Senator Hillary Clinton:

All Show and no Substance

Senator Hillary Clinton:
All Show and no Substance

By Sibel Edmonds & William Weaver

August 28, 2006

Sen. Clinton and Corporate America
Hillary, Inc.
By RALPH NADER
March 3 / 4, 2007

Hillary Clinton calls Iran
a threat to U.S., Israel
The Associated Press
5 Mar 2007

Clinton, Edwards Will Square Off
At Aipac Tonight
February 1, 2007

Entrenched Hypocrisy
Hillary Clinton, AIPAC and Iran
By JOSHUA FRANK January 3, 2006

AIPAC spy case:
Larry Franklin sentenced,
former honchos may sue
over legal fees

Guess Who Came to Dinner?

Senator Hillary Clinton:
All Show and no Substance

By Sibel Edmonds & William Weaver

August 28, 2006

Recent surveys measuring public opinion and confidence in congress all arrived at the same conclusion: over seventy percent of Americans have lost faith and confidence in the United States Congress. The public no longer trusts this body of politicians who were elected to represent the people and the peoples’ interests. Instead, they now view these “representatives” as servants of special interest groups, corporations and high-powered lobbyists. Americans are tired of watching and listening to elected officials who refrain from taking a strong stand on crucial issues, and who almost never state their positions with conviction and sincerity. In the eyes of the nation these senators and representatives are nothing more than programmed publicity puppets, competing for face time in the media. Common adjectives used by our citizens to describe these officials clearly reflect their sentiments: “spineless,” “phony,” “corrupt,” “out of touch,” “timid,” “all show and no substance,” and the list goes on. Why have we Americans lost confidence and faith in those elected? Where and when did we go wrong; or perhaps more correctly, they go wrong? What have these representatives done, or, failed to do, that arouses such anger and loathing in the very same constituents who voted them into office?

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is a perfect example; an elected senator who has served six years in her seat, never taking a strong stand in support of her constituents on any serious or controversial issue; a senator who has used her record-breaking TV public appearances to say “nothing”; a senator whose senate office adheres strictly to a motto of “See no Evil, Hear no Evil”; an elected official who has no record of conducting investigations into cases that are matters of great concern to her constituents and to our nation; a senator who has consistently stood quietly on the sidelines when the issues at hand demand public hearings –waiting to determine the direction of each blowing wind; a politician who has spent all her focus and energy on a campaign of shallow publicity glitz and her PR empire behind it. Here are some documented illustrative examples:

James J. DiGeorgio and Carl Steubing died in ways no war veteran should. They were subjected to illegal drug experimentation by employees of the Stratton Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Albany, New York; killed by servants of the very government they fought to protect. Scores of other veterans were injured in these experiments, and only by the courage of whistleblowers Jeffrey Fudin and Anthony Mariano was any measure of justice achieved for these misdeeds. One person was convicted of manslaughter, but investigations into other officials collapsed because of a lack of institutional nerve to follow the investigation to the end. A scape-goated employee went to prison, while those who supervised, facilitated, and reaped the benefits of the lucrative, illegal drug testing went on to other VA positions with promotions and raises.

Between 2000 and June 2006, numerous contacts with Senator Hillary Clinton over the Stratton tragedy went unacknowledged, or glossed over, or shuffled around to various offices with no substantive action. No less than five Clinton staff members heard presentations and received documentation about the experiments, and Senator Clinton herself is personally aware of the detailed facts of the case. This personal knowledge did not translate into action, for though Senator Clinton carefully scripts her numerous public appearances to give the impression of caring and concern, her actions speak otherwise. She noted "our nation made a pact with those who serve their country in the Armed Forces – a commitment that those who served would have access to quality health care through the VA hospital system . . . and they deserve to be treated as the best." But while Senator Clinton was issuing such lofty statements and mugging for photo opportunities with active duty military, she did nothing about the systematic abuse and murder of veterans within her own constituency. The Veterans Affairs Whistleblowers Coalition, and more recently the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, sent numerous letters and e-mails and copious documentation, pleading for help from the Senator to investigate and address the crimes committed at Stratton, including unrelenting retaliation against the whistleblowers who brought these matters to public attention

Notably, the VAWBC recognized that the motivations and incentives that led to abuse at Stratton were present at many hospitals throughout the VA system, and that greed and poor management in the VA guaranteed that the events of Stratton would be repeated elsewhere. The most vulnerable people, the sick and dying with nowhere to turn but to the VA, were exploited and killed by those tasked with their medical care, and their suffering and death were ignored by Senator Clinton. It is doubly offensive that this woman sits on the Armed Services Committee, which, along with the Veterans Affairs Committee, has the duty to provide for the well-being of current and former military service members. For all her posturing; for a senator who advertises herself as a hawk and pro military; how does she show it in action? By abandoning our veterans and war heroes in need!

Senator Clinton’s failure concerning Stratton is not an isolated event; it is part of a pattern of studious avoidance of principled action in the face of serious government misconduct, and the refusal to come to the aid of those people who expose that misconduct. When Bunnatine Greenhouse exposed extraordinary graft and impropriety in government contracting with Halliburton, when Sergeant Samuel Provance reported prisoner abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib, when Russ Tice disclosed violations of the Constitution by the National Security Agency, and when Jay Stroup, Thomas Bittler, Jim Griffin, and Ray Guagliardi exposed serious defects and negligence in the Transportation Security Administration that puts travelers at risk, Clinton did nothing. No words of support, no calls for investigations, no efforts to prevent the lives and careers of whistleblowers from being destroyed. Documents on numerous cases were shared with her office, offers to brief her and her staff have been made on many occasions, pleas for her to live up to the words she so casually utters, have all been ignored, or even ridiculed.

In her six years as senator she has done nothing but attempt to position herself for the presidency, done nothing but avoid acting out of principle and justice, done everything to offend no one. We respect our opponents in much greater measure than we respect Senator Clinton, for with our opponents at least the fight is joined; at least they have the courage of their convictions, at least they place their bets in public. But Senator Clinton, by trying to be something to everyone ends up being nothing to anyone. Where she cannot act safely, she does not act. The current times call for politicians to act with conviction and intelligence, not with cynical, calculated action in response to what opinion polls indicate. If Senator Clinton cannot even come to the aid of constituent veterans being killed through grotesquely immoral and illegal medical experimentation, if she cannot commit herself to call for investigations of national security vulnerabilities that risk national catastrophe, if she cannot offer even moral support to those who disclose outrageous government incompetence and impropriety, is there anything that would prompt her to take a stance out of conviction? Such a person has no business representing the people of this country. Nothing stirs her soul except for her own selfish ambitions; ambitions that she places in front of the nation’s welfare.

Two weeks from today, New Yorkers will cast their vote to determine their upcoming democratic candidate. We hope that they will ask themselves a few hard questions and consider their answers before they cast their vital votes. Are they among those who are tired and disgusted with the current Congress, which has abdicated its duty and responsibility to the public at large? Are they going to have “needed change and reform” in mind when voting for their next candidate? Will they vote for someone with an established record of failure? Or will they take a chance on new blood? Are they going to take into consideration this incumbent’s misuse of “national security and terrorism”? Will they reflect on her failures when presented with real issues threatening our security - brought to her by those on the front lines? Will they consider having raised more money than any other democratic candidate a plus or a minus - questioning all she had to promise and everyone she had to sell out in order to raise those millions? Will they simply ask, isn’t six years long enough? Isn’t it time for a change? Isn’t it time to give another democrat the opportunity to step up and become what we all long for – a true representative of the people?

We have confidence in the sophistication of our New Yorkers. We believe they’ll say: “Ms. Clinton, fool us once, shame on you; fool us twice shame on us.”

Sibel Edmonds is the founder and director of National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC). Ms. Edmonds worked as a language specialist for the FBI. During her work with the bureau, she discovered and reported serious acts of security breaches, cover-ups, and intentional blocking of intelligence that had national security implications. After she reported these acts to FBI management, she was retaliated against by the FBI and ultimately fired in March 2002. Since that time, court proceedings on her case have been blocked by the assertion of “State Secret Privilege”; the Congress of the United States has been gagged and prevented from any discussion of her case through retroactive re-classification by the Department of Justice. Ms. Edmonds is fluent in Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani; and has a MA in Public Policy and International Commerce from George Mason University, and a BA in Criminal Justice and Psychology from George Washington University. PEN American Center awarded Ms. Edmonds the 2006 PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award.

Professor William Weaver is the senior advisor and a board member of National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. Mr. Weaver served in U.S. Army signals intelligence for eight years in Berlin and Augsburg, Germany, in the late 1970s and 1980s. He subsequently received his law degree and Ph.D. in politics from the University of Virginia, where he was on the editorial board of the Virginia Law Review. He is presently an Associate Professor of political science and an Associate in the Center for Law and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso. He specializes in executive branch secrecy policy, governmental abuse, and law and bureaucracy. His articles have appeared in American Political Science Review, Political Science Quarterly, Virginia Law Review, Journal of Business Ethics, Organization and other journals. With co-author Robert Pallitto, his book Presidential Secrecy and the Law is forthcoming from Johns Hopkins University Press in the spring of 2007. His views and positions arising from his affiliation with the NSWBC do not reflect the sentiments of, or constitute and endorsement by, the University of Texas at El Paso.

# # # #

© Copyright 2006, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. Information in this release may be freely distributed and published provided that all such distributions make appropriate attribution to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition

http://www.counterpunch.org/nader03032007.html

Weekend Edition
March 3 / 4, 2007

Sen. Clinton and Corporate America
Hillary, Inc.

By RALPH NADER

Just as the Democrats could never seem to get a handle on Ronald Reagan in his sixteen years as Governor of California and President, the Republicans cannot get a handle on Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

No matter what they tried-and they were admittedly timid-the Democrats could neither upset, mire, or throw Ronald Reagan on the defensive. He smiled, shrugged his shoulders and tefloned his way to victory after victory.

The Republicans are flummoxed when it comes to Senator Clinton. They could not even mount a hardy campaign against her in 2006, leaving a nominal Yonkers mayor the hapless task to take up the space on the ballot opposite her. She walked to victory, spending over $35 million in the process.

The reasons why Republicans cannot score points against Clinton is that she is so much like them on the key corporate power issues. Although she is on the Armed Services Committee, she took President Eisenhower's description of the "military-industrial complex" and repeatedly rubber stamped the massive, bloated, wasteful and corrupt expenditures.

It was not for her to question any redundant weapons systems, no longer strategically needed in the post-Soviet Union era. It was not for her to act on the scores of investigative findings by the Government Accountability Office of the Congress documenting corporate waste, fraud and abuse and do something about them. Let a thousand weapon systems bloom was and is her mantra.

The corporate crime wave of the past seven years, draining and looting trillions of dollars from workers, investors and pension-holders did not catch her industrious attention either. Notwithstanding the publicized enforcement efforts of her state's attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, whose popularity took him to a landslide win for the Governorship, she refused to extend his efforts in the U.S. Senate by pushing the regulatory agencies for a necessary crackdown on corporate crime. He gave her the ultimate political cover, by showing the great public support for his "law and order" drives, but she lacked the political fortitude and opted instead for the political cash for her campaigns.

Further contributing to the gigantic government deficit in Washington are the dozens of programs providing subsidies, handouts and bailouts to large corporations known as "corporate welfare." One would think that all that experience in her husband's White House, which she touts routinely, would have predisposed her to championing cutting corporate welfare that now amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars a year in an upward distribution of wealth from the have-littles to the have-lots. No way. Hillary lets the tax revenues and the tax loopholes grow and the windfalls swell the coffers of big business.

By this time the Republicans cannot describe her in the least as "anti-business." Why the junior Senator from New York has done virtually nothing about the business crimes against the poor in her state, especially in the inner city where outrageous interest charges on pay-day loans, predatory lending, redlining, landlord abuses and code violations, lead and asbestos abound. Many of these financial scams benefit Wall Street financiers.

What's left for the Republicans to work on? The Iraq war? Senator Clinton voted for the war resolution and refuses to admit her mistake in so doing. She remains generally a Democratic Hawk on foreign policy.

What about global corporate trade? She is a fervent backer of the World Trade Organization and NAFTA, though she now wants to tweak them with some unenforceable labor and environmental qualifications. The evidence behind the treaties' supplanting our nation's legitimate sovereignty and procedural safeguards through these transnational forms of autocratic, secretive governance, is overwhelming. The evidence that these trade treaties have cost good industrial jobs, driven down efforts to keep living wages, and contributed to the country's huge trade deficits is also decisive.

Yet Senator Clinton follows the Republicans and neuters what could be the latter's criticism of any potential demand for renegotiating these vise-like trade shackles that have led to shipping whole industries to the communist dictatorship in China.

Moreover, she has co-sponsored bills with Republicans and received their public praise, including that of former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich.

The new publication, Politico, headlined recently an article by Jim Vandehei and Carrie Sheffield with the words-"Clinton Presidency May be Inevitable, Republicans say." Former House Majority leader, Tom DeLay, is quoted as saying: "If the conservative movement and Republicans don't understand how massive the Clinton coalition is, she will be the next president." He should know about massive coalitions.

The article also quotes other Republican Party bigwigs in the same vein. None of them offered any strategy. Instead they speak generalities that simply prove the point that Senator Clinton has them neutralized and nullified by the very brazen scope of her political expediency and opportunism.

About all these Republican operatives could offer is that a Hillary presidency would prod and shock conservative foot soldiers into action. Such an attitude means capitulation for 2008.

Ralph Nader is the author of The Seventeen Traditions

Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 07:39:15 -0800 Hillary tells cheering jewish groups she will bomb Iran for them

NEW YORK: Calling Iran a danger to the U.S. and one of Israel's greatest threats, U.S. senator and presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said "no option can be taken off the table" when dealing with that nation.

"U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons," the Democrat told a crowd of Israel supporters. "In dealing with this threat ... no option can be taken off the table."

Clinton spoke at a Manhattan dinner held by the largest pro-Israel lobbying group in the U.S., the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Some 1,700 supporters applauded as she cited her efforts on behalf of the Jewish state and spoke scathingly of Iran's decision to hold a conference last month that questioned whether the Holocaust took place.

"To deny the Holocaust places Iran's leadership in company with the most despicable bigots and historical revisionists, " Clinton said, criticizing what she called the Iranian administration' s "pro-terrorist, anti-American, anti-Israeli rhetoric."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called the Holocaust a "myth" and said Israel should be "wiped off the map" and its Jews returned to Europe.

Iran insists its nuclear program is designed to produce energy, not weapons. Ahmadinejad said Thursday his government is determined to continue with its nuclear program, despite U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, a process that can produce fuel to generate electricity or for the fissile core of an atomic bomb.

Clinton, the front-runner for her party's presidential nomination, called for dialogue with foes of the United States, saying Iran "uses its influence and its revenues in the region to support terrorist elements."

"We need to use every tool at our disposal, including diplomatic and economic in addition to the threat and use of military force," she said

Two of the leading Democratic candidates for president will compete head-to-head tonight for money and support from the same pro-Israel group.

Senator Clinton and John Edwards are scheduled to appear at a dinner for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square.

Mrs. Clinton will deliver the keynote speech, while Mr. Edwards is expected to work the crowd at the cocktail reception before she speaks, making a face-to-face encounter unlikely, but not impossible.

"When it comes to important gatherings like this, there is going to be a lot of pressure on the major candidates to not let one of their competitors have the room to themselves," a Democratic strategist, Daniel Gerstein, said.

Tonight's event is the first time any of the 2008 candidates have competed for attention in the same room since they launched their campaigns in earnest. It is also an important illustration of just how much stock all of the presidential candidates, Democrats and Republicans alike, will put in the pro-Israel community, particularly for campaign dollars.

Just last week, Mr. Edwards and two Republican presidential candidates, Senator McCain of Arizona and a former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, staunchly defended Israel while speaking to a conference. And Governor Pataki, a Republican who left office last month and backed away from his plans to run for president earlier this week, also is expected to make an appearance at the Aipac dinner.

A Democratic political consultant who worked on President Clinton's re-election campaign, Hank Sheinkopf, noted that the Aipac dinner always draws a parade of politicians.

"New York is the ATM for American politicians. Large amounts of money come from the Jewish community," he said. "If you're running for president and you want dollars from that group, you need to show that you're interested in the issue that matters most to them."

Mrs. Clinton, who has opted out of the public campaign financing system, has tapped into the circuit of influential Jewish donors for years and has strong support in the community. A spokesman for Aipac, Joshua Block, said yesterday that the senator and former first lady has "an extremely consistent and strong record of support on issues that are important to the pro-Israel community."

"She is an extraordinary leader on those issues in the United States Senate," he said.

Mr. Block said Mr. Edwards has a "strong record from his time in the Senate." He pointed out that the former senator from North Carolina spoke last year at Aipac's policy forum in Washington and that Mrs. Clinton spoke at the same event the year before.

Mr. Gerstein, an adviser to Senator Lieberman of Connecticut, said that while Mr. Edwards may not be able to outmuscle Mrs. Clinton for contributions from the pro-Israel community, making an appearance at the dinner is a wise political decision.

"It's a smart move on his part to show that he's not conceding anything and that he's going to compete," Mr. Gerstein said. "Even more importantly, it's an opportunity to credential himself with an important national security constituency group."

Many view Mr. Edward's light foreign policy résumé as his biggest vulnerability.

Tonight's dinner comes nearly two months after Mr. Edwards tapped a former Michigan congressman and vocal critic of Israel, David Bonior, to run his campaign. The candidate's choice of Mr. Bonior elicited a puzzled response and put a damper on support from the pro-Israel community.

Yet Mr. Edwards, who is appealing to anti-war advocates with his push to withdraw American troops from Iraq, took a hawkish stance on Israel last week while speaking via satellite to a conference in Herzliya, Israel. "Under no circumstances can Iran be allowed to have nuclear weapons," he said. He later suggested that America should take military action against Iran if necessary, noting that "all options must remain on the table."

Indeed, how to deal with Iran is likely to be the next majority foreign policy conundrum the 2008 presidential candidates face.

While Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Clinton have different positions on how to deal with the Iraq war, each has used harsh language on Iran.

Both favor starting diplomatic discussions with the regime — an argument that runs counter to President Bush's current policy.

Entrenched Hypocrisy
Hillary Clinton, AIPAC and Iran

By JOSHUA FRANK

President Bush's position on Iran is "disturbing" and "dangerous", reads a recent screed written by AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee). Not long ago the Bush administration accepted a Russian proposal to allow Iran to continue to develop nuclear energy under Russian supervision and AIPAC is downright pissed.

In a letter to congressional allies, mostly Democrats, the pro-Israel organization admitted is was "concerned that the decision not to go to the Security Council, combined with the U.S. decision to support the 'Russian proposal,' indicates a disturbing shift in the Administration's policy on Iran and poses a danger to the U.S. and our allies."

Israel, however, continues to develop a substantial nuclear arsenal, and in 2000 the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) reported that Israel has most likely produced enough plutonium to make up to 200 nuclear weapons. So, it is safe to say that Israel's bomb building techniques are light years ahead of Iran's dismal nuclear program. Yet the major U.S. ally in the Middle East still won't admit they have capacity to produce such deadly weapons.

And while AIPAC and Israel pressure the U.S. government to force the Iran issue to the U.N. Security Council, Israel itself stands in violation of numerous U.N. Resolutions dealing with the occupied territories of Palestine, including U.N. Resolution 1402, which demands that Israel withdraw its military from all Palestinian cities at once.

AIPAC's hypocrisy is stomach-turning, to say the least. The goliath lobbying organization wants Iran to be slapped across the knuckles while the crimes of Israel continue to be ignored. And who is propping up AIPAC's hypocritical position? Senator Hillary Clinton of New York.

As the top Democratic recipient of pro-Israel funds for the 2006 election cycle thus far, pocketing over $58,000 as of October 31 last year, Senator Clinton now has Iran in her cross-hairs.

During a Hanukkah dinner speech delivered on December 11, hosted by Yeshiva University, Clinton prattled, "I held a series of meetings with Israeli officials [last summer], including the prime minister and the foreign minister and the head of the [Israeli Defense Force] to discuss such challenges we confront. In each of these meetings, we talked at length about the dire threat posed by the potential of a nuclear-armed Iran, not only to Israel, but also to Europe and Russia. Just this week, the new president of Iran made further outrageous comments that attacked Israel's right to exist that are simply beyond the pale of international discourse and acceptability. During my meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, I was reminded vividly of the threats that Israel faces every hour of every day ... It became even more clear how important it is for the United States to stand with Israel ..."

As Sen. Clinton embraces Israel's violence, as well as AIPAC's duplicitous Iran position, she simultaneously ignores the hostilities inflicted upon Palestine, as numerous Palestinians have been killed during the recent shelling of the Gaza Strip. Over the past weeks Israel continues to mark the occupied territories (they call 'buffer zones') like a frothing-mouth K9 on the loose.

Hillary Clinton's silence toward Israel's brutality implies the senator will continue to support AIPAC's mission to occupy the whole of the occupied territories, as well as a war on Iran in the future. AIPAC's right -- even President Bush appears to be a little sheepish when up against Hillary "warmonger" Clinton.

AIPAC spy case:
Larry Franklin sentenced,
former honchos may sue
over legal fees

Pentagon Iran analyst Larry Franklin was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in prison after he pled guilty to passing classified military intelligence about Iran and Iraq to two indicted former top lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as well as an Israeli diplomat. In its Saturday, Jan. 21 edition, The New York Times saw fit to print this item on the last page (p. 30) of its A Section.

Franklin was sentenced by Judge T.S. Ellis III in the Federal District Court in Alexandria, Virginia just across the Potomac River from Washington, DC. Despite Ellis' puzzling remark that Franklin had been motivated by a desire to help the United States, Franklin's aim was less noble when he had asked Steve Rosen, the indicted AIPAC lobbyist who was in charge of foreign policy issues, to speak a good word for him with officers on the National Security Council, which Franklin had been ambitious to join.

Franklin will not begin serving his sentence until the completion of legal proceedings against Rosen and fellow former AIPAC employee Keith Weissman, like Franklin an Iranian specialist. Plato Cacheris, Franklin's prominent Washington, DC lawyer, was quoted as saying, "Mr. Franklin will not have to commence his sentence until after he completes his cooperation; at which time the court will entertain a motion to reduce his sentence."

According to the Israeli daily Haaretz for Dec. 22, 2005, Naor Gilon, the Israeli Embassy diplomat to whom Franklin is accused of passing military secrets, was back in Washington "three weeks ago." Gilon had been stationed at the Israeli Embassy in Washington for three years when he left his post for "personal reasons" last summer, at which time the press reported that the FBI had wanted to talk to him and to two other Israeli Embassy officers. The fact that Gilan had returned to Washington and left without incident means, according to Haaretz, that there no longer is any "serious" U.S. concern about Israeli involvement in the AIPAC affair.

In an apparent effort to lessen the seriousness of the charges against Rosen and Weissman, who are due to be tried on April 25, The New York Times saw fit to explain that "They operated in a circle of lobbyists who had traditionally traded gossip, political insights and intelligence with administration officials, Congressional aides and journalists. But prosecutors have suggested that their actions.... could have damaged the United States."

The Times' benevolent view sought to portray Rosen and Weissman as simply playing a harmless and "traditional" Washington, DC game.

A countervailing opinion of AIPAC is that of a political colossus so powerful that it actually prevents the United States from pursuing Middle East policies that preserve its own interests. Consider its undoubted role in the initial Bush administration appointments of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith and Under Secretary of State John Bolton. Might the United States have avoided the war in Iraq without the twisted intelligence fed Bush by these neocons and their fellow travelers?

At the Pentagon, Feith created a private U.S. intelligence operation called the Office of Special Plans (OSP). There he cherry picked the most outlandish bits and pieces of intelligence to feed to the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. Feith's OSP "proved" that Saddam Hussain possessed nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.

Cheney then whispered Feith's lies about Iraq into President Bush's ear, and this disinformation helped Bush make up his mind to attack Iraq. Did Feith not play a role in the disastrous Iraq misadventure? Nor is there any sign that he cared about the consequences for the United States.

The trial of Steve Rosen, former foreign policy director for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and Keith Weissman, AIPAC's former Iranian analyst, is set to begin April 25 at the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. Although AIPAC, Washington's principal Israel lobby, has offered $1.625 million to cover Rosen's and Weissman's legal fees, the two erstwhile AIPAC officers refuse to put a cap on their defense costs, which they estimate will come to $4 million. The above information was reported in Israel's Jerusalem Post and the American Jewish weekly Forward.

Negotiations between AIPAC and Rosen/Weissman have come to a halt, at least temporarily, amid indications that the two dismissed employees may sue over the issue. Their position is that AIPAC should continue to pay their lawyers' monthly legal fees as it did between August 2004 and March 2005. The two insist that AIPAC has the money, having raised $59 million in 2004, and with the figure for 2005 expected to surpass that. They rejected AIPAC's offer because it was made on the condition that they forfeit the right to sue their former employer.

AIPAC is doing all it can to distance itself from Rosen and Weissman fearing that, if the two are convicted of receiving classified information from former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin and passing it on to Israeli diplomats and members of the press, AIPAC's reputation will suffer a serious blow. Rosen and Weissman, on the other hand, are straining to identify themselves as closely as possible to AIPAC, arguing that AIPAC officials were fully aware of, and approved, their actions.

AIPAC initially hired attorneys Abbe Lowell to represent Rosen and John Nassikas to represent Weissman, undertaking to "cover the legal costs." But the payments to the legal team ended when AIPAC fired the defendants last spring.

"It is very possible that" Rosen and Weissman will call senior AIPAC officials to testify in court, sources familiar with the case told the Forward. Such testimony undoubtedly would be embarrassing to Israel's lobbying behemoth.

Essentially the dispute between the defense attorneys and AIPAC is a "mock" fight, with the two sides implicitly agreeing that they will not really harm each other. AIPAC apparently recently hired Jamie Gorelick, a prominent Washington, DC lawyer, former deputy attorney general and member of the 9/11 Commission, to demonstrate that it would stick to its guns. In a letter to Rosen and Weissman's attorneys, she wrote that the question of payment "cannot be addressed or resolved until current proceedings against them have been concluded." In other words, "Don't press us to pay now (because it makes us look guilty) but we'll pay up when it's all over."

Andrew I. Killgore is publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

ON FEB. 4, The Washington Post's Walter Pincus joined the apologists for indicted AIPAC has-beens Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman. Wrote Pincus: "The former head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy helped write a memorandum of law calling for dismissal of Espionage Act charges against the two pro-Israel lobbyists, arguing that in receiving leaked classified information and relaying it to others, they were doing what reporters, think tank experts and congressional staffers do perhaps hundreds of times every day."

In Israel, Nathan Guttman, writing in the Feb. 22 Jerusalem Post, argued that Rosen and Weissman should be exonerated because Israel is a U.S. ally. Nearly two decades ago, spy-for-Israel Jonathan Jay Pollard tried to use that same defense--unsuccessfully. Guttman, too, maintained that the "AIPAC case" represented nothing more than "common practice" in Washington, DC.

The question, of course, is whether these practices are common to the American friends of all foreign governments, or to those of one in particular.--A.I.K.

IN HER FEB. 10 "Diplomatic Dispatches" column, Washington Post correspondent Nora Boustany reported on a "high-powered dinner party" given two days earlier at his official residence by Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon (known to CNN's Wolf Blitzer and other intimates as "Danny"). Guest of honor was Israel's new Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a former Mossad agent and close adviser to comatose Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. According to the Feb. 5 New York Times, the Israeli government official also is the daughter of members of the Irgun terrorist organization which, among other acts, blew up the King David Hotel in 1946, killing 91 people. Her father, Eitan, was Irgun's head of operations, and her mother, Sara, "was an Irgun heroine who had a song written about her."

Livni arrived at the ambassador's residence after having met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney. According to Glenn Kessler, whom Boustany describes as "a Washington Post reporter who attended the event"--but who also was named as one of the reporters indicted former AIPAC officials Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman spoke to after having been fed classified information by indicted former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin--Livni was seated between Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

Not surprisingly, many senators and congressmen were in attendance, including Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), Norm Coleman (R-MN), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), and Reps. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Shelley Berkley (D-NV), Jane Harman (D-CA), Tom Lantos (D-CA) and Nita M. Lowey (D-NY).

Among the non-elected American officials dining at Danny's were Assistant Secretary of State David Welch, Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Liz Cheney. Rounding out the merry band of Israel-firsters were former U.S. Ambassadors Dennis Ross and Martin S. Indyk and "other players" such as Slim Fast founder F. Daniel Abraham and U.S. News and World Report publisher Mort Zuckerman.

The following day, during Livni's meeting with National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley, President George W. Bush dropped by "and then took her aside for a half-hour, one-on-one session," according to an Israeli official quoted by Boustany.

Sen. Clinton and Corporate America Hillary, Inc. By RALPH NADER

Entrenched Hypocrisy Hillary Clinton, AIPAC and Iran By JOSHUA FRANK

AIPAC spy case: Larry Franklin sentenced, former honchos may sue over legal fees

Sen. Clinton and Corporate America
Hillary, Inc.

By RALPH NADER

Entrenched Hypocrisy
Hillary Clinton, AIPAC and Iran

By JOSHUA FRANK

AIPAC spy case:
Larry Franklin sentenced,
former honchos may sue
over legal fees