Today's Stories

May 7, 2009

Chris Floyd
A Full-Court Press for Pakistan War

May 6, 2009

Doug Peacock
The Fate of the Yellowstone Grizzly

Patrick Cockburn
Afghans to Obama: Get Out, Take Karzai With You

Richard Neville
The Torturer's Apprentice

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
To Power a Nation: Nuclear Bombs or Sunshine?

Winslow T. Wheeler
Of Pork and Baloney: Obama's Defense Budget

Deepak Tripathi
Pakistan in Crisis

Stephen Soldz
A "Natural Reaction": APA Ethics Policy-Maker Endorses Torture

Reuven Kaminer
Nice is Not Enough: Obama vs. Netanyahu and Lieberman

David Macaray
The Chrysler-UAW Deal

Kevin Zeese
Why We Were Arrested at the Senate Finance Committee Hearings

Marjorie Cohn
Stanford Antiwar Alums Call for War Crimes Investigation of Condoleezza Rice

Coalition for an Ethical Psychology
Investigate Psychologist and Health Provider Complicity in Torture

Website of the Day
Who's Behind the Financial Meltdown?

May 5, 2009

William Blum
Torture and Mr. Obama

Uri Avnery
Netanyahu's Plan

Steven Higgs
Autism and Toxic Pollution

Dean Baker
Why Economists Should Learn Arithmetic

Daniel Wolff
The Education of Rachel Carson

Sibel Edmonds
The Broken Congress

Carole King Klein
A New Chance to Save the Northern Rockies

Fidel Castro
Giving One's All

Belén Fernández
Oil and Aguardiente in the Ecuadoran Elections

Dan Bacher
Schwarzenegger's Big Lie About Fish vs. Jobs

Website of the Day
"I Married Isis on the Fifth Day of May"

May 4, 2009

James G. Abourezk
The AIPAC Spy Case

Jeff Leys
Obama's War Budget

Patrick Cockburn
Afghan Ayatollahs Press Marital Rape Law

Andy Worthington
A Start on Guantánamo, But Not Enough

Jaime Avilés
Mexico's Plague-Bringers

David Swanson
An Even Worse Bybee Memo

Paul Craig Roberts
Working with Jack Kemp

P. Sainath
Celeb Crusades and the Death of Politics

Eugenia Tsao
Canada's Obama and the Cult of the Prof

Benjamin Dangl
Protest and Rubber Bullets in Paraquay

Sami Al-Arian
Mourning William Moffitt

Website of the Day
"Soldiers Are Cutting Us Down": Kent State, May 4, 1970

May 1 - 3, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Game-Changers: Specter Jumps, Souter Quits

Gary Leupp
Dropping the AIPAC Spying Case

Peter Linebaugh
The Key to the Bastille

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank:
Half Life of a Toxic War: Iraq's Wrecked Environment

C. G. Estabrook
Minion of the Long War

Patrick Cockburn
Kabul's New Elite

Mike Whitney
Economy on the Ropes

Pierre Sprey /
Winslow Wheeler
What "Sweeping Overhaul" of the Pentagon?

Andy Worthington
Al-Marri's Plea Deal: Dictatorial Powers Unchallenged

Mairead Maguire
Stand Up to Israeli Apartheid: a Letter to Obama From a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Nadia Hijab
The Israel Boycott is Biting

Diane Farsetta
Life, Death and Water Policy

Michael Calderón-Zaks
The Déjà Vu Flu: Why Much of the Discussion About Swine Flu is Racist

Richard Rhames
When Piggies Come Home to Roost: Swine Flu and the Industrial Meat Gulags

Russell Mokhiber
Inside the Beltway Baucus

Ramzy Baroud
Clinton's Unpromising Start

Rannie Amiri
Understanding Lebanon's June Elections

Deb Reich
No Talking, Dammit!

Steven Higgs
Indiana Criminalizes Dissent: Roadblocks on the NAFTA Highway

Brian Cloughley
Malice in Blunderland

David Michael Green
The Party's Over

Farzana Versey
Sex, Swat and Susan Boyle

Jim Goodman
Think Before You Eat: Agriculture and the Environment

Carl Finamore
New Prescription for a Healthy Union Movement

Christopher Brauchli
The Sounds of Silence: the Texas Option

Susie Day
The Real Cause of Unemployment: Employees!

David Yearsley
Nuts Over Beethoven

Lorenzo Wolff
Three Minutes of Perfection

Peter Stone Brown
Dancing with Dylan

Poets' Basement Dominguez, Orloski and Springate

Website of the Weekend
May Day Europe

April 30, 2009

Ellen Cantarow
Obama and "Two States": Seamless Continuity From Bush Time

Dana L. Cloud
The McCarthyism That Horowitz Built

Paul W. Lovinger /
Jeannette Hassberg
A Nation of Laws

Binoy Kampmark
Swine at the Trough: the Business of Pandemics

Brian Downing
The Perils of Modernization in Afghanistan

Frank Snepp
Tortured by the Past

David Swanson
The Wrong Torture Question

Conn Hallinan
The Coming Asian Storm

Ron Jacobs
Not Dead Yet: an Interview with Jerry Gordon on the State of the Antiwar Movement

John Goekler
The Only Path to a Middle East Picnic?

Jasmine L. Tyler /
Anthony Papa
An End to Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity?

Website of the Day
Emergency Petition: Stop Coal Industry Intimidation of Activists

April 29, 2009

Joann Wypijewski
Death at Work in America

Patrick Cockburn
The Taliban's Roads to Kabul

Andy Worthington
Cheney's Twisted World

Chris Floyd
The Specter Diversion

Dave Lindorff
No More Excuses: a Specter is Haunting the Democrats

Jeremy Scahill
The Nuremberg Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

Doug Henwood
Zionist Lobby Targets Another Tenured Professor: an Interview with William Robinson

Michael Hudson
Will Iceland be Handed Over to a New Gang of Kleptocrats?

Russell Mokhiber
My Ron Pollack Problem--And Yours

Eric Toussaint
Ecuador at the Crossroads

Website of the Day
An Interview with Leslie and Andrew Cockburn on "American Casino"

April 28, 2009

Uri Avnery
A Little Red Light: On Israeli Fascism

Jeremy Scahill
Obama's Iraq: the Picture of Dorian Gray

Dean Baker
The Perfect Gift for Wall Street: a Financial Transactions Tax

Michael D. Yates
At the Factory Gate

Conn Hallinan
Georgian Plots? Saakavili's "Order No. 2"

John Stauber
Beyond MoveOn

Tom Barry
The Failed Border Security Initiative

Harvey Wasserman
Who Pays for America's Chernobyl Roulette?

Jeff Nygaard
Pirates, Profits and Propaganda

Frederico Fuentes
Why the U.S. Still Hates Cuba

Website of the Day
The Man Behind the Hood

April 27, 2009

Pam Martens
The Far Right's Plot to Capture New Hampshire

Patrick Cockburn
Torture? It Probably Killed More Americans Than 9/11

Andrew J. Bacevich Guardian of the Status Quo: Obama's Sins of Omission

Mitu Sengupta
The Bloodbath in Sri Lanka

Franklin Lamb
Hillary Does Beirut: The 165-Minute Swoop-In

Firmin DeBrabander
Crimes of Economic Madness

Dave Lindorff
Wide Open to Pandemic?

Russell Mokhiber
How Corrupt is That?

Mike Whitney
Pinter's Message to Obama

Mark Weisbrot
Overhauling the IMF

Rev. José M. Tirado
Iceland's New Dawn: How the Right Got Trounced

Website of the Day
American Casino

April 24-26, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Putting the Bush Years on Trial

Marjorie Cohn
Torture Used to Try to Link Saddam with 9/11

Andy Worthington
Who Ordered the Torture of Abu Zubaydah?

Jeremy Scahill
Are Leading Democrats Afraid of a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Torture?

Chris Floyd
Top of the Heap: the Democrats' Teachable Moment on Torture

Mike Whitney
A Housing Crash Update

Anthony DiMaggio
Obama and the Housing Crisis

Chris Kromm
Democratic Lobbyists Key to Fight Against Employee Free Choice Act

Saul Landau
Seventeen Months in "the Hole:" an Interview with the Leader of the Cuban Five

Dave Lindorff
Free John Walker Lindh

Greg Moses
The Debt Looters

Joshua Frank
Calling for a Coal Moratorium: an Interview with Ted Nace

Fred Gardner
Collective Farming and the Lynch Case

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Homework, Testing and Stealth Apartheid in Education

David Michael Green
Of Tea Parties and Teleprompters

Ramzy Baroud
Middle East Spies: a New Front in Gaza's Conflict

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak's Expanding Enemies List

Laura Carlsen
Mr. President, Calderon is Not Mexico

Richard Morse
The Haitian People Need a Lobbyist

Nikolas Kozloff
Protecting the Bald Eagle: a Task Now Falling to ... Hugo Chavez?

Kent Peterson
The Fight to Save Mexico's Mangroves

Robert Bryce
The Ethanol Scammers Rent a General

Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Financial Experts

Ron Jacobs
Torture is More Than Just "Harsh Tactics"

Richard Rhames
Roman Legends, Book Burning and History's Hunt

Stephen Martin
Wherefore Art Thou American Dream?

David Yearsley
Rodgers, Hammerstein, Michener and Nostalgia's Clammy Embrace

Poets' Basement
Khalil and Mankh

Website of the Weekend
Doug and Andrea Peacock on Grizzlies and Edward Abbey

April 23, 2009

Eamonn Fingleton
How the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Buried the Madoff Scandal for at Least Four Years

Ray McGovern
Obama Plays Hamlet on Torture

Michael Ratner
The Torture Commission Trap

Alan Farago
The Quicksand Economy

Rob Larson
Business Gets Carded

Nadia Hijab
The Real Heroes of Durban

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Deconstructing the Taliban

Dave Lindorff
Are Members of Congress Being Blackmailed?

Helen Redmond
Selling Out Single-Payer: the "Public Option" Con

Adam Federman
The Battle Over New York's Marcellus Shale

Website of the Day
An Interactive Map of Vanishing Employment Across the Country

April 22, 2009

Chris Floyd
The Fatal Thread: Torture, War and the Imperial Project

Joanne Mariner
Torture Evidence and Terror Blacklists

Vijay Prashad
Obama's Afghan Plan: Fracturing the Antiwar Movement

Gareth Porter
U.S. Lacks Capacity to Win Over Afghans

Dean Baker
The Tyranny of Bad Economics

Peter Morici
Housing Sales and Fixing the Economy

Winslow T. Wheeler
Eliminating Bad Pentagon Habits

Barucha Calamity Peller
The Battle to Take Back the New School

Harvey Wasserman
Chernobyl Could Happen Here

Aisha Brown /
Dedrick Muhammad
White Privilege in the Americas

Teo Ballvé
Obama's Feel Good Meeting with Colombia's Uribe

Website of the Day
Ahmedinejad's Durban Speech: What He Actually Said

April 21, 2009

Randy Rowland
Lindy Blake's Great Escape

Dave Lindorff
Jay Bybee's Conspiracy to Torture

Fidel Castro
The Secret Summit

George McGovern
Pull Out of Iraq This Year

Greg Moses
The Unemployment Channel

Benjamin Dangl
Argentina Remembers

Sonia Nettnin
Saving Lives in Gaza

Frank Barat
The Death of Bassem: a Shooting at the Wall in Bil'n

Binoy Kampmark
Legal Purgatory and John Demjanjuk

John V. Walsh
Code Red for Single Payer

David Macaray
SAG Should be Praised, Not Assailed

Website of the Day
Bonus Man: For Executive Assholes Everywhere

April 20, 2009

Mike Whitney
Housing Bust Comes Roaring Back, Worse Than Ever

Andrea Peacock
Histrionics and Legalisms in Missoula

Henry A. Giroux
Ten Years After Columbine: the Tragedy of Youth Deepens

Liaquat Ali Khan
Drone Attacks on Pakistan's Indigenous Tribes

Fred Gardner
Obama's DoJ Backs Prosecution of Medical Marijuana Providers

Stephen Soldz
Obama, Blair, Panetta and the Torture Memos: Praising Moral Cowards, Ignoring Real Heroes

Nadia Hijab
Obama's Multi-Polar Middle East

Dave Lindorff
The Meeting in Trinidad

P. Sainath
India's Press Nixes "R" Word

Nelson P Valdés
A Modest (Transition) Proposal to Obama

Mark Engler
American Empire Foreclosed?

Belén Fernández
The FARC Can't Dance

Website of the Day
Dear Mr. Buffett...

May 7, 2009

The Noxious Mr. Rudman

Deux ex Machina on Torture?

By RAY McGOVERN

The announcement in mid-March that CIA Director Leon Panetta had picked former Sen. Warren Rudman to act as CIA “liaison” with the Senate Intelligence Committee during its “review” of interrogation and detention practices has drawn virtually no criticism from the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM).

Yet, it is a dead give-away as to how congressional leaders plan to go through the motions for a year or so, and then let everyone off the hook.

Why let everyone off the hook? Because congressional leaders, Republican and Democratic alike, were informed of the Bush/Cheney administration plans for torture — perhaps not chapter and verse, but enough to be complicit in their silence. Both parties have amply soiled the dirty linen that could be hung out.

So here’s the plan. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, looking toward reelection in 2010, calculates that the last thing he needs is a bonafide investigation that would make him vulnerable to Cheneyesque charges of being weak in the “war” on terrorism. These days, if you take a hard line against torture, you can be made to appear soft on terrorism.

Worse still, other prominent Democrats like Sen. Jay Rockefeller and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were given intelligence briefings on interrogation, warrantless eavesdropping, and God knows what else. And they let Bush and Cheney run right over them with nary a whimper.

Surely, the Washington power structure concurs that what is needed is the kind of “thorough investigation” which President Richard Nixon loudly called for, with tongue in check, on Watergate. So, Senate team managers Reid and Rockefeller have gone to their bench for an ace utility infielder — quintessential practitioner of “thorough” investigations, Warren Rudman. They are eager to bring Rudman on as liaison with the Senate Intelligence Committee led by Dianne Feinstein with Rockefeller sitting at her right hand, so to speak.

The FCM, whether from indolence or timidity, have completely missed the boat on Rudman, calling him a “respected” veteran of investigations of national security issues. Does no one do due diligence — or simple homework — anymore?

Are the FCM journalists determined to make it easy for Attorney General Eric Holder to shirk his duty to see that the law is faithfully enforced, by giving him the out of saying, “Well, let’s first see what the Senate Intelligence Committee comes up with.”

It’s been seven weeks since word got out that Rudman is back in service; yet hardly a word about Rudman’s reputation as designated fixer par excellence. Rudman has been wildly successful in covering up past national security crimes.

It is troubling that it should have to fall to the likes of us – far from the comfortable environs of the FCM – to point this out.

‘Respected Politician’

The FCM has been quite busy applying the sobriquet “respected politician” to Rudman, though in his case it is truly an oxymoron.

In the 1980s, Rudman earned his spurs by working hand in glove with then-Rep. Dick Cheney to limit the scope of the Iran-Contra investigation. Rudman was essentially the good cop to Cheney’s bad.

Rudman was one of three “moderate” Republican senators who collaborated with “moderate” Democratic co-chairman Lee Hamilton in soft-peddling the roles of President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush in authorizing and overseeing the Iran-Contra law violations.

While Hamilton and Rudman laid most of the blame on Oliver North and other low-level “men of zeal,” Cheney led the rear-guard Republican defense, insisting that the Reagan administration had committed no crimes and instead blaming Democrats in Congress for daring to pass laws interfering with the President’s powers.

In the end, Hamilton got what he wanted, a veneer of “bipartisanship” with the signatures of Rudman and two other GOP senators (William Cohen and Paul Trible); Rudman got a watered-down “majority report”; and Cheney went ahead with his in-your-face “minority report” that he later proclaimed had laid the foundation for George W. Bush’s views on expansive presidential powers.

In the end, none of the White House folks or other senior officials who played fast and loose with the law during the Iran-Contra affair were held to account.

A noxious precedent was set. This kind of experience, one might say, has a way of emboldening lawbreakers to try again — and again.

Dissing Gulf War Veterans

In this next example, I am having difficulty controlling my anger. For I remain outraged by Rudman’s willingness to do the Pentagon’s bidding in refusing to acknowledge that the illnesses of over 200,000 U.S. Gulf War veterans were related to exposure to several toxic chemicals — pesticides, experimental pills and vaccines, depleted uranium, oil-well fire pollution, and nerve gas — for starters.

Dual-use technologies needed to make nerve agents were sold to Iraq during the Reagan and Bush I administrations (when Saddam Hussein was something of a secret ally) and the stockpiles of nerve agents were then blown up by U.S. Army engineers in 1991 oblivious to the fact that 145,000 U.S. troops were downwind. After a decade of denials, the Pentagon fessed up and notified those 145,000 Gulf War veterans they may have been exposed to low levels of chemical warfare agents.

Patrick and Robin Eddington, former colleagues of mine at CIA, had been appalled at the cover-up of Gulf War illnesses orchestrated by the Pentagon and by then-CIA Director John Deutch. I watched closely as the Eddingtons tried, in vain, to do the right thing by Gulf War veterans who had served in the Iraq Theater. (When the couple saw no alternative to quitting and exposing the continuing injustices by writing a book, “Gassed in the Gulf,” I was honored to be asked to write the Foreword.)

But U.S. government bureaucrats and politicians had other priorities, such as deflecting attention from – and cost of – the Gulf War illnesses.

So, in May 1997, Warren Rudman was appointed the Pentagon’s special adviser on Gulf War syndrome by his old Senate colleague William Cohen, who had moved on to be President Bill Clinton’s bipartisan choice as Defense Secretary.

In this advisory post, Rudman dismissed all evidence that challenged the Pentagon’s conclusion that Gulf War illnesses were not caused by multiple toxic exposures. Rudman succeeded in sparing the Pentagon embarrassment, but at the price of denying over 200,000 Gulf War veterans the medical care they needed to cope with a wide array of neurological and other maladies. The result was to delay for over a decade medical research, treatment and disability benefits for Gulf War veterans.

That’s right, over 200,000 of the 700,000 U.S. troops remain ill 18 years after the March 1991 cease-fire.

For readers with strong stomachs and a yearning for more detail, we include below the gist of a short piece I wrote at the time to chronicle Rudman’s role in this unconscionable cover-up from May 1997 until January 2001, when Clinton awarded him the Presidential Citizens Medal for services performed.

Taking no credit away from Rudman for his effective hatchet-man role, it is only fair to point out that it was Clinton who chose to cave in to the Pentagon. Rudman was merely a willing functionary — a hired gun doing his best to protect his client in The Pentagon v. Gulf War Veterans.

That Clinton would single out Rudman for a special award, however, was a gratuitous slap in the face of tens of thousands of ill veterans without a voice in the high councils of our government.

Rudman Rebuffed

The findings of the panel led by Rudman from 1997 to 2001 have now been thoroughly discredited.

Late last year, after reviewing hundreds of peer-reviewed research studies, an independent Research Advisory Committee (RAC) mandated by Congress, concluded that prior investigations were biased against veterans, slanted in favor of the military and VA leadership, and woefully incomplete.

The November 2008 RAC report found that scientific research has determined a conclusive link between Gulf War illnesses and toxic exposures during deployment. The RAC also called pointedly for a reduction in government interference in the scientific process.

When I mentioned the re-emergence of Rudman to shepherd yet another “investigation” — this one on torture, Paul Sullivan, a former project manager for the Veterans Administration and now executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, expressed outrage. I asked Sullivan why the Pentagon was so stubbornly resisting the reality that over 200,000 troops needed proper care — many of them for the long term.

"Previous administrations fought against our veterans because the government wanted to save money and preserve the myth of an easy, cheap Gulf War victory," said Sullivan. "Healthcare and disability benefits for life might well cost over a million dollars for each of the 200,000 Gulf War veterans who are ill — a total price tag in the billions of dollars per year.

“This means the inexpensive, “casualty-light” Gulf War portrayed by the Pentagon and FCM was actually a very expensive, high-casualty conflict," said Sullivan, who served as a Cavalry Scout during Desert Storm.

Speaking on behalf of Veterans for Common Sense, Sullivan indicated that VCS strongly opposes the involvement of Warren Rudman in investigating torture, given his role in covering up the Gulf War scandal of the 1990s. Sullivan noted that at least one active duty Army soldier committed suicide rather than follow orders to torture detainees.

Veterans for Common Sense is co-plaintiff in the ACLU lawsuit that is forcing President Obama to release torture documents and photos.

Another Cover-up?

Covering up President Bush's torture policies is more about avoiding liability to prosecution — or, at least, acute political embarrassment. But the tools of cover-up are the same; and, again, what is needed is an experienced hand.

CIA Director Panetta seems confident that he has that kind of person in Rudman. It was while Panetta was White House chief of staff under President Clinton that Rudman became head of the prestigious President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), after the previous chairman, Les Aspin, died in May 1995. Rudman, the consummate insider, was officially named chair of PFIAB in 1997 and served in that capacity until 2001.

He is now 79, but can be assumed to be well rested and no doubt has been warming up for his new job with Panetta and CIA operatives—some of whom were involved in implementing the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld torture policy. It is becoming clearer and clearer what Panetta meant when, at his confirmation hearings in early February he tried to reassure members of the Senate Intelligence Committee they should expect little trouble from him. “I am a creature of Congress," he said with a broad smile, which was returned by smiles of equal width from members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Rudman, another “creature of Congress,” can be expected over the coming months to exhibit his characteristic exuberance in coming off the bench to play the role of designated hitter. If all goes as our distinguished Senators expect, the torture thing will be fixed by this time next year, when Rudman reaches 80.

We shall have to wait to see if the FCM will wake up and take some interest so that the American body politic has an opportunity to be informed and perhaps even to summon the courage to prevent a Rudman Redux — this time on torture.

* * *

Chronicling Rudman Role on Gulf War Illness

May 1997: Rudman is retained by his close friend, Defense Secretary William Cohen, to act as special adviser on Gulf War illnesses. The announcement coincides with a report of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses criticizing the Pentagon for being too slow to investigate possible chemical incidents and for obstructing the Committee’s work.

November 1997: The final Presidential Advisory Committee report covering the months since May 1997 finds that “public mistrust about the government’s handling of Gulf War veterans’ illness has not only endured, it has expanded.” The Committee charges that the Pentagon-run battlefield surveys and research and analysis had hopelessly biased conclusions against the possibility that low-level exposures to chemical agents were a factor.

This stinging critique notes that many U.S. alarm and detection systems could not detect lower levels of chemicals that might have delayed effects, and that the Pentagon had summarily dismissed virtually all other reported detections — by British, French, and Czech forces, for example — as unproven. President Bill Clinton names Rudman to head an “independent panel” (The Presidential Special Oversight Board) to ensure that the Pentagon’s inquiry into Gulf War illnesses “meets the highest standards.”

In view of the Committee’s findings and Rudman’s close relationship with Cohen, then-Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Connecticut, and others immediately question how independent such a panel could be. How could Rudman be expected to perform an unbiased investigation of the behavior of a major client on an issue on which Rudman had been advising that client for the preceding half-year?

October 2000: The Pentagon announces that 30,000 additional Gulf War servicemen and women are to be told they have been exposed to Iraqi nerve gas. In 1997, 99,000 were informed they might have been exposed. At a public meeting convened to announce the new notifications, Rudman interrupts to ask (and answer) rhetorically, “Does this (the additional 30,000) mean any more people are ill? So far, there is no evidence of this.”

The Pentagon briefer explains that 30,000 of those who earlier were told they had been exposed would now be told they were not, leaving the overall total for exposures at 99,000. [Since then, the total has risen to 145,000.]

November-December 2001: Dr. William H. Taylor and Dr. Vinh Cam, members of the Rudman-led Presidential Special Oversight Board, object strongly to his attempts to steer it toward findings favorable to the Pentagon. Vinh charged that under Rudman, the Board has acted as a mere extension of the Pentagon.

In a letter to Rudman, Taylor wrote:

“OSAGWI (the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses) selectively ignored evidence that it did uncover, and repeatedly showed an unwillingness to investigate leads that suggested a conclusion contrary to its assessment. In short, OSAGWI’s investigations are biased, and the conclusions and assessments that OSAGWI states in its reports cannot be considered credible.”

Dr. Taylor went on to decry efforts by the Board’s executive director to “depejoratize” (sic) Board members’ reports, “particularly concerning the presence of chemical warfare agents,” and sharply criticized Rudman’s expressed wish to give the Office of Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses “an ‘A’ for effort.”

The correspondence makes it abundantly clear that Drs. Taylor and Cam would not give Rudman’s Pentagon client a passing grade, and that they have little but disdain for Rudman’s (successful) attempt to manipulate the Board’s findings.

Ray McGovern was an Army officer and CIA analyst for almost 30 year. He now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He is a contributor to Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair (Verso). He can be reached at: rrmcgovern@aol.com

The original version of this article appeared at Consortiumnews.com.

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