Why am I
not surprised?
In the months before the Iraqi elections in January, President Bush approved a plan to provide covert support to certain Iraqi candidates and political parties, but rescinded the proposal because of Congressional opposition, current and former government officials said Saturday.
In a statement issued in response to questions about a report in the next issue of The New Yorker, Frederick Jones, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said that "in the final analysis, the president determined and the United States government adopted a policy that we would not try - and did not try - to influence the outcome of the Iraqi election by covertly helping individual candidates for office."
The statement appeared to leave open the question of whether any covert help was provided to parties favored by Washington, an issue about which the White House declined to elaborate.
The article, by Seymour M. Hersh, reports that the administration proceeded with the covert plan over the Congressional objections. Several senior Bush administration officials disputed that, although they recalled renewed discussions within the administration last fall about how the United States might counter what was seen as extensive Iranian support to pro-Iranian Shiite parties.
Free and fair elections, my ass.
More below the fold.
The
New York Times article continues, pointing out that since the (supposed) operations were covert, none of the people interviewed could give their names. The interviews yielded the following:
Despite the denials by some Bush administration officials on Saturday, others who took part in or were briefed on the discussion said they could not rule out the possibility that the United States and its allies might have provided secret aid to augment the broad overt support provided to Iraqi candidates and parties by the State Department, through organizations like the International Democratic Institute.
They said they were basing their comments primarily on the intensity of discussions within the administration about the potential adverse consequences of a victory by Iraqi parties hostile to the United States.
Officials and former officials familiar with the debate inside the White House last year said that after considerable debate, the president's national security team recommended that he sign a secret, formal authorization for covert action to influence the election, called a "finding." They said that Mr. Bush either had already signed it or was about to when objections were raised in Congress. Ultimately, he rescinded the decision, the officials said.
Among those who discussed the matter in interviews on Saturday were a dozen current and former government officials from Congress, the State Department, intelligence agencies and the Bush administration. They included some who said they had supported the idea of a covert plan to influence the Iraqi elections, and some who had opposed it.
This is further proof that Bush's "spreading democracy in Iraq" rhetoric is pure hypocrisy.
Does this administration ever do anything honest?