The Daily MuckIf only they had listened to Doug Feith. In a soon to be released “massive score-settling work” on the run-up to the Iraq war, Feith skewers Colin Powell, the CIA, Gen. Tommy R. Franks (who called Feith “the f***king stupidest guy on the face of the earth”) and L. Paul Bremer for their misguided pre-invasion planning and mismanaged occupation. Feith asserts that the State Department and intelligence experts undermined his genius work and President Bush’s policies. While Feith praises Donald Rumsfeld, he elides “some of the basic facts of the war, such as the widespread skepticism inside the top of the U.S. military about invading Iraq, with some generals arguing that doing so would distract attention from the war against global terrorists.” (Washington Post)
In The Nation, the author of Air Wars: The Fight to Reclaim Public Broadcasting explains how John McCain “broke the rules while doing the bidding of media mogul Lowell “Bud” Paxson, a major contributor to McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign” and how “McCain’s staff lied it [sic] about it then and they are inventing new lies even now.” (The Nation)
After four years of investigations, the Senate Intelligence Committee is finally ready to release a report critiquing President Bush’s claims about Iraq’s WMD program in the buildup to the Iraq war. Though the report details the numerous wildly erroneous White House assertions that provided the pretext for invading Iraq, officials assert that the report stops short of alleging that the Bush manipulated intelligence. In short, one official has concluded that “the left is not going to be happy. The right is not going to be happy. Nobody is going to be happy.” (LA Times)
A new report by the Department of Defense Inspector General has found problems with water quality at five U.S. military sites in Iraq between 2004 and 2006, three of which were run by the private contractor KBR Inc., and two of which were run by the military. The problems were limited to water “used for washing, bathing, shaving, and cleaning” – not for drinking – and may have been connected to “skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses” experienced by soldiers after using the water. (AP)
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and co-author Linda J. Bilmes report in a new book that the Iraq war will cost the U.S. $12 billion a month. The authors’ “best-case” and “realistic-moderate” scenarios indicate that the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion by 2017. The Congressional Budget Office has a more modest prediction of $1.2 trillion to $1.7 trillion by 2017. (AP)
When Thomas Kontogiannis pleaded guilty as part of the Randy “Duke” Cunningham scandal, prosecutors asked the court to keep the proceedings secret. While much of the transcripts have since been unsealed, a federal court of appeals ruled last week that “there is no public right to access transcripts of hearings in which prosecutors explain to a judge their reasons for seeking secrecy” and that those reasons will remain sealed. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
Amidst reports that lobbyist and former Republican Congressman Bill Lowery is being investigated by a federal grand jury for his dealings with Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), the San Diego State University Research Foundation has decided to terminate its relationship with Lowery’s lobbying firm. (San Diego Weekly Reader)
David Chalmers, the Texas oil executive who pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, was sentenced to two years in prison for approving millions of dollars in kickbacks to Sadam Hussein in an effort to undermine the United Nation’s oil-for-food program. Chalmers now concedes that he experiences “heavy, heavy guilt” and “didn’t think through all the consequences at the time.” (AP)
Text messages and other records obtained by the Detroit Free Press reveal that a friend of scandal-plagued Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick received at least $45 million in contracts from the city. The messages also show that the friend “secretly consulted with the mayor’s chief of staff” concerning bids and projects in 2002 and 2003. (New York Times)
