Thursday, September 8, 2011

The Cheney-Rumsfeld Cabal Deception: People, Organizations and Events Useful to the Cabal

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2011/09/the-view-lines-up-dick-cheney-helen-mirren-kardashian-sisters.html
Excerpt:
“The View” welcomes Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne, on Sept. 13. He is promoting his memoir, “In My Time,” which has made headlines for angering former colleagues.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_Cheney-Rumsfeld_Cabal_Deception
Excerpt:

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The following lists people, organizations, and events which are useful to The Cheney-Rumsfeld Cabal Deception.
John R. Bolton was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations by President George W. Bush on August 1, 2005, because the U.S. Senate had failed to confirm his nominee. Bush nominated Bolton on March 7, 2005, to replace John C. Danforth, who resigned November 22, 2004.
"Mr. Bush took advantage of his power to fill vacancies without senate approval while Congress is in recess. Under the constitution, Mr. Bolton's recess appointment during the senators' August break will last until the next session of Congress, which begins in January 2007." [1]

George Walker Bush was sworn into office as the 43rd President of the United States on January 20, 2001 [1], with a minority of the popular vote, after a contested election debacle which was reviewed up through the Supreme Court. A detailed timeline of events notes that on December 13, 2000, the President-elect pledged in his acceptance speech "to deliver reconciliation and unity to a divided nation." He gained a second term in November 2004.
Dr. Ahmed Chalabi (also spelled "Ahmad") is part of a three-man leadership council for the Iraqi opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), which was created at the behest of the U.S. government for the purpose of fomenting the overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Chalabi, a secular Iraqi Shiite Muslim and mathematician by training, previously served as chairman of the Petra Bank in Jordan, where he engaged in various cloak-and-dagger operations that ended abruptly in August 1989 when he fled the country "under mysterious circumstances" and in 1992 was convicted in absentia for embezzlement, fraud and currency-trading irregularities, sentencing him to 22 years' hard labour. [1],[2]
In August 2003 a petition was circulating among Jordanian deputies to hold a special session soon in the 110-member house to demand the government take legal steps to seek Chalabi's extradition from Iraq. [3]
During 2004 Chalabi's influence with the U.S. has waned to the point where government funding for him is likely to be discontinued.
Douglas Jay Feith served as the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, the third ranking civilian position at the Pentagon, from July 2001 until his resignation effective August 8, 2005. [1]
Feith, a staunch neo-conservative, previously served on the White House National Security staff under Richard Allen during Ronald Reagan's first term in office. He was dismissed when Judge William Clark replaced Allen. Allegations of improperly handling classified materials were made but Feith was not prosecuted. During Reagan's second term in office, Feith was part of Richard N. Perle's Pentagon team.
Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, is acting as spokesman for Freedom's Watch, a "new group of prominent conservatives [which] plans to begin a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign [on August 22, 2007] to urge members of Congress who may be wavering in their support for the war in Iraq not to 'cut and run'."[1] Fleischer is a dual US-Israel citizen.
http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/001517.html
Nevertheless, there was a great deal of pressure to find a reason to go to war with Iraq. And the pressure was not just subtle; it was blatant. At one point in January 2003, the person's boss called a meeting and gave them their marching orders. "And he said, 'You know what—if Bush wants to go to war, it's your job to give him a reason to do so'... He said it at the weekly office meeting. And I just remember saying, 'This is something that the American public, if they ever knew, would be outraged'...He said it to about fifty people. And it's funny because everyone still talks about that — 'Remember when [he] said that.'"

Lawrence (Larry) Franklin, the former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst with expertise in Iranian policy issues who worked in the office of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and reported directly to Feith's deputy, William Luti, was sentenced January 20, 2006, "to more than 12 years in prison for giving classified information to an Israeli diplomat" and members of the pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). [1][2]
Franklin will "remain free while the government continues with the wider case" and his "prison time could be sharply reduced in return for his help in prosecuting" former AIPAC members Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, [who] are scheduled to go on trial in April [2006]." [3]
"Franklin admitted that he met periodically with Rosen and Weissman between 2002 and 2004 and discussed classified information, including information about potential attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. Rosen and Weissman would later share what they learned with reporters and Israeli officials." [4]


Background

Franklin was a Soviet analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency who transferred to the Middle East division in the early 1990's. He learned Farsi and became an Iran analyst, developing extensive contacts among Iranians who opposed the Tehran government. [5]
Franklin also has a military background. Franklin was a colonel in the Air Force Reserve who served two short tours at the United States Embassy in Tel Aviv. [6]
Manucher Ghorbanifar, "legendary arms dealer, infamous intelligence fabricator, and central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal that almost brought down" [1] the Reagan administration, has been retained by the U.S. Department of Defense and Vice President Dick Cheney "as their 'man on the ground,' in order to report on any interaction and attempts at negotiations between Iranian officials" and Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Iraq, The Raw Story reported April 20, 2006.
"Speaking on condition of anonymity," three current and former intelligence officials "identified the Iran-Contra middleman as having been put back on the payroll, acting as a human intelligence asset and monitoring any movement in discussions about Iran’s alleged burgeoning nuclear weapons program." [2]
Stephen J. Hadley, Deputy National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's "right-hand man" in the Bush administration's National Security Council, was "the fall guy when allegations arose regarding the national security adviser's mishandling of information about Iraq's purported effort to buy uranium from Niger," according to RightWeb. [1]
"Italy's intelligence chief met with Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley just a month before the Niger forgeries first surfaced," Laura Rozen reported October 25, 2005, in The American Prospect.
Former director of the United States Institute of Peace.

John Hannah was named October 31, 2005, by Vice President Dick Cheney to be his national security adviser. Hannah and David S. Addington, who will serve as Cheney's chief of staff, are replacements for I. Lewis Scooter Libby who was indicted October 28, 2005. [1]


Contents

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Treasongate

Hannah, a "senior national security aide on loan to Vice President Dick Cheney from the offices of then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs," John R. Bolton, may be the "senior cooperating witness" who is the "secret snitch" providing evidence to special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald for his investigation into who exposed the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame, wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
Larisa Alexandrovna and Jason Leopold, who reported that Hannah might well be the "cooperating witness" in The Raw Story October 18, 2005, said that "Others close to the probe say that if Hannah is cooperating with the special prosecutor then he was likely going to be charged as a co-conspirator and may have cut a deal."
"Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said," UPI's Richard Sale wrote February 5, 2004.
"According to these sources," Sale said, "John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, were the two Cheney employees. 'We believe that Hannah was the major player in this,' one federal law-enforcement officer said."
Karen P. Hughes was confirmed July 26, 2005, by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. On July 29, the full Senate confirmed her nomination and she was sworn-in to the position on September 9, 2005.[1] She left the position in December 2007. In 2005 President George W. Bush described Hughes as "one of my most trusted and closest advisers".[2]
In July 2008 it was announced that she had been appointed as Global Vice Chair of the PR firm Burson-Marsteller (B-M) and will will be based in Austin, Texas and report to the firm's President and CEO, Mark Penn. The announcement stated that "Hughes will also serve as a member of the Burson-Marsteller’s newly formed client Strategy Team, which will be comprised of senior leaders from across the firm’s practices and lines of business."[3] The same month, it was reported that Hughes would be part of the official U.S. delegation for the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, a group headed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. [4]

Leadership

Accessed February 2009: [2]
Advisory Board
President
Original Co-Founders & Former Co-Chairman
Michael Arthur Ledeen (Ph.D.) is considered to be a neo-conservative. Ledeen was a Ronald Reagan appointee and is outspoken on U.S. foreign policy. He worked as a consultant to the National Security Council, Department of State (81-82), and Department of Defense (82-86).
Other Affiliations
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Jr., Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney since 2001, resigned October 28, 2005, after being indicted on five counts which included obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury. He was later convicted on four of the five counts, and sentenced to thirty months in prison on June 5, 2007.[1]
The indictments resulted from a grand jury investigation which began October 31, 2003, into the leaking of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame’s name. Department of Justice Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald and FBI "investigators have been trying to determine whether Libby or any other administration officials knowingly revealed" Plame's identity or "about their involvement to investigators. Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, is a diplomat and an opponent of the Iraq war who challenged U.S. President George W. Bush’s assertion that Saddam Hussein was in possession of nuclear materials." [1][2]
In January 2006, the Hudson Institute announced that it had appointed Libby as "a senior adviser". "Libby will focus on issues relating to the War on Terror and the future of Asia. He also will offer research guidance and will advise the institute in strategic planning," the think tank announced in a media release. [3]
"Before joining the Bush administration, Luti had been a key player in Washington for years. Over the last decade, the Tufts graduate had worked under Vice President Richard Cheney, former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith.
Mary Matalin is a Republican strategist and chief editor of Simon & Schuster's Threshold Editions imprint.[1] She previously served as lead campaign publicist for undeclared Republican 2008 presidential candidate Fred Thompson.
Matalin is also a member of Scooter Libby's Legal Defense Trust Advisory Board.[2]

Judith Miller, who resigned her 28-year career with the New York Times on November 9, 2005, after two weeks of negotiations,[1] "has taken a job with the friends of 'greater economic choice and individual responsibility'" at the right-wing think tank Manhattan Institute, New York Magazine reported September 6, 2007.[2] Miller is an "adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute" and a contributing editor of its online publication, City Journal.[3]
Miller played a key role in promoting both U.S. wars against Iraq.
In 2004 it was revealed that she was one of the reporters informed by a White House official that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA agent.

Long-time Washington cold warrior Richard Norman Perle is a man of many hats: Pentagon policy adviser (resigned February 2004), former Likud policy adviser, media manager, international investor, op-ed writer, talk show guest, think tank expert, and ardent supporter of the war in Iraq.
Known in Washington circles as "The Prince of Darkness," Perle is associated with the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century, both of which have been prominent behind-the-scenes architects of the Bush administration's foreign policy, in particular its push for war with Iraq.
He is closely allied with former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Dundes Wolfowitz, another Iraq hawk. Perle is also a vocal supporter of Israel and a critic of Saudi Arabia. Perle is on the Advisory Board of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), and is a former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a Defense Department advisory group composed primarily of former government officials, retired military officers, and academics.
Harold Rhode is a Foreign Affairs Specialist in the Office of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense.[1]
According to Jason Vest's September 2, 2002, article "The Men From JINSA and CSP," Harold Rhode and Andrew Marshall, from the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, "actively tinker with ways to re-engineer both the Iranian and Saudi Arabian governments."
In their January 26, 2004, Mother Jones article "The Lie Factory", Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest write:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rendon_Group
Excerpt:
The Rendon Group is a secretive public relations firm that has assisted a number of U.S. military interventions in nations including Argentina, Colombia, Haiti, Iraq, Kosovo, Panama and Zimbabwe. Rendon's activities include organizing the Iraqi National Congress, a PR front group designed to foment the overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
In a 1998 speech to the National Security Conference (NSC), company founder John Rendon described himself as "an information warrior, and a perception manager. This is probably best described in the words of Hunter S. Thompson, when he wrote 'When things turn weird, the weird turn pro.'"
"Through its network of international offices and strategic alliances," the Rendon Group website boasted in 2002, "the company has provided communications services to clients in more than 78 countries, and maintains contact with government officials, decision-makers, and news media around the globe."
The Chicago Tribune reports that the Rendon Group has garnered more than $56 million in Pentagon work since September 2001. [1]

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Iran-Syria_Operations_Group
Excerpt:
The Iran-Syria Operations Group (ISOG) appears to be an extension of the Office of Iranian Affairs (OIA), which, in turn, is a reincarnation of the Office of Special Plans (OSP).
The OIA, "apparently housed in the same Pentagon offices inhabited by its predecessor and involving some of the same slimy personnel," including Abram Shulsky, head of the OSP under Douglas Feith. OIA staff report to "none other than Elizabeth Cheney, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, and daughter of the Vice President," Gary Leupp wrote May 29, 2006, in Dissident Voice.
The purpose of ISOG, likewise headed by Elizabeth Cheney, is "to encourage regime change in Iran. It's no secret that Cheney has over $80 million at her disposal to promote democracy in Iran. But ISOG isn't simply about promoting democracy. It's about helping to craft official policy, doing so not with one but two countries in its sights, and creating a policymaking apparatus that parallels--and skirts--Foggy Bottom's suspect Iran desk," Lawrence F. Kaplan wrote April 10, 2006, in The New Republic Online.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Abram_Shulsky
Excerpt:
Abram N. Shulsky, described as "a leading intelligence scholar,"[1] is Director of the Office of Special Plans.
Seymour M. Hersh wrote of Shulsky that "The director of the Special Plans operation is Abram Shulsky, a scholarly expert in the works of the political philosopher Leo Strauss. Shulsky has been quietly working on intelligence and foreign-policy issues for three decades; he was on the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee in the early nineteen-eighties and served in the Pentagon under Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard N. Perle during the Ronald Reagan Administration, after which he joined the RAND Corporation."[1]
Abram Shulsky is said to be head of the Pentagon's Office of Special Operations, overseen by Douglas Jay Feith. He was an aide to former Senators Henry Jackson and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and worked in Reagan's Department of Defense in the 80s. He also worked for the Rand Institute, where he collaborated with I. Lewis Libby, now Richard Cheney's chief of staff, on a study called "From Containment to Global Leadership: America and the World after the Cold War."[2] This study was an early draft of what has become the official Pentagon military strategy document.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hollinger_International_Inc.
Excerpt:

History

During November 2003 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it was investigating the company. After an admission that several directors had received unauthorized payments totalling $32 million, CEO Conrad Black resigned, but stayed on as Chairman. [1]
The SEC is also (as of December 2003) investigating dealings with companies with links to Henry Kissinger and Richard N. Perle. Hollinger put £8m into UK firm Cambridge Display Technology, in which Perle has a stake, and £1.5m in Trireme Associates, which has links to venture capital fund Trireme Partners LP, co-managed by Perle. Kissinger served as a board member of Trireme. [2]
Hollinger International makes an annual contribution of $200,000 to The National Interest, a conservative quarterly magazine that also has links to Perle and Kissinger. [3]
The Company's assets include the Chicago Sun-Times, the New York Sun (13%) and La Republica (Central America)
In 2004 the Barclay brothers bought The Telegraph Group in the UK, which includes The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph and The Spectator, from Hollinger after a lengthy Hollinger court battle. In December 2004 Hollinger International completed the sale of The Jerusalem Post (English daily newspaper) and Jerusalem Report to Israeli publisher Mirkaei Tikshoret. [4][5]
The company holdings are labyrinthine: "The operations of Hollinger, for the year ended December 31, 2001, consisted of the Chicago Group, Community Group, U.K. Newspaper Group and Canadian Newspaper Group." Ravelston Corporation, a private company controlled (with 65% ownership) by Conrad Black, is Hollinger, Inc.'s parent company; Hollinger, Inc. is a Toronto-listed company that owns 30% of Hollinger International (72% of the voting stock), a Delaware, US, company. The company's Canadian newspapers are owned through Hollinger Canadian Newspapers, Limited Partnership (Hollinger L.P.), in which Hollinger Inc holds an 87% interest. [6], [7] These arrangements allowed Black, with only 15% ownership, to exercise a free hand in the operations of Hollinger International.
On March 14, 2006, [Blommberg] reported that Peter White, who helped Conrad Black build Hollinger International Inc. had lost his fight to rejoin the board of Black's former holding company. [8]

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