''The Price of Loyalty'' (The cost of disloyalty)

Commentary on the News
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
- Omega Letter Editor

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill published his own 'tell-all' book in which he accuses the Bush administration of 'plotting the invasion of Iraq' (as the Boston Globe described it) just days after taking office, instead of after the 9/11 attacks.

You know, I am truly not an apologist for George Bush. I don't know him personally, and I don't know what he does behind closed doors. I have no particular love for the Bush family, although I admit to admiring both First Lady Laura Bush and her mother-in-law, Barbara.

But it appears that anybody that says anything that attacks the Bush administration is a patriot, and anybody that says; "Hold on a minute, that doesn't make any sense," is a partisan Republican. Truth has nothing to do with it.

But regarding this administration, I only know what I see. And I know that the world didn't begin on January 20, 2001, when the administration came to office.

It sounds like I am Bush supporter only because there is so much media spin and hype against the administration. The Omega Letter is a Christian 'Intelligence' Digest. One cannot make intelligent decisions with false or misleading information.

That said; let's look at what the news is hyping as the 'most explosive' charge to be leveled against the Bush administration by an insider since he came to office. The charge that the Bush administration began 'plotting' to invade Iraq and to remove Saddam Hussein shortly after assuming office.

To my mind, if Bush HADN'T begun making contingency plans for Saddam's removal -- even before deciding to run for the White House -- Bush would have been guilty of gross dereliction of duty.

Regime change in Iraq had been an official US foreign policy goal for more than two years before Bush was elected. The 105th Congress of the United States passed the 'Iraq Liberation Act' in 1998, and it was officially adopted as US foreign policy by then-president Bill Clinton.

"It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime," according to the Iraq Liberation Act (Public Law 105-338).

The Congress also urged the President (Clinton, remember, this was 1998) "to call upon the United Nations to establish an international criminal tribunal for the purpose of indicting, prosecuting, and imprisoning Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi officials who are responsible for crimes against humanity, genocide, and other criminal violations of international law."

Representative Benjamin Gilman (Republican of New York) introduced H.R. 4655 September 29, 1998. President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law October 31, 1998.

Gilman's bill passed in the House of Representatives on a 360-38 vote October 5, and the Senate approved H.R. 4655 by unanimous consent on October 7.

According to the Iraq Liberation Act, Saddam's regime was charged with a series of crimes including invading Iran on September 22, 1980, and using chemical weapons against Iranian troops.

It noted that in February of 1988 Iraq "forcibly relocated Kurdish civilians from their home villages in the Anfal campaign, killing an estimated 50,000 to 180,000 Kurds."

Congress also cited Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurdish civilian opponents in the town of Halabja, killing an estimated 5,000 on March 16 of that year.

"On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded and began a 7 month occupation of Kuwait, killing and committing numerous abuses against Kuwaiti civilians, and setting Kuwait's oil wells ablaze upon retreat," Congress said.

The Congress pointed to the ceasefire Iraq accepted ceasefire conditions as specified in United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 of April 3, 1991 that required Baghdad to "to disclose fully and permit the dismantlement of its weapons of mass destruction programs and submit to long-term monitoring and verification of such dismantlement."

Congress also noted the April 1993 assassination attempt on former President George Bush during his visit to Kuwait. The CONGRESS decided that attempting to kill former President Bush was an act of war, and NOT the current President Bush.

And at the time the CONGRESS passed that public law, and cited those reasons, George W. Bush was governor of Texas. So much for the ridiculous, but often repeated charge by the useful idiots that George W. Bush planned to invade Iraq all along to 'take revenge for his daddy'.

The Iraq Liberation Act cited Public Law 105-235 of August 14, 1998, which had declared the Baghdad regime was "in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations," and urged President Clinton "to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations."

The Iraq Liberation Act said once Saddam Hussein was removed from power, the United States "should support Iraq's transition to democracy."

The Act had strong bipartisan support in the House of Representatives, then controlled by Republicans. Republicans backed the bill by a 202-9 margin with 16 not voting. Democrats lined up behind the bill 157-29, with 20 not voting, and the House's sole Independent voted for H.R. 4655.

The Senate passed the Iraq Liberation Act by unanimous consent, a Senate bill with the same language had been co-sponsored by six Republicans and two Democrats, including Senator Joseph Lieberman (Democrat of Connecticut) and then Senator John Ashcroft (Republican of Missouri), the current Attorney General.

In the House, those backing the bill included House Minority Leader Representative Richard Gephardt (Democrat of Missouri), Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (Republican of Illinois), Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (Democrat of Texas) and Representative Constance Morella (Republican of Maryland). And Candidate Bush, as early as 1999, made it clear that Iraq would be dealt with.

In a speech at the Citadel military academy on Sept. 23, 1999, he said achieving peace in the world will "require firmness with regimes like North Korea and Iraq, regimes that hate our values and resent our success. I will address all these priorities in the future."

O'Neill's allegedly 'explosive' charges against the White House sort of fizzle when one takes a look back into history.

In his book, "The Price of Loyalty," O'Neill is quoted as saying that he 'was surprised' that no one in the National Security Council in early 2001 questioned why Iraq should be invaded. "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying, "Go find me a way to do this," O'Neill told CBS.

Nobody at CBS, or in any other news 'analysis' of O'Neill's 'charges' bothered to note that O'Neill's argument was based on Bush's 'tone', characterizing it instead as what Bush actually meant, rather than what O'Neill interpreted it to mean. But why split hairs?

Why should O'Neill be 'surprised' that no one on the National Security Council questioned why Iraq should be invaded? CBS was evidently equally 'surprised' to learn that fact. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that they were surprised.

After all, the Bush administration was simply following the law of the land, as written, without embellishment or hyperbole. For eight years, the mainstream media heartily endorsed former President Clinton's efforts to subvert or re-evaluate every law that he found inconvenient.

So the idea of a president coming to office with the intent to obey the law WOULD be surprising. What is NOT surprising is the media reaction to what they are calling a 'smoking gun' that somehow 'proves' the war with Iraq was unjustified.

Virtually every news account of the story calls O'Neill's revelation a 'charge' against Bush. The UK Guardian called O'Neill's revelation 'an astonishing attack'. CNN's headline said; "O'Neill: Bush Like a Blind Man". The German Indymedia.org went even further, saying in its headline, "Bush Wanted Iraq War Before September 11" -- WANTED the Iraq war? (Hey, they're German. The Germans wanted Saddam to stay in power -- he was an excellent customer)

One would be equally accurate to call O'Neill's revelation a commendation FOR Bush, when considers the law, the fact Saddam's ouster was the fulfillment of a campaign promise, and that, rather than 'shooting from the hip' as has so often been claimed, the invasion, and the aftermath, was carefully planned, well in advance.

In fact, most of the advance planning had been done during the Clinton administration, and many of the documents O'Neill turned over to Suskind were inherited from Clinton's people.

O'Neill claimed on 60 Minutes that he "was going public because he thinks the Bush Administration has been too secretive about how decisions have been made".

Talk about front-loading! "Going public" suggests O'Neill is a whistle-blower doing some kind of a public service. Since Saddam's removal was mandated by federal law, and was already official US foreign policy, it is hard to see how attempting to further divide the country over Iraq is a public service.

It's an absurdity equivalent to a baseball team wanting to replace their team captain for hitting a home run against the other team.

O'Neill's 'book' was actually written by Paul Suskind, a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for Esquire and the New York Times.

(Those are JUST the credentials that make ME think Suskind has no private agenda. How about you?)

Suskind says that O'Neill turned over more than 19,000 documents for him to go through in preparing the manuscript, including transcripts of private, high-level National Security Council meetings.

Evidently, that revelation by Suskind is intended to convey an assurance that the book is not a politically motivated 'hatchet job' but is, instead, a factual representation of events.

The book title, "The Price of Loyalty" is misleading in and of itself. The fact O'Neill turned secret National Security documents over to a reporter proves O'Neill cannot be trusted and that he is more than disloyal to the president he promised to serve; one has to question his loyalty to the nation.

60 Minutes asked O'Neill directly if his book was a 'kiss and tell' book, which is just a nice way of describing a political hatchet job, anyway. O'Neill's reply?

"I've come to believe that people will say d**n near anything, so I'm sure somebody will say all of that and more.”

Nice recovery, since it is fairly obvious that it is EXACTLY that, and so it is inevitable that any independent thinker would notice.

O'Neill was fired by the Bush administration because he opposed the Bush tax cuts. Since the tax cuts were part of the Bush economic recovery program, and O'Neill was the Secretary of the Treasury, it was incumbent on O'Neill to either support the policy of the White House, or step down. He did neither, and forced Bush to fire him.

Question: Which man bears the ultimate responsibility for the economy? The Secretary of the Treasury, which is a political appointment, or the President of the United States, an elected official? The answer should be obvious.

Since O'Neill opposed them and because those same cuts did exactly what Bush said they would do -- stimulate the economy -- if "The Price of Loyalty" ISN'T a political 'hatchet job' -- then what IS it?

The point of this morning's report is NOT that Bush is above reproach. I can reproach him on any number of issues, from waffling on stem-cell research to declaring Kwanzaa a religious holiday to inviting Islamic extremists to the White House or holding official Ramadan dinners.

The point of this morning's briefing is the way the mainstream US media is spinning the story. And the way the international press is eating it up.

We've discussed this before. Why does the world distrust American intentions? Because our media leaps on every opportunity to 'prove' we CAN'T be trusted.

In the countries where America is most hated, like Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia and China, their newspapers print only glowing accounts of their own leadership. Their officials are loyal to their leadership, not to their nation.

So when they read in the American press that a former administration official 'came forward' to tell the world that the US leadership is dishonest and double-dealing, and that former official has neither been jailed or shot, what do they think?

Exactly what they've been told. That America is being led by a crooked cowboy that has no support, not even within his own cabinet. Should we be surprised then, that the terrorists in Iraq think they have a chance of winning if they continue to keep up the pressure?

The price of O'Neill's DISloyalty is the blood of the American soldiers that continue to die every day in Iraq, thanks to the words of encouragement given to our enemies by guys like Paul O'Neill.

Does this stuff make recruiting new terrorists easier, or more difficult, for the terrorist groups bent on America's destruction? That's the question nobody is asking, to our peril.

The price of O'Neill's DISloyalty is the blood of the American soldiers that continue to die every day in Iraq, thanks to the words of encouragement given to our enemies by guys like Paul O'Neill.

I'd like to like this writer but the left is successful enough in transforming hyperbole into fact in the minds of the American people. We don't need our own side bolstering that impression. The fact is American Troops are not dying every day in Iraq.

Regards,

Perhaps overstated on that one fact, but labeling it as hyperbole in comparison to the left's daily dose of lies is nonsense.

I replied:

the left is successful enough in transforming hyperbole into fact in the minds of the American people

We don't need our own side bolstering that impression.

So, aren't you and I in agreement? Or, is that just nonsense?

Regards,

"So, aren't you and I in agreement"?

ummm, yes, we aren't...

Actually it was right for you to point out the fact of "troops not dying daily."
But, if you are comparing the lefts BS to the author's mostly truthful editorial, well, it's just not there.

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