NYT/AP: Bush Bypasses Senate to Install Edelman (Feith's replacement)

[DeepModem Mom]

Bush Bypasses Senate to Install Edelman
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 9, 2005
Filed at 6:53 p.m. ET


WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush for the second time in a week used a constitutional power to bypass the Senate and fill a senior Pentagon post with an official whose nomination was stalled in the Senate.

The White House announced on Tuesday that Bush named Eric S. Edelman to be undersecretary of defense for policy, the chief policy adviser to the secretary of defense. Edelman replaces Douglas J. Feith, whose battles with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., over the release of documents related to Iraq stalled Edelman's nomination.

Edelman is a career foreign service officer. He served as ambassador to Turkey from July 2003 to June 2005 and he was a national security assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney from February 2001 to June 2003.

Edelman's nomination to replace Feith was sent to the Senate on May 16.

The Constitution gives the president the authority to put an official in a position without waiting for Senate confirmation when Congress is in recess. The official then can serve until the end of the current Congress, which in this case is January 2007....


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Recess-Appointment.html?

[mom cat]

1. The dems in the senate MUST fight back hard!

[rodeodance]

2. he is overstepping. It will catch up with soon.

[LSparkle]

3. WTF??? What's the Senate supposed to do, never take time off?

This is absolutely INFURIATING!!! While this a-hole (BIG TIME) takes off 5 weeks (in itself an arrogant act while "we're at war"), he's beating up on the Senate for also being out of town. It rings of a CEO who thinks HE deserves time off, but cracks the whip under his employees even harder than usual from his remote location.

If Rehnquist takes a turn for the worse, is there ANYTHING to stop this jerk from just installing a replacement for THAT position, too?

[bearfan454]

24. Nope there isn't.

The Democrats aren't doing anything about this. It's sickening to watch our party act like a bunch of pussies.

[deminks]

4. I understand that this is within his right to do this

but the last three of these have been over the objections of the Senate with regard to documents that the WH refuses to release. The WH has some serious obstruction questions to answer, IMHO.

[katty]

5. IF the Dems were going to FIGHT BACK HARD-that process

should have been well under way by now--it's almost 2006-bush does any damn thing he wants, he made it clear he would prefer to be a dictator.

[theHandpuppet]

11. Tell it like it is!!

Just another "bend over and grab your ankles for the GOP" moment brought to you by the party leadership.

If Bush is acting like a dictator it's only because he's allowed to do exactly that.

[54anickel]

6. Didn't Turkey kick his ass out as ambassador? I've gotta find that

damned link....

[deminks]

8. I found this link

It describes some of the problems while this guy was ambassador in Turkey,

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0321/dailyUpdate.html

[54anickel]

12. Thanks! Some great Rummy quotes in that one as well. Gotta love

this one:

When asked if perhaps he should have sent more troops into Iraq in the beginning in order to better secure and protect the country after the invasion, Rumsfeld said more US troops would have created an image of "occupation" rather than "liberation." :crazy:

[54anickel]

9. Here it is - He was also a player in the "intelligence" rationale for Iraq

There's something going on here - Bolton, Flory and now Edelman. :tinfoilhat:

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2005/0504edelman.php

snip>

All but chased out of Turkey as a “persona non grata,” Edelman is being promoted to undersecretary of defense for policy. Like many other top officials of the Bush administration’s foreign policy team, Edelman began his government career in the Reagan administration. While completing his doctorate in history at Yale University, Edelman joined the U.S. Middle East Delegation to the West Bank/Gaza Autonomy Talks. He then became a special assistant to Secretary of State George Shultz. In 1990 Edelman moved from the State Department to the Pentagon, where he officially served as assistant deputy undersecretary of defense for Soviet and East European affairs.

Edelman served under defense secretary, now vice president, Cheney during the administration of the president's father. At that time he worked as part of a team headed by Paul Wolfowitz that was charged with formulating a Defense Policy Guidance that would serve as the post-Cold War framework for U.S. military strategy. Others working on the draft grand strategy were Zalmay Khalilzad and I. Lewis Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff. According to Nicholas Lehman, writing in the New Yorker, this team picked by Cheney was “generally speaking, a cohesive group of conservatives who regard themselves as bigger-thinking, tougher-minded, and intellectually bolder than most other people in Washington.” In the draft Defense Policy Guidance, Wolfowitz and team laid out a policy agenda for U.S. military power that stipulated that the U.S. should wage preventive war to maintain unchallenged U.S. military supremacy.

During the Clinton administration, Edelman moved back to the State Department. As ambassador-at-large and special adviser to the secretary of state on the Newly Independent States, Edelman oversaw defense, security, and space issues.

Vice President Cheney brought Edelman back under his wing as principal deputy assistant for national security affairs. As an assistant to Cheney, he was part of the foreign policy network that hurriedly established the “intelligence” rationales for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Edelman, who is close to such leading neocons as Michael Ledeen and Richard Perle, worked closely in the vice president’s office with Scooter Libby in establishing a policy network of hawks and neocons that was based at the Pentagon and Cheney’s office but extended through key figures into State, the various intelligence agencies, and the National Security Council.

[hang a left]

13. Who is Flory, 54?

I missed that one.

Something IS going on. No tinfoil hat needed. I wonder how fast they are going to get us in to Iran?

[DeepModem Mom]

14. Here you go, hang -- from the article:

Last week Bush approved a recess appointment for Peter Flory to be assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, a post that had not been filled by a Senate-confirmed official since J.D. Crouch left in 2004.

On Aug. 1 Bush used the same power to install John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.

[54anickel]

17. Hard to find anything on Flory - but he seems cozy with Bolton

This was about all I could find -

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2004/n06252004_2004062502.html

WASHINGTON, June 25, 2004 – Iran, one of three "Axis of Evil" nations identified by President Bush in 2002, "is still pursuing a strategic decision to have a nuclear weapons capability," a senior U.S. official told a House panel June 24.

snip>

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Peter Flory, who accompanied Bolton at the hearing, noted that Iranian procurement of nuclear weapons would "mark a dramatic change for the worse in the security landscape of the Persian Gulf and the broader Middle East."

A nuclear-armed Iran, Flory pointed out, would threaten American allies in the Persian Gulf-Middle East region as well as U.S. forces.

In the post-9/11 world, "nothing is unthinkable," Flory emphasized, including the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran exporting nuclear technology to other enemies of the United States. "Flory pointed out that Iran is supporting the Sunni Muslim extremist group Ansar al-Islam in Iraq.

[hang a left]

21. Thanks alot.....

What times we live in.

[54anickel]

23. You're welcome. These are scary times indeed. Let's see if he still

goes ahead with the Gordon England appointment. I just can't shake this feeling that "supmtin's up".

[Delphinus]

7. The little dictator strikes again, eh?

What happened to the three branches of government so there would be a balance of power?

[VegasWolf]

10. The wee little emperor is playing with himself again. nt

[54anickel]

15. Guess Gordon England will be next

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-5185452,00.html

snip>

Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, is recommending the president use his recess powers to install two other top Pentagon officials the Senate has yet to confirm:

-Gordon England, the secretary of the Navy who is the president's choice for deputy defense secretary, replacing Paul Wolfowitz, who departed to lead the World Bank, and

-Eric Edelman as undersecretary for policy, replacing Feith.

England's confirmation has been delayed over potential conflict-of-interest issues surrounding pensions he holds from defense companies. Levin has delayed Senate confirmation of Edelman, a former ambassador to Turkey, over access to the intelligence-related documents.

John Ullyot, a Warner spokesman, said the Virginia Republican is confident England's pension issues will be resolved. He said Warner recommended recess appointments because he feels it's important that the Pentagon have the positions filled during wartime.

[deminks]

16. PNACers and Neo cons, one and all.

I think you are right about England. So Warner is the one recommending this:

Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, is recommending the president use his recess powers to install two other top Pentagon officials the Senate has yet to confirm

[54anickel]

18. I've got this sinking feeling - they're gonna nuke Iran. Cheney's already

laid the groundwork if we have another terrorist attack. I'd have to find the articles again, but it's stuff I came across while digging around about the Iranian oil bourse.

On edit - here's one. Is it time for a MIHOP?

snip>

Indeed, there are good reasons for U.S. military commanders to be 'horrified' at the prospects of attacking Iran. In the December 2004 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, James Fallows reported that numerous high-level war-gaming sessions had recently been completed by Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel who has run war games at the National War College for the past two decades.<9> Col. Gardiner summarized the outcome of these war games with this statement, "After all this effort, I am left with two simple sentences for policymakers: You have no military solution for the issues of Iran. And you have to make diplomacy work." Despite Col. Gardiner's warnings, yet another story appeared in early 2005 that reiterated this administration's intentions towards Iran. Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh's article in The New Yorker included interviews with various high-level U.S. intelligence sources. Hersh wrote:

In my interviews , I was repeatedly told that the next strategic target was Iran. Everyone is saying, 'You can't be serious about targeting Iran. Look at Iraq,' the former intelligence official told me. But the say, 'We've got some lessons learned – not militarily, but how we did it politically. We're not going to rely on agency pissants.' No loose ends, and that's why the C.I.A. is out of there. <10>

The most recent, and by far the most troubling, was an article in The American Conservative by intelligence analyst Philip Giraldi. His article, "In Case of Emergency, Nuke Iran," suggested the resurrection of active U.S. military planning against Iran – but with the shocking disclosure that in the event of another 9/11-type terrorist attack on U.S. soil, Vice President Dick Cheney's office wants the Pentagon to be prepared to launch a potential tactical nuclear attack on Iran – even if the Iranian government was not involved with any such terrorist attack against the U.S.:

The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney's office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing – that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack – but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections. <11>

more...

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/17450

[54anickel]

20. A bit of background on Gordon England

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/england/england.php

Like other armed service secretaries originally appointed by George W. Bush—including James Roche and Thomas White—Gordon England arrived at the Pentagon fresh from duties as an executive of a major corporation, in this case the Pentagon contractor General Dynamics. Gordon, along with his boss Donald Rumsfeld, is a champion of military transformation. According to a Washington Times article about his appointment, one of Gordon’s chief aims as navy secretary is to develop “futuristic weapons to counter new types of threats emerging in the post-Soviet world.” General Dynamics specializes in the design of attack and ballistic missile submarines as well as tanks. (3) (5)

In late March 2005, George W. Bush nominated England as deputy secretary of defense to replace Paul Wolfowitz, who was tagged by the president to head the World Bank. England served as Navy secretary from 2001 to 2003, when he became acting deputy secretary for homeland defense. He returned to his original Navy post in late 2003, after his successor, Colin R. McMillan, committed suicide. (4) (9)

While at the Pentagon, one of England’s key tasks was to decide what to do with Guantanamo detainees who were being held as enemy combatants. At the end of this review process, 38 persons were released due to lack of evidence, what England called “thin files.” These released detainees comprised 7% of the population at the detention center, and join 214 others who have been released because of diplomatic pressure from other nations. The Pentagon began its review after a June 2004 Supreme Court ruling that granted Guantanamo prisoners the right to plead their cases in U.S. courts. (8)

England has an engineering background and has never served in the armed forces. Like many other foreign policy officials in the Bush administration, he has been criticized as a “chicken hawk.” (7) He is not a neoconservative but rather a creature of the military-industrial complex. In 2001 England received the Distinguished Service award from the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a policy institute closely associated with the Likud party and the Israeli military, as well as with the U.S. neoconservative camp and U.S. military contractors.

more...

[MGKrebs]

25. Jeez, that guy McMillan must have been Bush's hero.

Marine, pilot, banker, oilman, rancher.
All the good stuff. well, except for the suicide.

[wli]

19. another fascist Ledeen crony

I'm not sure I want to wait around for the stormtroopers to break down my door and haul me off to a concentration camp.

[Supersedeas]

26. Pretty much

[dbt]

22. Kick for the morning crew.