The Bush Administration: A Perpetual Cabal
In my last post, I discussed the relevance of General David Petraeus’s testimony before Congress tomorrow with respect to the military strategy in Iraq (viz. surge) and the inability to determine, absent substantial doubt, what the Bush-Cheney administration’s real objectives are. While no surprises are expected, it would be hard to overstate the significance of Petraeus’s testimony tomorrow; in spite of the fact the White House never intended his “report” to be a major milestone as the Washington Post revealed today. It would also be hard to overstate the necessity to try and discern what role and in what act General Petraeus’ pivotal testimony is in the Bush-Cheney three-act play. We don’t know what Bush and Cheney’s intentions are, but given their past performances, we can try to mitigate being duped again.
As I said in my prior post, there is an unprecedented level of secrecy in the Bush-Cheney administration and no one can credibly deny the fact that Dick Cheney is the driving force of the Bush presidency – not George Bush. In fact, today’s WaPo article about the internal disagreements in the Bush-Cheney administration further substantiate the claim.
Meanwhile, the Maliki government pressed the Americans to sit down with Iranian officials in hopes of stopping Tehran from funding and arming Shiite militias. Bush had rejected proposals by the Iraq Study Group and others to talk with Iran, but Rice decided it was time.
When Rice told Crocker to get ready for talks with Iran, he asked her the “blindingly obvious” question of whether Vice President Cheney would allow it, a U.S. official said. Rice, according to the official, told Crocker that it “wasn’t your lane,” adding, “I’ll work it back here. That’s not your problem.” (Emphasis added.)
Cheney’s control of the power levers, Draconian secrecy policies and related agenda make it abundantly clear nothing can be accepted at face value. George Bush did not bring the profound requirement for secrecy to the White House. Dick Cheney did. Cheney began his political career as an aide to Donald Rumsfeld in the Nixon administration, which crumbled under Nixon’s imperialistic rule and Watergate. In summary, Cheney, like Nixon, viewed the congressional investigations as an unconstitutional assault on the Executive Branch, which molded Cheney’s perspective on secrecy that deepened as Cheney’s political career progressed.
More often than I prefer, I find myself forgetting sordid details of the past, which can and does have a direct influence on my perspective at times. To help put things in perspective, I want to highlight some of the Bush-Cheney administration’s policies. I admit, it’s instructive and some will be quick debate to the merits of the administration’s secrecy policies. I can present the facts, but you’ll have to decide.
Given the magnitude of the Iraq War deceptions and the recent occurrence of the Justice Department scandals, I don’t think it is necessary to reiterate those indiscretions. The majority of the items noted comes directly from Charlie Savage’s book, Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of Democracy, and are more his words than mine — some direct quotes and some of my summarizations.
The Cheney Energy Task Force
The Bush administration’s first major secret endeavor was Dick Cheney’s energy policy task force.
For more than three months, Cheney’s energy task force met secretly with large numbers of oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and electric company lobbyists including the late Ken Lay, former CEO of Enron. On April 19, 2001, Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and John Dingell (D-MI) demanded the task force’s records based on the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act, an open-government law. The law says that when non-government officials help craft public policy, the government must pick a balanced representation of viewpoints and have open meetings so that interested members of the public and press can attend. Cheney simply ignored Waxman’s and Dingell’s request.
Vice President Cheney’s current chief of staff and then aide, David Addington later acknowledged meeting with “many individuals who are not federal employees to gather information relevant to the group’s work.” But these meetings with industry officials did not count, according to Addington, because the energy lobbyists weren’t official members of the task force. Furthermore, Addington initiated the first constitutional showdown between the White House and Congress by invoking “due regard for the constitutional separation of powers.”
On February 22, 2002 David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, (head of GAO) filed the lawsuit, Walker v. Cheney seeking to force Cheney to disclose the identities of the energy task force participants. After many six years and many lawsuits won and lost on both sides, Cheney has yet to reveal anything about the task force.
Related Cases:
Judicial Watch, Inc. v. National Energy Development Group et. al,
Natural Resources Defense Counsel, Inc. v. United States Department of Energy
Innocent Detainees
Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, the FBI began arresting hundreds of Arab and Muslim men around the country. “None of the more than twelve hundred cab drivers, students, restaurant workers, and shop clerks who were detained had any connection to the attacks…Many of those arrested were in the country on immigration visas whose time limits had expired….As the government began holding deportation hearings to expel the detainees from the country,” Michael Creppy in the Justice Department “issued a blanket directive closing all deportation hearings to the public, press, and family members.” Furthermore, Creppy “prohibited immigration court administrators from listing the detainees names or cases on public dockets….The Bush-Cheney administration did not argue that there was reason to believe that any particular detainee was a terrorist. Instead, it said national security demanded blanket secrecy because terrorist cells, reading about the deportation proceedings in the media, might piece together bits of pieces of information, harmless by themselves, that could provide useful insights into the government’s investigations.” The administration’s position was trust me, “the public had no right to know anything, no matter how innocuous, because any tidbit of trivial information could potentially be stitched together with other minor bits of information to conceivably provide some useful insight for terrorists.”
Related:
Detroit News Inc., v. John Ashcroft; Rulings and appeals related to Detroit News lawsuit.
Deny FOIA Requests
During the Clinton administration, with respect to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, Attorney General Janet Reno had ordered FOIA officers operate “with a presumption of disclosure” unless it was “reasonably foreseeable that the disclosure would be harmful.” In the first term of the Bush administration, Attorney General John Ashcroft turned Reno’s order and the intent of the FOIA on its head. On October 12, 2001, Ashcroft instructed government agencies “to reject FOIA requests if it was at all possible to do so, under any legal reason for withholding documents – even if the information sought was harmless.”
Related:
Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Department of Justice
Withdrawal of Presidential Historical Records
In 1978, Congress passed the Presidential Records Act, which in summary, declared White House files to be public property and requiring the government to make most files including “confidential communications…between the president and his advisers,” available to the public twelve years after any administration leaves office. On November 12, 2001 George Bush issued an executive order declaring that all records would remain sealed if either the current president or the past president (or his relatives) wanted them withheld from the public as “privileged.” Furthermore, instead of giving past presidents a one-time opportunity to go back and withhold select documents, the order declared that all requests for documents would have to be routinely screened as they came in, which would allow any requests to be delayed indefinitely. President Bush declared his, President Clinton’s, and President George H. W. Bush’s records privileged.
Related:
Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Department of Justice
Andrew Card “Information Misuse” Order
Broadening the Bush administrations secrecy policy, and specifically to protect documents related to Cheney’s Energy Task Force, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card instructed government agencies to be watchful about records containing any “information that could be misused to harm the security of our Nation and the safety of our people,” intentionally not defining the terms and therefore to interpret them broadly. The administration intended to remove public access from information that was not sensitive enough to national security to be classified under existing rules and guidelines as “Confidential,” “Secret,” or “Top Secret.” The net result was a proliferation of documents being stamped “For Official Use Only,” “Sensitive but Unclassified,” “Not for Public Dissemination,” or one of approximately sixty other designations that keep unclassified documents from the public.
My recollection from testimony in Scooter Libby’s trial is Dick Cheney stamps everything that comes in his office, even something as innocuous as a birthday card.
Removal of Dangerous Chemical Plant Information
After a chemical plant in India had a catastrophic explosion in 1984, Congress passed the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act in 1986, giving Americans the right to know if they lived downwind from dangerous chemicals. Having this information, the public could pressure chemical companies to maintain safe conditions or pursue other remedies. Invoking 9/11, the Bush administration removed this information from the EPA’s Web site resulting in substantially decreasing the public’s ability to challenge the chemical industry.
Old Government Press Releases
We’re living Fahrenheit 451 in the 21st century.
In July 2004, Forbes magazine discovered that old press releases, specifically created for public dissemination, had been declared secret. The Justice Department cited “unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” in rejecting an FOIA request for press releases previously issued about terrorism-related indictments.
Nuclear Plant Safety Ratings
On August 4, 2004, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced it would no longer let the public know whether nuclear plants had passed or failed security tests. The intent, according to the NRC, was to keep the information from terrorists; however, many argued the decision kept the public from pressuring energy companies for safer regulations. It gets worse. Early in 2005, the NRC established new rules that removed previously public, unclassified nuclear information so that only officials employed in the nuclear industry could discuss regulatory changes with the government. Even neoconservative Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), a Bush yes-man, opposed the increasing secrecy of the Bush administration. Cornyn introduced legislation to strengthen the FOIA, but it fell on deaf ears in the Republican-controlled Congress.
Alter and Censure Scientific Information and Discussion
Philip Cooney, a young political appointee, served on the White House Council on Environmental Quality in 2002 – 2003. Cooney, a former oil industry lobbyist with no scientific or environmental background, had scientists from the EPA route draft reports to his office before they were released. Cooney literally altered the scientific findings to lessen their evidence linking fossil fuels to global warming.
In January 2006, Dr. James Hansen, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a leading climate scientist, revealed the Bush-Cheney administration ordered the agency’s public affairs staff review his papers, lectures, interview requests, and website postings after Hansen gave a lecture on the necessity to reduce greenhouse emissions because of the effect on global warming. An agency spokesperson denied any retribution against Hansen, instead the spokesperson said they muzzled all their scientists, declaring it was inappropriate for NASA’s scientists to make “policy statements.”
In March 2007, scientists from the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service were scheduled to attend an international meeting on the Arctic, but their lips were sealed before attending the meeting. The Bush-Cheney administration said the scientists were not allowed to talk about climate change, polar bears and sea ice – even if asked. The administration’s policy was to have one person in the delegation, a political appointee, to speak officially for the administration simply out of diplomatic protocol.
Eliminated Layoff Statistic Reports
In December 2002, the administration announced the Bureau of Labor Statistics would no longer publish the monthly Mass Layoff Report, which detailed plant closings around the country. Why? The administration claimed it cost too much to produce the report.
Eliminated State Federal Aid Report
Governors can’t complain about other states receiving preferential federal funding if they don’t know about it, right? In March 2003, the administration eliminated the annual report detailing how much each state received from each federal program.
Muzzled Walter Reed Patients
After Dana Priest of the Washington Post exposed the deplorable conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center earlier this year, the Pentagon ordered all patients not to speak with reporters.
The Surgeon Political General
On July 10, 2007, former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional panel that the Bush-Cheney administration “repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.” Carmona was not allowed to “speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues.” The administration “delayed for years and tried to ‘water down’ a landmark report on secondhand smoke” that concluded “even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm” Moreover, Dr. Carmona was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches.
These are just a few items, but should help jog your memory on how this administration operates, and why it is necessary to consider what the dynamics surrounding Petraeus’s testimony might be.
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