Transcript of Democracy Now! For March 4, 2009

Despite Celebrated Speech, Has Obama Really Ordered an End to US Occupation of Iraq?

President Obama’s plan to withdraw US combat troops from Iraq has both been hailed by some as a signal of the coming end of the war while criticized by others as an extension of the occupation. We host a debate between Lawrence Korb, the former assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan, and Jeremy Scahill, award-winning author and investigative journalist.

Lawrence Korb, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan. He is author of more than twenty books. His latest article is “The Promised Withdrawal from Iraq”.

Jeremy Scahill, Award-winning investigative journalist and author of the New York Times bestseller, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He extensively reported from Iraq in the run-up to the 2003 invasion. His latest article is “All Troops Out By 2011? Not So Fast; Why Obama’s Iraq Speech Deserves a Second Look”.

Partial transcript:

AMY GOODMAN: One of the main themes of President Obama’s campaign was his opposition to the war in Iraq. He heavily criticized the Bush administration for the 2003 invasion and vocally opposed the war from the very beginning, when he was still an Illinois state senator. Now, as President of the United States, Obama has finally announced his plan to pull US troops out of Iraq. In a speech at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina on Friday, Obama appeared to spell out a clear date for a withdrawal.

[Video]:
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: As a candidate for president, I made clear my support for a timeline of sixteen months to carry out this drawdown, while pledging to consult closely with our military commanders upon taking office to ensure that we preserve the gains we’ve made and to protect our troops. These consultations are now complete, and I have chosen a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next eighteen months.

AMY GOODMAN: Under President Obama’s plan, up to 50,000 US troops would remain in Iraq through 2011.

[Video]:
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: As I have long said, we will retain a transitional force to carry out three distinct functions: training, equipping and advising Iraqi Security Forces as long as they remain non-sectarian; conducting targeted counterterrorism missions; and protecting our ongoing civilian and military efforts within Iraq. Initially, this force will likely be made up of 35,000 to 50,000 US troops.

AMY GOODMAN: But President Obama’s decision to keep 50,000 troops in Iraq has angered some critics of the war. Iraq Veterans Against the War described Obama’s proposal as a “plan for almost three more years of an unjustified military occupation.”
Obama’s speech on Iraq left several major questions unanswered. He did not address whether the US will keep permanent military bases in Iraq, and he made no promise to withdraw the over 100,000 private US military contractors and mercenaries stationed in Iraq.

For a debate today on President Obama’s Iraq plan, we’re joined by two guests. Lawrence Korb is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. He’s a former Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Reagan. He’s the author of more than twenty books. His latest article is called “The Promised Withdrawal from Iraq.” He’s joining us from Washington, D.C.

And joining me here in our firehouse studio is Jeremy Scahill, award-winning investigative journalist and author of the New York Times bestseller, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He reported extensively from Iraq in the run-up to the 2003 invasion. His latest article, called “All Troops Out by 2011? Not So Fast; Why Obama’s Iraq Speech Deserves a Second Look.” It appeared at alternet.org.

Lawrence Korb, can you assess the plan laid out by President Obama and why you support it?

LAWRENCE KORB: Well, basically, the plan is exactly what he laid out in the campaign. He said he was going to withdraw all combat troops within sixteen months, so he put it up by two months. And he said he would leave a residual force in there to carry out the three missions that he mentioned: going after the remnants of al-Qaeda, helping the Iraqi Security Forces deal with any type of violence other than sectarian, and to protect Americans there.

In many ways, what—the campaign promise that Obama made was actually overcome by events, because President Bush, who for the longest time had resisted a timeline, agreed in the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqis in December of 2008 that all forces would be out by the end of 2011. So, what President Obama is just doing is carrying out that agreement, because these residual forces have to be out by the end of 2011.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, your assessment?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I mean, I agree with something that Larry said there at the end. I mean, Obama essentially gave Bush’s victory in Iraq speech when he appeared in front of Camp Lejeune. I mean, this, for all practical purposes, was policy the day that Bush left office. So we’re not seeing any radical departure from official US policy at the end of the Bush administration. And, of course, as Lawrence indicates, that was the result of a very complicated process where the Bush administration was outright criminal in its refusal to recognize anything even vaguely resembling the sovereignty of the people of Iraq.

But let’s be clear here on three major problems with the Obama Iraq plan. First of all, this residual force that Obama is going to be implementing, right now the numbers they’re discussing are 35,000 to 50,000 troops. I’ve long spoken out against this residual force, and there are many activist groups in this country that, when Obama was running for president, called his office and said, “No residual forces remaining in Iraq.” The scope of the mission of these residual forces, while it sounds specific to some—phrases such as “counterterrorism” have become almost meaningless in the America we now live in when uttered by politicians. We see how they’ve been applied over the past eight years and, quite frankly, under the Clinton administration, as well. So I’m very concerned about the type of operations that this 35,000 to 50,000—if it actually gets down to that number under the timeline Obama has stated.

Secondly, Obama has refused to scrap this massive, monstrous US embassy that was built on basically slave labor, a $700 million embassy that’s the size of Vatican City. The Vatican has embassies of its own around the world. And the US has built this abomination in Iraq on slave labor, and the Obama administration is going to maintain a staff of over a thousand people there who are going to necessitate heavily armed security to go anywhere inside of the country. That’s been a cocktail for death and destruction in Iraq. Blackwater has been the company that primarily has been guarding US diplomats. Now it’s probably going to be a different company, although many of the same operatives will probably jump over to that company. So, change in name, but not necessarily in policy. Even if Obama hires these people through the State Department officially and says there’s some system of accountability, they’re still going to be putting US lives at a premium over Iraqi lives.

And the third problem that I have with the Obama Iraq plan is that it’s full of loopholes. The Status of Forces Agreement, first of all, Article 27 allows the United States and the Iraqi government to agree that the United States can stay in the country, can engage in any kind of military operations and also can take action, including military action, to address any, quote, “threat,” internal or external. Well, what’s a threat? The wrong people win an election? We’ve seen that happen before. Look at the case of Hamas in Palestine.

So, the fact of the matter is, you take these three, combined with the fact that senior military officials have told journalists, such as Jim Miklashevski of NBC News, that the Pentagon is preparing for US forces to remain in Iraq potentially for twenty more years, and I think we have reason to be very concerned about the fact that Obama basically is giving Bush’s final Iraq speech.

AMY GOODMAN: Lawrence Korb, your response?

LAWRENCE KORB: Well, I think a couple of things are important. And there’s no doubt about the fact that any agreement can be abused. But remember, it was the Iraqis who wanted us out. The Iraqis never really wanted us there, and they’re the ones who insisted on the timeline.

The other is the Iraqi people get to vote this summer on a referendum about whether they want to support the Status of Forces Agreement. If they decide not to, all the forces have to be out within a year. So I think that’s the key thing to keep in mind. And I know our military commanders have talked about, and Secretary Gates has talked about, staying there, but we could only do that with the permission of the Iraqis.
The final thing is, come 1 July, our forces are out of the cities, they’re out of the towns. They’re basically back on their bases. They can only go out with the permission of the Iraqi government. Now, I agree, there can be abuses, and I do worry that Prime Minister Maliki might try get US forces to go against some of his enemies. That’s why I think in President Obama’s speech, when he said not to deal with sectarian issues—I mean, they can ask us, but we don’t have to do that, and I would hope that the President and his national security team make that clear to our military commanders, exactly what they can and cannot do.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, see, one of the issues I have here is, going back to this issue of what if the wrong people win an election, the Iraqi people have a right to choose leaders that are hostile to the United States, that are hostile to US corporate aims in the Middle East, more broadly, and in Iraq, specifically. And I think that US history has shown that when the wrong people win elections, the US will intervene militarily, overtly, covertly, behind-the-scenes, in front of the world public. And I think that the fact that Thomas Ricks, one of the most well-informed journalists covering this war, has indicated that it’s very likely that a leader will emerge in Iraq that is hostile to US interests, that is close to Tehran and is not going to be someone that’s perceived by the United States to be a friend—so the fact is that the Maliki government could be substantially weakened by indigenous forces within Iraq, and the Obama administration could step in and say, “We’re going to defend this flailing regime.”

What I found very disturbing about Obama’s speech, among other things, was the fact that he officially co-signed Bush’s major lies on Iraq. When he talked about the mission of US troops in Iraq, he said, “I want to be very clear: We sent our troops to Iraq to do away with Saddam Hussein’s regime, and you got the job done.” I’m sorry, Mr. Obama, the troops were sent to Iraq on the lie of weapons of mass destruction. And he co-signed that Bush administration lie.

He also said, “We will leave the Iraqi people with a hard-earned opportunity to live a better life. That is your achievement,” he said to the US troops. “That is the prospect that you have made possible.” Again, no, not a better life. We’re talking about upwards of a million Iraqis that have been killed, their lives decimated, 20 percent of the country either in need of desperate medical attention, internally displaced, another 20 percent living outside of the country. And this has been an utter mess. And he talks about a better future. Iraq has never been in more shambles than it has been over the course of the US military occupation.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to come back to this discussion, Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, has written a piece on Alternet, online at alternet.org. Lawrence Korb, with the Center for American Progress, has also written a piece called "The Promised Withdrawal from Iraq.” He’s former Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Reagan. Back in a minute.

[BREAK]

AMY GOODMAN: Our guests, Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army—and I want to get to talking about Blackwater—well, it’s now called Xe. We’re also joined by President Reagan’s former Assistant Secretary of Defense. He is now with the Center for American Progress. He’s written a piece called “The Promised Withdrawal from Iraq.”

Lawrence Korb, the last point that Jeremy made about President Obama—well, he called President Bush right before he gave his Camp Lejeune speech, and then telling the troops at Camp Lejeune that they had succeeded in their mission in removing Saddam Hussein.

LAWRENCE KORB: Well, I think it’s very important, because the troops did what they were told. I agree that the war was fought under false pretences. We should never have gone there. It was probably the greatest strategic blunder in US history. But that’s not the fault of the troops. They were sent there. Their mission was overthrow the regime, and that’s—you know, that’s what they did. We can’t fault them, however much we want to be opposed to this war.

The other point he made is certainly true, that there are potential for abuses. I have enough confidence in Senator Obama that he will not let that happen. But yes, there certainly is the potential for us to make some of the mistakes we’ve made in previous—our previous history when we didn’t like the results of the election.

But I think it is important—and I did like that part, because as a young man, I went and got involved in a—you know, another terrible war. But the people I went with in Vietnam, we did what we were told. Then, when you come back and you find out, for example, that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was a sham, that’s not our fault. And that’s what—and I was glad that he did that, because it is true that these people have suffered—not only the Iraqis, but our men and women have been asked to do something that no other military in our history has been asked to do, to go back two, three, four times into a combat zone with very little, you know, time in between. And what it has done to them and their families, I think, is something that we’re going to be paying for a long time—for a long time.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I mean, part of the problem here, though, it’s not about faulting the troops. I mean, I agree with Lawrence in the sense that troops are given orders, and then they can decide whether they’re going to follow out those orders or not follow them out. We’ve seen many soldiers through IVAW, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and others who have actually resisted or have refused to participate in a war they consider to be illegal or immoral. And that, though, is separate from what President Obama did.

What President Obama did is he completely reformed his position on Iraq, co-signed the lies of the Bush administration, and cast aside his campaign rhetoric, where he did talk about this being a fraudulent war, where he did criticize the prosecution of this war. To listen to President Obama at Camp Lejeune, you would think that this war was prosecuted beautifully and that the point of it was to liberate the people of Iraq. That was not the point of this administration—of the Bush administration’s occupation of Iraq. That came like two or three justifications later, after the fraud and the lies.

So, the fact that Obama gives this speech, does not mention the fact that Iraqis have suffered under the US occupation, doesn’t mention the incredible price that the Iraqis have paid as a result of US military action in Iraq, to me, I think that sends a very disturbing message to the Iraqi people and the region, more generally.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, I wanted to ask about the response of the Democratic leaders to President Obama’s speech, like Nancy Pelosi, like Harry Reid.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. Well, first of all, yeah, you look at Obama’s top allies, it’s people like John McCain, it’s people like Mitch McConnell, who praised Obama for implementing the Bush administration’s Iraq strategy at the end. And, I mean, some of this is partisan politics. And, please, the Republicans have no credibility on this. I mean, if we can be critical of Barack Obama, I mean, the Republicans are just merciless criminals when it comes to, you know, US policy in Iraq and toward the world, more broadly.

But the fact that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer all acted like astonished that there’s going to be 35,000 to 50,000 troops in a residual capacity in Iraq and were criticizing this, I mean, this is a classic example of what’s wrong with the Democratic Party when it comes to foreign policy and what’s been wrong with this party for a long time. And that is that when it actually mattered, when Pelosi or Reid could have said to candidate Obama, “Back off that residual force,” as many activists were calling for, they were deafeningly silent. We were at the Democratic convention, Amy, walking around, trying to find anyone to criticize that aspect of the Obama policy, and not even antiwar Democrats, who were firmly against the war from the beginning, would dissent from the policy positions of the dear leader. This is cult activity, when you refuse to go after someone to try to criticize their policies when it matters and then later act like you’ve been hoodwinked. They knew exactly what was going on.

AMY GOODMAN: Lawrence Korb?

LAWRENCE KORB: Well, I think in the speech, as I read it, he did make reference to the suffering of the Iraqi people and talked about, you know, the refugee problem, so I think he did that. But again, I think Jeremy is right. I mean, you got to go back. Obama mentioned this in the campaign. So, if people are upset, they should have, you know, made these views known during the primaries. And again, while I thought the war was the greatest strategic disaster, remember that the Congress voted to approve this, including some of the other people who ran against Obama, and I think they—you know, they should be held accountable for this, as well. So I think there’s a lot of blame to go—that got to go round.

The question is, OK, we are where we are; are we, you know, doing the right thing? And I just hope that the President carries out what he says, and we’re completely out of there, no permanent bases, and that he does not allow Americans to participate in any type of operations that are done solely to deal with one ethnic group being concerned about what the other is doing.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s go from the issue of whether there are a permanent bases, which he did not address, to another issue he didn’t address: mercenaries, or the paramilitaries, the private contractors. I had a chance to question Senator Obama a year ago when he was on the campaign trail. He spoke at Cooper Union here in New York. As he was walking out, I asked him why he wasn’t calling for a total withdrawal of US troops from Iraq in accordance with the 70 percent of Iraqis who say they want the US out.

AMY GOODMAN: Senator Obama, quick question: 70 percent of Iraqis say they want the US to withdraw completely; why don’t you call for a total withdrawal?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, I do, except for our embassy. I call for amnesty and protecting our civilian contractors there.

AMY GOODMAN: You’ve said a residual force—

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Yeah, but—

AMY GOODMAN: —which would be tens of thousands of troops.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, no. I mean, I don’t think that you’ve read exactly what I’ve said. What I said is that we do need to have a strike force in the region. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in Iraq; it could be in Kuwait or other places. But we do have to have some presence in order to not only protect them, but also potentially to protect the territorial integrity.

AMY GOODMAN: Would you call for a ban on the private military contractors like Blackwater?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: I’ve actually—I’m the one who sponsored the bill that called for the investigation of Blackwater and those folks, so—

AMY GOODMAN: But would you support the Sanders one now?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Here’s the problem: we have 140,000 private contractors right there, so unless we want to replace all of or a big chunk of those with US troops, we can’t draw down the contractors faster than we can draw down our troops. So what I want to do is draw—I want them out in the same way that we make sure that we draw out our own combat troops. Alright? I mean, I—

AMY GOODMAN: Not a total ban?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, I mean, I don’t want to replace those contractors with more US troops, because we don’t have them, alright? But this was a speech about the economy.

AMY GOODMAN: The war is costing $3 trillion, according to Stiglitz.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: That’s what—I know, which I made a speech about last week. Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Senator Barack Obama a year ago at Cooper Union here in New York. Lawrence Korb, I know you have to leave for another appointment, but I did want to ask about the mercenaries, about the private contractors. They number, what, about the same as the US soldiers right now in Iraq.

LAWRENCE KORB: Troops, yeah. That’s correct. But again, as you draw down the troops, you’ll need less of them, because one of the things that they’re doing is providing logistic support, you know, for the troops, and you will need, obviously, less of that.

Remember, under the Status of Forces Agreement, they no longer have immunity. If these people act up again, they are going to be subject to the Iraqi justice system. And obviously, you’re going to need some sort of private contractors to guard the number of personnel that are in the country in this embassy. And again, I would not have built such a big embassy, but it is there, and hopefully, over the years, we can get that back to a normal size, if we ever get back to having a normal relationship with Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Lawrence Korb, I want to thank you for being with us, from the Center for American Progress, former Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Reagan. And, Jeremy Scahill, if you would just stay with us for a few more minutes, I want to stay on this issue of the private contractors.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Can I say something about what—about this issue first? I mean, on the issue of the US embassy, I think that the Obama administration should turn it over to the Iraqi people and let them decide what they want to use that massive city within their city for. And the fact is that—

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking about like a four mile square area in downtown Baghdad.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah, I mean, you’re talking—yeah, you’re talking about a small city unto itself that’s going to have 1,200 employees and hundreds of CIA operatives, was the initial plan for it. And all these people are going to necessitate deadly and lethal security. So that would be a real message of change to send to the Iraqi people, to say this was an embassy built on slave labor as part of an illegal occupation of your country—

AMY GOODMAN: Why do you say “slave labor”?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Because there were people that were brought in. It was essentially indentured servitude. There were people that were brought in from other countries that worked on the construction of that project, much like Africans abducted from the African continent and brought here as slaves, they and their descendants were building the White House in this country. Here we are, years later, with the US government having the embassy built largely on labor that was forced labor or dramatically underpaid labor by people that were essentially forced by their economic conditions or by being taken into the country under false pretenses to participate in the construction of that embassy. And this is the subject of a major congressional investigation that I don’t know is going to go anywhere now that Obama is in the White House.
But on the issue of the contractors, I mean, what you asked Obama about a year ago is very, very important, because Obama said in his answer to you that he didn’t want to draw down contractors at a faster rate than he drew down US troops. So, even when Obama is talking about 50,000 troops remaining in the country, presumably that would mean 50,000 contractors to support them. So we’re always talking about deflated numbers when we hear them come out of the mouths of administration officials.
On the issue of the mercenaries, though, the armed security contractors, Blackwater, the company formerly known as Blackwater, now, you know, called Xe, which is—you know, I mean, it’s very, very interesting, this—

AMY GOODMAN: Spelled X-e.

JEREMY SCAHILL: X-e—you know, in the midst of a major rebranding campaign. What happened with Blackwater is that the Obama administration, through the State Department, informed Xe, Blackwater, that they were not going to renew their highly lucrative contract in Iraq. I think this was a result, in large part, of massive public pressure. I think that activists and concerned people and journalists who were exposing this really made it politically untenable for the Obama administration to at least publicly continue that kind of a relationship with this company, Blackwater, and I think the people who took this seriously should take heart in that.

Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, did make a pledge on the campaign trail that she was going to endorse legislation to ban Blackwater’s operations, and she took a lot of heat for that. Whether or not this was a decision that she influenced, I don’t know. I mean, it seemed like it was sort of a cynical decision on the campaign trail aimed at outflanking Obama from the left. But the fact is that Blackwater’s contract has not been renewed.

Having said that, Blackwater is firmly entrenched in Afghanistan, continues with many lucrative US government contracts, has now changed its name. Erik Prince, the owner of Blackwater and the CEO, this week announced that he was stepping down as the CEO but will remain as the chairman. So, you know, I mean, Erik Prince is not in control of Blackwater, the same way that Vladimir Putin is not in control of Russia; he is in control of it, he just isn’t officially the head of it.


"The Promised Withdrawal from Iraq" by Lawrence Korb

"All Troops Out By 2011? Not So Fast; Why Obama's Iraq Speech Deserves a Second Look" by Jeremy Scahill

Senate Backs D.C. Voting Rights, But Some Local Activists Call For Statehood

The District of Columbia has moved a step closer to getting a vote in the House of Representatives. On Thursday, the Senate voted 61-to-37 to expand the size of the House by two seats, giving Washington, D.C. a single seat and giving Utah a fourth seat. Democracy Now! hosts a debate between D.C. Vote’s Eugene Dewitt Kinlow, Public Affairs Director for DC Vote Coalition, who calls the Senate’s vote as a historic victory, and Anise Jenkins, president of Stand Up! for Democracy in DC, who opposes the bill because it falls short of making Washington, D.C. the nation’s fifty-first state.

Transcript:

AMY GOODMAN: We move now to another debate, a debate that’s taking place right there in Washington, D.C. Juan?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, the District of Columbia has moved a step closer to getting a vote in the House of Representatives. On Thursday, the Senate voted 61-to-37 to pass the D.C. House Voting Rights Act. The bill will expand the size of the House by two seats, giving Washington, D.C. a single seat and giving Utah a fourth seat. The House is expected to soon pass the measure, and President Obama has said he will sign it into law.

The Senate approved the bill only after Republicans added an amendment to throw out Washington’s gun control laws, including its ban on semi-automatic weapons.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by two guests from Washington, D.C. Eugene Dewitt Kinlow is the public affairs director for DC Vote. On Thursday, the group hailed the Senate’s vote as a historic victory. We’re also joined by Anise Jenkins, president of Stand Up! for Democracy in DC. She opposes the bill before Congress. She says it falls far short of making Washington, D.C. the nation’s fifty-first state.

Let’s begin with Eugene Dewitt Kinlow. You are celebrating now with the Senate vote. Explain exactly what you get.

EUGENE DEWITT KINLOW: Well, you know, we’re celebrating with some mixed emotions. One, we are happy that there is a bill that has moved forward in the Senate and that actually passed a committee in the judiciary, the House, just two days in support of D.C. voting rights. We think that the residents of the District of Columbia, a city of nearly 600,000 residents, a city where people fight and die in wars, will finally have a vote and a voice in the people’s House. We are happy that a vote moves us in that direction. We are not as happy about the attachments of the amendments that was sponsored by the gun lobby to diminish our own laws in Washington.

JUAN GONZALEZ: How does removing the ban on guns have anything to do with the bill that was being voted on?

EUGENE DEWITT KINLOW: Well, you know, in the House, there’s probably a germaneness. You know, when you attach amendments, they must be germane to the major bill. That rule does not apply in the Senate. But this was directly an effort by the gun lobby and probably the NRA to relax our gun laws in Washington, D.C. You know, people want to use us as a test case, so to be able—for the gun lobby to say that, “Hey, there’s a city, Washington, D.C, people can walk around with guns, semi-automatic weapons.”

I don’t think it’s a good idea. I think that we have our own elected officials. We have a mayor and a city council that has written and has actually crafted very progressive legislation based on the will of the people. You know, for years in Washington, D.C., we’ve had a progressive gun law that says you could not have a gun. And that’s because that’s what the citizens of the District wanted. Now, for Congress to come in and say, “We will tell you what’s best for you,” when we have our own elected officials, is ludicrous.

AMY GOODMAN: Eleanor Holmes Norton, the delegate from D.C., is supportive of this legislation. Anise Jenkins, you’re not, with Stand Up! for Democracy. Why not?

ANISE JENKINS: The fact that the Senate attached the challenge to our handgun law is a perfect example. This bill for one vote, in exchange for an extra district for Utah, demonstrates what will happen if D.C. does not become a state. We will still be subject to congressional rule. Congress will still be able to overturn our laws. Our budget, our local budget, made of our local money, tax money, will have to go to Congress every year for review. If we don’t have the protection of statehood, full statehood, we will never have the equal rights that other American citizens have. That’s why we oppose the bill.

It hurts to oppose this bill. There’s been a lot of enthusiasm drummed up for this bill. There’s been a lot of money backing this bill to go through. But the bill is weak. The bill is a compromise. Statehood is the answer. Statehood is what will protect us and give us our rights.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the reasoning for why Utah was included with an extra congressional district in addition to D.C.?

ANISE JENKINS: It was presented to the D.C. residents, who, by the way, voted for statehood in 1982, which has been the only referendum about what form of government we should have—1982 we voted for statehood. It was explained to us that Utah was being included, because Utah was the complete cultural, political opposite of D.C., and it would be easier for D.C. to get a vote if Utah got an extra congressional district, which also, by the way, gives it another electoral vote. In Stand Up! for Democracy’s opinion, this is too much of a compromise.

This was done when the Republicans controlled the Congress. This was done when Bush was president, and he said he would not even sign this bill. We need to switch tracks on this train. This train is out of control. We need to switch tracks and go to statehood. We don’t need Utah to balance us out. We don’t need Utah to cancel out our vote.

EUGENE DEWITT KINLOW: Let me just say that—and this is—

AMY GOODMAN: Eugene Dewitt Kinlow?

EUGENE DEWITT KINLOW: Let me just provide a little background. And Anise did indicate that this is a compromise. Yes, I agree. This is a compromise bill, and that’s what happens on Capitol Hill. Generally, for bills to pass, you need people who are Democratic and Republican to support the legislation. Let me be clear, this legislation that’s proposed is a bipartisan piece of legislation, which is great. We need more bipartisanship on Capitol Hill.

The bill provides for a vote in Washington, D.C., a city that is a majority Democratic city, and also provides for a vote—it doesn’t specifically say Utah, but the assumption is that it will be Utah. Utah, at the last census in 2000, narrowly missed getting another congressional seat. Now, why is this? It’s because in Utah, they have a tradition of, those who are of the Mormon faith go out into the states and do their missionary work. They were not in the states when the census was taken, and thus they were not counted. They went to court, and they lost. The compromise was to provide for a one-way, in one fell swoop—it’s not a perfect match, but it is one way of, one, enfranchising the citizens of the District of Columbia, who need this opportunity to participate in the political process fully, and one, for Utah to be made whole for their—for not having that seat at the last census.

AMY GOODMAN: You also don’t get senators here without statehood.

ANISE JENKINS: That’s absolutely true.

EUGENE DEWITT KINLOW: No, right. And the bill, clearly, in front of us is not about statehood. I think that if we talk about the statehood debate, that—there was an effort about in 1983 that failed. And it failed when there was a—you know, despite having a city that is majority Democratic and that supported President Barack Obama by about 93 percent, it failed in the House and the Senate, by two-to-one.

ANISE JENKINS: I would—

EUGENE DEWITT KINLOW: And a lot of those conditions still exist. Back in ’93, when you had a Democratic House, Senate and White House, those same conditions exist right now. And I would say if we had to put it up for statehood, that the votes do not exist for statehood.

ANISE JENKINS: I would add to the—

JUAN GONZALEZ: Anise Jenkins, I’d like to let you respond, but just to throw in a question, as well, to respond to, as well—the argument can be made that at least Congress, by voting now to grant a member of Congress, has recognized the right of political representation for D.C. and that presumably a greater Democratic majority in the future might be able then to pass, as well, the—adding two senators, as well, to the District.

ANISE JENKINS: If they vote for this bill and the bill says, specifically—there’s efforts to make amendments to this bill to say specifically, and it already implies, that this bill will not let us have senators. The Congress could see this as voting for “Case closed. You have your representative. You have your delegate. Your delegate is now a representative in the House. You will not have any senators.”

The bill even says that if we have a larger population—against the Constitution, which says if your population increases proportionately, your representatives will increase—this bill even cuts that out for D.C. So, if we go from 600,000 to a million, we still do not get two representatives. We’re still limited to two representatives and perhaps no senators. So what would the Congress be saying? We have to be very careful about what we’re putting before Congress. Is it constitutional? Is it what the residents of D.C. want? Is it what the residents of D.C. deserve?

EUGENE DEWITT KINLOW: Yes, yes, yes.

ANISE JENKINS: This bill—let me say one more thing. There has been no effort by DC Vote to go out, after they’ve raised over several million dollars, to go out into the community, hold town hall meetings, to go out and talk to the D.C. residents. This is coming from the top. We want what D.C. residents voted for.

EUGENE DEWITT KINLOW: OK, OK, let me be clear—

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there—I hate to say it—but we will continue this debate. Anise Jenkins, president of Stand Up! for Democracy in DC, and Eugene Dewitt Kinlow, public affairs director for DC Vote Coalition. Just in terms of populations, to let you know the states all have under 700,000, equivalent populations to D.C., Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska; under a million, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana.

Why Is Geithner Continuing Paulson's Policy of Violating the Law?

Former federal bank regulator and current associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri in Kansas City William K. Black writes:

Whatever happened to the law (Title 12, Sec. 1831o) mandating that banking regulators take "prompt corrective action" to resolve any troubled bank? The law mandates that the administration place troubled banks, well before they become insolvent, in receivership, appoint competent managers, and restrain senior executive compensation (i.e., no bonuses and no raises may be paid to them). The law does not provide that the taxpayers are to bail out troubled banks. Treasury Secretary Paulson and other senior Bush financial regulators flouted the law. (The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) are both bureaus within Treasury.) The Bush administration wanted to cover up the depth of the financial crisis that its policies had caused.

Mr. Geithner, as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since October 2003, was one of those senior regulators who failed to take any effective regulatory action to prevent the crisis, but instead covered up its depth. He was supposed to regulate many of the largest bank holding companies in the United States. Far too many of these institutions are now deeply insolvent because the banks they own are deeply insolvent. The law mandated that Geithner and his colleagues place troubled banks in receivership long before they became insolvent. Why are the banking regulators, particularly Treasury Secretary Geithner, continuing to disobey the law?

We need a Pecora investigation

We can understand now why the administration and so many committee chairs are virulently opposed to the single most essential step we need to take to diminish future crises -- a modern Pecora investigation. Pecora was the prosecutor hired by the Senate banking committee to investigate the misconduct that helped cause the Great Depression. You must vigilantly study past failures to learn causation and to enact remedies. If we were dealing with a crisis of airplane crashes and someone opposed studying the causes of the failures we would (correctly) label him a lunatic. Congress largely stopped conducting meaningful oversight hearings of financial regulation during the Bush administration. The results were horrific. It appears that only intense public pressure will suffice to overcome congressional and administration resistance to a Pecora investigation. I hope readers will add their voices to this call.

The financial cost of Paulson's and Geithner's flouting of the law

Paulson and Geithner's refusal to comply with the law has already cost the taxpayers scores of billions of dollars in unnecessary costs. Geithner indicated Friday, February 20 that he would continue to flout the law. If he is allowed to do so it will add hundreds of billions of dollars to the eventual cost to taxpayers. The amount of taxpayer money wasted due to Paulson and Geithner's violations of the prompt corrective action law will exceed the total present value cost of resolving the S&L debacle, $150 billion ($1993). The waste will take the form of the U.S. taxpayers subsidizing the officers, shareholders and subordinated debt holders of failed banks -- who are disproportionately wealthy, frequently profited from the accounting fraud that caused the banks to fail, and are often foreign. The prompt corrective action law was passed in large part to prevent such a subsidy.

The S&L debacle led to a new financial regulatory system premised on "prompt corrective action" (PCA). Future posts will explain more fully why this system failed, but it is remarkable that the system, the phrase, and the law have disappeared from the coverage of the banking crises. PCA's premise was that regulatory discretion led to cover-ups of failed banks and excessive losses to the taxpayers. The PCA solution was to require higher capital requirements and to mandate that the regulators take over troubled banks before they deteriorated to the point that the failure would impose a cost on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). PCA also recognized that failing bankers had perverse incentives to "live large" and cause larger losses to the FDIC and taxpayers. PCA's answer was to mandate that the regulators stop these abuses by, for example, strictly limiting executive compensation and forbidding payments on subordinated debt.

PCA's purpose is "to resolve... problems... at the least possible long-term cost to the [FDIC]." That means the least possible cost to taxpayers. Secretary Geithner's priority is protecting private shareholders:

We have a financial system that is run by private shareholders, managed by private institutions, and we'd like to do our best to preserve that system....
We have a law that says when banks are at or near insolvency private shareholders should be eliminated unless we can arrange a transaction that has no cost to the FDIC. Receiverships produce "private institutions." The FDIC manages the failed institution only long enough to get it in shape to be sold at the least cost to the taxpayers. Receiverships end unnecessary bailouts of private shareholders, reducing the cost to the FDIC, as the law requires. Receiverships place banks back in the hands of new shareholders. Geithner has so twisted the framing of this issue that he is warning that a cheaper, more effective means of resolving failed banks used under President Reagan is some alien form of socialism that President Obama must slay before it destroys capitalism. Geithner is channeling Rove when he conflates receiverships with "nationalization."

Secretaries Paulson and Geithner subverted the PCA law by allowing failed banks to engage in massive accounting fraud (which also means they are engaged in securities fraud). Treasury is telling the world that resolving the failed banks will require roughly $2 trillion dollars. That has to mean that the failed banks are insolvent by roughly $2 trillion. The failed banks, however, are reporting that they are not simply solvent, but "well capitalized." The regulators flout PCA by permitting this massive accounting and securities fraud. (Note that by countenancing this fraud they make it extremely difficult to ever prosecute these elite white-collar frauds.)

Palin Now Owes Taxes on Payments for Nights at Home, State Rules

The Washington Post reports:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) owes income taxes on nearly $17,000 paid to her as travel reimbursements when she spent nights in her Wasilla residence, according to a state legal opinion that the payments were not legitimate business expenses, a state official said yesterday.

During her first 19 months in office, Palin charged the state $16,951 in "per diem" allowances for spending 312 nights in her home. The allowances were intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while she was traveling on state business.

The state this week reversed a policy that had treated the payments as legitimate business expenses under the Internal Revenue Code, said state administrator Annette Kreitzer. Payments to employees charging "per diem" expenses to stay in their own homes will be treated as income subject to taxes, Kreitzer said, and the state will update the employees' W-2 forms.

Palin's expenses were reported by The Washington Post last year after the Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), named Palin as his running mate. The Post reviewed records from late 2006 through early August 2008, and the story prompted a review by state officials. The governor continued to seek the payments through the end of the year, according to the Anchorage Daily News, which first reported this week that she owed taxes on the payments.

The additional income will have to be reported on Palin's 2008 tax returns, due April 15. It is not known whether the governor, whose state salary is $125,000 a year, plans to pay back taxes for per diem reimbursements she received in 2007. If Palin refunded the expense payments, she probably would not have to pay taxes on them, tax lawyers said.

The governor's spokeswoman, Sharon Leighow, acknowledged that the governor had received legal guidance in a report, but she declined to comment further.

Kreitzer refused to release the report. She said there were other "affected employees" in addition to Palin but did not provide further details.

Leighow said in September that "the governor is entitled to a per diem, and she claims it." At the time, the state finance director said the practice was permitted because Palin's official "duty station" is Juneau, the state capital, which is 600 miles from Wasilla.

Palin often stayed in her lakeside home in Wasilla and drove 45 miles to Anchorage, to a state office building where she conducts most of her business.

Reimbursement for legitimate business expenses is not considered taxable income under the Internal Revenue Code, tax lawyers said. At the time of The Post's story, some tax lawyers and liberal groups suggested that Palin's per diem expenses should be treated as income.

Palin collected the per diem allowance from April 22, 2008, four days after the birth of her fifth child, until June 3, when she flew to Juneau for two days. She also charged the state a per diem on Thanksgiving Day 2007, citing her attendance at the Great Alaska Shootout college basketball tournament in Anchorage.

"We've always followed the law and fully disclosed all that," Palin said in an interview on Fox News during the campaign.

Palin said many of the per diem expenses occurred while plumbing was being repaired in the governor's mansion in Juneau. She said she could have billed the state for hotel or apartment lodging but opted against that, "knowing that we're going to spend quite a bit of time here [in Wasilla], especially those months where the remodels were taking place in the governor's mansion. And we would disclose my per diem, we wouldn't try to hide it."

On the initial expense reports, Palin wrote "Lodging -- own residence" or "Lodging -- Wasilla residence" more than 30 times on the days she charged a per diem, the reports show. But in two dozen undated amendments, the governor deleted the references to her residence or home.

Sarah Palin's $159,050 Conflict of Interest

At Huffington Post, Chris Kelly writes:

While you read this, Alaska's First Dude, Todd Palin, is riding a snowmobile -- I'm sorry, snow machine -- 1971 miles from Big Lake to Fairbanks. In the course of performing this awesome feat, his Arctic Cat's powerful two-stroke engine will emit the same amount of hydrocarbons as an automobile driving from Chicago to San Francisco and back 150 times.

A small price for the rest of us to pay to honor the indomitability of the human spirit and one man's ability to sit and hold on.

It's not just a blaze of glory and aromatic hydrocarbon. A conventional two-stroke engine emits as much as a quarter of its fuel unburned, directly into the air. This week, as a participant in the Iron Dog™ snow machine race, Todd Palin will release as many cancer-causing and smog-forming pollutants as a Chevy Malibu driven around the Earth at its equator 28 times.

Seems like a lot of work, just to get away from Sarah Palin.

But Todd's not just doing it because he hates his home life and likes things that make loud noises and emit benzene. He does it because it's there. And for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gifts from corporations who do business with the Governor's office.

For riding a snowmobile.

Something you could train a bear to do.

The Emperor Nero used to clean up at the Olympic games. It was eerie. He won everything. According to Suetonius, he once won a chariot race despite falling off and not finishing the course. That's how good he was. He also never wore the same clothes twice. So he would have fit right in with the Palins there also.

I'm not insinuating anything. I'm just saying.

The total purse value of this year's Iron Dog™ is $159,050. The sponsors include the petroleum giants Tesoro and Conoco-Phillips; State Farm, Wells Fargo, Frontier Airlines, Alaska Airlines and the Alaska First National Bank.

The Iron Dog™ has fewer than 40 entrants a year, and one of them is always Todd.

Does this smell? I'm probably the wrong person to ask. I hate the cold and I think motor sports is an oxymoron. But he is Alaska's First Lady, and Tesoro is an oil company.

Let's say this was Louisiana in the '30s. If Texaco sponsored a pancake-eating contest, and Huey Long's wife kept winning it, there would have been talk.

To be fair, Todd can't win the whole purse. There are lots of little door prizes just for rookies and women and steak dinners for Cutest Hat. Just like in Jack London days.

And, to be fair, Todd doesn't always walk away from the camping trip with the hundred grand first prize. He's only won four times.

Once after Sarah was elected to the Wasilla City Council, once after she was elected mayor, the year she was appointed to the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission, and the year she was elected governor.

Aboard the Bush Plane [on the flight home to Texas]

At the Daily Beast, Mark McKinnon writes:

Exclusive for The Daily BeastIn a Daily Beast exclusive, a former Bush advisor files his account—and his photos—from aboard the former president’s flight back to Texas.

Knowing it would be impossible to get out of the city Tuesday morning, many of us arrived Monday night at the very funky Econo Lodge by Air Force Andrews Base. The Blair House it was not. But good to be humbled on the way out.

We jumped in a van in the morning and watched Obama’s inaugural address from the lobby at Andrews. The group of 100 or so watching, of which 100 percent were George Bush supporters, all offered their enthusiastic applause for the new commander in chief. Not to say there weren’t some critical reviews of the speech, complaints about taking unnecessary shots, and grousing about borrowed ideas, but there was an absence of malice one normally sees among the constituencies of the vanquished.

And then we all boarded the plane. Among the passengers,

longtime Bush family, friends, and staffers included the former president’s mother and father and daughters Jenna and Barbara, Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, Dan Bartlett, Josh Bolten, Joel Kaplan, Jared Weinstein, Mike Meece, Andy Card, Don and Susie Evans, Blake Gottesman, Clay and Ann Johnson, Ed Gillespie, Barry Jackson, Joe Hagin, Israel Hernandez, Jeanne Johnson Phillips, Margaret Spellings, Alberto Gonzales, Brad Freeman, Jim and Debbie Francis, and Roland and Lois Betts.



“Grateful.”

That’s the word expressed not just by former President Bush, but his staff, as well, on the last flight home aboard on what any other day of the last eight years would have been Air Force One, but today was Special Air Mission 28000.

I can only imagine the blogosphere lighting up with what will be some version of “good riddance.” But while I expected the president’s mood to be defiant, bitter, defensive, or vengeful toward his critics, he was anything but. As he toured the cabin of the airplane throughout the flight, visiting with old friends, family, and staffers, he was filled with equanimity, grace, and a generosity of spirit.

Bush has gotten to know Obama during this transition period and he has a pretty good gut for people. His gut tells him Obama has what it takes to be a successful leader.

And while I’m reluctant to quote the president directly from private conversations, I think I can fairly report that he feels a genuine warmth for President Obama. He admires his sense of family, his relaxed and easygoing nature, and his character. He has gotten to know him during this transition period and he has a pretty good gut for people. His gut tells him Obama has what it takes to be a successful leader. Not yet tested. Not yet proved he is willing to make difficult and unpopular decisions. But the potential is clearly there.

And it’s nice to see that while some partisans have yet to sheath their swords, Obama too has warmed to President Bush during this period of peaceful, diplomatic, and graceful transition. He now believes, as does anyone who knows President Bush, that he is a “good guy” and that “he made the best decisions that he could at times under some very difficult circumstances.”

I also know the Obama team has deeply appreciated the degree to which President Bush and his staff went out of their way to make for a smooth transition.



President Bush acknowledged that before Obama was even sworn in today, he knew his life had changed when his usual morning papers failed to be delivered at the White House.

About midflight, everyone gathered with President Bush in the conference room to view a moving and emotional 22-minute video produced by Scott Sforza and edited by Laura Crawford that included administration highlights and personal messages and thank-yous from staff and Cabinet members.

Mrs. Bush strolled the aisles thanking friends and staffers. The president’s father, with his walking stick, hobbled through, as well, with a familiar glint in his eye and smile at the corner of his lips. Wife Barbara padded around behind him, ever ready with a witty riposte to any and all. Karl Rove was in his usual seat in the conference room, challenging Joe Hagin and Blake Gottesman to a game of cards. And winning. Insisting they autograph the final score. And I was snapping pictures all along, inspiring Josh Bolten to declare me a “tourist.” Which I happily admitted I was and have been all along.

There was a lot of talk of old days and old times. About how eight years had flown by. About how children had grown. There was no high-fiving or celebration. And no weeping or whining. Just a quiet and friendly exchange of hugs between longtime colleagues and friends who had traveled a lot of miles together and weathered a lot storms.

And in the end, we all were simply grateful for the incredible ride.

As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, causes, and individuals, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono. McKinnon is co-chair of Arts & Labs, a collaboration between technology and creative communities that have embraced today’s rich internet environment to deliver innovative and creative digital products to consumers.

Voodoonomics Is Making Zombies Of Dying Banks

Paul Krugman writes:

The belief in tax-cut magic – old-fashioned voodoo economics – has been banished from civilized discourse. The supply-side cult has shrunk to the point that it contains only cranks, charlatans and Republicans.

But recent news reports suggest that many influential people, including Federal Reserve officials, bank regulators, and, possibly, members of the incoming Obama administration, have become devotees of a new kind of voodoo: the belief that by performing elaborate financial rituals, we can keep dead banks walking.

To explain the issue, let me describe the position of a hypothetical bank that I'll call Gothamgroup, or Gotham for short.

On paper, Gotham has $2 trillion in assets and $1.9 trillion in liabilities, so that it has a net worth of $100 billion. But a substantial fraction of its assets – say, $400 billion worth – are mortgage-backed securities and other toxic waste. If the bank tried to sell these assets, it would get no more than $200 billion.

So Gotham is a zombie bank: It's still operating, but the reality is that it has already gone bust. Its stock isn't totally worthless – it still has a market capitalization of $20 billion – but that value is entirely based on the hope that shareholders will be rescued by a government bailout.

Why would the government bail Gotham out? Because it plays a central role in the financial system. When Lehman was allowed to fail, financial markets froze, and for a few weeks the world economy teetered on the edge of collapse. Since we don't want a repeat performance, Gotham has to be kept functioning. But how can that be done? Well, the government could simply give Gotham a couple of hundred billion dollars, enough to make it solvent again. But this would, of course, be a huge gift to Gotham's current shareholders – and it would also encourage excessive risk-taking in the future.

Still, the possibility of such a gift is what's now supporting Gotham's stock price.

A better approach would be to do what the government did with zombie savings and loans at the end of the 1980s: It seized the defunct banks, cleaning out the shareholders. Then it transferred their bad assets to a special institution, Resolution Trust Corp.; paid off enough of the banks' debts to make them solvent; and sold the fixed-up banks to new owners.

The current buzz suggests, however, that policymakers aren't willing to take either of these approaches. Instead, they're reportedly gravitating toward a compromise approach: moving toxic waste from private banks' balance sheets to a publicly owned "bad bank" or "aggregator bank" that would resemble the Resolution Trust Corp., but without seizing the banks first.

Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., recently tried to describe how this would work: "The aggregator bank would buy the assets at fair value."

But what does "fair value" mean? In my example, Gothamgroup is insolvent because the alleged $400 billion of toxic waste on its books is actually worth only $200 million. The only way a government purchase of that toxic waste can make Gotham solvent again is if the government pays much more than private buyers are willing to offer.

Now, maybe private buyers aren't willing to pay what toxic waste is really worth: "We don't have really any rational pricing right now for some of these asset categories," Bair says.

But should the government be in the business of declaring that it knows better than the market what assets are worth? And is it really likely that paying "fair value," whatever that means, would be enough to make Gotham solvent again? What I suspect is that policymakers – possibly without realizing it – are gearing up to attempt a bait-and-switch: a policy that looks like the cleanup of the savings and loans, but in practice amounts to making huge gifts to bank shareholders at taxpayer expense, disguised as "fair value" purchases of toxic assets.

Why go through these contortions? The answer seems to be that Washington remains deathly afraid of the N-word – nationalization.

The truth is that Gothamgroup and its sister institutions are already wards of the state, utterly dependent on taxpayer support; but nobody wants to recognize that fact and implement the obvious solution: an explicit, though temporary, government takeover. Hence the popularity of the new voodoo, which claims, as I said, that elaborate financial rituals can reanimate dead banks.

Unfortunately, the price of this retreat into superstition may be high. I hope I'm wrong, but I suspect that taxpayers are about to get another raw deal – and that we're about to get another financial rescue plan that fails to do the job.