.

Eric Alterman is a senior fellow of the Center for American Progress and the co-author of The Book on Bush: How George W (Mis)Leads Americ

 

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