CORPORATE MEDIA BLOCKS DURBIN'S IRAQ ADMISSION ... Date: Tue, 1 May 2007 14:21:16 -0500 (CDT) --- that INVASION WAS PREDICATED ON LIES Apparently this admission was made on the Senate floor and was picked up ONLY by Friday's WASHINGTON TIMES. It was also given coverage by Amy Goodman in today's DemocracyNow! but it has also been covered in cyberspace - See several links below. It doesn't say much for Durbin that his being sworn to secrecy trumps his constitutional obligations in regard to oversight of the Executive ! M. ########### http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20070427-124842-1706r.htm Durbin kept silent on prewar knowledge THE WASHINGTON TIMES -- April 27, 2007 The Senate's No. 2 Democrat says he knew that the American public was being misled into the Iraq war but remained silent because he was sworn to secrecy as a member of the intelligence committee. "The information we had in the intelligence committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn't believe it," Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said Wednesday when talking on the Senate floor about the run-up to the Iraq war in 2002. "I was angry about it. [But] frankly, I couldn't do much about it because, in the intelligence committee, we are sworn to secrecy. We can't walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is being given to this Congress." Mr. Durbin's comments come after years of inquiries and debate about prewar intelligence, and as congressional leaders clash over Democrats' calls to pull out of Iraq. The White House responded by saying Congress had access to the same intelligence and voted overwhelmingly to go to war. "We all understand today that there were intelligence failures, but there was no effort to mislead either members of Congress or the American people," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. Mr. Durbin yesterday said there was no "ethical" way to notify the public of specific misleading information being touted by the Bush administration because it would have required revealing top-secret information being provided to the intelligence committee. He cited the White House's claim that Iraq was trying to acquire aluminum tubes needed for a nuclear weapons program -- details of which have since been declassified -- as an example of bad intelligence, saying that there was an ongoing debate within the administration as it was being used in public. Mr. Durbin, whose floor comments were part of the debate before yesterday's passage of an emergency war-funding bill, said he and half the Democrats on the intelligence committee voted against the war over concerns of the White House's "very flimsy case, but it was given to the American people as a proven fact." Congress authorized the 2003 use of armed force against Iraq by votes of 296-133 in the House and 77-23 in the Senate. Five of nine Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence voted for the measure as did all eight Republicans. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's office circulated an e-mail Wednesday highlighting Mr. Durbin's comments, but his office didn't respond to requests yesterday to elaborate on the e-mail. The e-mail said Mr. Durbin's comments were inconsistent with the words of other Democrats on the committee, including Sens. John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia and Carl Levin of Michigan. Those two Democrats said publicly before the war that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was intent on pursuing nuclear weapons. Mr. Rockefeller voted for the war, but Mr. Levin did not. A congressional official familiar with the information about Iraq that was provided to the intelligence committee in 2002 said it did not differ from what the administration was saying publicly about the need to go to war in Iraq. "If [Mr. Durbin] thinks the president of the United States is lying to the American public about the war, he's wrong," the official said. The official added that if Mr. Durbin felt so strongly that the administration was misleading the public, "he should've done something about it." But a spokesman for Mr. Durbin said the senator did publicly voice general, nonspecific concerns about the administration's promotion of the need for military intervention in Iraq prior to the war. He added Mr. Durbin could have faced criminal charges if he had publicly revealed specific intelligence details before the Iraq war. "For a senator on the [intelligence] committee, it's a pretty bright line that they can't cross," Durbin spokesman Joe Shoemaker said, adding that his boss has repeated the same concerns he voiced on the Senate floor Wednesday "maybe seven or eight times" in recent years. "The other side is just throwing mud and seeing if it'll stick." Mr. Shoemaker said. Mr. Durbin drew rebukes from Republicans in June 2005 when he compared the U.S. military's treatment of a suspected al Qaeda terrorist at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay with the regimes of dictators Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot, whose regimes each killed millions of their own people. ######### http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/56645.html Fri, 27 Apr 2007 14:40:00GMT WASHINGTON, April 27 U.S. Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., said on the floor of the Senate that he knew the American public was being misled in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Durbin said he kept quiet because of his position on the Senate Intelligence Committee, The Washington Times reported. "The information we had in the Intelligence Committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn't believe it," Durbin said Wednesday. "I was angry about it. (But) frankly, I couldn't do much about it because, in the Intelligence Committee, we are sworn to secrecy. We can't walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is being given to this Congress." The White House said the Congress voted to go to war based on the same intelligence the president had. "We all understand today that there were intelligence failures but there was no effort to mislead either members of Congress or the American people," White House spokesman Tony Fratto told the Times reporter. A congressional official familiar with Iraq intelligence presented to the committee said it was no different than what was said publicly, the Times said. #### http://www.pacificfreepress.com/content/view/1200/81/ Durbin's Casual Admission: Of Course the War is a Fraud Tuesday, 01 May 2007 Corporate Media Ignores Durbin's Admission Iraq Invasion was Predicated on Lies by Kurt Nimmo Majority Whip Richard Durbin, number two Democrat in Congress, "knew that the American public was being misled into the Iraq war but remained silent because he was sworn to secrecy as a member of the intelligence committee," according to the Washington Times. "The information we had in the intelligence committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn't believe it," the Congress critter admitted. "I was angry about it. [But] frankly, I couldn't do much about it because, in the intelligence committee, we are sworn to secrecy. We can't walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is being given to this Congress." Sworn to secrecy and responsible for the murder of nearly a million Iraqis and three thousand, possibly ten thousand U.S. soldiers, thus making not only Mr. Durbin a war criminal but the whole of Congress. Senators John D. Rockefeller IV and Carl Levin, members of the same intelligence committee as Durbin, are at the head of the war criminal list, right after Bush, Cheney and the neocons, because these "two Democrats said publicly before the war that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was intent on pursuing nuclear weapons," that it to say they had the same information as Durbin. In a somewhat more equitable and just world, the lot of them would be doing the perp walk in orange jumpsuits. Unfortunately, we live in a world nowhere near equitable and just, a world where men of Durbin's caliber make statements indicating he knew, and obviously a lot of other Congress critters knew, the neocon invasion of Iraq was predicated on "intelligence failures," i.e., absolute and calculated lies, and yet Durbin did not try to stop the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis because he was "sworn to secrecy." Beyond the Washington Times, this news is apparently not worth the light of day, as a Google News search produces a mere handful of results, most notably Fox News, which gave it a predictable spin, namely that Congress digested and embraced the engineered neocon lies about Saddam and his illusory weapons of mass destruction and the fairy tale that Saddam held tea and biscuit parties for "al-Qaeda" in Baghdad. All of this was plainly obvious at the time, but the corporate media eagerly disseminated neocon fabrications to a mostly indifferent and distracted American public, a can't-be-bothered public almost as complicit in war crimes as Durbin. Meanwhile, a "left-leaning, activist crowd," according to the Boston Herald, enthusiastically welcomed war criminal Hillary and would-be war criminal Obama in California. "Obama, who has made his early opposition to the Iraq conflict a central theme of his campaign, told delegates he was proud to have bucked popular opinion at the time. It was a subtle but direct jab at Clinton, who voted in 2002 to grant Bush authority to invade Iraq." Plan Obama, however, does not set a withdrawal date and in fact would keep troops in Iraq for "counter-terrorism," that is to say they would continue killing Iraqis opposed to the occupation of their country. Of course, Iraq is not Iran or Pakistan, two countries Obama affirms may need to be on the receiving end of "surgical missile strikes," even though such would "further strain relations between the U.S. and the Arab world," as the Chicago Tribune reported back in September, 2004. Apparently, this is not a big deal for the "left-leaning, activist crowd," so long as it is a Democrat doing the killing and not a Bush neocon. But then, of course, Democrats, even "left-leaning" Democrats, are not opposed to mass murder campaigns, as they supported Bill Clinton's criminal bombing of Yugoslavia. "Democrats prefer Clinton wars and Republicans prefer Bush wars. But in the end, they almost unanimously come together to support all wars. The differences concern the choice of official rationale," writes Diana Johnstone. And, in regard to Iran, this "official rationale" differs little from that of the neocons. Speaking before AIPAC last month, Obama "said global leaders must do whatever it takes to stop Iran from enriching uranium and acquiring nuclear weapons," according to the Chicago Sun-Times, and never mind there is no evidence of this dreaded acquirement. "Our job is to renew the United States' efforts to help Israel achieve peace with its neighbors while remaining vigilant against those who do share this vision," Obama told AIPAC. In addition, Obama the "antiwar candidate" told AIPAC the "consequence of the Administration's failed strategy in Iraq has been to strengthen Iran's strategic position; reduce U.S. credibility and influence in the region; and place Israel and other nations friendly to the United States in greater peril." In order to right this perceived wrong--that is, a wrong perceived by AIPAC, not the American people--Obama issued a "gloves-are-off memo" stating the United States, if he is selected as ruler, "wouldn't rule out force" because job one of the neolib elite is "to never forget that the threat of violence is real." Indeed, the "threat of violence is real," and it will continue to be so long as Democrats and Republicans lord over the political process, as they will come 2008. ########### http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=39820 SENATOR DURBIN KNEW WAR FAULTY Saturday, April 28, 2007 - FreeMarketNews.com The Senate's No. 2 Democrat says he knew that the American public was being misled into the Iraq war but remained silent because he was sworn to secrecy as a member of the intelligence committee. "The information we had in the intelligence committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn't believe it," Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said Wednesday when talking on the Senate floor about the run-up to the Iraq war in 2002. -Washington Times