Gyroscope

A newsletter for those unmoved by spin.
No. 4, Aug 11, 2003

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Can the US still blame OPEC for domestic problems if the US is part of OPEC? Probably, but the bizarre situation is now contemplated of a U.S. appointed Minster attending OPEC meetings representing the Iraq oil industry whose output is entirely under the control of the US. So should the US press for a larger quota for Iraq? There is some combination of output and resulting price that maximizes the revenue for the Iraqi oil industry (and for US reconstruction efforts) but is that output and price the one that lowers the cost to US consumers of imported oil? We don't know.

Did she or didn't she? The significance of the two quotes opposite about Condoleezza Rice and the official document assessing the evidence for Iraq's WMD program is that the White House claimed that the President's use of the WMD claim came about because they were uninformed of the objections of the CIA and the State Department. They didn't read the documents. Just a goof-up, the sort that happens all the time when you are about to commit American lives to battle. Hey, there was a lot going on. But if she did read the document, then she did know how weak the case was. But by now, the media will never notice.

By the way, Condoleezza Rice has a Chevron oil tanker named for her. She was a member of the Chevron board of directors from 1991 until her appointment as National Security Advisor. Actually, the tanker was swiftly renamed when she left Chevron to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest.

While it is fun to poke holes in various aspects of the administration's case for what they did or didn't know, a much more significant issue is the now famous speech by Colin Powell at the United Nations on February 5th of this year. He made a number of specific claims about Iraq WMD, most of which have since turned out to be exaggerated. Witness the claim about VX quoted opposite.

The evidence keeps mounting up: the case for Iraqi WMD was weak.

On the other hand, the evidence of Saudi involvement in 9/11 keeps growing. No smoking gun yet. The Saudi's have a long history of trying to play both ends, talking nice to the US and then trying to buy off fundamentalists. It may be that the Saudi's were being played by al-Qaeda rather than that the Saudi's were complicit in 9/11.

But it is interesting to contract the amplification of the Iraqi threat with the diminishment of the Saudi threat. Are we investigating the Saudi's with the same intensity we brought to the Iraqi's or to the Iranians or Syrians?

Who should be seeing Gyroscope? Email me with suggested email addresses.

"Well, well, well. President George was in one hell of bind this week when it turned out that that Saudi Arabia funded Al Qaeda, not Iraq. Realizing we'd invaded the wrong country, Bush did the honorable thing: he's come out against gay marriages"
-- Greg Palast (Quoted in Media Whores Online)

"Omar al-Bayoumi, the Saudi student who aided two of the Sept. 11 hijackers .. was paid with Saudi government funds for several years while living in the US ... he helped [the two hijackers] find housing and cashed checks for them."
-- Wall Street Journal, August 8th, p. A3

"I did read everything that the CIA produced for the president on weapons of mass destruction. I read the National Intelligence Estimate cover to cover a couple of times. I read the reports; I was briefed on the reports. This is—after 20 years, as somebody who has read a lot of intelligence reports—this is one of the strongest cases about weapons of mass destruction that I had ever read."
-- Condoleezza Rice, August 7th, being interviewed by Gwen Ifill, at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention in Dallas. (Quoted in Daily Howler)

"A senior administration official who briefed reporters yesterday said neither Bush nor national security adviser Condoleezza Rice read the [October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate] in its entirety."
--Washington Post’s Dana Milbank and Dana Priest on July 21. (Quoted in Daily Howler)

"A dead Palestinian boy's donated organs have saved four Israeli children."
-- Wall Street Journal, July 31, p. A1

"[OPEC] has not invited Iraqi officials to attend OPEC meetings since March.... Recently some influential OPEC ministers have said privately that they won't object to the presence at cartel meetings of a minister from Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council."
-- Wall Street Journal, July 31, p. A2

3.9 Billion a month. (Cost of the occupation of Iraq as estimated by the US Defense department. Quoted in the Financial Times, July 19th, p. W3.

"Powell said Iraq produced 4 tons of the nerve agent VX. .. Powell didn't note that most of the 4 tons was destroyed in the 1990s under U.N. supervision.... Experts at Britain's International Institute of Strategic Studies said that any pre-1991 VX most likely would have degraded anyway. No VX has been reported found since the invasion"
-- Charles Hanley, The Associated Press, quoted in the Seattle Times, August 10.

Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors Without Borders is an organization that brings medical personal deep inside conflict situations. Founded in 1971 by a group of French doctors, it now involves over 2,500 volunteer doctors, nurses and other medical professionals each year and operates in more than 80 countries. They staff field hospitals, train local doctors and attempt to provide a safe haven when local people can be treated. They were staffing a Baghdad hospital on March 23rd of this year with a 6 person team from Italy, France, Austria, Norway, Sudan and Algeria. Winners of the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize, they have also been awarded an "A" rating from the American Institute of Philanthropy and more than 80% of contributions go to program activities.