Questions for the President

[veteran_for_peace]

The United States and Russia have pointed at each other nuclear missiles on hair-trigger alert and with a combined destructive power about 100,000 times greater than that of the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima. That was in May 2000, when you said in a speech that preparation for launch "within minutes after warning of an attack...was the rule during the era of superpower rivalry." But "for two nations at peace," you said, "keeping so many weapons on high alert may create unacceptable risks of accidental or unauthorized launch." At the time, 4,800 warheads were on high alert. Yet four years later, the Center for Defense Information says, about 4,000 remain poised for immediate launch.

Why have you and President Putin de-alerted only about 800 of these nuclear missiles? Particularly in view of the terrorist threat and of the deteriorated Russian command and control system, does having 4,000 nuclear missiles fueled, armed, targeted, and ready to fire minutes after receiving a couple of computer signals continue to pose unacceptable risks?

Two days after 9-11, you said, "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our Number one priority and we will not rest until we find him!" But in March 2002, you said: "I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him... I truly am not that concerned about him."

Why did you transform the hunt for Osama bin Laden from a top priority into a non-priority?

Despite the CIA's numerous warnings, the 9-11 Commission said, "domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the threat. They did not have direction, and did not have a plan to institute. The borders were not hardened. Transportation systems were not fortified. Electronic surveillance was not targeted against a domestic threat. State and local law enforcement were not marshaled to augment the FBI's' efforts. The public was not warned." The commission did not, however, assign responsibility for failing to mobilize domestic agencies, harden borders, and the rest.

What is any responsibility do you accept for these failures?
What did you do on Aug. 6, 2001, on receiving the Presidential Daily Brief that included the CIA article headlined, "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US"?

President Clinton calls the 21,000 cargo containers that enter U.S. seaports and river ports every day "ripe targets for terrorists to insert small nuclear or chemical or biological weapons." The Port of Seattle's chief executive says, "We can verify the contents of only about 4 to 6 percent. " Security experts say you must check 10 percent to 20 percent to deter terrorists. The added cost: $1 billion a year. Holding the top .02 of all Americans — those earning over $1 million — to the same tax cut as those making up to $500,000 would raise $18.9 billion. To better fund container safety and nine other top government missions, David Obey, the House Appropriations Committee's senior Democrat, introduced a resolution to raise the $18.9 billion with just such a tax increase. All House Republicans voted no.

Should your tax cuts have priority over protecting from terrorists the seven million cargo containers arriving at our ports every year ?

After 9-11, a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter demonstrated that security at chemical plants in and around Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Chicago and Houston that was utterly lax and even nonexistent . Senator Jon Corzine tried to empower the Environmental Protection Administration to regulate security and require safer technologies at the nation's 15,000 chemical facilities. Eight Republican senators who were leading recipients of industry campaign contributions crushed Corzine's bill although six had originally supported it. You yourself have gotten about $1.2 million in chemical-industry donations.

Why is protecting Americans from terrorists who could release clouds of toxic and lethal chemicals not an administration priority while spending $100 billion or more on an unproved national missile defense to protect us from an unproved threat is a top White House priority?

The administration's latest distribution of funds to localities for anti-terrorism preparations gives New York State $5.47 per person, or $2.30 below the national average Wyoming, gets $38.31 per person, or $30.54 above the national average. In fact, New York gets less than any state other than California, which is also far below the national average.

Why are seven times more security dollars, on a per capita basis, going to Wyoming, a remote prairie state with a population of a half-million that happens to be home to Vice President Cheney, than to New York, where thousands died in a terrorist attack on its — and the nation's — largest city, population 8 million?

A few days after 9-11, you spoke of the war on terrorism as "This crusade." To Muslims, in particular, scholars remind us, crusade is a word that evokes an apocalyptic conflict between cultures.

Do you still see the war on terrorism as a "crusade"?

The Rev. Richard Land, who heads the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, has quoted you as saying, "I believe God wants me to be president." But in Houston, the Washington Post reported, your friend the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell said, "He does not believe God told him to run."

Do you believe God wanted you to be president?

The Rev. Pat Robertson has said: "I think George Bush is going to win in a walk. I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election in 2004. The Lord has just blessed him....It doesn't make any difference what he does, good or bad."

Do you believe God believes it "doesn't make any difference what you do, good or bad"?

One year after 9-11, you said, "You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror." Two years after 9-11, you said, "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in Sept. 11." This year, you made the following statements: April 13, "Of course" we can win the war on terror; Aug. 30, "I don't think you can win" it; Aug. 31, "we are winning and we will win" it.

Was this flip-flopping?

Senator Lindsey Graham, a conservative Republican and an Air Force reserve judge, is angry about the abuse, humiliation, torture and terrorizing of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Garib. In what he calls "inappropriately classified" memos, military lawyers suggested that civilian authorities had proposed interrogation techniques that "were way out of bounds," "violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice," "violated international law," and "would get our people in trouble." He was referring to authorities in the White House, the Justice Department, and the office of the Secretary of Defense.

Why haven't either you or Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged the established facts about Abu Garib? Why have you allowed the CIA to refuse to cooperate with any investigation but the CIA's? Did Rumsfeld's choice of a predecessor, James Schlesinger, with whom he'd had a 35-year association, to lead an investigation compromise its independence? Why did the Army's investigations stop below the rank of general?

You haven't disclosed the cost of the second-term agenda you unveiled at the Republican National Convention. But your administration's own data, the Washington Post reported, show that over a decade it's likely to be well over $3 trillion.

Why didn't you reveal the $3 trillion price-tag to the voters while you were claiming on the campaign trail that Senator Kerry's program would entail long-term spending of $2 trillion, or 50 percent less?

In August, you called the idea of a national sales tax "an interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously." After the quote drew criticism, you said on "Larry King Live," "People put words in your mouth."

Who put the words in your mouth?

When Senator Kerry voted for the bill for an additional $87 billion mainly for the war in Iraq and rebuilding of its infrastructure, he did so on condition that the Senate pass an amendment he co-sponsored to raise the money by rescinding a portion of your tax cuts. After the amendment failed, he voted against the bill. You yourself had threatened to veto a version of the legislation that you didn't like. Yet you've ridiculed your opponent as "a flip-flopper."

Did you flip-slop by first threatening to veto and then supporting the bill ?

Did your Congressman father exercise any influence or no influence to get you into the Air National Guard?

Here's a partial list of things you were first against and then for, or first for and then against: Creation of the 9-11 commission. Giving the commission more time to do its work. Condoleeza Rice testifying publicly before it. An outside investigation of intelligence failures regarding weapons of mass destruction. Giving a national intelligence director control over the intelligence budget. A Homeland Security Department. Giving North Korea incentives to disarm. An active U.S. role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The $280 billion civil racketeering lawsuit against the tobacco industry. Lobbying OPEC to lower prices. Mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions. Leaving the gay-rights issue to the states. Deficits. McCain Feingold. Privacy of medical records.

Did you flip-flop on none, some, or all of these matters?

Your chief of mine safety and health had been a mining-industry executive. Your chief for clean air at the Environmental Protection Agency had litigated for power companies, notorious polluters. In fact, dozens of your appointees to top regulatory positions at the EPA and Interior and Agriculture departments had spent years lobbying and fighting against the very safety, health and environmental regulations they would swear to enforce. On taking office, they moved quickly to eliminate regulations, take anti-regulatory measures, and cancel regulatory work in progress.

Does appointing foes of regulations as enforcers serve the public interest? Or does it serve the private interests of the appointees' past and maybe future employers, which have donated tens of millions of dollars to Republicans?

"Fascism," Mussolini said, "should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."
Has any administration done more than yours to merge state and corporate power?

The prescription-drug legislation that you pressed Congress to enact prohibits Medicare from negotiating lower bulk prices for seniors with pharmaceutical manufacturers , which have been very large contributors to Republican campaigns.

How does this prohibition help seniors? Does it serve the public interest? Or does it serve the interests of the drug industry, a huge contributor to Republican campaigns?

While head of Medicare, Thomas Scully pressured an agency auditor not to disclose to Congress that your prescription-drug plan would exceed the original cost estimates the administration had given lawmakers by $100 billion. Unaware of this stunning non-disclosure, Congress approved the plan. Scully later joined a Washington law firm whose clients include drug manufacturers.

Did Scully pressure the auditor with the knowledge and approval of, or a wink from, his superior and/or the White House? If you'd known he'd tried to hide a $100 billion low-balling from lawmakers, would you have reprimanded him, come clean with Congress, and sought passage of the bill despite its vastly higher price-tag?

A study shows that you've held only 15 solo news conferences, including one you opened with a 17-minute speech defending the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the last a session you shut down after 13 minutes. No president in 50 years has held so few solo press conferences. Your father held 83. Senator Kerry says he would hold at least one a month.

Would you agree to hold at least one solo press conference a month in a second term?

An Executive Order you signed in November 2001--11 months after Ronald Reagan's presidential papers were to have opened to the public--allows a former president to keep specific documents secret even if a sitting president doesn't want them kept secret, and vice-versa. The order was a stark departure from tradition and fueled charges that your administration is the most secretive in history.

Why did you act to deny the public access to the full histories of the Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush administrations?
Has any previous administration been as secretive as yours?

Why did you decline to appear before the 9-11 commission unless you could have Vice President Cheney at your side?

Former president George H.W. Bush and his national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, writing about the first Gulf War In their book "Why We Didn't Remove Saddam", said: "Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome."

Has the United States become "an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land," and are we facing a "perhaps barren outcome"?
In Iraq, were unarmored Humvees sent on patrol? Did all the troops who needed body armor have it? Did the administration try to cut the extra $250 for combat-soldiers' families to $100 and call the larger amount "wasteful and unnecessary"?

The 10-year ban on semi-automatic assault weapons expired a few days ago. More than 2,000 police chiefs, sheriffs, law-enforcement organizations and prosecutors asked you press Congress to renew it. Two out of three Americans supported renewal. You endorsed it during your first presidential campaign. But when the crunch came you did nothing, refusing even a request by the International Association of Chiefs of Police for a meeting.

Did the political clout of the National Rifle Association influence you not to lift a finger to stop terrorists, gangsters and drug dealers from walking into gunshops and buying AK-47s and 18 other types of semi-automatic weapons?

In the wake of several terrorist attacks, including the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, President Clinton proposed an anti-terrorism bill containing restrictions on bomb-making. Backed by some in Congress, the National Rifle Association asserted that restrictions would infringe on the constitutional right to bear arms.
Does the Second Amendment guarantee a right to make bombs?
"Prolonged weakness in the labor market has left the nation with over a million fewer jobs than when the recession began, the Economic Policy Institute says in a new report. Moreover, while the productivity of American workers rose 12 percent from 2000 through 2003, the median household income fell by $1,500.

What do these figures say about your economic policies, particularly the tax cuts you want to make permanent?

[slackmaster]

1. What proposed restrictions on bomb-making are you referring to?

Making bombs other than for legitimate (lawful) use is already highly illegal. Legal use of explosives is tightly regulated.

:shrug:

[edhopper]

2. Pres * replies:

"It's hard work to do all these things. Hard, hard, hard work. ...And we're working hard. Don't forget 9-11. Saddam, Saddam, Saddam Saddam, Saddam. Al Queda. Thank you and God bless me and the United States of Ahmerica."