Here's something else that's noteworthy from Cheney's speech. He again falsely implied that Saddam was working with al Qaeda:

We had the anthrax attack from an unknown source. We had the training camps of Afghanistan, and dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists.

It's unclear which "Mideast terrorists" those were. After all, Saddam had for over 30 years been the leader of a major Mideast country. It would be surprising if you couldn't find that he had "ties" to terrorists of some kind. But Cheney's purpose in bringing it up is clearly to suggest that Saddam had meaningful connections to the terrorists who hit us on 9/11. That's long been known to be a lie.

More possible evidence that the Bush administration used torture to get information about Iraq?

Back in 2004, the Associated Press reported on the plight of several Guantanamo detainees who had previously been held by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Among them was one Iraqi:

The Iraqi, Arkan Mohammed Ghafil al Karim, says he deserted from Saddam Hussein's army and was later imprisoned and tortured by the Taliban for two years. He says he was brought to Guantanamo in 2002 so that the American military could learn about Iraq's army ahead of the invasion of that country.

Read more »

Here's another possible piece of evidence that the Bush torture program was used to bolster the political case for the Iraq war.

That 2004 intelligence committee report on Iraq intel that we just wrote about also contains a short section, on page 324, on the information provided by Abu Zubaydah:

The CIA provided four reports detailing the debriefings of Abu Zubaydah, a captured senior coordinator for Al Qaida responsible for training and recruiting. Abu Zubaydah said he was not aware of a relationship between Iraq and al Qaida. He also said, however, that any relationship would be highly compartmented and went on to name al Qaida members who he thought had good contacts with Iraqis. For instance, Abu Zubaydah indicated that he had heard that an important al Qaeda associate, Abu Mus'ab al -Zarqawi, and others had good relationships with Iraqi intelligence ... REDACTED ... During the debrefings, Abu Zubaydah offered his opinion that it would be extremely unlikely for Bin Laden to have agreed to ally with Iraq, due to his desire to keep organization on track with its mission and maintain its operational independence.

Read more »

A great find by the Huffington Post offers additional evidence that the Bushies used torture to try to Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda :

A line buried on page 353 of the July 2004 Select Committee on Intelligence report on pre-Iraq war intelligence reads:

CTC [Counter Terrorist Center] noted that the questions regarding al-Qaida's ties to the Iraqi regime were among the first presented to senior al-Qaida operational planner Khalid Shaikh Muhammad following his capture.

"Among the first presented".

Yesterday we rounded up the other evidence that torture was used to bolster the political case for war with Iraq.

At last, the torture debate looks to be heading toward what's been the big question lurking in the background all along: was the Bush administration using torture in large part to make a political case for the invasion of Iraq?

Writing on The Daily Beast, former NBC producer Robert Windrem reports that in April 2003, Dick Cheney's office suggested that interrogators waterboard an Iraqi detainee who was suspected of having knowledge of a link between Saddam and al Qaeda.

Read more »

Here's a very interesting line from the statement Nancy Pelosi just gave:

We also now know that techniques, including waterboarding, had already been employed, and that those briefing me in September 2002 gave me inaccurate and incomplete information.

At the same time, the Bush Administration was misleading the American people about the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. (our itals)

Read more »

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) led the congressional charge against the Pentagon's use of retired military analysts to shill for the Iraq war on TV -- a program that was exposed in that Pulitzer-winning New York Times report.

Now the Pentagon Inspector General's office has withdrawn a report into the affair, which had largely exonerated the department, finding that it "did not meet accepted quality standards for an Inspector General work product." And DeLauro isn't mincing words about the news.

Read more »

A senior enlisted U.S. Army soldier--Master Sergeant John Hatley--was convicted two days ago by a military jury in Germany of executing four handcuffed, blindfolded Iraqi men by shooting them in the backs of their heads.

That's a newsworthy (and, of course, gruesome) story in and of itself, but there's a story behind the story.

Read more »

Change we can believe in? Maybe not so much.

The Obama administration is siding with the Bush administration in trying to kill a lawsuit brought by watchdog groups that seeks to gain access to Bush White House emails, reports the Associated Press.

At issue are emails from key periods of the Bush years, including the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, and the investigation into the Valerie Plame leak.

In response to the suit brought by two groups, CREW and the National Security Archive, the Bush White House recently said that it had found 14 million of the e-mails and had taken steps to archive others. But the plaintiffs called those steps inadequate.

Now the Obama Justice Department is seeking to have the suit dismissed, just as the Bush DOJ did.

"The new administration seems no more eager than the last" to deal with the issue, Anne Weismann of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told the Associated Press.

The AP adds:

Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, noted that President Barack Obama on his first full day in office called for greater transparency in government.

The Justice Department "apparently never got the message" from Obama, Blanton said.

Sounds about right.

This should do the trick.

Blackwater Worldwide, the contractor that emerged over the last few years as Exhibit A for ugly Americans in Iraq, has decided that the best response is to ... change its name.

And check out the name they picked: "Xe." (Apparently it's pronounced like the letter 'Z.' Raising the question: Why not just call it "Z"?)

They've also renamed Blackwater Lodge & Training Center, the subsidiary that does much of their controversial overseas operations. It's now the "U.S. Training Center Inc." (Which doesn't exactly mesh with "Xe," but whatever.)

According to the Associated Press, Blackwater (or should we say "Xe"?) president Gary Jackson said in a memo to employees, announcing the changes, that they reflect a shift in the company's focus away from private security and toward operating training facilities around the world.

You can see how "Xe" would be the obvious name to reflect such a shift.

It's not hard to guess why Blackwater (or wait, Xe) wants to get out of the private security business. In 2007, Blackwater guards opened fire in a Baghdad square, killing 17 Iraqis. Five ex-Blackwater guards were charged with voluntary manslaughter and are awaiting trial.

And recently, thanks largely to that incident and other cases where Blackwater has been accused of using excessive force, the Iraqi government declined to renew the company's contract to operate in the country. Soon after, the State Department announced that, in any case, it wouldn't renew Blackwater's contract to operate in Iraq.

No word yet on whether Iraq and State will reconsider now that that the company is called "Xe."

Et tu, State Department?

Earlier this week, we told you that the Iraqi government had decided not to renew Blackwater's contract to operate in Iraq, thanks to a 2007 incident in which Blackwater guards opened fire in a Baghdad square, killing 17 Iraqis, among several other cases of excessive force. Five ex-Blackwater guards were charged with voluntary manslaughter and are awaiting trial in connection with the 2007 incident.

Now, the State Department, which depended on Blackwater as its biggest contractor providing security to US diplomats in Iraq, has followed suit, according to the Associated Press, declining to renew the controversial company's contract to protect department personnel in Iraq when it expires in May.

The decision was a result of the Iraqi government's move, according to a department official.

In the AP's words, the state Department is "still considering its options" as to how to proceed.

Are Blackwater's days in Iraq numbered?

The Iraqi government has said it won't be issuing a new operating license for the contractor, which is the prime security company for the US Embassy in the country.

It's hard to blame the Iraqis. Blackwater has several times been accused of using excessive force. In 2007, its guards opened fire in a crowded street, killing 17 civilians. The guards were charged with voluntary manslaughter and are awaiting trial.

According to Iraqi officials, it was this incident that prompted them not to renew the license, reports the Washington Post.

There's a bit of a catch though. The Post adds:

Blackwater employees who have not been accused of improper conduct will be allowed to continue working as private security contractors in Iraq if they switch employers, Iraqi officials said Wednesday.

And according to Wired magazine, that's exactly what could easily happen. It reports:

The State Department has a contract for "Worldwide Personal Protective Services" with three firms: Blackwater, DynCorp, and Triple Canopy. If Blackwater is no longer allowed to operate in Iraq, a lawyer steeped in the field tells Danger Room, there's no legal reason why the other two firms can't scoop up Blackwater's employees. "State simply issues a new task order to DynCorp or Triple Canopy, who turn around and hire some or all of Blackwater's employees," he says.

So we may ultimately find out whether the string of violent acts we've seen from Blackwater guards were the result of the company's culture itself -- or the types of personnel they hired.

Already, a consensus of experts has formed to tell TPMmuckraker and others that President Obama's executive order on presidential records, issued Wednesday, could impact efforts to pry loose key documents from the Bush White House.

And the man who served as President Clinton's lead attorney for executive privilege issues yesterday went further, suggesting that that was exactly Obama's goal.

Neil Eggleston, a White House counsel under Clinton, told TPMmuckraker that in his view, the Obama White House issued the order with specific ongoing cases in mind -- that is, with the goal of bolstering those efforts to obtain Bush's records.

Congress and good-government groups are currently fighting to get access to key Bush White House documents that might shed light on a range of subjects, from the level of White House involvement in the US Attorney firings, to the Valerie Plame leak probe, to the decision to invade Iraq. "This is absolutely about all those issues," said Eggleston.

At its heart, said Eggleston, Obama's order is about "who gets to assert executive privilege." It says that former presidents can claim such privilege, but they have no automatic ability to prevent the release of their records if the current administration deems it to be in the national interest. That echoes the view of other experts who have examined the order, including the conservative legal scholar Doug Kmiec, who spoke to TPMmuckraker yesterday.

In a sense, said Eggleston, it's a directive to the National Archivist. "It says: 'Archivist -- if Bush calls up and says don't release certain papers, don't listen to what he says, listen to what I say.'"

Eggleston, now a partner at Debevoise and Plimpton's Washington office, cautioned that if a decision were made to release certain Bush records, and the former president chose to go to court to stop it, it's not absolutely certain that he would lose -- since no executive order can alter the constitution's executive privilege guarantee. But he said that the order would at the very least be likely to sway a court towards openness.

So if we do eventually learn the full story of the Bushies' involvement in the US Attorney firings, and get access to information about their record on a range of other issues, it looks like we may have the new president to thank.

It's Friday at 4pm on the last business day of the Bush administration.

So of course, the Pentagon has just released its report on its TV pundit program, which it used to promote the Iraq war, that the New York Times uncovered last year.

It's here.

The Hill reports today:

Despite keeping Defense Secretary Robert Gates in the Pentagon, President-elect Obama's transition team informed 90 Bush appointees their services will not be needed after Inauguration Day.

It's worth pointing out that another roughly 160 political appointees were kept on. But here at TPMmuckraker, we were more interested in what came next.

The paper reported that, in response to the Obama team's move, Jim O'Beirne, the special assistant to the secretary of defense for White House liaisons, sent an email to the dismissed DOD staffers, in which he suggested that they were being removed by political opponents as a result of their effectiveness in carrying out Bush administration policies.

Reports The Hill:

In the email, O'Beirne tried to assure the soon-to-be displaced employees that the decisions were based on "policy change in the Obama administration" and not based on performance.

However, he said, if employees "harbor residual doubts" then they can "content yourself with the likelihood that it was your outstanding performance as a Bush appointee that drew the opposition's attention to you."

"In that regard, you may take justifiable satisfaction that you were among the first to be chosen," O'Beirne wrote.

Now, this way of thinking -- that being removed by "the opposition" (that is, the man who'll be our president) is a badge of honor, because it shows that you were committed to implementing the policies of the previous president -- is misguided coming from anyone.

But The Hill doesn't note that in the case of O'Beirne, a longtime GOP operative who's married to the conservative commentator Kate O'Beirne, it's perhaps not surprising. Consider this excerpt from a Washington Post story from 2006:

After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon.

To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.

O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade.

In other words, O'Beirne led the disastrous process in which key posts in the Coalition Provisional Authority were given to Heritage Foundation research assistants who knew nothing about Iraq but were loyal to the GOP. And we all know how that turned out.

So perhaps it's to be expected that O'Beirne would continue to see government only through the prism of politics. Still, it's an outlook that's rarely expressed so crassly.

Thanks to reader W.M. for the tip.

The New York Times and Pro Publica got an advanced look at a report on the American reconstruction of Iraq -- and it's not pretty.

The report concludes, in the words of the Times and Pro Publica, that even now, "the United States government has in place neither the policies and technical capacity nor the organizational structure that would be needed to undertake such a program on anything approaching this scale."

And it quotes Colin Powell saying that, in the months after the invasion, DOD "kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces -- the number would jump 20,000 a week! 'We now have 80,000, we now have 100,000, we now have 120,000.'"

But here's our favorite detail:

When the Office of Management and Budget balked at the American occupation authority's abrupt request for about $20 billion in new reconstruction money in August 2003, a veteran Republican lobbyist working for the authority made a bluntly partisan appeal to Joshua B. Bolten, then the O.M.B. director and now the White House chief of staff. "To delay getting our funds would be a political disaster for the President," wrote the lobbyist, Tom C. Korologos. "His election will hang for a large part on show of progress in Iraq and without the funding this year, progress will grind to a halt." With administration backing, Congress allocated the money later that year.

There was no evidence in the story that the Times and Pro Publica had offered Korologos a chance to respond, so TPMmuckraker contacted him. He responded in an email:

They did NOT give me a chance to comment. That all came from a 3 page memo I wrote on strategy for passing that first Iraq supplemental in 2003. Some $60 (b) billion was for the military side and $20 (b) billion was for the civilian side. The next sentence said, "The quicker we succeed at CPA the quicker our 150,000 boys will come marching home again."

That response doesn't do much to change the clear impression created by the IG report that Korologos cited President Bush's need to get reelected as a reason to support spending $20 billion of taxpayer money. And that OMB ultimately went along with the request.

Here are some other eyebrow-raising nuggets from the report:

In an illustration of the hasty and haphazard planning, a civilian official at the United States Agency for International Development was at one point given four hours to determine how many miles of Iraqi roads would need to be reopened and repaired. The official searched through the agency's reference library, and his estimate went directly into a master plan. Whatever the quality of the agency's plan, it eventually began running what amounted to a parallel reconstruction effort in the provinces that had little relation with the rest of the American effort.

And...

Money for many of the local construction projects still under way is divided up by a spoils system controlled by neighborhood politicians and tribal chiefs. "Our district council chairman has become the Tony Soprano of Rasheed, in terms of controlling resources," said an American Embassy official working in a dangerous Baghdad neighborhood. " 'You will use my contractor or the work will not get done.'"

And here's a passage that won't exactly boost Donald Rumsfeld's already rock-bottom reputation for knowing what he was talking about:

On the eve of the invasion, as it began to dawn on a few American officials that the price for rebuilding Iraq would be vastly greater than they had been told, the degree of miscalculation was illustrated in an encounter between Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, and Jay Garner, the retired lieutenant general who had hastily been named the chief of what would be a short-lived civilian authority called the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.

The history records how Mr. Garner presented Mr. Rumsfeld with several alternative rebuilding plans, including one that would include projects across Iraq.

"What do you think that'll cost?" Mr. Rumsfeld asked of the more expansive plan.

"I think it's going to cost billions of dollars," Mr. Garner said.

"My friend," Mr. Rumsfeld replied, "if you think we're going to spend a billion dollars of our money over there, you are sadly mistaken."

In a way he never anticipated, Mr. Rumsfeld turned out to be correct: before that year was out, the United States had appropriated more than $20 billion for the reconstruction, which would indeed involve projects across the entire country.

The report was compiled by Stuart Bowen, a Republican lawyer who serves as the special inspector general for postwar reconstruction in Iraq. The Times and Pro Publica obtained their copies from people outside Bowen's office. The report will be presented February 2nd at a Congressional hearing.

Moments ago, officials with the Department of Justice wrapped up a press conference at which they are publicizing the charges -- previously contained in a sealed indictment -- against the five former Blackwater guards charged with manslaughter in the deadly September 2007 shootings of 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians.

The case has been assigned to a US District Court in Washingotn DC, but defense lawyers want the case moved to Utah, where one of the former guards lives, and where they would presumably find a more conservative, pro-gun jury, reports the Associated Press.

The ex-guards could face 30-year sentences under an anti-machine gun law designed to target drug offenders.

We're also seeing an interesting emerging defense strategy of suggesting that DOJ is bowing to Iraqi pressure: "We are confident that any jury will see this for what it is: a politically motivated prosecution to appease the Iraqi government," Steven McCool, who represents one of the defendants, told the AP.

One ex-Blackwater guard, Jeremy Ridgewater, has already come to a plea deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

Blackwater is the largest security contractor in Iraq.

Late Update: In a lengthy statement emailed to TPMmuckraker, Blackwater responds:

Blackwater does not have access to all of the information gathered by federal investigators. Based on the information available to us, we understand that these individuals acted within the rules set forth for them by the government and that no criminal violations occurred.

...

As noted by the Department of Justice during its press conference, Blackwater as a company has not been charged with any crimes, and neither have any of the hundreds of other Blackwater professionals serving in Iraq.

Late Late Update: Read the court documents:
- Indictment against Blackwater
- Jeremy Ridgewater charges
- Jeremy Ridgewater plea deal

Looks like our old friends at Defense Solutions are back in the news.

You remember them. They're the Pennsylvania-based defense company that retained former GOP congressman Curt Weldon -- who's currently under investigation for corruption in regard to his ties to his daughter's lobbying firm -- as a strategic advisor.

Weldon recently pushed deals on behalf of Defense Solutions between Russian and Ukrainian weapons suppliers and the Iraqi and Libyan governments. Brokering such deals is legally murky, according to Wired magazine, because Libya and the Russian arms export agency are on U.S. blacklists.

And Defense Solutions' CEO, Tim Ringgold was accused by a Ukrainian government official of forging his name on a signed letter officiating that deal.

So we were interested to see the company make a special appearance this weekend in the long New York Times story on Ret. Gen. Barry McCaffrey's myriad conflicts of interest.

McCaffrey, the Times reports, was hired by Defense Solutions on June 15, 2007 to advocate for a similar arms deal. But he didn't mention that affiliation, says the Times, when he wrote a letter to General David Petraeus "strongly recommending Defense Solutions and its offer to supply Iraq with 5,000 armored vehicles from Eastern Europe. 'No other proposal is quicker, less costly, or more certain to succeed,' he said."

The paper continues:

Nor did he disclose it when he went on CNBC that same week and praised the commander Defense Solutions was now counting on for help -- "He's got the heart of a lion" -- or when he told Congress the next month that it should immediately supply Iraq with large numbers of armored vehicles and other equipment.

McCaffrey has had no luck so far getting the deal through for Defense Solutions, but they haven't given up hope yet - the Times reports that he is currently back advocating in Iraq on a trip sponsored by the Pentagon.

Call it a sign of the times...

It looks like Freedom's Watch, the pro-war pressure group bankrolled by casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and talked up by former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, is wrapping up its operations -- apparently without too much to show for its efforts.

The advocacy organization is likely to permanently shut its doors at the end of the year, according to sources who spoke to the Las Vegas Review Journal.

As we noted earlier this month, Adelson has been down on his financial luck lately. His casino company Las Vegas Sands recently said it may default on debt and face bankruptcy.

The group, which advocates an open-ended commitment in Iraq and unquestioning support for Israeli hawks, spent $30 million to influence the recent congressional elections.

But spokesman Ed Patru, a former spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee, wouldn't say how the group's favored candidates fared. "Our focus was to impact the debate," said Patru.

In other words, it's safe to assume, not well.

Did U.S. intelligence listen in on the personal phone calls of Tony Blair and former Iraqi president Ghazi Al-Yawer?

That's what David Murfee Faulk, a former Arab linguist who worked at a secret NSA facility, has told ABCNews.com. Murfee Faulk says he saw and read a file on Blair's "private life" and heard "pillow talk" exchanged between Al-Yawer and his then-fiancee.

The U.S. and Britain have pledged not to collect information covertly on each other, several former intelligence officials told ABCNews.com -- though this would by no means be the first time the U.S. was found to have done so.

Last month, Murfee Faulk and another former worker at the NSA facility revealed to the news network that the agency had listened in on private calls made by American journalists, aid workers, and soldiers stationed in Iraq. A Senate panel has said it is investigating those claims.

Contracting giant Blackwater has confirmed the existence of multiple federal investigations into its work in shipping weapons to Iraq, reports Congress Daily.

The North Carolina company is facing separate investigations by a grand jury in the state, and by the State Department.

But in a statement, it took issue with some details from news reports last week. "The investigations ... do not allege that the company failed to obtain licenses or failed to ensure the government was aware of its actions," it said.

Rather, it said, "[t]he investigations concern Blackwater's not properly annotating the licenses, not timely submitting required reports, and not retaining required records."

Still, it essentially admitted the most eyebrow-raising charge -- that it had shipped weapons inside sacks of dog food -- saying that this was done to prevent theft.

Separately, federal prosecutors have drafted an indictment against Blackwater guards in connection with the deadly shooting of 17 Baghdad civilians last year, though no decisions on charges have been made.

Yesterday, we noted that the State Department plans to fine Blackwater USA for illegally shipping weapons to Iraq without the proper permits.

Now, ABCNews.com adds some more detail to the picture, reporting that a federal grand jury is probing whether the company used sacks of dog food to hide weapons and silencers it was shipping into Iraq.

State Department rules forbid Blackwater from using "offensive" weapons, including silencers, which, an expert tells ABCNews.com, would only be used for assassinations.

The report adds:

Larger items, including M-4 assualt weapons, were secreted on shipping pallets surrounded by stacks of dog food bags, the former employees said. The entire pallet would be wrapped in cellophane shrink wrap, the former employees said, making it less likely US customs inspectors would look too closely.

Earlier today, the Associated Press reported that an indictment had been drafted in connection to the deadly shootings of 17 Iraqi civilians last year, in which 6 Blackwater guards have been implicated. No decision has yet been made to file charges.

Federal prosecutors have drafted an indictment against 6 guards working for Blackwater USA, who were involved in deadly shootings last year of 17 Baghdad civilians, according to the Associated Press.

But it's not yet certain that charges will be filed. AP reports:

The draft is being reviewed by senior Justice Department officials but no charging decisions have been made. A decision is not expected until at least later this month, people close to the case said.

The shootings by Blackwater guards, which witnesses described as an unprovoked attack, took place at a busy Baghdad intersection in September of last year.

Earlier this week, the company was fined by the State Department for shipping automatic weapons to Iraq without permits.