Corporatocracy

A story broke Friday that the media monkeys didn't pay much attention to...


Just more confirmation that the "news" media outlets give people what they think the people want, rather than what they need. The United States Supreme Court ruled that corporations should no longer have financial limits on what they are allowed to give to political parties . Its now legal for corporations to give UNLIMITED amounts of money to government.



The rationale... corporate entities... should have a voice... just like any other person. Like any other person? Yes, the topic of corporate "personhood." (click here) A corporation is considered a "legal person" apart from the persons that make up its workforce. Corporations have legal rights they can fight for in court... just like a person... and they have their own debt, separate from personal debts. Some businesses will require a "personal guarantee" from a business they're working with because of it. But are corporations people? Should they have the right to petition the government like an individual?



The question you should ask yourself... how loud do you currently feel your voice is... as the amount of lobbying money pouring into Washington has increased steadily over the last 25 years. Now that corporations have no limit on giving... do you expect the voice of the average man to increase? And when giant corporations pour millions of dollars into Washington... do they have your best interest at heart? Does the $8/hr employee at Wal-Mart think he will be better off if Wal-Mart has more influence in Washington?

Who is Michael Shipster? Part 2

Pressure from Washington had some CIA managers saying that Habbush should give up some of his Iraqi foreign agents before he could be viewed as credible. Those working with Richer's Near East division were outraged that the source would be asked to do more by sacrificing some of his people. They were frustrated with those in the main office who (apparently) didn't understand how intelligence gathering goes. A seasoned MI-6 agent, Shipster heard the request and ignored it completely. He wasn't going to let some stupid loyalty test from Bush and Cheney close the best "window" into Iraq and the mind of Saddam. In addition to regular phone conversations, Shipster continued to have direct meetings with Habbush on a weekly basis through January and February 2003 where he repeatedly pressed him on the WMD issue. But how do you prove a negative? How do you PROVE you don't have something?



In February (more than a month before the Invasion), England prepared a report for Washington. MI-6 director Sir Richard Dearlove flew to Washington to present George Tenet with the report that Britain worked very hard to complete. The Michael Shipster meetings were so secretive to Dearlove, he wanted to deliver their conclusions to the director of the CIA face to face. Shipster's report stated that Saddam ended his nuclear program in 1991 and destroyed his chemical weapons stockpiles the same year. Habbush told Michael that Iraq had no intention of restarting either program. The Iraqi Intelligence service, of which Habbush was the director, was in charge of biological weapons... and since 1996, there had been no biological weapons program. As soon as Tenet read the report, he called in Richer and told him "They're not going to like this downtown." Tenet would soon brief Bush and Condoleeza Rice. Rice responded "What the hell are we supposed to do with this?" and Tenet informed her that the CIA gathers information and the White House determines what to do with it. Tenet would also comment about all the other intelligence the US had, and how it contradicted Habbush's accounts. Habbush also gave interesting insight into the mind of Saddam Hussein. Habbush said that Saddam was isolated and diminished, not fully aware of what was even going on inside his country. He was worried about others finding out he didn't have WMD, especially the (hated) Iranians. He viewed Bush as bluffing, thinking... why would the Americans want to take over this country? It made no sense to Hussein.



The White House buried the report. It was given to Bush a month before the first troop set foot in Iraq. They infuriated the Brits by telling them they had no more interest in keeping the channel to Habbush open. An intelligence director willing to play ball would be useful, even if you are going in. Britain was upset but felt they did all they could do to prevent war. It was clear that avoiding war... this was never what Bush and Cheney wanted. So the US no longer wanted Habbush's information. What about Habbush, himself? When the war started on March 19th, with the help of US intelligence, he slipped back into Amman, Jordan. By the summer of 2003, America had still found no WMD. This was the time when the CIA worked out specific arrangements with the former Iraqi Intelligence chief. They agreed to pay Habbush $5 million out of CIA accounts. Simultaneously, Habbush was now on Bush's famous blacklist of Iraqi war crminals on a deck of playing cards. As one of these Iraqi officials were captured or killed, Bush would mark an X across the face of the card. (click here for the DoD site showing those still wanted, including Habbush, who was designated the Jack of Diamonds) It would give the impression, that America didn't know where Habbush was, and that we were out looking for him. Not only were we not looking for him, we weren't trying to get any advice out of him when occupying Iraq. On October 2nd, after three months of searching, the Iraq Survey Group gave an initial findings report to Congress that weapons inspectors had not found any evidence of WMD. By that time, the White House had already figured out a way to use Tahir Jalil Habbush.



In late September, Tenet returned from a White House meeting with instructions he had been given for the CIA. Richer recalls being called into Tenet's office and being told: "Well, Marine, I've got a job for you, through you may not like it." The Bush White House had created a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam. It was to be backdated to July 1, 2001. It was to say (among other things including WMD) that 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta did in fact train in Iraq (thus showing a link to Al Quaeda). Cheney had always been convinced of a 9/11 connection to Iraq and... to date... there is still no proof of such. The idea was to take the letter to Habbush in Jordan [I thought we were out looking for him? says so on Bush's playing cards] and have him write it in his own handwriting on Iraqi government stationary so that it looked legitimate. The CIA would then take it the letter to Baghdad and have someone release it to the media. Rob Richer was stunned. He felt the Vice President's office was always bugging them... pressing them over and over to find evidence backing up their preconcieved notions, but this was different. Bush and Cheney were explicitly asking him to create a deception... to purposely mislead. Richer passed the info on to his Iraq Operations Group (IOG). They were just as shocked. Not just because of the gaul... or the legalities... but even the rationale. The idea that one guy would answer all the questions the US had. Just one guy. And that he would do so all in the same one letter. Not only was that illogical to those in the clandestine community, but the IOG didn't believe Habbush (now hiding in Jordan) would sign such a letter. Why would he? This was going to be made public. Habbush knew there will be an insurgency, and that anyone helping the US would be targeted... not only they, but their families... and Tahir Jalil Habbush still had extended family in Iraq. He would not sign on board. America would make the letter without him.



The plan B letter (without Habbush) was released and the media ate it up. Reported in print and television: from NBC's Meet the Press to Fox News' Bill O'Reilly to London newspaper The Daily Telegraph. It would get 4 days of unquestioned coverage, planting seeds in the hearts of people, before Newsweek started to question the story for various reasons; not least of which: the FBI's evidence of Mohammed Atta's whereabouts during that time period. Mid-level people inside the CIA began to hear rumors that it was a forgery... and that it originated within the agency. Some didn't want to know. "I'm better off not knowing." one official was quoted as saying, because he felt he would then be forced to resign his post. The reason is... the CIA has engaged in deception, but it is illegal for the CIA to engage in covert action "intended to influence United States political processes, public opinion, policies or media." Some in the CIA claim that it was for the Iraqi's, but whose people were interested in WMD and Al-Quaeda links? Would the Iraqi people have been more inviting of American occupation if Saddam had chemical weapons caches?



The answer is no. The misinformation was clearly to sway the American people. Clearly illegal, yet clearly purposeful. The legacy of the Bush administration has... like many political things... become very partisan. Those on the right defending, while those on the left disparaging. This should be viewed differently. This isn't about someone having sex in the Oval Office. This is about much more. An administration that was hellbent on "restoring honor and integrity." Well, they were hellbent on something. And, for those of us who keep up with politics... not just when there is upheavel, it was clear that the Bush administration (from the very first days of their administration) had an idea of war with Iraq. Part of their vision of how the world should be... if only there was an American leader with the guts to do what was necessary. The rationale... the explanation to the people... was beside the point. The British could see it (downing street memo) a year before war broke out. The decision was already made. America had made its mind up long ago. We were working backwards from that starting point. And not only did the President of the United Stated ignore intelligence contrary to his point of view... intelligence that would have saved lives and money (how many people around the world have been directly or indirectly affected by the war in Iraq?)... but when the facts on the ground... his public rationale for war... were different than anticipated, he and his White House didn't admit to conducting an illegal war. They went even further by PURPOSELY lying to the American people through misinformation originating from the White House, disseminated by the CIA.


While Habbush was on a wanted deck of cards... giving the American people the impression the Bush administration was out looking for this guy who, to be clear, has committed many crimes while part of the Saddam regime, they not only knew where he was... had not only paid him off... but were able to get in contact with him, and when he refused to be part of the White House lie... they forged a document with his name on it... with the express purpose of lying to the American people in order to influence political opinion about the war. Is that what Bush means by spreading freedom and democracy? How is this guy not in jail? This will just be another stain... on the legacy... of one of the worst... one of the most criminal Presidential Administrations in United States history.

Who is Michael Shipster? Part 1

In the summer of 2002, the United States was looking for evidence regarding Saddam Hussein's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs. We had already received information from a German intelligence source by the name of Rafid Ahmed... an Iraqi defector codenamed "Curveball." He would be the source for Colin Powell's now infamous United Nations presentation about mobile biological weapons facilities. But, Germany never allowed American intelligence the chance to talk to Curveball directly and his information would prove to be falsified. In the summer of 2002, we came across more evidence in the form of a Saddam's last foreign minister... Naji Sabri. Mr. Sabri had spent more than 10 years living in Europe working on behalf of the Iraqi government, and established a relationship with French intelligence... as a paid spy. Bill Murry was the CIA Paris station chief at the time. He was trusted and respected by French intelligence and they put him onto Sabri that summer. Bush, Cheney and Rice were briefed and agreed things should move forward. The only question... how to arrange a meeting?



Sabri would not be able to leave Iraq without a good reason. As the foreign minister, he was working on negotiating the return of UN weapons inspectors and was due to travel to New York to address the UN General Assembly. The CIA couldn't contact him directly, so they made arrangements for Iraq's foreign minister to communicate through an intermediary... a Lebanese journalist trusted by both sides. The Lebanese journalist would pose questions on behalf of the CIA then follow up with Bill Murray. Murray debriefed the journalist after the meeting and Sabri (in a show of good faith) even wore a specific type of suit to the UN General Assembly at the request of Murray. Sabri told the journalist that Saddam didn't have WMD and was not trying hard to find any. If Saddam wanted nuclear weapons, he was as far as ever from that goal and making no progress. Any biological weapons program was all but non-existent, and if there were any chemical weapons within the borders of Iraq, they were not possessed by the Iraqi government. The information was a direct contradiction of Curveball. It would be CIA director George Tenet who delivered the information personally to President Bush, who would then lose interest in Naji Sabri and dismiss his assertions as disinformation.



The CIA wasn't so sure. French intelligence monitored Sabri's calls, which were then sent to Langley, Virginia and backed up what Sabri had earlier communicated. While the report on the Sabri intelligence was bring written up, Paris station chief Murray was in a rush to get back to France and didn't stay in the US to write the report himself... he left the job for the New York CIA station. Murray would later find out the emerging report was a distortion of his initial filing to New York. A new introductory paragraph was added claiming not only that Saddam possessed biological and chemical weapons, but that he was "aggressively and covertly developing" nuclear weapons... in direct contradiction to Sabri's disclosures and Murray's report. Perception was that the alterations originated from pressure from the White House. This information was given to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and he took the US National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq's weapon's programs at face value. Britain had been given a report almost the opposite of what Bill Murray had first reported. Winter 2002, Murray kept trying to work with Sabri through the Lebanese intermediary, and submitted new reports reaffirming Sabri's intelligence but they were met with silence from the White House. Sabri's intelligence was buried and never communicated to Colin Powell at the State Department as he prepared for his UN presentation.



But there would be an even better source than Sabri. Not a foreign minister, but someone with direct firsthand knowledge of the weapons programs. Someone the intelligence community would speak to directly, not through a third party intermediary. As was revealed in the Downing Street Memo (click here) sent to Blair in July 2002, the impression of British intelligence coming back from the US that summer was that America had already made up its mind. The United States was going to go to war. We weren't interested in the truth, but rather in finding information that would confirm our existing opinions. London was more open minded about Iraq's weapons' programs and sought a way to prevent war whereas they viewed the US as merely preparing for an inevitable war. Michael Shipster was the man assigned to, perhaps, the most important mission in the run up to the Iraq War. Shipster is part of Britain's famous MI-6 (CIA)... the foreign part of British intelligence with the MI-5 being domestic, similar to the American FBI. This was an EXTREMELY secret mission... so much so, literally only a handful of people in both the United States and England were even aware of it.



In the 1980's, Rob Richer was a CIA agent who had been stationed in several different locations in the Middle East and now found himself in Amman, Jordan. Early on, he was asked by Jordan's King Hussein to spend time with his young adult son Abdullah. Over the years, he would go on to form a long deep bond with the prince helping him grow into a man and political leader. They are godfather to each others' children. They go on trips together and view each other as true friends. So close was Richer to the Jordanian family, that when terminally ill... King Hussein first summoned Rob Richer to his bedroom to tell him he had chosen Prince Abdullah to take the throne, before bringing in the prince, himself. He would quickly have a new role as an invaluable liaison to Jordan, briefing Clinton on the character of the new king.



In December 2002, Rob Richer had recently been appointed head of the CIA's Near East division. By this time... he had known Michael Shipster for years. By 2002, both men had worked in Middle East intelligence for their respective countries for many years. Shipster told Richer of a plan he had: a source inside Iraq that London had worked with for years. A man named Tahir Jalil Habbush... the head of Iraqi intelligence. He had been a governor of a Southern province of Iraq in the early 90's. By the mid 90's, Habbush moved into the Ministry of the Interior, where he was the undersecretary of security affairs before taking over Iraqi intelligence in 1999. Shipster told Richer that Habbush could be reasoned with and that he knew how to contact him. The heads of MI 6 (Sir Richard Dearlove) and the CIA (George Tenet) were made aware and Richer and Shipster went to work. Rob Richer knew the perfect place for such a meeting: Jordan, the next door neighbor to Iraq. Not only close friends with (now King) Abdullah, Richer was also close to the Jordanian intelligence director Saad Khayr who was godfather to one of Richer's kids. The US has close ties to the Jordanians who perhaps understand Iraq better than any other Mideast nation. From Amman, Jordan, all meetings with Habbush could be monitored by the US directly. Bush's 2003 State of the Union (with the infamous 16 words) was weeks away from being given and Colin Powell's assertion to the UN of mobile weapons facilities wasn't scheduled until February 2003. Both Pennsylvania Avenue and Downing Street were focused on Jordan.



The first meeting between Michael Shipster and Tahir Jalil Habbush was mostly about structure and rules. Habbush told Shipster that IF the US invaded, he wanted to be guaranteed safe passage out of Iraq. Shipster informed him that it wasn't a question of if, the US was serious and ready to invade. Habbush responded to the British intelligence officer... if they invaded, they'd find no WMD, that Iraq didn't have any weapons. That initial report was sent to Washington and London. The White House was shocked... then doubtful. Bush was frustrated and is quoted as telling an aide... "Why don't they ask him to give us something we can use to help us make our case?" In fact, Rob Richer and his Near East CIA division were working on plans for Habbush. Not just info on WMD, but as the Iraqi Intelligence Director, Richer had plans ranging on Habbush convincing Saddam to negotiate an exile or to have someone assassinate the Iraqi leader. But the people at the top (Washington & Langley) were mainly concerned with the fact that Iraqi Intelligence Director was undercutting the United State's primary rationale for war.