One of Ours

...Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., a key Democratic supporter of President Bush’s decision to wage war on Iraq, said the president must demonstrate that he understands the “nature of the damage” caused by the abuse incident by “determining who is responsible, no matter how far up the chain of command this goes.”

Once those people are identified, Biden said, Bush must “demand the resignations for whoever is involved in this policy, and that includes the Lord God Almighty himself. It includes anybody involved.”...

Less than 24 hours after accusing the Walt Disney Company of pulling the plug on his latest documentary in a blatant attempt at political censorship, the rabble-rousing film-maker Michael Moore has admitted he knew a year ago that Disney had no intention of distributing it.

The admission, during an interview with CNN, undermined Moore's claim that Disney was trying to sabotage the US release of Fahrenheit 911 just days before its world premiere at the Cannes film festival.

Instead, it lent credence to a growing suspicion that Moore was manufacturing a controversy to help publicise the film, a full-bore attack on the Bush administration and its handling of national security since the attacks of 11 September 2001.

In an indignant letter to his supporters, Moore said he had learnt only on Monday that Disney had put the kibosh on distributing the film, which has been financed by the semi-independent Disney subsidiary Miramax.

But in the CNN interview he said: "Almost a year ago, after we'd started making the film, the chairman of Disney, Michael Eisner, told my agent he was upset Miramax had made the film and he will not distribute it."...

...Moore's publicity stunt...appears to be working. A front-page news piece in The New York Times was followed yesterday by an editorial denouncing Disney for censorship and denial of Moore's right to free expression.

Moore told CNN that Disney had "signed a contract to distribute this [film]" but got cold feet. But Disney executives insists there was never any contract. And a source close to Miramax said that the only deal there was for financing, not for distribution.

At the end of March Comcast announced that it had purchased TechTV from Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures in order to strengthen the channel and fold it in with their own, largely ignored gaming channel, G4. The future of TechTV was uncertain, but hopeful. Now it appears that Comcast may be planning to gut the network, as they've given the entire staff their mandatory 60-days notice in compliance with the WARN act...

... Comcast and LA-based G4 Media plan to completely shut down the San Francisco office where the show was based, making the prospect of many rehires unlikely...

...we went to Iraq, I think, for several reasons:

First, we needed to make the point Ed describes. It's dangerous to be on our bad side, even if you're a powerful dicatator with a large army and lots of bribed foreigners. That point has been made.

Second, we couldn't have a powerful, rich dictator with WMD programs and terrorist connections, who hated us, operating in the region without facing serious handicaps in our efforts elsewhere. That's taken care of, too.

Third, invading Iraq let us credibly extend that threat to other terror-supporting nations like Syria, Iran and, to some degree, Saudi Arabia. There's no question that they feel threatened -- in fact, it seems likely that they're sending fighters into Iraq as a way of mounting a "spoiling attack" intended to make us less likely to move against them. And we appear to be returning the favor in a lower-profile way. (And, on a more overt level, the Bush Administration is putting sanctions pressure on Syria.)

Fourth, over the longer term, we felt that a de-Saddamized Iraq provided an opportunity to produce an Arab state that would be neither a theocracy nor an autocracy, but a democratic model that would undercut Arab dictatorships (a root cause of terror, you know!) and terrorists themselves throughout the region. The dictators and terrorists certainly seem worried about that, as evidenced by their efforts -- and the efforts of their propaganda arm, Al Jazeera -- to undercut that project...

...there's some indication that we're succeeding in this. I'd like to see elections sooner, rather than later. The Zarqawi memo, which certainly seems to have accurately predicted the terrorists' actions, indicated that the terrorists felt that democracy and self-determination in Iraq would be devastating to their cause. And elections in Iraq so far have indicated no great support for either theocracy or a return to autocracy.

This is a process, not an event...

[Another reason]

The pre-war situation in and around Iraq was unstable and unsustainable. The 10-year-old sanctions and no-fly-zone regime was about worn out. The requirements for policing the no-fly zones were a destabilizing force in the region and the sanctions were blamed for the deaths of thousands of Iraqi children each year. Demands to lift the sanctions were increasing (partly, as we now know, under the influence of massive bribes). Truly, the incomplete 1991 war needed to be ended. Either Saddam or the sanctions had to be taken down. In the wake of 9/11 and amidst Afganistan, we simply could not afford to give Saddam such a victory.

...Let's say Rumsfeld resigns on Friday. The election is still six months away. And the nation is at war. So a new Defense Secretary would be needed more or less immediately. That would open up a very uncomfortable prospect for the administration.

Confirmation hearings for a new Sec Def would, I think, inevitably turn into a national forum for discussing the management of the Pentagon, the planning for the war and the lack of planning for the occupation. The new nominee would be drawn into all sorts of uncomfortble public second-guessing of what's happened up until this point. Sure, that's stuff under Rumsfeld. But, really, it's stuff under Bush -- the civilian head of the United States military.

That, I have to imagine, is something the White House would like to avoid at any cost.

SADDAM Hussein had the ability to unleash biological and chemical weapons "at short notice" on foreign nations, according to a potentially explosive new report by inspectors.

The leaked document, written by Charles Duelfer, the new director of the Iraq Survey group, concludes that hard evidence does exist that Saddam had the ability to wreak terror with the weaponry.

Furthermore, there was evidence that he was plotting to expand his facilities last year, prior to the invasion of British and American troops.

The report will be seized on gratefully by London and Washington as they continue to fight the case for war. One Foreign Office official described it last night as "hopeful".

But critics of the war immediately hit back, claiming that Duelfer, a CIA special adviser, was simply offering the US and UK what they wanted to hear...

...This is a big story and it is deserves much of the attention. The US Army has stepped up and openly shared what it knows about what went on. But now we have to take the opportunity to turn a completely despicable act into an example for the Iraqi people of how a democracy handles crises and scandal. The Iraqis I work with have already said that they are surprised at how forthright the US has been about admitting to what happened.

An open and transparent investigation is the first step. MG Taguba's Article 15-6 investigation is thorough and pulls no punches. The next step is a trial and punishment for those responsible. We'll have to wait to see what happens there. The 15-6 recommends General Officer Memorandums of Reprimand (GOMOR) for most of the officers in charge at the facility. But, even though it will end an officer's career, a GOMOR is an administrative action and is not considered "punishment." If the criminal investigations find sufficient evidence then the officers may also face courts-martial.

But the bigger step is repairing our relationship with the Iraqi people. We suffered a great blow, much to the delight of our enemies in Iraq, and it may take a long time to win back the confidence of many Iraqis who are now comparing the US with Saddam. I think we're already moving ahead with repairing some of the damage. We invited local delegations of influential Iraqis to our regional confinement facilities to show them what conditions are like there and provide them guarantees that the detainees are treated well and are not abused. In each case they have come away with positive impressions of how we are running the facilities. Taking steps like this can show the Iraqis that we can accept responsibility for what went wrong and then take steps to fix it and make sure it never happens again. It will hopefully prove to them what I'm already convinced of, that this is not an example of a systemic pattern of abuse and degradation of detainees, but rather a failure of moral courage on the part of the soldiers and a leadership failure on the part of the chain of command.

..."I wish they would throw caution to the wind and call themselves liberal, " Alterman said. "If you look at (the liberals on) the best-seller list of the past year, that's enough people to make a cable station work. ... I don't get why they think going after an incredibly crowded (youth) market would work, when they could have a market all to themselves."

Cable industry analyst Gary Arlen said the crowded marketplace made it difficult for any channel not owned by a conglomerate to get picked up by a local cable system.

"The problem is, cable is inundated with ideas for specialized channels...It's a matter of the cable operators -- and there's only a handful, like Comcast, Adelphia, Charter and Time Warner -- that decide what goes on their channels."

And those operators may not have any love for Gore. As a U.S. senator from Tennessee, Gore helped impose cable regulation in the Cable Act of 1992, according to John Higgins, deputy editor of Broadcasting and Cable magazine.

"I can't imagine a guy on earth who's going to have a more difficult time securing carriage from these cable operators than Al Gore," Higgins said. "He cost these guys multiple billions of dollars back in the day."...