Paul Sperry

All of President Bush’s chest-puffing, swaggering and tough talk over winning the war on terrorism reduce to one big nothing when you consider – with the kind of cold-eyed logic and dispassion that eludes today’s courtier press and punditry – that on the two biggest issues of his term, he is a miserable failure. The … Continue reading “No OBL, No WMD”

Internal Pentagon documents show that the inspector general tasked with investigating what led to the Army’s abuse of prisoners in Iraq is at least planning to conduct a thorough and wide-ranging investigation. His bottom-up inquiry is not stuck at the bottom with military police, who so far have borne the brunt of the blame. Rather, … Continue reading “Pentagon Questions All Iraq Interrogators Under Oath”

Nearly three years have passed since 9-11, yet one wonders if Vice President Dick Cheney ever abandoned his “secure undisclosed location.” He still seems to be secreted away somewhere, only coming out of hiding long enough to resell the Iraq war on some friendly neocon stage lent for the spread of more false propaganda. After … Continue reading “Tricky Dick Cheney”

On the eve of the Iraq war, Pentagon lawyers gave license to torturing suspected terrorists in custody. Use of drugs on prisoners wasn’t banned in all cases. Even killing in some cases was justified. That’s the gist of a March 6, 2003, draft Pentagon report titled, “Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global … Continue reading “The Torture Working Group”

I used to marvel at James Carville and Paul Begala. Despite the parade of scandals during the Clinton administration – eight years of lies, deceit and power abuses – they never got tired of defending the indefensible. Now I stand in amazement at Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, fast on their way to becoming the … Continue reading “Republicans Can’t Handle the Truth”

While the Pentagon says it plans to scale back the U.S. occupation in Iraq, it’s quietly doing just the opposite, high-level internal e-mails reveal. It has launched a massive nationwide call-up of former service members across the country who have not fully completed their eight-year contractual obligation to the US Army. They are known collectively … Continue reading “Phony Disengagement, Secret Escalation”

What struck me most about Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s testimony last week was how he reserved his greatest indignation for those who leaked classified information exposing rampant military abuse of Iraqi prisoners. They did so “against the law,” he twice noted in a testy exchange with a senator. Rumsfeld seemed more upset with conscientious whistleblowers … Continue reading “Prisongate: The Down and Dirty”

President Bush says he’s been "shaken" by the reports of Iraqi prisoner abuse at the hands of U.S. soldiers. What did he expect? He’s the one who whipped them into an anti-Iraqi frenzy. He’s the one who called Iraq "evil." He’s the one who told them it was a "direct" threat to America. He’s the … Continue reading “Losing the Moral War”

WASHINGTON – While President Bush and his security advisers obsessed over Russia, China, Iraq and missile defense before 9/11, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his neoconspirators were just as stuck in the Cold War over at the Pentagon. Al-Qaida hardly registered on their radar screen, either. We know this because the 9/11 Commission just told … Continue reading “Corroborating Clarke at Pentagon”

WASHINGTON – Just before Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld testified before the 9-11 Commission last week, reporters were handed his prepared statement. Unlike statements by other witnesses during the hearings, his came with an attachment – a stack of papers almost an inch thick, held together by a binder clip. "Boy," one reporter remarked under her … Continue reading “Rummy’s Rules for War”