Seymour Hersh's new article - Excellent! "Get Out The Vote" (In Iraq)

[cyberpj]

Note: w/thanks to DUer crikkett

GET OUT THE VOTE
— SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Did Washington try to manipulate Iraq's election?
Issue of 2005-07-25
Posted 2005-07-18

In my reporting for this story, one theme that emerged was the Bush Administration's increasing tendency to turn to off-the-books covert actions to accomplish its goals. This allowed the Administration to avoid the kind of stumbling blocks it encountered in the debate about how to handle the elections: bureaucratic infighting, congressional second-guessing, complaints from outsiders.

The methods and the scope of the covert effort have been hard to discern. The current and former military and intelligence officials who spoke to me about the election operation were unable, or unwilling, to give precise details about who did what and where on Election Day. These sources said they heard reports of voter intimidation, ballot stuffing, bribery, and the falsification of returns, but the circumstances, and the extent of direct American involvement, could not be confirmed.

Under federal law, a finding must be submitted to the House and Senate intelligence committees or, in exceptional cases, only to the intelligence committee chairs and ranking members and the Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress. At least one Democrat, Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader, strongly protested any interference in the Iraqi election. (An account of the dispute was published in Time last October.) The recently retired C.I.A. official recounted angrily, "She threatened to blow the whole thing up in the press by going public. The White House folded to Pelosi." And, for a time, "she brought it to a halt." Pelosi would not confirm or deny this account, except, in an e-mail from her spokesman, to "vigorously" deny that she had threatened to go public. She added, "I have never threatened to make any classified information public. That's against the law."

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050725fa_fact

[whistle]

1. The U.S. exports free democratic manipulated elections....

....Didn't the former Soviet Union do that also? The more I see of George W. Bush's policies and tactics in action, the more they resemble the plot and story line of the original 1962 John Frankenheimer film "The Manchurian Candidate".

[cyberpj]

2. couldn't agree more nt.

[cyberpj]

11. kick

[realFedUp]

3. Any MSM picking this story up?

or is this another 6 month research job?

[cyberpj]

5. Just posted today - w/be printed in the 7/25 issue. nt.

[crikkett]

4. thanks! n/t

:smile:

[cyberpj]

9. Thank YOU. And again, welcome to DU! nt.

[Stephanie]

6. remember this?

[cyberpj]

8. As well as the purple heart band-aids. nt.

[Just Me]

7. The corporacrats have been engaging in election manipulation,...

,...around the world for decades in the interest of profiteering U.S. multi-national corporations. Part of the reason humanity is rebelling is precisely due to this U.S. foreign policy.

*sigh* Well, at least that reality is actually getting some exposure.

[cyberpj]

10. Agreed. But most sheeple don't know this and the more publicity

these matters get (as you said) the better.

If we start talking about this all the time maybe it will be harder for this to happen.