Cheney cornered
noseconenews.blogspot.com/
Cheney accused on climate change
US VICE-PRESIDENT Dick Cheney's office tried to alter sworn congressional testimony provided by a federal official in order to play down the threat of global warming and head off regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, a former government official has claimed. Jason Burnett, a former Environmental Protection Agency official, cited the behind-the-scenes efforts by unnamed officials in Mr Cheney's office in a letter to congressional investigators regarding testimony in January by his former boss, EPA administrator Stephen Johnson. Mr Burnett appeared at a news conference on Tuesday with Democrat senator Barbara Boxer, who said his statements could boost efforts by California and other states to implement their own vehicle emission standards over White House opposition. Senator Boxer plans to call Mr Burnett to testify later this month before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which she chairs. "History will judge this Bush Administration harshly for recklessly covering up a real threat to the people they are supposed to protect," Senator Boxer said. The Supreme Court ruled last year that the EPA was required to evaluate whether carbon dioxide, the main emission linked to global warming, endangered public health or welfare as defined under the Clean Air Act, and, if so, to implement regulations on polluters. President George Bush has opposed mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, oil refineries and other polluters, contending such steps would drive up energy costs. For Mr Cheney, the new accusation is similar to criticism he faced early in his vice-presidency over private meetings he held to shape national energy policy. Then, as now, the White House has refused to turn over documents sought by congressional investigators. Mr Burnett, a lifelong Democrat, resigned as EPA associate deputy administrator last month. He has contributed $4600 to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign. Mr Johnson, in testimony to Senator Boxer's committee in January, planned to tell senators that "greenhouse gas emissions harm the environment". Mr Burnett said in a letter to Senator Boxer that "an official in the office of the Vice-President called to tell me that his office wanted the language changed". He said he did not make the change, and Mr Johnson delivered the testimony as planned. In a previous instance, Bush Administration officials extensively edited testimony last October by Julie Gerberding, director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, removing six pages she planned to deliver. Mr Burnett said on Tuesday that Mr Cheney's office was involved in efforts to delete portions of her testimony on the health risks of climate change. A spokesman for James Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the Senate environment committee, said the criticism was unjustified. "All administrations edit testimony before it is submitted to Congress," the spokesman said. LOS ANGELES TIMES, NEW YORK TIMES
Cheney, cornered truthdigBy Robert Scheer
March 14, 2007The unctuous owl has hooted again. Only this time, Dick Cheney's cave has been invaded by the sudden sunlight of judicial and Congressional revelations, making him appear more pathetic than intimidating as he once again charges critics of the Iraq war with giving aid and comfort to the enemy. "A full validation of the Al Qaeda strategy" are the shameless, slandering words the most powerful Vice President in American history flung Monday at Congressional critics of the war--including those from his own party. While he is still as dangerous as any cornered animal, Cheney stands brightly revealed as the main culprit in cherry-picking the evidence to make the case for a stupid, failed war. He has been exposed as a vindictive, inflexible ideologue, who attempts to destroy all who publicly disagree with him, such as former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and Wilson's CIA agent wife, Valerie Plame Wilson. His extensive ties and loyal political service to energy and defense companies such as Halliburton (which now, in a burst of honesty, is moving its headquarters to Dubai), reveal him to be a man of deep corruption. Like Nixon during Watergate, Cheney is now shrilly on the defensive. "National security made me do it!" he insists, clinging to pseudo-patriotism, that last refuge of scoundrels. But it is an argument that no longer flies with a public that has caught on to the rhythm of his screechy lies. After all, this is the leader, dominating a weak President, who pushed so hard for a complete occupation of a Muslim country not linked to 9/11. A man who hung his arguments for adventuristic war on known falsehoods, such as the attempted purchase of yellowcake uranium in Niger. In fact, the recent terrorist bombing in Afghanistan that came too close to ending the Vice President's life aptly underscored just how reckless the decision was to direct our policy away from the religious fanatics of Al Qaeda, based in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and instead pour our resources into overthrowing Osama bin Laden's sworn enemy, Saddam Hussein. Of course, things have changed quite a bit since then for formerly secular Iraq. Ironically, Cheney's remarks on Monday correctly evoke the nightmare world of religious fratricide that is the Bush Administration's legacy to Iraq. If the United States withdraws, "Shiite extremists backed by Iran could be in all-out war with Sunni extremists, led by Al Qaeda and remnants of the old Saddam regime," Cheney told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the leading pro-Israel lobbying organization. What he neglected to mention is that those Shiite extremists are militias associated with the very pro-Iran political parties that the Bush Administration brought to power and sustains in the surreally isolated Green Zone, or that our presence in Iraq is the main recruitment tool for the Sunni militants who oppose the Shiite majority. The argument for troop withdrawal is that, after four years of occupation, the presence of US troops on every street corner in Baghdad is part of the problem, not the solution. As the French learned in Algeria, the Russians in Afghanistan and the Israelis in the Palestinian territories, foreign occupation is the mother's milk of terrorism. It is thus Cheney who has played right into Al Qaeda's plans, heightening tension between the US and the Arab and Muslim worlds by evoking an image of US imperial conquest of Mideast oil resources. His palpable disdain for civil liberties, bald-faced lies and support for torture have even tarnished the reputation of democracy itself, which has to please tyrants and theocrats everywhere. As if we needed more evidence, the conviction last week of Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, provided ample evidence of the Vice President's bottomless cynicism. Surely Congressional investigators will now ask Cheney, among other awkward questions, what he meant in that note he wrote to himself prior to the conviction stating, "Not going to...sacrifice the guy who was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others." Who could have ordered Libby to break the law, other than his boss? If the occupation had gone well, of course, Cheney wouldn't be under fire. But as it heads into its fifth year, the only winners in this war are the aforementioned radical Shiites, Iran, mercenaries, Al Qaeda, oil companies and military contractors such as Halliburton, which has scooped up $27 billion in contracts paid with our taxes. Now Halliburton is making its home in an undemocratic oil-garchy so distasteful to Americans that we wouldn't let a company from there manage our ports. Perhaps Cheney, in disgrace, can build his retirement cave there. Cheney, Cornered- 1:51am
|
Page mailing to a friend temporary disabled