THE SNEAKY TRANSITION

WOLFIE SAYS SORRY

F-911 PACKING THEM IN

Remember the sneaky start of the pre-emptive war for Iraqi (sic) “freedom?” It began with that “decapitation” air strike that the brain trust in the White House launched to pre-empt the war itself. 50 Cruise missiles slammed into a home in Baghdad in the middle of the night with the president ready to declare “Gotcha! War Over” before it even began. How covert of them. The problem was, of course, that their intelligence was as flawed as their plan.

Their HVT (The Highest of the High Value Targets) eluded them. The most expensive failed assassination attempt in history was deadly all right — for the civilians who happened to be there — but in military terms, it was a dud. It was as slick as that scene in Fahreheit 9/11 where Paul Wolfowitiz (see below) slicks down his uncooperative hair with a bit of his own spit on a comb.

TRANSITIONING, BUSH STYLE

Working from the same playbook, they did it again — this time, with a pre-emptive tranfer of power, again in secret, with the details and deal unclear. Tom Engelhardt slimes the sleaze in this latest too clever by a half maneuver:

When the “transition” moment occurred in Baghdad — so tightly was the secret held that not even comrade-in-arms Tony Blair knew the schedule — George Bush, in Turkey for the NATO summit, is reported to have turned to the British Prime Minister. “Stealing a glance at his watch to make sure the transfer [of sovereignty] had occurred, Bush put his hand over his mouth to guard his remarks, leaned toward Blair and then put out his hand for a shake.”

That was in keeping with the moment. And momentary it was. An unannounced five-minute, “furtive” ceremony, two days early, on half an hour’s notice, in a “nondescript room” in the new Iraqi prime minister’s office, under a blanket of security, with snipers on adjoining rooftops in the heavily fortified Green Zone, “before only a handful of Iraqi and U.S. officials and journalists.” A few quick, polite lies (L. Paul Bremer III: “I have confidence that the Iraqi government is ready to meet the challenges that lie ahead”), a few seconds of polite clapping by the attendees. That was it. Sovereignty transferred. The end.

… There were no representatives from other governments. No flags. No bands. No cheering crowds. No marching troops. No hoopla. Nothing at all. And two hours later, Bremer, the erstwhile viceroy of Baghdad, his suits and desert boots packed away, was on a C-130 out of the country … Talk about “cutting and running,” he didn’t even stick around the extra five hours for the swearing in of the new interim administration. That’s not a matter of catching a flight, but of flight itself.

But which media outlets reported it this way? Is it any wonder that many Americans remain confused over what is happening in Iraq? Just look at the coverage yesterday of the “handover.” It was reported as if something really occurred of significance with Bremer leaving stage right and “Ambassador” John Negroponte arriving from stage left. It is a distinction with little difference. Of course, CNN led with President Bush’s comments, essentially framing the story as positive. Here’s the headline and lead:

BUSH: “The Iraqi people have their country back."

Fifteen months after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, sovereignty was turned over to the new Iraqi interim government Monday — two days ahead of schedule. President Bush marked the early transfer of power by declaring that “the Iraqi people have their country back.

This is how blatant propaganda and bogus government claims become transmitted and then accepted by many as fact. In Indonesia, they would call it a “shadow play.” Al Jazeera, was more skeptical noting that 160,000 foreign troops will remain in Iraq, hedging their bets with a question and then an even handed assessment.

Iraq: End to occupation?

Officials and analysts are split over what exactly took place during the “handover of sovereignty” ceremony in Baghdad on Monday. According to US officials, Iraqis have regained their sovereignty after power was transferred from the Coalition Provisional Authority to an interim Iraqi government. They say this will pave the way for full, democratic elections by the end of 2005. However, critics argue the ceremony was a public relations exercise during which no real power was handed over.

“RAFT OF EDICTS”

How strange. This sets the story up as one side claims one thing while unnamed “critics claim another.” Don’t these people read the press? Here’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Walter Pincus in the Washington Post on Sunday. Rather than being referenced on Monday, the story disappeared in a miasma of instant amnesia, or should we call it “NEWSNESIA?” This story makes clear that the answer to the question “End of Occupation?” is not on the one hand or the other; it is a firm NO.

BAGHDAD, June 26 — U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer has issued a raft of edicts revising Iraq’s legal code and has appointed at least two dozen Iraqis to government jobs with multi-year terms in an attempt to promote his concepts of governance long after the planned handover of political authority on Wednesday.

Some of the orders signed by Bremer, which will remain in effect unless overturned by Iraq’s interim government, restrict the power of the interim government and impose U.S.-crafted rules for the country’s democratic transition. Among the most controversial orders is the enactment of an elections law that gives a seven-member commission the power to disqualify political parties and any of the candidates they support. The effect of other regulations could last much longer …

BORN

Actually, writer Adam Hochschild nails the reality far better than any of the 24 hour news channels. He writes:

Some fifteen years ago, while writing about apartheid-era South Africa, I visited one of its nominally independent black “homelands.” This crazy quilt of territories was a control mechanism the white regime had come up with in a country where whites were vastly outnumbered by South Africans of other colors. For the most part rural slums, the homelands, also known as Bantustans, made up about 13% of the nation’s land. I was driving across miles of veldt where blacks were trying to scratch a living from eroded or unyielding patches of earth that white farmers didn’t want, interspersed with shantytowns of shacks constructed out of corrugated metal, discarded plasterboard, and old automobile doors. Suddenly, looming out of this desolate landscape like an ocean liner in a swamp, was a huge office building, perhaps 4 or 5 stories high and 150 yards long, with a large sign saying, in English and Afrikaans, “South African Embassy.”

I remembered that building the other day when reading about the new U.S. Embassy that will open in Baghdad this week. With a staff of more than 1,700 — and that may be only the beginning — it will be the largest diplomatic mission in the world. Just as our embassy will be considerably more than an embassy, so the Iraqi state that will officially come into being in its shadow ?.will be considerably less than a state …

If the new Iraq-to-be is not a state, what is it? A half century ago one could talk about colonies, protectorates, and spheres of influence, but in our supposedly post-colonial world, the vocabulary is poorer. We lack a word for a country where most real power is in the hands of someone else, whether that be shadowy local militias, other nations’ armies, or both. Pseudostate, perhaps. From Afghanistan to the Palestinian Authority, Bosnia to Congo, pseudostates have now spread around the globe. Some of them will even be exchanging ambassadors with Iraq.

I found this FT report on missing money in Iraq on OneWorld.net:

In a report due for release today, Christian Aid, the UK-based international development charity, says the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) has approved a flurry of spending commitments using Iraqi funds with few controls ahead of Wednesday’s handover of sovereignty. “In the run-up to the handover, billions more dollars have been hastily allocated to projects that do not appear to have been properly planned,” the report said. “This lack of accountability creates an environment ripe for corruption and theft at every level.”

WAR CONTINUES

Three more marines were killed by a road side bomb. One of their dazed comrades told BBC, “We are just hear to help." Meanwhile another soldier faces death by beheading. Oddly Al Jazeera refers to the group that earlier executed a US soldier as a “purported Iraqi group" — "In videotaped and written statements mailed to Aljazeera, a previously unknown Iraqi group has claimed it has executed a US soldier it captured in April.” The resistance movement in Iraq has not fodef its tent. Again Al Jazeera: "At least four strong explosions shook Baghdad early on Tuesday, hours after US-led occupation forces transferred power to the interim Iraqi government, an Aljazeera correspondent reported.”

FRENCH PRESIDENT LECTURES US PRESIDENT

While BBC reports that NATO members are going to be getting into the “stabilize” Iraq business, French President Chirac is lecturing President Bush, according to CNN:

French President Jacques Chirac has taken U.S. President George W. Bush to task over his call for Turkey’s admission to the European Union. “If President Bush really said that in the way that I read, then not only did he go too far, but he went into territory that isn’t his,” Chirac said of a remark Bush made over the weekend. “It is is not his purpose and his goal to give any advice to the EU, and in this area it was a bit as if I were to tell Americans how they should handle their relationship with Mexico.”

MEDIA NEWS: WOLFIE SAYS SORRY

Topping our media news is this report from the Guardian via EJC:

Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary and one of the architects of the war in Iraq, issued a rare apology yesterday after he said journalists in Baghdad were too afraid to cover the news. At a hearing before the House armed services committee in Washington on Tuesday Mr Wolfowitz lambasted press coverage of the occupation of Iraq, which he said was too focused on the negative. “Frankly, part of our problem is a lot of the press are afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad and they publish rumors,” he told the committee. US officials in Baghdad and Washington have repeatedly blamed the press, both Arab and western, for presenting a bad image of the occupation. Iraq has proved one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists to work. According to the International News Safety Institute, a journalists’ support group, 30 Iraqi and foreign journalists and their staff have been killed in Iraq in the first six months of this year.

SEIG HEIL

The Media Matters for America website reports:

The Bush-Cheney campaign has put up an ad on its website that makes use of that spot comparing George W. Bush to Hitler that was uploaded to MoveOn.org some months ago as part of a contest, and that was yanked as soon as it was discovered. In a blast e-mail titled "Disgusting," Kerry-campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill writes: “Yesterday, the Bush-Cheney campaign, losing any last sense of decency, placed a disgusting ad called “The Faces of John Kerry’s Democratic Party” as the main feature on its website. Bizarrely, and without explanation, the ad places Adolf Hitler among those faces.

The Bush-Cheney campaign must pull this ad off of its website. The use of Adolf Hitler by any campaign, politician or part is simply wrong. Cahill is being just a tiny bit disingenuous, making it sound like the Bush campaign is comparing Kerry to Hitler. Actually, the Bush campaign is desperately trying to pretend that the Kerry campaign is comparing Bush to Hitler. Quite a stretch, given that we’re talking about an unsolicited contest entry for which MoveOn.org apologized many months ago. That’s disgusting, all right.

PBS IN DEEP DOO DOO

John Motavalli reports in TV Week magazine that PBS is experiencing its worst crisis in history:

Faced with a major drop in corporate, private and government funding, lower ratings and an ongoing revolt over excessive programming costs by dozens of its 349 member stations, the Public Broadcasting System is in one of the worst crises of its history.

Adding to the woes are questions about how long PBS President Pat Mitchell, who has held the job the past four years, will remain at the helm. She conceded in a recent memo to her staff that she has been interviewing for the top spot at the Motion Picture Association of America. But PBS Chief Operating Officer Wayne Godwin said of the MPAA job: “There is no longer an interest there on her part.”

YOUR LETTERS: ON IRAQ AND F-911

Mitch writes: "First off, thanks for doing all you do. Secondly, your bit in today’s dissector on US/NATO and the stripped-bare Iraqi army stirred some recollection on my part, regarding the ‘martial law’ baloon Allawi floated last week. I blogged it here."

New Mexico’s Andrew Stone: “Saw this bumper sticker and laughed Visualize Compassionate Impeachment. Also, I’ve been amazed at how Republican associates have told me Michael Moore’s movie is ‘Full of Lies’ and he did it ‘Strictly For the Money.’ When pressed, they couldn’t provide me with any details on anything that was inaccurate however. NPR’s grand-old-man Daniel Shore was shoring up this nonsense on Sunday’s Weekend Edition, sad really to see how co-opted people have become.”

Mrs. Teddi Curtis from Corona California: “And, since what goes on in theaters has a direct effect on my children’s income, I pay attention to the movie news. I’m sure you’ve seen the headlines about the movie breaking all documentary records with its $21 million opening weekend. You may have missed the story about increasing the distribution from 868 screens to 2,000 screens in July. 800 screens is more than double the number normally showing a documentary. The films that were topped by Fahrenheit 9/11 were shown in many more theaters than it was. Had the distribution company been aware of how well this film is being received, it’s feasible that it could have had a much higher grossing opening weekend. And, some theater managers (not in my children’s chain) are not enforcing the R rating. One posting on Mr. Moore’s website told of an armed guard checking tickets and IDs, making sure no one under 17 got in to see the film unaccompanied by a guardian, which is highly unusual. And Editor and Publisher wrote that nine out of ten reviews were positive. I’d say Michael Moore has a hit on his hands!”

Mary Ann writes from Wisconsin: “Danny, here in Milwaukee the film was first going to be shown only in an art theater, next in 3 theaters, one in a mall (where we bought tickets last Tuesday evening), and by the middle of last week it was opening in 7 theaters (only one the art theater!).”

DO YOU KNOW OF DISENFRANCHISED FLORIDA VOTERS?

Elana writes after viewing my film Counting on Democracy about the voter fraud in Florida in 2000. “I thought your film was great and I was hoping you could help me locate voters who were not permitted to vote or whose votes were miscounted/uncounted in 2000 for a voter registration ad campaign I am working on. I am part of Downtown for Democracy, a PAC dedicated to mobilizing the creative community to get out the vote and support progressive candidates in this critical election year. One of our projects is Register to Vote/Register to Win ? a campaign where we pair up with influential progressive independent youth magazines, record labels and websites to do voter registration and subsequent GOTV follow up … We need to locate people in Florida whose photos we can take and I was hoping you might help me figure out how best to reach out to people. Ideally we would like a diverse sampling ? from those purged as felons to the older voters of Palm Beach.”

Jay Spark writes from Canada:

Jay Spark writes from Canada: “I really enjoyed your blog today. Sounded like you enjoyed writing it. It made me nostalgic about stays in the US during the fifties and sixties! I was in the south mainly: Florida panhandle, Memphis, the Carolinas. I remember being freaked, as a teenager, by the whole segregation deal, and very impressed by the courage of those in the vanguard of civil rights resistance. In fact, I feel privileged to have known some really fine American people, while personally disagreeing with US government policy. Today, knowing what has happened to some Canadians and being a friend of Cubans and Muslims, I would be reluctant to cross the border, frankly. Even to change planes. I got a chuckle out of the recent Carlyn Taplin comment re former PM Brian Mulroney’s public re-appearance at the Reagan funeral. I call Mulroney the ‘Great Canadian Indenturist,’ in recognition of his extraordinary efforts to join our two countries through NAFTA. I’m headed for the ballot box momentarily, in a campaign with real snore power, but with a hyped-up Stanley Cup-type grand finale audience. The follow-up will be interesting, especially if a left-dependant minority government results. There are many “red hot potatoes” in the fire, such as ballistic missile defence, NAFTA, Cuba, NORAD, energy, water, etc. As I see it, this election is a parliamentary-style ‘check and balance,’ which temporarily allows for the expression of dissent and applies brakes to secret fast-tracking of serious bilateral agreements. The bad news is, as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez well knows, America’s strategic interests are sometimes expressed in destabilizing ways …”

ON VENEZUELA

Speaking of Chavez, Dean Kimpton adds: “Thanks for your great blog, its part of my morning work ritual. Coffee, email and the dissector. Anyway I have an article you might want to have a look at, written by ex-missionary priest Charles Hardy of his experiences in Venezuela and they way Chavez is distorted in US papers. I think its important that information about Venezuela gets out because then it might have a chance of life without the choking hand of industry power and greed silence it again, like many other south americans countries."

GREAT 30 PAGE READ: FREE

Veteran war correspondent and best-selling author T.D. Allman charts the course of America’s emergence, under George W. Bush, as the world’s most dangerous, destabilizing and detested nation. ROGUE STATE (published by Nation Books of New York City) tells how, Bush and those around him squandered the goodwill of the world, insulted America’s allies, lost the respect of developing nations, and unleashed a new era of danger and instability in international affairs in the course of Bush’s determination to launch an unnecessary and unsuccessful war in Iraq. Read an excerpt for free at the ColdType website.

HAARVARD YAARD

I had a great time speaking yesterday at an institute for secondary school educators at Joan Shorenstein Center event at the JFK School of Government at Harvard. I was on a panel with writer Susan Tiftt of Duke University and Stephan Greyser of the Harvard Business School on media ownership. It was just one event in a fabulous week long seminar on Media and American Democracy. The teachers all seemed very informed and involved on making media issues matter in their classrooms. There was an enthusiastic response to my call for more media literacy education.

My travels continue. I will be in DC tomorrow hoping to generate interest in my film WMD, and then in Brazil at week’s end for yet another media conference. My yak offensive continues with no rest for the weary. Your comments mean a lot to me. Isn’t it great to have so many people all over the world chiming in? Join them. Write: dissector@mediachannel.org