CIA's Iraq plan shot down

September 27, 2004 12:25 IST

The Bush administration has been forced to scale back a plan proposing a covert CIA operation to aid candidates, favoured by Washington, in the Iraq elections after lawmakers raised questions about the idea when it was sent to Capitol Hill.
The plan, written several months ago, wanted to help such candidates "whose opponents might be receiving covert backing from other countries, like Iran" but not necessarily to go so far as to rig the elections, US media reports said.

But lawmakers, from both parties, raised questions about the idea when it was sent to Capitol Hill. In particular, house minority leader Nancy Pelosi "came unglued" when she learned about what a source described as a plan for "the CIA to put an operation in place to affect the outcome of the elections," said Time magazine.

Pelosi, Time said, had strong words with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in a phone call about the issue.

"I cannot in any way comment on classified matters, the existence or nonexistence of findings. But there have been and continue to be concerns about efforts by outsiders to influence the outcome of the Iraqi elections, including money flowing from Iran," Rice's spokesman Sean McCormack told the magazine.

more
http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/sep/27iraq.htm

Who told the Democrats what we were doing?

You break it, you own it Condi.

a similar plan is being used for our 2004 election?

Hey bushies, how do you define democracy?

Saddam.... but rather to make sure we install a "better" one. I mean make sure that a "better" one gets elected. I am sure the candidate in question must sign a loyalty oath and agree that the prime contracts and control of the oilfields stay in Hallibacon's hands.

there is a plan in the US to use electronic voting machines that will be hacked into to ensure gracious leader has 4 more years

our voting machines are very suspect.

some sarcasm in there :)

The republicans have been perfecting election-fixing for 4 years, dangit, and they want to use those skillZ.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said that Iraq may only be able to hold limited elections in January, as it might not be possible to hold voting in places where violence has been severe.
He told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the commander of US forces in the region might also ask for reinforcements during elections.


....

Should the Iraqi elections in January be held nationwide? Would it be sufficient to hold them in selective areas until the violence on the ground subsides? Would Iraqis, and the rest of the world, consider a selective election valid? Send us your comments.


The following comments reflect the balance of opinion received.

Since the US failed to organize proper elections last time and there are serious doubts if they will be able to do so this time (representatives from the EU will monitor the polls), I believe that the US is not up to the task. Maybe they should first get it right within their border before they try to organize election sin other countries.
Xristofors Papakaliatis, Athens Greece


I do not agree with Rumfeld's comment about holding partial elections in Iraq. We should not even have invaded. That being said we are there and we need to get things under control and let the Iraqis chose their own elected officials and get out of there.
Conrad, Reading, USA

If it were the case that the violent radicals in places like Fallujah were for democracy at all, then ensuring nationwide polls would be worth while. But why should the Kurds and the Shia, who, with the exception of Sadr, have been asking for elections, be denied their opportunity to cast ballots? In many areas of the north and south, local elections have already occurred. Let these areas begin the process of electing national representatives in January. After all, to duly elect a representative from Basra only requires votes from Basra.



Any election held under occupation by a foreign power can only be a farcical showpiece. In the chaos and daily slaughter of Iraq the so-called pending "democratic election" is a joke--and a cruel one at that.
Robert Rogerson, Port Alberni-Canada


I wonder how US citizens would feel if someone suggested that, say, Florida should be excluded from the forthcoming presidential election? Not very happy, I imagine. Besides which, Rumsfeld seemed to be giving the impression that you could, in effect, just fence of a specific chunk of Iraq and exclude it from the election. The impression I get is that, far from being confined to a specific region or set of regions, the current violence is geographically widespread, even though it is only perpetrated by a minority of the population. Maybe this is yet another example of how the US tendency to be inward-looking blinds its citizens to the real facts.
David Hazel, Fareham, UK

more
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3685994.stm

"This election cannot be postponed," said New Mexico Secretary of
State Rebecca Vigil-Giron. "If something should happen in New York
City, the elections in New Mexico will continue, as is the case in
California and Utah, and so on. Elections would not stop."

Vigil-Giron said planners need to make sure that elections
continue securely, but also without scaring voters - for instance,
by stationing heavily armed guards at the polls.

"The last thing we want to see happening is a National Guardsman
standing there with a rifle, keeping watch," she said.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/election2004/9774756.htm?1c


Folding or surrendering is tough to do since it represents a sure loss.
Sometimes, however, not doing it is worse! Keep going on.

:hi: Peace seemslikeadream

:evilgrin:
rocknation

for democracy.Who can take the Bush misadministration seriuos about running fair elections anyhow. Are they going to send Jeb and Patricia Harris over there to supervise?

"contempt for democracy". Touche'!

September 27, 2004

BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Advertisement

A few hours after George W. Bush dismissed a pessimistic CIA report on Iraq as ''just guessing,'' the analyst who identified himself as its author told a private dinner last week of secret, unheeded warnings years ago about going to war in Iraq. This exchange leads to the unavoidable conclusion that the president of the United States and the Central Intelligence Agency are at war with each other.

Paul R. Pillar, the CIA's national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia, sat down Tuesday night in a large West Coast city with a select group of private citizens. He was not talking off the cuff. Relying on a multi-paged, single-spaced memorandum, Pillar said he and his colleagues concluded early in the Bush administration that military intervention in Iraq would intensify anti-American hostility throughout Islam. This was not from a CIA retiree but an active senior official. (Pillar, no covert operative, is listed openly in the Federal Staff Directory.)

For President Bush to publicly write off a CIA paper as just guessing is without precedent. For the agency to go semi-public is not only unprecedented but shocking. George Tenet's retirement as director of Central Intelligence removed the buffer between president and agency. As the new DCI, Porter Goss inherits an extraordinarily sensitive situation.

Pillar's Tuesday night presentation was conducted under what used to be called the Lindley Rule (devised by Newsweek's Ernest K. Lindley): The identity of the speaker, to whom he spoke, and the fact that he spoke at all are secret, but the substance of what he said can be reported. This dinner, however, knocks the Lindley Rule on its head. The substance was less significant than the forbidden background details.

The Bush-CIA tension escalated Sept. 15 when the New York Times reported a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that was circulated in August (not July, as the newspaper reported), spelling out ''a dark assessment of Iraq'' with civil war as the ''worst case'' outcome. The NIE was prepared by Pillar, and well-placed sources believe Pillar leaked it, though he denied that at Tuesday night's dinner.

more
http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak27.html

or really do want the end of days-scumbags how ever you look at it

This is very telling...Bob Novak, as we all know, is the hardcore right wing psycho who outed Ambassador Joe Wilson's CIA wife, Valerie Plame. For him to publicize this tells me that he is trying to cover his ass in case Bu$h goes down this November. I am sure he is despised by the CIA and may be afraid of retaliation if Kerry wins. I especially love this quote: "In the final days of World War II, the German Abwehr conspired against Hitler."
Better put yourself on the 'do not fly list' Bob!

Maybe there is hope yet for our side!!

I am...

while most candidates hit the road, Hamid Karzai flys around in a American hellicopter. It was reported today on Democracy Now that American's are offering other candidates money to "drop out" of the race.

"The plan, written several months ago, wanted to help such candidates "whose opponents might be receiving covert backing from other countries, like Iran" but not necessarily to go so far as to rig the elections, US media reports said."

Published August 17, 2004 by the Toronto Star

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0817-01.htm

Afghan vote threatens Bush's credibility
Administration needs success to back claim of spreading democracy

CAROL HARRINGTON AND JARED FERRIE
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

KABUL—With evidence mounting of plans for widespread vote-rigging in Afghanistan's upcoming elections, U.S. experts say the controversy could emerge as a serious liability for U.S. President George W. Bush's re-election campaign.

After voter registration centres closed across Afghanistan on the weekend, election officials acknowledged the number of voting cards issued far exceeded the estimated number of eligible voters — and that the illegal practice of multiple registrations is widespread.

"An Afghan election marred by allegations of fraud would be bad for President Bush's overall claim of promoting democracy in the Muslim world," said Husain Haqqani, an Afghanistan expert at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "In the absence of good news from Iraq, the Bush administration needs Afghanistan as its success story."

For months, Bush has staked his claims on a successful democratic Afghanistan, saying it would serve as an example of how America can bring democracy, and free and fair elections to the developing world.
..more..

1. The pretext of elections is just fodder for November so why cloud things today. Deny and cheat anyway. Or just throw it all away due to"changed" conditions in January. Puppets are puppets. Elections are expensive.

2. No one has any plans to make the elections transparently fair but we will pretend to be concerned about cleaning things up. Or to cover our undue influence as a counter measure to someone else's undue influence.
Equal protection waged by fraud and coercion with a dash of bribery.
recipe for Bush democracy in action.

I think I'd be signing up at the nearest "insurgency" recruiting station. They have good reason to not trust the US.

Apparently America never learns anything from history, it's just a circle chasing itself into infinity.

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You’ve seen him looking fine he’s a
straight talker
He’s a Starwalker don't drink no wine
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Lightning Woman, Thunderchild
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Sisters, Brothers all together
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The Tenet Agreement-or something like that--replaced by implementing PNAC piecemeal imo.

George W. Bush aka The War President got Porter Goss into the Director's position w/o much scrutiny, heh?

Douglas Feith and Donald Rumsfeld are free to run their agendas with Paul Wolfowitz and General Myers, one can perceive Dick Cheney often running interference with Congress and oversight committees.

Meanwhile, people are dying everywhere because of LIES.

The real terrorists were not from Iraq, Saddam did not sponsor them, and here is a factual article about Osama bin Laden that further penetrates the massive disinformation campaign of BFEE's war on terrorism.

Who Is Osama Bin Laden?
by Michel Chossudovsky
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html

The plan, written several months ago, wanted to help such candidates "whose opponents might be receiving covert backing from other countries"

:D

This is so silly. They really are using Iran and foreign influence as the everpresent boogeyman for this war--if we have to do something nasty, it's only to save those poor Iraqis from the "evil foreigners who wish to deprive them of their freedom". I wonder who in a poll Iraqis would identify as the "evil foreigners"?

"let frededom reign!"

the New Yorker has been reporting on this FOR MONTHS.

The administration is working to get rid of the CIA, Rummy deliberately took control of intel, the CIA was behind the Abu Ghraib scandal, and now we have Porter Goss so the administration can simply dispense altogether with "intelligence" and shape the facts to their liking.

Get it?

appears to be bogus as well.

Great analysis, as usual.

<snip>

The other corner of the story is Iran. The scheme to influence the elections is justified with reference to Iranian funding of candidates.

But is this charge plausible? The pre-picked slates of candidates for the January elections will run on a handful of party tickets-- including the 2 Kurdish ones, Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, Allawi's Iraqi National Accord, the Shiite al-Da`wa and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. I don't know for whom the Sunni Arabs are supposed to vote if these are the choices.

So to whom might Iran give money? It has a tight alliance with Jalal Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. But then so does the US, and has had for two decades.

Iran might give money to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which was based in Tehran for over 20 years. But SCIRI has complained bitterly in recent months that Iran's Arabic-language satellite television channel declined to criticize Muqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army for their thuggish behavior in Najaf. Iran and SCIRI no longer seem on very good terms. In 2003, the Iranian hardliners had warned the al-Hakim family that leads SCIRI not to ally with the Americans in overthrowing Saddam. It was Rumsfeld who negotiated with SCIRI and brought them to Iraq and gave them a seat on the Interim Governing Council, and then gave them the Finance Ministry in the current caretaker government. This is a party that the CIA needs to counteract? The Bush Administration practically installed it in Iraq!

<snip>

So, the "cover story" of forestalling "Iranian influence" doesn't hold water. Bush just wanted to buy himself an election, in the Bush tradition.



Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Pelosi Derails CIA Plan to Buy Iraq Elections

http://www.juancole.com/

I'm seeing Iran in a lot more articles than I did a year ago. The ramp up for war should come shortly. I think the draft and Iranian talk goes hand in hand.

If we don't drive this insane administration from power on November 2, we will endure catastrophic consequences.

Florida style!

:kick:

What a farce all this is.