This Evil Bill

This evil bill is about protecting torturers from prosecution.

This evil bill overturns habeas corpus--for all of us.

This evil bill is about deliberately dis-establishing the rule of law.

This evil bill is about establishing dictatorship.

This evil bill is about making torture legal.

This evil bill just "passed."

This evil bill is the most disgusting horror that the Bushist fascists have forced on the American people--to date.

There is a cancer now on not just the Presidency, but on our whole democracy.

They have voted to establish a class of persons who are now officially non-persons, a class for whom the rule of law no longer exists. Once it was slaves, Indians, Jews, women; the designated subhuman class now consists of -- whomever the dictating executive dictates.

The Nazis killed six million people, and yet were treated with dignity and tried at Nuremberg according to the rule of law.

These evil people who wrote this bill are opposed to the rule of law and are intent upon establishing a new sub-human class, and this evil action shames our country.

---------------




Those who voted to overturn the rule of law and legalize torture:

Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Allen (R-VA)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burns (R-MT)
Burr (R-NC)
Carper (D-DE)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
DeWine (R-OH)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Frist (R-TN)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Lott (R-MS)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Santorum (R-PA)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-OR)
Specter (R-PA)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
Talent (R-MO)
Thomas (R-WY)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)

SHAME ON EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM. SHAME.

Take action via Amnesty International, here.
[Senator Clinton, speaking against this evil bill, here.]
CIA torture
pro-torture
Dirty Bush

Goebbels, Hitler: Lie Long Enough, People Will Believe You -- Well, Until Finally They Wake Up From Their Bushist Fascist Nightmare

In the wake of the National Intelligence Estimate proving that Preznit Toad-Exploder's Oedipal adjunctive war on Iraq has emboldened jihadist terrorists, rather than reducing their threat, more attention is being paid to the lead-up to 9/11.

In a desperate attempt to do Rovian spin on their unbelievable negligence--totally disregarding all Clinton administration warnings about Al-Qaeda--Bubble Boy's fave lapdog Condi Rice called President Clinton's discussion about having left his successors detailed plans on defeating Al-Qaeda "false."

Condi's nose is growing long and longer.

Take a gander, here, at a warning memo from Richard Clark about Al-Qaeda. Look in Clarke's book, where he notes that there were zero principal meetings about Al-Qaeda.

Condi's a liar. Condi's quite a liar.

Condi's quite the liar for her bosses.

Doesn't she know that lying's wrong?

Why should she?



Current Republican Senator George "Macaca" Allen doesn't know that racism is wrong.

He doesn't even know that leaving a bloody deer-head in a black family's mailbox is wrong.

"Bubble Boy" Bush and "Big Dick" Cheney and "Psy-cho Ops" Rummy don't even know that torture is wrong.


Any other questions, boys and girls?







An article on some well-deserved anti-bushist-fascist backlash, here.

Torture Recipient John McCain Caves In, Supports Dirty Bush's Pro-Torture Program

Above, Americans in Vietnam practice their water torture skills on another human being, which back in the olden days, they would have gotten in a lot of trouble for. (Well, maybe. Think of all the punishment Lt. Calley failed to receive for orchestrating the slaughter of hundreds of innocent civilians.)

OK, at least they might have felt bad about it.

That was then, this is now. Now, torture's as American as apple pie!

Dirty Bush somehow has rammed through his morally incorrect pro-torture bill, here.

Oh look. Lawless Bush has managed to undermine the foundation of our entire legal system, and is getting away with it. He's even repealed habeas corpus.

Well, that sure makes me mad enough to boil someone in oil!

Better yet, thanks to Preznit Toad-Exploder, America no longer cares about torture, really, because our frog-torturer president never felt anyone else's pain right from the get-go, did he? Some say that's kind of a sociopath thing, the utter lack of empathy thing.

The many classical forms of torture now made "legal" by Bush, with the apparent consent of McCain and rest of the morally incorrect, utter pussy Republicans:

Chinese water torture

American "waterboarding" water torture

Bamboo slivers under the fingernails

Thumbscrews

Marinating people in excrement

Sleep-deprivation torture

You get the picture. See, these forms of torture don't involve "serious" threat of death. Oh, and if you uninintentionally, accidentally cause serious bodily injury, that doesn't count, either. Same for cruel and inhuman treatment, too, because if it's accidental, it won't count. The ultra-"oops!" defense. Thank Yoo very much!

Shame on all these Bushist fascist moral perverts.

But, well, I wouldn't want to think about the hefty cases of PTSD that will be coming down the road for our brave band of American torturers, even with their shiny new Bush-granted "legitimacy."

Nope.

One feels sorry for them. The torturers will suffer for what they've done, not only in the next life, but in this one.




Ariel Dorfman, here.
Russian torture, here.
NY Times, here.
CIA torture
pro-torture
Dirty Bush

Dirty Bush & His Pro-Atrocity Crowd: Water Torture By Any Other Name Would Be -- Waterboarding

While it is not clear exactly what techniques the White House wishes to keep, sources have said those previously used include nakedness, prolonged sensory assault and deprivation, the imposition of "stress" positions, and water submersion to the verge of drowning. Bush has said none of those amounts to torture.

None of those amounts to torture, says Bush. How about we try them on him and see if he agrees with himself? National TV would be nice. But not just Bubble Boy. Rummy, too, and Cheney. Plus some loudmouth media whore media blowhards.

Sigh. I get quite weary of blogging against torture, how about you? You know, having to blog against torture. You'd think the whole thing would be self-evident.

Call me a silly starry-eyed card-carrying Buddhist if you will, but I think that people ought to know right from the get-go that one should really not be inflicting pain on others.

Not intentionally, anyhow.

Because that's, you know, wrong.

So I think that when one comes across people who appear to get off on intentionally inflicting pain on others, for whatever rationale, that, um, you know, there's something really really wrong with them.

And it's quite disturbing to be living in a country where Bush, Cheney, and Rummy, three powerful people, fit into that category. That our country is being run by three people who have something really really wrong with them.

It's disturbing that Preznit Toad-Exploder earned his nickname by purposely blowing sentient beings to bits when he was young. For fun.

It's disturbing that Dirty Dick "Shooter" Cheney finds recreational amusement in blowing to bits captive sentient beings who have zero chance of escape.

It's disturbing that Don "Psycho-Ops" Rumsfeld finds no moral quandary in ordering the torture of captive sentient beings while labeling it as "not torture because I said it's not torture." Water-torture by any other name Orwellianly becomes "waterboarding." The label itself minimizes it, making it sound like, you know, kinda fun. It's summer, hey, let's all go waterboarding!

It's winter, hey, let's all have a little bit of fun at Abu Ghraib! Piling prisoners in pyramid piles is no worse than piling up pyramids of cheerleaders! And we don't call cheerleader pyramid piles torture, do we? Honestly, Abu Ghraib Sgt. Graner's own defense lawyer said that--in Graner's defense! (I'm not making this up! I don't need to. I never need to.) Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, CIA's not-so-secret secret prisons, it's all the same government-supported sadism.

The point of torture is not to cause death but rather to cause suffering. Intense, unbearable suffering such that the torture recipient come to wishe that he or she were dead, so that suffering will cease. Is that clear, boys and girls?

Is it also clear that these our three sadists-in-chief--Bush, Cheney, Rummy--believe it's moral to cause unbearable suffering to captive sentient beings? Is it clear that their hysteric horde of followers now think that torture is as American as apple pie?

There's something really really wrong with these people.

They can't tell right from wrong.

Or, worse, they can tell right from wrong, but they choose to do evil anyway.

A Song on the End of the World

On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea.
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born,
No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the world.
There will be no other end of the world.

Warsaw, 1944
Czeslaw Milosz

None Dare Call It Torture, Well, Bubble Boy Doesn't Dare, Anyhow, Since It Would Make Him A War Criminal, Would It Not?, at WaPo, here.
Excellent article by Tom Malinowski at WaPo, here. Moral correctness at its best.
WaPo on "Bubble Boy's Last Stand for Torture Tantrum: Give Me Torture Or Give Me Breath! which I'll hold till I turn purple!! and then you'll be sorry!!)", via WaPo, here.
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Stand Against Torture, here.
Colin Powell finally shows some spine, along with the two Geneva Convention Republicans, here.
Upcoming worldly karmic consequences, here.
Iraq torture
Geneva Conventions
Bush, torture

9/11 2006: Remembering 9//11/2001

"I blame the entire Bush leadership for continuing to work on Cold War issues when they back in power in 2001. It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier. They came back. They wanted to work on the same issues right away: Iraq, Star Wars. Not new issues, the new threats that had developed over the preceding eight years"

"And I said, 'Paul, there hasn't been any Iraqi terrorism against the United States in eight years!' And I turned to the deputy director of the CIA and said, 'Isn't that right?' and he said, 'Yeah, that's right. There is no Iraqi terrorism against the United States."

By June 2001, there still hadn't been a Cabinet-level meeting on terrorism, even though U.S. intelligence was picking up an unprecedented level of ominous chatter. The CIA director warned the White House, Clarke points out.

"George Tenet was saying to the White House, saying to the president -- because he briefed him every morning - a major al Qaeda attack is going to happen against the United States somewhere in the world in the weeks and months ahead. He said that in June, July, August.
Clarke finally got his meeting about al Qaeda in April, three months after his urgent request. But it wasn't with the president or cabinet. It was with the second-in-command in each relevant department. For the Pentagon, it was Paul Wolfowitz. Clarke relates, "I began saying, 'We have to deal with bin Laden; we have to deal with al Qaeda.'

Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, said, 'No, no, no. We don't have to deal with al Qaeda. Why are we talking about that little guy? We have to talk about Iraqi terrorism against the United States.'
Clarke went on to add, "There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever." When the interviewer pointed out that some administration officials say it's still an open issue, Clarke responded, "Well, they'll say that until hell freezes over."Clarke says the last time the CIA had picked up a similar level of chatter was in December, 1999, when Clarke was the terrorism czar in the Clinton White House. Clarke says Mr. Clinton ordered his Cabinet to go to battle stations -- meaning, they went on high alert, holding meetings nearly every day. That, Clarke says, helped thwart a major attack on Los Angeles International Airport, when an al Qaeda operative was stopped at the border with Canada, driving a car full of explosives.
Clarke harshly criticizes President Bush for not going to battle stations when the CIA warned him of a comparable threat in the months before Sept. 11: "He never thought it was important enough for him to hold a meeting on the subject, or for him to order his National Security Adviser to hold a Cabinet-level meeting on the subject."
Bush never thought it was important enough?

Well, well.

Stupid is as stupid does, is it not?




(Media whore media story, here. More, here.)


9/11 anniversary
Iraq War lies
Bush

Just a Little Note for Our Search Engine People

I've recently noted a huge upsurge in traffic reaching this blog via searching for "Iraq power drill torture" or "power drill torture Iraq" or "torture drill Iraq power" or something like that. It's disturbing.

This is, after all, a Buddhist blog, people.

Today there appeared another interesting trafficker, an Iranian person who Googled "President of Iran Hungry Hungry Hippo." I'm not kidding. I don't have to.

Any how, I don't think any of you really belong here. Convince me otherwise if you wish.

Otherwise, really, go away.

Thanks.

Deja Vu All Over Again, Again, As Fifth Anniversary of Al-Qaeda Attack Approaches

On the evening of Sept. 12, 2001, . . . President Bush wandered alone around the Situation Room in a White House emptied by the previous day's calamitous events.

Spotting Richard A. Clarke, his counterterrorism coordinator, Bush pulled him and a small group of aides into the dark paneled room.

"Go back over everything, everything," Bush said, according to Clarke's account. "See if Saddam did this."

"But Mr. President, al Qaeda did this," Clarke replied.

"I know, I know, but . . . see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred."

Reminded that the CIA, FBI and White House staffs had sought and found no such link before, Clarke said, Bush spoke "testily." As he left the room, Bush said a third time, "Look into Iraq/Saddam!"

There was no linkage between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The Bush administration knew this, and invaded Iraq anyway. They put together a propaganda barrage pushing their lies until seventy per cent of Americans falsely believed Saddam was responsible for 9/11.

Five years after 9/11, a Senate report finally reveals the truth. There was no linkage between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

However, there is a linkage between Bush's Oedipal invasion of Iraq and the increasing moral and fiscal bankruptcy of this country, our failure to destroy Al Qaeda, our actual enemy, and the growing threat of Islamist fundamentalism, both Shi'a and Sunni.

Meanwhile, boys and girls, Osama Bin Forgotten. Al Qaeda, the medievalist energizer bunny, just keeps on ticking. And it looks like there's a nuclear Caliphate arising to take over the Middle East--but it will be Shi'a, not Sunni.

So it goes.

"Nothing America could have done would have provided al Qaeda and its new generation of cloned groups a better recruitment device than our unprovoked invasion of an oil-rich Arab country.

Nothing else could have so well negated all our other positive acts and so closed Muslim eyes and ears to our subsequent calls for reform in their region.

It was as if Usama bin Laden, hidden in some high mountain redoubt, were engaging in long-range mind control of George Bush, chanting, "invade Iraq, you must invade Iraq."

-- Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies

WaPo update on Bush's bogus linkage here.


Estimated US death toll, here: 12,000 dead, 25,000 badly wounded?
Estimated Iraqi death toll may reach 180,000, here.

9/11 anniversary
Iraq War lies
Bush

RUMMY: NO IRAQ PLAN BEYOND THE CAKEWALK

Guess what, boys and girls?

There's more Bushist fascist dirty laundry heading your way, and it's chock-full of stinky skid marks.

Secretary of Defense, Donald "Psycho" Rumsfeld didn't just have a really BAD plan for post-war Iraq, he had ZERO plan.

Because it was going to be a CAKEWALK. Got that?

Psycho Rummy PURPOSELY ordered the U.S. military NOT TO MAKE ANY POST-WAR PLANS.

Oh, my, boys and girls.

Can you say "criminal negligence"?

Can you say "unimaginable frickin' hubris"?

Can you say "impeachable offenses all over the frickin' place"?

[B]efore the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists to develop plans for securing a post-war Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said in an interview.

In fact, said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Rumsfeld said ''he would fire the next person'' who talked about the need for a post-war plan.

Well, Rummy sure fired Shinseki.

Scheid said the planners continued to try ''to write what was called Phase 4,'' or the piece of the plan that included post-invasion operations like security, stability and reconstruction.

Even if the troops didn't stay, ''at least we have to plan for it,'' Scheid said.

''I remember the secretary of Defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that,'' Scheid said.

''We would not do planning for Phase 4 operations, which would require all those additional troops that people talk about today.

''He said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war.''

They got around that for a while, didn't they?

Full story here.

Oh, and how about the Senate finally figuring out that the evidence showed no linkage between Saddam and Al Qaeda, and sort of coming clean about it, having cleverly kept these inconvenient truths hidden during the last presidential election, here.

And here. GOP strategies to cling to power by smearing Dems, here.


There's just not enough contempt in the whole universe to heap on these immoral, sadistic liars.

There isn't.

Rumsfeld made no postwar plan
Dirty Bush
Bushist fascists

Lawless Bush Admits He Ran Secret Prisons

BUSH ADMITS SECRET CIA PRISONS

Sydney Morning Herald

US President George Bush on Wednesday acknowledged the existence of previously secret CIA prisons around the world.

WaPo here.

Independent UK, here.

Once, one was worried about medievalist Islam destroying America.

But our home-grown Talibangelical Bushist fascist racist sadist authoritarian know-nothings are doing a much better job of destroying America--right here, and right now.

Dirty Bush, Dirty Dick, and Rummy are feckless, reckless, and out of control.

They are working hard to leave the rest of us fiscally and morally bankrupt.

Twenty-first century barbarians, they kidnap and kill at will.


How low can they go?

When will they pay for their crimes against our nation? Anytime soon?

secret CIA prisons
Dirty Bush
Bushist fascists

Oedipal Tragedy: Arrogant Bush Junior Creates the Civil War His Very Own Daddy Warned Against, and Even Sistani Cannot Stop It.

I no longer have power to save Iraq from civil war

The most influential moderate Shia leader in Iraq has abandoned attempts to restrain his followers, admitting that there is nothing he can do to prevent the country sliding towards civil war.

Aides say Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is angry and disappointed that Shias are ignoring his calls for calm and are switching their allegiance in their thousands to more militant groups which promise protection from Sunni violence and revenge for attacks.

"I will not be a political leader any more," he told aides. "I am only happy to receive questions about religious matters."

It is a devastating blow to the remaining hopes for a peaceful solution in Iraq and spells trouble for British forces, who are based in and around the Shia stronghold of Basra.

Thanks a lot, Bubble Boy. Thanks a lot, Preznit Toad-Exploder. Thanks Dirty Dick. Thanks, Rummy. You sure are reaping what you sowed. Too bad it was a crap crop, eh?

Some people, when they discover themselves trapped in an Oedipal tragedy, take self-punitive measures. Will this be happening anytime soon?

Just asking.

Bushist Fascists Stoop to Smear and Smear Again--How Low Can WaPo Go?

This WaPo editorial is quite a piece of tripe (no offense to tripe).

It pretends that naming Armitage as a Novak source magically ends the Plame affair.

Voila! "It was just silly old Dickie's inveterate gossipmongering!"

(Say, wasn't that Turdblossom's made-up cover story all along? Why are the media whore media still flogging it? Perhaps because the party-line dimwits at WaPo and the Times appear to be still buying it? They're still publishing it. Ee-ew.)

The bizarre piece of Bushist fascist propaganda came right from Closet Cupcake Karl Rove (or the guy whose recent WaPo editorial was utterly refuted by facts printed on the same paper's very own front page?).

How the mighty have fallen. How the fourth estate has crumpled into total whoredom. Poor Kay Graham, in her grave, and spinning like a top.

Good refutation of tripe "editorial" by Larry Johnson, here.

Johnson reminds us that:

Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published.

He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed. (Washington Post, 27 July 2005)

Well, perhaps if the CIA had only TOLD Novak that she was undercover, thus blowing her cover, Novak wouldn't have blown her cover, eh? It's the CIA's fault for not blabbing, don't you get it?

Emptywheel's analysis, here.

MediaMatters' story on the current anti-Fitzgerald, anti-Plame/Wilson propaganda infestation, as part of a concerted effort to trivialize treason, here.

Facts? Ha!

If they have no facts, why, let them just fake!

And faking it is what the entire reichwing noise machine is up to, from sea to shining sea.

Why, at WaPo and at WhiHou and the Grey Lady and throughout the media whore media empire, it's a veritable Cheney-cum-Goebbelsfest of vitriolic partisan propaganda 24/7.

No kidding.

Say, boys and girls, does this sound familiar?

Never allow the public to cool off;
never admit a fault or wrong;
never concede that there may be some good in your enemy;
never leave room for alternatives;
never accept blame;
concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong;
people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one;
and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

Yes, these are the kind of un-American fascists we really need to be worried about.

"There is only so much room in a brain, so much wall space, as it were, and if you furnish it with your slogans, the opposition has no place to put up any pictures later on, because the apartment of the brain is already crowded with your furniture."

Oh, and I'm not telling who was responsible for the above, but he had a nasty little moustache, was abused as a child, and went on to massacre millions.

These days, a nasty little man without a moustache whose childhood was also nasty, is the heir to that same philosophy of propaganda, and this nasty man helped prop up a government (led by one who in his youth derived pleasure from deliberately exploding toads) that has killed tens of thousands, promoted torture and racism and sexism, and pissed away billions and billions of your tax dollars while lining the pockets of his fatcat buddies.

When will we be tossing the m-f Bushist fascists off the m-f plane?

Plame affair
CIA
Bushist fascists

Say "Bushist fascist, Bushist fascist, Bushist fascist" 50 Times Real Fast And This Whole Bushist Fascist Nightmare Will Go Away?

NBC anchor Brian Williams interviewed President Bush. He asked him about his poll numbers and President Bush said, 'The key for me is to keep expectations low.' I think you can accurately say, 'Mission Accomplished.'" --Jay Leno

"The one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans was marked by President Bush with a moment of silence. A little different than a year ago, when President Bush marked the occasion by a week and a half of silence." (Jay Leno)


"I think President Bush gets confused. He said progress is being made in New Orleans and he hopes one day New Orleans will be a democracy. You know hurricanes, they hate freedom." (Jay Leno)

"Today is the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Not only that, it's the six-month anniversary of when President Bush found out about it." (Conan O'Brien)

"NBC News was also marking the anniversary [of Hurricane Katrina], but they had to settle for lesser celebrity guests, like this guy who took some time from a tour of New Orleans to tell Brian Williams about all the reading he's been doing this summer [on screen: President Bush saying he's read 'three Shakespeares' this summer]. The point is that he read three Shakespeares this summer, and that's a great way to kick off eighth grade!" (Jimmy Kimmel)

"Yesterday the president of Iran challenged President Bush to a televised debate. President Bush turned down the debate, but did challenge the Iranian president to a game of 'Hungry Hungry Hippos.'" (Conan O'Brien)

"The entire case against John Mark Karr was completely bogus. It was based on a bunch of ridiculous claims he just made up without any basis and facts. The good news? Today, the White House offered him a job." (Jay Leno)

"CNN, to mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11, is going to be re-playing their original coverage of that day. Let's just hope that President Bush doesn't tune in and go, 'Oh my God, they've done it again!'." (Bill Maher)

US, Aussies Lied About WMD Failure

Australian WMD expert and diplomat reveals deliberate attempts by the Bush Administration to conceal their complete failure to find WMDs in Iraq, ostensibly the reason Bush invaded Iraq.

The letter by Dr. John Gee

outlines in detail interference by the CIA and the Bush Administration in first reports about the weapons hunt to avoid finding that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction.

Dr Gee, one of Australia's leading chemical weapons experts, briefed Mr Downer on his concerns after his resignation. He bluntly told him that he believed Iraq had no such weapons.

The John Howard government colluded with the Bush administration to hide this failure for six months; Australia's foreign minister Alexander Downer is now in hot water for having been caught in a bald-faced lie intended to hide their failure until after the 2004 elections.

In a news conference . . .at the time, Mr Downer gave no indication that Dr Gee had told him there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or that the CIA was distorting the weapons hunt.

Instead he said that the weapons hunt was "a work in progress".

Ultimately, . . . the Iraq Survey Group publicly concluded six months later that there were no such weapons in Iraq. Until then, neither Mr Downer nor the Prime Minister, John Howard, would acknowledge this.

Full story from the Sydney Morning Herald, here and here.