Marian Wilkinson distorts Edwards-Cheney debate
Gerard Jackson
One only has to read Marian Wilkinson to understand why journalism stinks. Her report on the Cheney-Edwards debate could have come straight from the Democratic National Committee (Deputies' political debate gets personal, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 October).
Dubbing Mr Cheney "Darth Vader" and accusing him of living "up to his caricature" (she neglected to mention that this caricature is the creation of the Democrats and their corrupt media allies), Marian Wilkinson used Paul Bremer to try and neutralise Cheney's quite proper observation that "that terrorists could smuggle a deadly biological agent or a nuclear weapon into the middle of one of our own cities".
Wilkinson stated "that the White House had dismissed [Bremer's] calls for more US troops to stabilise Iraq in the immediate aftermath of the war". It's true that Bremer said that "We never had enough troops on the ground". It's also true that the White House did not dismiss Bremer's alleged calls for more troops.
Marian Wilkinson omitted two vital points from her story (tale): Firstly, Bremer also said: "I believe that we currently have sufficient troop levels in Iraq…" He made it perfectly clear that his recent references to troop levels only applied to the situation in May 2003.
Secondly, the reason for the situation in Baghdad in May 2003 is that US forces had only about 50 per cent of the mechanised force that hat been assigned to the operation. This is because opposition by France and her pals forced these troops to attack from the Gulf instead of from Turkey. Any accusation that the situation was caused by the White House dismissing calls for more troops is an outrageous lie. Nevertheless, don't expect a correction by Wilkinson or her lefty editors.
Even worse for wilkinson and her fellow leftwing hacks, Bremer recently criticised the "press and critics of the war" for having "seized on [his] remarks in an effort to undermine President Bush's Iraq policy". Wilkinson is obviously among those journalists for whom Mr Bremer has little regard.
Trying to strengthen Edwards' performance, Wilkinson argued that "a new CIA report and the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, have acknowledged there is little hard evidence tying Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda".
Now Edwards had previously said: "The terrorist threat against America is all too clear. Thousands of terrorist operatives around the world would pay anything to get their hands on Saddam's arsenal, and there is every reason to believe that Saddam would turn his weapons over to these terrorists. No one can doubt that if the terrorists of September 11 had had weapons of mass destruction, they would have used them" (12 September 002).
So how does she square this statement with his current view that Saddam was not threat? She doesn't and this Bush-hater masquerading as a journalist doesn't intend to.
Lefties are claiming, with the support of politically corrupt journalists, that there are no "hard" links between Hussein and Al Qaeda. However, Thomas Kean, co-chairman of the September 11 Commission, thinks otherwise. According to Kean: "There was no question in our minds that there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda" (22 July 2004). Kean's view is also supported by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Wilkinson also neglected to mention that for years Saddam's Iraq was on the
State Department's list of state sponsors of terror.
The leftist view amounts to saying that there were no terrorists in Iraq before the liberation. Al Qaeda had terrorist operatives in scores of countries, including the Middle East and the US, but it had absolutely no links whatsoever with Hussein. One would have to be as politically bigoted as Wilkinson to swallow that bulldust.
A curious thing about the recent CIA report is that it acknowledges "existing terrorist" groups in Iraq before the liberation. Moreover, how could anyone overlook the existence of the Salman Pak terrorist training camp? It was here that terrorists were also trained to hijack planes.
Given these facts how can any of these analysts seriously argue that none of these groups, particularly Ansar Al Islam, were linked to Al Qaeda?
In addition, recently released Iraqi intelligence documents exposed Saddam's efforts to work with terrorists, including Al Qaeda. (These documents were released about the same time as the CIA report). As for Rumsfeld, he admitted he was relying on CIA information. It's a pity he didn't rely on documents actually written by Saddam's intelligence operatives.
Outrageous as Wilkinson was on defending Edwards' terrorist accusations on Iraq and terrorism, she was even worse when it came to Edwards' sleazy and shameless assault on Halliburton.
Edwards charged that while Cheney "was CEO of Halliburton, they paid millions of dollars in fines for providing false information on their company, just like Enron and Ken Lay".
Now for the facts, those troublesome things that Democrats and lefty journalists have a problem with. Halliburton was fined because it failed to reveal a change in accounting procedures that improved its profit sheet. There is no evidence that fraud was intended. Moreover, Cheney was not charged with any offence. In fact, the "SEC admitted that Cheney fully cooperated with their investigation.
This is a long way from Edwards' nasty insinuation that Cheney was guilty of massive fraud. Furthermore, regardless of what Dems and journalists are trying to suggest, Halliburton has never even by charged with committing fraud. And let us not forget that the Enron scandal was a child of the Clinton presidency, not the Bush presidency.
Bribery charges: two employees operating in Kuwait were dismissed for demanding bribes. The company was not involved. A joint oil venture in Nigeria that involves a Halliburton subsidiary is being investigated for bribing Nigerian officials. But a distinction between bribery (or competitive bribery) and extortion needs to be made when dealing with third world countries.
Wilkinson quoted Edwards' charge that Halliburton, meaning Cheney, "did business with Libya and Iran, two sworn enemies of the United States". The facts: In 1995, before Cheney joined the company, Halliburton was fined nearly $4 million for violating the ban on exports to Libya. The violations went back to 1987 and 1990.
The company openly admits that a subsidiary, Halliburton Products and Services Ltd, earns about $40 million a year doing oil maintenance work in Iran. The company defends itself on the grounds that it is in full compliance with US sanctions. However, the matter is under investigations.
Edwards' charge about Iran is ridiculous considering that John Kerry said he would sell this murderous regime nuclear fuel even though he knows it could be used to make nukes. Now there is a big difference between infrastructure, which Halliburton specialises in, and building nuclear weapons. But maybe Edwards and Marian Wilkinson cannot tell the difference.
The irony of Edwards and Kerry's charges of bribery is that the Duelfer report has revealed that it was France, Russia, Germany, the UN, etc, who were on the take. This raises the question of how many journalists had also been bought off. Then there is the case of the outrageous oil-for-food scandal. However, I doubt if little Miss Wilkinson will spare any of her precious time to write about these scandals.
Wilkinson also quoted Edwards' grossly misleading charge that Halliburton was given "a seven-and-a-half billion dollar 'no bid' contract in Iraq". Edwards was clearly insinuating, as was Wilkinson, that bidding procedure had been corrupted to favour the company.
The no-bid deal was the military's idea when dealing with emergency situations. To avoid the delay that would involve a lengthy bidding process the military came up with LOGCAP (Army Logistics Civil Augmentation Program). This means that in the event of an emergence situation, as was the case in Iraq, the military would turn to a company with a sound track record. In this case, the company was Halliburton.
Edwards and Wilkinson need to be reminded of the fact that Halliburton was also awarded a no-bid contract by the Clinton administration for work in Bosnia and Kosovo. Strangely enough, neither Kerry nor Edwards found anything untoward about this particular no-bid contract.
(If any journalist really wants to do some investigating into dirty dealings and corrupt contracts they might try digging into Loral Space & Communications' dealing with China and the Clinton administration. How about it, Marian?)
One particularly interesting omission was any reference to the body blow that Cheney struck when he called attention to Edwards' tax avoidance scheme, the one the IRS is investigating.
An honest journalist, which Wilkinson is not, would have pointed out that Edwards and Kerry are proposing tax increases that are designed in such away that they and their super rich supporters would not have to pay them.
The rest of the media was pretty low key about the debate, probably in the belief that it would have little influence on the election results. However, the leftwing Phillip Coorey (Rivals in bitter clash, Herald-Sun, 7 October) misled his readers with the statement "that when Mr Cheney was CEO of energy giant Halliburton it did business with Iran and Libya, then sworn enemy states of America".
As we have seen, Cheney was not on the Halliburton payroll when the company was dealing with Libya. With respect to Iran the company claims that it fully complies with US sanctions.
Like Marian Wilkinson, Coorey ignored the fact that Kerry's offer to sell the sadistic mullahs nuclear fuel made a mockery of Edwards' cheap attacks on the company.
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Gerard Jackson is Brookes' economics editor
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 11 October 2004