Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Context

Posted on June 29, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

It's nice to see big newspapers like Knight-Ridder actually giving context — in the second paragraph of a story, no less!

Bush spells out strategy for war in Iraq Calling the operation in Iraq “difficult and dangerous,” Bush said “the lessons of September 11” require Americans to stand firm against an enemy that ignores the rules of conventional warfare. Although Bush has acknowledged that there's no known link between Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks, he implied a connection with repeated references to Sept. 11 and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network.

That's much more straightforwad than the NYT version:

Using language that infuriates his opponents who say there is no link between the Iraq war and Al Qaeda, he specifically cast the battle in Iraq as part of the bigger conflict that began with the Sept. 11 attacks, which he mentioned explicitly five times and alluded to at others, and invoked the specter of Osama bin Laden.

So far as I could tell, the speech was pretty much empty of actual new content. Here, at least, the NYT seems to agree without pussyfooting around:

The speech offered no new policies or course corrections, and for the most part was a restatement of the ideas and language that he has been employing for two and a half years to explain the war and assert that it is an integral part of a broader struggle to protect the United States from terrorism.

…

It was, in essence, a repeat of a speech he delivered 13 months ago, when he assured the nation during an appearance at the Army War College that while the job of achieving stability in Iraq would be hard, he had a plan – and the United States had the will – to see it through.

Certainly the “because” section wasn't much:

We accept these burdens because we know what is at stake.

We fight today because Iraq now carries the hope of freedom in a vital region of the world, and the rise of democracy will be the ultimate triumph over radicalism and terror.

And we fight today because terrorists want to attack our country and kill our citizens, and Iraq is where they are making their stand.

And that CIA report suggesting Iraq was breeding and training terrorists more quickly than the US is defeating them? Never mind.

Posted in The Media | 1 Comment

A Very Unusual Defense Strategy

Posted on June 29, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

That will be some jury deliberation:

Boing Boing: Don't like my driving? Call 1-800-flesh-eating-hemadrones: A California man facing life in prison for crashing his car into a UPS truck will not dispute that his actions resulted in the death of the driver when his trial opens Monday in Nevada County Superior Court. Instead, Scott Krause's defense will argue that the defendant believed he was trying to escape man-eating subterranean beings when he ran into Drew Reynolds' truck on Jan. 6, 2004.

… In three court-ordered evaluations, the defendant stated he was fleeing subterranean beings he called “hemadrones” when he carjacked a commercial vehicle near a Nevada City, Calif., gas station and then crashed into Reynolds' service vehicle.

“Everything had to do with his escape from the hemadrones,” said Nevada County District Attorney Michael Ferguson. “According to the defendant, he was afraid they were going to put him in cargo and ship him to China to be eaten.”

Posted in Law: Criminal Law | 1 Comment

Bush Speech Scorecard

Posted on June 28, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

My brother offers what is in effect a scorecard for Bush's speech this evening.

White House Briefing: Beware the cut-and-run straw man tonight, when President Bush delivers a prime-time speech about Iraq with troops from the nation's largest army base as his backdrop.

To the extent that Bush acknowledges the growing public opposition to his leadership of the war at all tonight, it may well be to disparage those who would “cut and run” rather than “stay the course.”

…

According to the latest polls, Americans are not saying that U.S. troops should leave instantly. They're saying they feel the country is bogged down in a war that was a mistake in the first place, they're saying they feel misled by the president and have lost confidence in him, and they're saying they want to know the way out.

They're not saying abandon the troops; they're saying support the troops. They're not saying dishonor the dead, they're saying stop the dying. They're not saying let the terrorists win; they're saying they don't think that victory in Iraq will have a major impact on terrorism elsewhere.

…

[Press Secretary Scott] McClellan said Bush will not announce any change in course, but he did offer that the president would “talk in a very specific way about the way forward.”

Or, if you ask me, it could just be a media event, devoid of substance…

Of course, even if Bush does not engage the growing unease about the war and just rephrases his previous assertions, he will still come out ahead if the press coverage highlights the new sound bites — rather than explaining that he failed to address the mounting concerns of the American public.

Incidentally, tomorrow at 1pm you can chat with Dan about how it all went as he'll be Live Online at the Washington Post site. His chats are fun to watch.

Posted in Dan Froomkin | 2 Comments

False Alarm

Posted on June 28, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Remember that rise to “orange alert” back in in the 2003 holiday season? The one that disrupted international flights? The one based on well-hyped “credible” threats and “credible sources” (Official: Credible threats pushed terror alert higher)? The one where Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the information suggested “an attack on the United States and the United States' interests — both within the United States and outside — is imminent”?

Well, it turns out that the whole thing was just a big mistake.

All that “chatter” that caused the Bush Keystone Kops to panic was actually just … a fantasy:

senior U.S. officials now tell NBC News that the key piece of information that triggered the holiday alert was a bizarre CIA analysis, which turned out to be all wrong.

CIA analysts mistakenly thought they'd discovered a mother lode of secret al-Qaida messages. They thought they had found secret messages on Al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language television news channel, hidden in the moving text at the bottom of the screen, known as the “crawl,” where news headlines are summarized.

But of course, in fact it was no such thing. And even Ridge himself now admits that it was pretty nutty. (His exact words are “Bizarre, unique, unorthodox, unprecedented.”)

You can't make this stuff up. Not sober, anyway.

PS. Why are we still on “yellow alert”? Not to mention that the whole concept is moronic.

Terror Alert Level

Meanwhile get your parody terror alert systems here

Posted in 9/11 & Aftermath | 1 Comment

Halliburton Accused of Stealing $1 Billion from USA

Posted on June 28, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Halliburton's Iraq deals described as contract abuse:

A top U.S. Army procurement official said on Monday Halliburton's deals in Iraq were the worst example of contract abuse she had seen as Pentagon auditors flagged over $1 billion of potential overcharges by the Texas-based firm.

Bunny Greenhouse, the Army Corps of Engineers' top contracting official-turned whistle-blower, said in testimony at a hearing by Democrats on Capitol Hill that “every aspect” of Halliburton's oil contract in Iraq had been under the control of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

“I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR (Kellogg Brown and Root) represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career,” said Greenhouse, a procurement veteran of more than 20 years.

$1 billion in (alleged) fraud? How could that possibly happen?

Pressed by lawmakers whether she thought the defense secretary's office was involved in the handout and running of contracts to KBR, Greenhouse replied: “That is true.”

“I observed, first hand, that essentially every aspect of the RIO (Restore Iraqi Oil) contract remained under the control of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. This troubled me and was wrong,” said Greenhouse.

Oh. Motive, opportunity, method…. For the record, all is denied and pooh-poohed by Kellog, Brown & Root (now part of the Halliburton group, and itself one of the great influence-peddling companies of all time).

If, however, this is true, it means Halliburton is in the same league as Saddam Hussein's family, also thought to have ripped off about $1 billion, although it would leave Halliburton still well behind the multiple billions siphoned off by the US's own CPA and its Iraqi henchmen:

A report by Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California, said in the week before the hand-over on June 28, 2004, the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority ordered the urgent delivery of more than $4 billion in Iraqi funds from the U.S. Federal Reserve in New York.

One single shipment amounted to $2.4 billion — the largest movement of cash in the bank's history, said Waxman.

Most of these funds came from frozen and seized assets and from the Development Fund for Iraq, which succeeded the U.N.'s oil-for-food program. After the U.S. invasion, the U.N. directed this money should be used by the CPA for the benefit of the Iraqi people.

Cash was loaded onto giant pallets for shipment by plane to Iraq, and paid out to contractors who carried it away in duffel bags.

The report, released at a House of Representatives committee hearing, said despite the huge amount of money, there was little U.S. scrutiny in how these assets were managed.

“The disbursement of these funds was characterized by significant waste, fraud and abuse,” said Waxman.

An audit by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction said U.S. auditors could not account for nearly $8.8 billion in Iraqi funds and the United States had not provided adequate controls for this money..

As a famous Senator once said, “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you are talking about real money.”

[Headline corrected]

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze | 7 Comments

OPIC and the Mafia???

Posted on June 27, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

At best, really lousy managmeent of federal assets by the GOP. At best. The Globe and Mail: Agency funding raises 'red flag'

A government agency that helps U.S. businesses investing in developing countries has approved millions of dollars of loans to companies whose owners did business with Mafia figures and rebels in a bloody African conflict, records show.

I like CNN's headline: OPIC: Offers it should've refused?

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | Comments Off on OPIC and the Mafia???