Heather Wokusch

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BUSH WATCH...HEATHER WOKUSCH

Heather Wokusch can be reached via her website: www.heatherwokusch.com She’s been on an extended book-writing sabbatical, but will be up and ranting on a regular basis in early 2006.

WWIII or Bust: Implications of a US Attack on Iran

by Heather Wokusch

"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous... Having said that, all options are on the table." George W. Bush, February 2005

Witnessing the Bush administration's drive for an attack on Iran is like being a passenger in a car with a raving drunk at the wheel. Reports of impending doom surfaced a year ago, but now it's official: under orders from Vice President Cheney's office, the Pentagon has developed "last resort" aerial-assault plans using long-distance B2 bombers and submarine-launched ballistic missiles with both conventional and nuclear weapons.

How ironic that the Pentagon proposes using nuclear weapons on the pretext of protecting the world from nuclear weapons. Ironic also that Iran has complied with its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, allowing inspectors to "go anywhere and see anything," yet those pushing for an attack, the USA and Israel, have not.

The nuclear threat from Iran is hardly urgent. As the Washington Post reported in August 2005, the latest consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies is that "Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years." The Institute for Science and International Security estimated that while Iran could have a bomb by 2009 at the earliest, the US intelligence community assumed technical difficulties would cause "significantly delay." The director of Middle East Studies at Brown University and a specialist in Middle Eastern energy economics both called the State Department's claims of a proliferation threat from Iran's Bushehr reactor "demonstrably false," concluding that "the physical evidence for a nuclear weapons program in Iran simply does not exist."

So there's no urgency - just a bad case of déjà vu all over again. The Bush administration is recycling its hype over Hussein's supposed WMD threat into rhetoric about Iran, but look where the charade got us last time: tens of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians, a country teetering on civil war and increased global terrorism.

Yet the stakes in Iran are arguably much higher.

Consider that many in the US and Iran seek religious salvation through a Middle Eastern blowout. "End times" Christian fundamentalists believe a cataclysmic Armageddon will enable the Messiah to reappear and transport them to heaven, leaving behind Muslims and other non-believers to face plagues and violent death. Iran's new Shia Islam president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, subscribes to a competing version of the messianic comeback, whereby the skies turn to flames and blood flows in a final showdown of good and evil. The Hidden Imam returns, bringing world peace by establishing Islam as the global religion.

Both the US and Iran have presidents who arguably see themselves as divinely chosen and who covet their own country's apocalypse-seeking fundamentalist voters. And into this tinderbox Bush proposes bringing nuclear weapons.

As expected, the usual suspects press for a US attack on Iran. Neo-cons who brought us the "cakewalk" of Iraq want to bomb the country. There's also Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, busy coordinating the action plan against Iran, who just released the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review calling for US forces to "operate around the globe" in an infinite "long war." One can assume Rumsfeld wants to bomb a lot of countries.

There's also Israel, keen that no other country in the region gains access to nuclear weapons. In late 2002, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Iran should be targeted "the day after" Iraq was subdued, and Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud Party, recently warned that if he wins the presidential race in March 2006, Israel will "do what we did in the past against Saddam's reactor," an obvious reference to the 1981 bombing of the Osirak nuclear facility in Iraq. It doesn't help that Iran's Ahmadinejad has called the Holocaust a myth and said that Israel should be "wiped off the map."

In the eyes of the Bush administration, however, Iran's worst transgression has less to do with nuclear ambitions or anti-Semitism than with the petro-euro oil bourse Tehran is slated to open in March 2006. Iran's plan to allow oil trading in euros threatens to break the dollar's monopoly as the global reserve currency, and since the greenback is severely overvalued due to huge trade deficits, the move could be devastating for the US economy.

So we remain pedal to the metal with Bush for an attack on Iran.

But what if the US does go ahead and launch an assault in the coming months? The Pentagon has already identified 450 strategic targets, some of which are underground and would require the use of nuclear weapons to destroy. What happens then?

You can bet that Iran would retaliate. Tehran promised a "crushing response" to any US or Israeli attack, and while the country - ironically - doesn't possess nuclear weapons to scare off attackers, it does have other options. Iran boasts ground forces estimated at 800,000 personnel, as well as long-range missiles that could hit Israel and possibly even Europe. In addition, much of the world's oil supply is transported through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow stretch of ocean which Iran borders to the north. In 1997, Iran's deputy foreign minister warned that the country might close off that shipping route if ever threatened, and it wouldn't be difficult. Just a few missiles or gunboats could bring down vessels and block the Strait, thereby threatening the global oil supply and shooting energy prices into the stratosphere.

An attack on Iran would also inflame tensions in the Middle East, especially provoking the Shiite Muslim populations. Considering that Shiites largely run the governments of Iran and Iraq and are a potent force in Saudi Arabia, that doesn't bode well for calm in the region. It would incite the Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Iran's, potentially sparking increased global terrorism. A Shiite rebellion in Iraq would further endanger US troops and push the country deeper into civil war.

Attacking Iran could also tip the scales towards a new geopolitical balance, one in which the US finds itself shut out by Russia, China, Iran, Muslim countries and the many others Bush has managed to piss off during his period in office. Just last month, Russia snubbed Washington by announcing it would go ahead and honor a $700 million contract to arm Iran with surface-to-air missiles, slated to guard Iran's nuclear facilities. And after being burned when the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority invalidated Hussein-era oil deals, China has snapped up strategic energy contracts across the world, including in Latin America, Canada and Iran. It can be assumed that China will not sit idly by and watch Tehran fall to the Americans.

Russia and China have developed strong ties recently, both with each other and with Iran. Each possesses nuclear weapons, and arguably more threatening to the US, each holds large reserves of US dollars which can be dumped in favor of euros. Bush crosses them at his nation's peril.

Yet another danger is that an attack on Iran could set off a global arms race - if the US flaunts the non-proliferation treaty and goes nuclear, there would be little incentive for other countries to abide by global disarmament agreements either. Besides, the Bush administration's message to its enemies has been very clear: if you possess WMD you're safe, and if you don't, you're fair game. Iraq had no nuclear weapons and was invaded, Iran doesn't as well and risks attack, yet that other "Axis of Evil" country, North Korea, reportedly does have nuclear weapons and is left alone. It’s also hard to justify striking Iran over its allegedly developing a secret nuclear weapons program, when India and Pakistan (and presumably Israel) did the same thing and remain on good terms with Washington.

The most horrific impact of a US assault on Iran, of course, would be the potentially catastrophic number of casualties. The Oxford Research Group predicted that up to 10,000 people would die if the US bombed Iran's nuclear sites, and that an attack on the Bushehr nuclear reactor could send a radioactive cloud over the Gulf. If the US uses nuclear weapons, such as earth-penetrating "bunker buster" bombs, radioactive fallout would become even more disastrous.

Given what's at stake, few allies, apart from Israel, can be expected to support a US attack on Iran. While Jacques Chirac has blustered about using his nukes defensively, it's doubtful that France would join an unprovoked assault, and even loyal allies, such as the UK, prefer going through the UN Security Council.

Which means the wildcard is Turkey. The nation shares a border with Iran, and according to Noam Chomsky, is heavily supported by the domestic Israeli lobby in Washington, permitting 12% of the Israeli air and tank force to be stationed in its territory. Turkey's crucial role in an attack on Iran explains why there's been a spurt of high-level US visitors to Ankara lately, including Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, FBI Director Robert Mueller and CIA Director Porter Goss. In fact, the German newspaper Der Spiegel reported in December 2005 that Goss had told the Turkish government it would be "informed of any possible air strikes against Iran a few hours before they happened" and that Turkey had been given a "green light" to attack camps of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Iran "on the day in question."

It's intriguing that both Valerie Plame (the CIA agent whose identity was leaked to the media after her husband criticized the Bush administration's pre-invasion intelligence on Iraq) and Sibel Edmonds (the former FBI translator who turned whistleblower) have been linked to exposing intelligence breaches relating to Turkey, including potential nuclear trafficking. And now both women are effectively silenced.

The US public sees the issue of Iran as backburner, and has little eagerness for an attack on the country at this time. A USA Today/CNN Gallup Poll from early February 2006 found that a full 86% of respondents favored either taking no action or using economic/diplomatic efforts towards Iran for now. Significantly, 69% said they were concerned "that the U.S. will be too quick to use military force in an attempt to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons."

And that begs the question: how can the US public be convinced to enter a potentially ugly and protracted war in Iran?

A domestic terrorist attack would do the trick. Just consider how long Congress went back and forth over reauthorizing Bush's Patriot Act, but how quickly opposing senators capitulated following last week's nerve-agent scare in a Senate building. The scare turned out to be a false alarm, but the Patriot Act got the support it needed.

Now consider the fact that former CIA Officer Philip Giraldi has said the Pentagon's plans to attack Iran were drawn up "to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States." Writing in The American Conservative in August 2005, Giraldi added, "As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States."

Chew on that one a minute. The Pentagon's plan should be used in response to a terrorist attack on the US, yet is not contingent upon Iran actually having been responsible. How outlandish is this scenario: another 9/11 hits the US, the administration says it has secret information implicating Iran, the US population demands retribution and bombs start dropping on Tehran.

That's the worst-case scenario, but even the best case doesn't look good. Let's say the Bush administration chooses the UN Security Council over military power in dealing with Iran. That still leaves the proposed oil bourse, along with the economic fallout that will occur if OPEC countries snub the greenback in favor of petro-euros. At the very least, the dollar will drop and inflation could soar, so you'd think the administration would be busy tightening the nation's collective belt. But no. The US trade deficit reached a record high of $725.8 billion in 2005, and Bush & Co.'s FY 2007 budget proposes increasing deficits by $192 billion over the next five years. The nation is hemorrhaging roughly $7 billion a month on military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and is expected to hit its debt ceiling of $8.184 trillion next month.

So the white-knuckle ride to war continues, with the administration's goals in Iran very clear. Recklessly naïve and impetuous perhaps, but clear: stop the petro-euro oil bourse, take over Khuzestan Province (which borders Iraq and has 90% of Iran's oil) and secure the Straits of Hormuz in the process. As US politician Newt Gingrich recently put it, Iranians cannot be trusted with nuclear technology, and they also "cannot be trusted with their oil."

But the Bush administration cannot be trusted with foreign policy. Its military adventurism has already proven disastrous across the globe. It's incumbent upon each of us to do whatever we can to stop this race towards war. --posted Feb. 20, 2006

Mission Accomplished: Big Oil’s Occupation of Iraq
by Heather Wokusch
The Bush administration’s covert plan to help energy companies steal Iraq’s oil could be just weeks away from fruition, and the implications are staggering: continued price-gouging by Big Oil, increased subjugation of the Iraqi people, more US troops in Iraq, and a greater likelihood for a US invasion of Iran.
That’s just for starters.
The administration’s challenge has been how to transfer Iraq’s oil assets to private companies under the cloak of legitimacy, yet simultaneously keep prices inflated.
But Bush & Co. and their Big Oil cronies might have found a simple yet devious solution: production sharing agreements (PSAs).
Here’s how PSAs work. In return for investment in areas where fields are small and results are uncertain, governments occasionally grant oil companies sweetheart deals guaranteeing high profit margins and protection from exploration risks. The country officially retains ownership of its oil resources, but the contractual agreements are often so rigid and severe that in practical terms, it can be the equivalent of giving away the deed to the farm.
Since Iraq sits on the world’s third largest oil reserves, the PSA model makes little sense in the first place; Iraq’s fields are enormous and the exploration risks are accordingly miniscule, so direct national investment or more equitable forms of foreign investment would be in order. But as a comprehensive new report by the London-based advocacy group PLATFORM details, the PSA model “is on course to be adopted in Iraq, soon after the December elections, with no public debate and at enormous potential cost.”
PLATFORM’s “Crude Designs: The Rip-off of Iraq’s Oil Wealth” points out that the proposed agreements (with US State Department origins) will prove a bonanza for oil companies but a disaster for the Iraqi people:
- “At an oil price of $40 per barrel, Iraq stands to lose between $74 billion and $194 billion over the lifetime of the proposed contracts, from only the first 12 oilfields to be developed. These estimates, based on conservative assumptions, represent between two and seven times the current Iraqi government budget.”
- “Under the likely terms of the contracts, oil company rates of return from investing in Iraq would range from 42% to 162%, far in excess of usual industry minimum target of around 12% return on investment.”
Of course, given the current political chaos, Iraqi citizens have little power over whether their politicians sign the proposed PSA agreements. That critical decision could be left to con-men like the former Interim Oil Minister Ahmad Chalabi, who recently met with no less than Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice during his red-carpet visit to the White House. One can assume the topic of Iraq’s proposed PSAs came up more than once.
Chalabi’s successor as Oil Minister, Ibrahim Mohammad Bahr al-Uloum, is expected to toe the corporate line, and Iraq’s former Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi issued post-invasion guidelines stating: “The Iraqi authorities should not spend time negotiating the best possible deals with the oil companies; instead they should proceed quickly, agreeing to whatever terms the companies will accept, with a possibility of renegotiation later.”
But PSAs are notoriously hard to renegotiate. According to PLATFORM, “under PSAs future Iraqi governments would be prevented from changing tax rates or introducing stricter laws or regulations relating to labour standards, workplace safety, community relations, environment or other issues.” The Iraqi people would be locked into inflexible agreements spanning 25-40 years with disputes solved by corporate-friendly international arbitration tribunals, rather than by national courts.
Is that really the same thing as liberation?
According to Greg Muttitt, co-author and lead researcher of the “Crude Designs” report, “for all the US administration's talk of creating a democracy in Iraq, in fact, their heavy pushing of PSAs stands to deprive Iraq of democratic control of its most important natural resource. I would even go further: the USA, Britain and the oil companies seem to be taking advantage of the weakness of Iraq's new institutions of government, and of the terrible violence in the country, by pushing Iraq to sign deals in this weak state, whose terms would last for decades. The chances of Iraq getting a good deal for its people in these circumstances are minimal; the prospect of mega-profitable deals for multinational oil companies is fairly assured.”
Of course, ongoing oil exploration in Iraq by administration-friendly companies would require permanent US bases, a massive ongoing troop presence and billions more in taxpayer-dollar subsidies to sleazy outfits like Halliburton.
The implications of all of this for domestic oil prices is unclear. While neo-conservatives initially pushed for privatizing Iraq’s oil reserves as a way of destroying OPEC (they wanted to boost production and flood world markets with cheap oil) the administration seems to have taken a more corporate-friendly stance. After all, the last thing oil executives want is to break OPEC’s stranglehold on pricing, because keeping supply low has delivered record profits.
But the “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq” which Bush released this week as part of his pro-occupation PR blitz lists a surprising goal: “facilitating investment in Iraq’s oil sector to increase production from the current 2.1 million barrels per day to more than 5 million per day.” OPEC’s quota for Iraq currently sits at around 4 million barrels per day, so the administration’s goal is not only significantly higher, but (at “more than 5 million”) a little too open-ended for the cartel’s comfort. Could be that Bush & Co. want to have their cake and eat it too: tighten the screws on OPEC, yet continue to rip off consumers through elevated prices.
The whole PSA affair may also stoke the fires for a US invasion of Iran, which sits on oil reserves even greater than those of Iraq.
Tehran already is on the administration’s hit list, less for its nuclear aspirations than for its plans to open a euro-based international oil-trading market in early 2006. Iran’s oil “bourse” would compete with the likes of New York’s NYMEX and provide OPEC the opportunity to snub the greenback in favor of “petroeuros,” a development the administration will avoid at all costs. So if the PSA model is adopted in Iraq, it would provide a clear precedent for implementing it in Iran too, and hand the administration another reason to start the next invasion. --posted December 4, 2005

April 14, 2005 - Latest Article
Courting Armageddon: How the Bush Administration's
Biological Weapons Buildup Affects You

News that a U.S. company recently sent vials of a 1957 pandemic flu strain to laboratories across the world by accident is only the latest outrage from the billion-dollar boondoggle called the federal biological weapons program.

As you might recall, the Bush administration started its "biodefense" spending spree following the September 2001 deadly anthrax attacks, and one of its first projects was to genetically engineer a super-resistant, even more deadly version of the anthrax virus.

Our leaders are nuts.

Unfortunately, Project "Anthrax" Jefferson has good company. A US Army scientist in Maryland is currently trying to bring back elements of the 1918 Spanish flu, a virus which killed 40 million people. And a virologist in St. Louis has been working on a more lethal form of mousepox (related to smallpox) - just to try stopping the virus once it's been created.

Lack of oversight and runaway spending are exacerbated by the Bush administration's disrespect for the internationally-recognized Biological Weapons Convention. In short, reduced pressure on weapons labs to issue declarations and allow inspections means less accountability - and more opportunities for secrecy and abuse.

Put bluntly, the increasing number of stateside bioweapons blunders should come as no surprise. In February 2003, for example, the University of California at Davis (UCD) took a full ten days to inform nearby communities that a rhesus monkey had escaped from its primate-breeding facility. Coincidentally, UCD had been vying for government funds to set up its own "hot zone" biodefense lab which could use primates for biological weapons testing. If that monkey had been infected with ebola, or some other virus, it's unclear when or if the public would have been informed.

At roughly the same time that the monkey ditched UCD, the Pentagon unearthed over 2,000 tons of hazardous biological waste in Maryland, much of it undocumented leftovers of an abandoned germ warfare program. Nearby, the FBI was draining a pond for clues into 2001's anthrax attacks.

Doesn't inspire much trust in the transparency of US biological weapons programs.

And things appear only to be getting worse.

In 2004, a whopping $6 billion went up for grabs for federal biodefense programs, and laboratories across the country went ballistic trying to get their hands on some of that cash. Predictably, cases of fraud and abuse quickly surfaced.

In June 2004, for example, the Army was caught shirking inspections at a major biodefense lab under its domain. The scandal went back to 1999, when the Army commissioned a biological and chemical weapons-agent lab at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Oversight regulations obligated the Army to inspect the lab each year thereafter, and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) were supposed to have inspected the lab on a regular basis too.

Everything seemed to be running smoothly; in December 2003, the committee in charge of safety at the Oak Ridge lab announced that it "remains comfortable of the review and inspections of the Chem/Bio Facility conducted by the CDC and the Army."

Small problem. In 2004, the Department of Energy's Inspector General discovered that the Army actually hadn't inspected the Oak Ridge biodefense lab for the previous three years, and that the CDC hadn't been there for four years. Yet the lab's safety committee said it was "comfortable" with the imaginary inspections.

Also in 2004, a military biodefense contractor called Southern Research landed in hot water by accidentally sending live anthrax across the country from Frederick, Maryland to the Children's Hospital of Oakland (California). To make matters worse, it turns out that Southern Research's lab in Frederick, Maryland didn't even maintain the institutional biosafety committee required by federal research rules. The punishment for these acts of gross incompetence and irresponsibility? The Bush administration gave Southern Research the task of safeguarding a new $30 million biological weapons facility being built near Chicago.

In September of the same year, three lab workers at the Boston University Medical Center were accidentally exposed to a potentially lethal biowarfare agent called tularaemia bacterium. The lab didn't report the tularemia infections until two months later though - after it had won a contract to build a new, $178 million biodefense laboratory.

Concerns about lack of transparency and monetary waste aside, the administration's bioweapons buildup raises obvious ethical problems. Why should the U.S. create newer, even deadlier viruses? Who are these catastrophic weapons going to be tested on? What populations will they ultimately be used against?

These questions take on urgent meaning given the Bush administration's military adventurism coupled with the US media's poor coverage regarding war victims. For example, eyewitnesses to the late-2004 attack on Fallujah claimed that US forces used poisonous gases, and "weird" bombs that exploded into fires that burned the skin despite water being thrown on the burns - a telltale sign of napalm or phosphorus bombs.

UK reaction to the revelation was swift and strong, with demands that Prime Minister Blair remove British troops from Iraq until the US ceased from using such savage weaponry. Labor MP Alice Mahon demanded that Blair make "an emergency statement to the Commons to explain why this is happening. It begs the question: 'Did we know about this hideous weapon's use in Iraq?'"

No similar outrage in Congress. In fact, no comment at all. The US mainstream media didn't cover the "weird bomb" allegations.

But it doesn't take a genius to put two-and-two together: if we permit our government to ignore international weapons-control conventions and then say nothing while fresh billions are invested in barbaric new weaponry, we lose the right to act surprised when our own military uses that weaponry on innocent civilians abroad.

Or even on us.

You may be surprised to learn that in 2003, the Pentagon quietly admitted to having used biological/chemical agents on 5,842 service members in secret tests conducted over a ten-year period (1962-73).

In operations called Project 112 and Project SHAD, the Defense Department tested its own weapons on service members aboard Navy ships, and in all sorts of other nasty ways - such as spraying a Hawaiian rainforest and parts of Oahu. All in all, tests were conducted in six states (Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Utah) as well as in Canada and Britain.

Many military personnel were not informed when the toxic agents were being tested on them. Only decades later, as crucial documents slowly become declassified, have the veterans' health complaints been acknowledged.

You might think such barbarism could never happen again: too many legal protections for citizens in place. Think again.

There's a tricky clause in Chapter 32/Title 50 of the United States Code (the aggregation of US general and permanent laws) which states that the Secretary of Defense can conduct a chemical or biological agent test or experiment on humans in certain cases "if informed consent has been obtained."

So far so good. But check out a different part of Chapter 32, Section 1515, entitled "Suspension; Presidential authorization":

"After November 19, 1969, the operation of this chapter, or any portion thereof, may be suspended by the President during the period of any war declared by Congress and during the period of any national emergency declared by Congress or by the President."

You got it. If the President or Congress decides we're at war then the Secretary of Defense doesn't need anybody's consent to test chemical or biological agents on human beings. Gives one pause during these days of a perpetual "War on Terror."

In January 2005, US Senate majority leader Bill Frist called for a new Manhattan Project (referring to the WWII-era nuclear weapons bonanza) for biological weapons. Frist told an audience at the World Economic Forum, "The greatest existential threat we have in the world today is biological," and he went on to predict a biowarfare attack "at some time in the next 10 years."

How ironic that while Frist cited the 2001 US anthrax attacks as proof more biological weapons research was necessary, he failed to mention that those incidents involved anthrax produced right in the good 'ole USA - or that the primary suspect in the attacks was a US Army scientist. Frist also didn't clarify how developing even more biological warfare agents would make the world safer.

The original Manhattan Project ultimately led to US forces dropping atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the resulting slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people. It's terrifying to consider the potential repercussions, both domestic and abroad, of the Bush administration's coveted new biological-weapons Manhattan Project.

"The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars."

Stingy? Not with WMD and War
by Heather Wokusch
As the body count from the tsunami rises, America's international reputation plummets to new depths, thanks to the Bush administration's smugly incompetent response.
While other world leaders immediately put forward action plans and solid donations, Bush has spent most of the past critical week on holiday at his Texas Òranch,Ó riding his mountain bike and avoiding the press. Predictably, only allegations of stinginess increased the White House's initial measly offer of $15 million for the relief effort to a grand total of $35 million.
But it's unfair to say the Bush administration is stingy Ð it just has different priorities. The White House has so far requested roughly $100 billion for the occupation of Iraq in FY 2005, which translates to about $8.3 billion per month, or over $270 million per day (eighteen times more than the administration's first offer of help to tsunami victims). And that's only Iraq. The US military budget request for FY 2005 was 420.7 billion dollars Ð double that of China, Russia, the UK, France and Germany combined.
Of course, perpetual war requires a lavish arsenal so the US spends further billions each year perfecting its weapons of mass destruction. In 2004 alone, a full $6 billion was earmarked for federal biological weapons programs, dedicated to destructive pursuits including bringing back elements of the 1918 Spanish flu (which killed 40 million people) and producing even deadlier strains of anthrax. Meanwhile the US budget for nuclear-weapon activities in fiscal 2004 topped $6 billion, which is twelve times more than it spent on securing/reducing existing stockpiles or on non-proliferation efforts. Also factor in the $10 billion Bush requested in FY 2005 for his failed missile ÒdefenseÓ program, a budget almost double what the Department of Homeland Security pays for the crucial activities of customs and border patrol.
In other words: it's not a problem of money. The Bush administration has ample funding available for war and increasingly barbaric means of killing, just not much left over to help out in global humanitarian catastrophes.
How ironic that Bush uses Christianity as a cynical PR tool but fails to grasp the biblical proportions of this tsunami disaster. How glaring that the administration brags about its superior morality and devotion to family values, but shows no empathy in the face of overwhelming human tragedy. And how embarrassing that after the outpour of love and support the US received with 911, this is all our government can come up with in return. --posted 01.05.05
Heather Wokusch is a free-lance writer. She can be contacted via her web site: www.heatherwokusch.com.
We just donÍt talk anymore: Bush's communication problem with women
by Heather Wokusch
Despite the presidentÍs campaign pledge that ñW stands for Woman,î Bush tends to bomb out with the fairer sex. Unsurprisingly, a recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has registered women voters favoring Kerry over Bush by a full 12 percentage points.
So itÍs no wonder that the Bush campaign is working overtime to nab critical female voters, enlisting wife Laura and various female administration members to carry BushÍs message from the Oval Office to the powder room.
But Bush just doesnÍt seem to get it. ñWhat women wantî is to be heard, not to receive a message. Women want to be asked questions and to be given honest answers - and thatÍs precisely the area over which Bush is losing female voters.
While the presidentÍs opposition to abortion rights and his curtailing of family planning options has alienated many voters, arguably even more damaging for Bush among women is the perception that he has tuned them out.
Just ask a disgruntled woman voter where it all went wrong with Bush, and chances are sheÍll name three communication areas that died, taking the relationship along with it:
1. He closed womenÍs offices
One of BushÍs first acts as president was to shut down the White House Office for WomenÍs Initiatives and Outreach, which had monitored policy initiatives, helped coordinate federal programs and served as a liaison for outside groups since 1995.
Then in late 2001, only public outcry saved ten regional offices of the Department of Labor WomenÍs Bureau the administration had planned to axe. Ominously, Bush has proposed reducing funding to the WomenÍs Bureau itself in FY2005.
2. He fudged the facts about women
Information affecting women in crucial areas ranging from pay equity, to breast cancer to HIV has been distorted on governmental web sites and publications during BushÍs term even worse, data has sometimes disappeared altogether. The list is extensive, but includes:
- The National Cancer Institute changed its web site to suggest that abortion and breast cancer were linked, even though studies had found they werenÍt. The web site was changed back only when Congress insisted.
- The Department of Labor has eliminated essential publications on the rights of women workers, such as DonÍt Work in the Dark Know Your Rights, and Fact Sheets on women workers.
- The Department of Health and Human Services altered information on its web site to make ñabstinence-onlyî programs seem more effective than evidence indicates.
3. He made questionable appointments
When running for president, Bush was asked if his personal opposition to abortion rights would be reflected in his administrationÍs judicial appointments. Bush replied: ñVoters should assume that I have no litmus test on that issue or any other issue.î
Immediately upon assuming office, however, the president began elevating abortion foes to critical offices: John Ashcroft became attorney general, Tommy Thompson became Secretary of Health and Human Services, and a slew of similarly-minded appointees were soon drafted into the lower courts.
Crucial women-oriented advisory committees have met a similar fate. Case in point: Dr. David Hager, who has refused to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women, is only one of three religious conservatives Bush named to the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs.
But back to the president and his difficulties with women voters. The lesson here is that when an administration seems more focused on its own political agenda than on honest communication, women will start looking for greener pastures.
In other words, Mr. Bush, take some advice about dealing with women: LISTEN. Ask questions, and then LISTEN some more. TELL THE TRUTH. And please, save the slogans for a different target group. --posted 06.30.04
Clinton And The Two Bushes: The War Crimes Left Behind
by Heather Wokusch
Given repercussions over Abu Ghraib, it isn't surprising that Washington recently asked the UN Security Council for another one-year extension on its war crimes exemption for peace-keepers. The prison abuse scandal is just the iceberg's tip of Geneva Convention violations by the United States, and closer inspection could send Bush Jr., Bush Sr., not to mention Bill Clinton, straight to the courtroom docks.
Back in the heady days of 1991's Persian Gulf War, Commander in Chief Bush Sr. was widely praised for the invasion's rapid end, but the true battle had only begun for many on the ground: the United States had dumped 375 tons of depleted uranium (DU) weaponry on Iraq during the war, despite foreknowledge its radioactivity would make food and water in the bombed regions unsafe for consumption on an indefinite basis (DU remains radioactive for 4.5 billion years). And according to the Geneva Conventions, that's a war crime.
DU is a highly radioactive nuclear waste product valued by the US military for its ability to penetrate tank armor, but it's also a remorseless enemy. A region's food chain is devastated by the trails of carcinogenic dust left in a DU bomb's wake, and of course, humans inhale and absorb the dust as well; even nine years after the war, veterans afflicted with Gulf War Syndrome ailments still had DU traces in their urine. Depleted uranium is also suspected in dramatically elevated levels of birth defects and cancer cases among those in bombed areas, as well as in a wide litany of Gulf War vet health complaints.
But the use of DU weaponry wasn't Bush Sr.s only transgression in Iraq. US forces also bombed electrical grids that powered 1,410 water-treatment plants for Iraq's 22 million people, even though the Geneva Conventions clearly state that destroying or rendering useless items essential to the survival of civilian populations is illegal under international law and a war crime. An excerpt from "Strategic Attack." a 1998 US Air Force document, explains: "The electrical attacks proved extremely effective ... The loss of electricity shut down the capital's water treatment plants and led to a public health crisis from raw sewage dumped in the Tigris River." A second US Defense Intelligence Agency document, 1991's "Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities," predicted how sanctions would then be used to prevent Iraq from getting the equipment and chemicals necessary for water purification, which would result in "a shortage of pure drinking water for much of the population" leading to "increased incidences, if not epidemics, of disease."
That's where Bill Clinton came in. Far from heeding the dangers of radioactive weaponry, he contributed to the estimated 11 tons of DU weaponry used by NATO forces in the 1999 Balkan conflict. Clinton also strongly supported the devastating sanctions against Iraq that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Notoriously, in 1996 when his Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was asked about the estimated over half a million Iraqi children who were thought to have died as a result of the sanctions, her response was "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it."
Fast forward to 2001, when Bush Jr. used DU weaponry in the invasion of Afghanistan. Cities subjected to allied bombing were later reported to have uranium concentrations at 400% to 2000% above normal, with birth defects sharply on the rise. Then during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, US and British forces deployed an estimated 1,100-2,200 tons of depleted uranium weaponry, with untold future health implications for both Iraqis and coalition service members.
It's worth considering the future of warfare Bush-style, as can be gleaned by his administration's funding of weaponry. Despite the Cold War's end, the Bush administration is spending 12 times more on developing nuclear weapons than on securing/reducing existing stockpiles or on non-proliferation efforts. The administration has also repealed the ban on low-yield nuclear weapons, dismissed international non-proliferation agreements, and pushed development of the so-called "bunker buster" which in fact is a nuclear weapon. It is safe to say the Bush administration wonêt be backing off nuclear or radioactive weaponry anytime soon.
In testimony on the Abu Ghraib crisis, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee, "It is the photographs that give one the vivid realization of what actually took place. Words don't do it." So if our leaders really can't grasp pain and suffering without Polaroids, then bring out the cameras. Bring out pictures of populations devastated by WMD such as radioactive weaponry, tainted water supplies and the starvation wrought by sanctions. Splash those images across the media along with photos from Abu Ghraib.
Because if as a nation we can bring ourselves to face the horrors inside one prison far away, then the scope can be widened to consider other war crimes. And when that happens, Bush Sr., Clinton and Bush Jr. will have some explaining to do. --posted 06.06.04
Originally published in The Baltimore Chronicle, June 4, 2004

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The views expressed are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect those of Bush Watch.