Politics

Juan Cole has an excellent essay on Sistani’s view of the ideal Iraqi government. Since Sistani more or less got his way with yesterday’s UN resolution, it’s worth reading.

Eric Muller may have somehow gotten his hands on the first 56 pages of the March 6th, 2003 memo on torture. I haven’t read it yet. Note that there’s no pedigree attached, so it should be considered suspect until and unless more evidence rolls in. Update: MSNBC has the same thing. Except not exactly the same; it’s a different scan. The PDF MSNBC has looks like a photocopy of the version that was scanned to create Eric Muller’s PDF. Someone’s leaking those 56 pages all over the place.

The working-group report elaborated the Bush administration’s view that the president has virtually unlimited power to wage war as he sees fit, and neither Congress, the courts nor international law can interfere. It concluded that neither the president nor anyone following his instructions was bound by the federal Torture Statute, which makes it a crime for Americans working for the government overseas to commit or attempt torture, defined as any act intended to “inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” Punishment is up to 20 years imprisonment, or a death sentence or life imprisonment if the victim dies. ...

George Tenet resigned yesterday. This is kind of odd for a number of reasons. First, some background: George Tenet is not exactly a friend of Bush. The split has been fairly clear since Tenet left Bush out in the cold (original) on the “imminent threat” question. There’s also been plenty of speculation that the CIA is not pleased with the Bush administration about the Valerie Plame issue. The popular conception among Washington-watchers is that CIA and State are more or less aligned in an effort to blunt the impact of neocon foreign policy (original). Doug Feith’s Office of Special Plans (original) was a successful attempt to create an alternative channel by which intelligence on Iraq could reach the President. ...

Bush is ready to hire a lawyer (original) in case he has to testify in the Valerie Plame case. This is quite right; you should be ready to hire a lawyer if you suspect you may be the target of a grand jury investigation. Clinton hired a lawyer, Charles Ruff, during the Whitewater investigation. Mind you, that came after Ken Starr began his investigation. But if there’s a chance you’re being investigated, it makes sense to be prepared.

Someday I want to read a book on what exactly happened in Iraq last week. The Iraqi Governing Council chose a Prime Minister (original), ignoring the UN envoy and the US. Or maybe the US pushed the IGC into doing its bidding. But then the IGC forced the issue and chose a President over the objections of the US and the UN. Adnan Pachachi was offered the Presidency, but turned it down. And now the IGC has dissolved itself a month early. ...

If the Chalabi story is true, it’s an incredible intelligence coup for Iran. The short form is that Ahmad Chalabi may have been an Iranian agent for the past several years. If this turns out to be the case, then the information he passed the US — information which helped Bush make the case for war — was generated and shaped by Iranian intelligence needs. That’s an astoundingly impressive piece of work, which may in the end be ranked up there with Eli Cohen.

Since we decided to stop attacking Fallujah, it’s turned into a theocracy (original). This should come as no surprise to anyone. I don’t think that crushing the city would have been productive either; you’d have gotten entirely different problems. Maybe it’s worth allowing the city to become an independent state in order to minimize the risk of Sunni unrest. Mostly it shows how many unpalatable alternatives we have in Iraq.

This is probably the final post on the draft rumors. First, I looked a little deeper into the way Congress.org works. The original draft rumor was a Soapbox Alert, not an Action Alert. Action Alerts are associated with the organization that produced them; Soapbox Alerts have no attribution. Turns out anyone can post a Soapbox Alert. Anyone at all. There’s no way to tell who posted it and there seems to be no filter before a Soapbox Alert hits the site. I.e., there is no more accountability behind the original rumor than there would be from a message board posting on some random message board. ...

I’d like to return, at this time, to President Bush’s UN address of September 12th, 2002. The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations, and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant? ...