Yet more related to the Kerry tax avoidance scheme. As reported in the Guardian, a statement which, if the press does it's job, should come back to bite him in the rear end:

Kerry has promised to lead an 'international coalition' against tax havens, claiming that $5 trillion of US assets have been moved offshore, beyond the legitimate reach of America's tax authorities. He says he will 'provide middle-class payroll tax relief to get money in the pockets of workers who will spend it, not more tax giveaways for those at the top to stimulate the economy in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda'.

The Senator's interest in banking secrecy and tax havens goes back a long way. In Washington, he is better known as a 'prosecutor' than a legislator, having personally authored fewer than a dozen bills since his election in 1984.

Incredible. Yes, the Senator's interest in bank secrecy and tax havens (and the Cayman Islands) does go back a long way, doesn't it?

Instapundit has an item about Joe Wilson's book, and the additional details about his tea sipping junket to Niger. While I don't believe that Wilson has given this information out in public, the general details have been out for quite awhile. For example in this post from July 2003:

So, according to three different officials who had access to Wilson's debriefings, he DID uncover evidence regarding Saddam seeking to purchase uranium. This evidence SUPPORTED Bush's statement. Yet, somehow, the only truly relevant information that Wilson uncovered missed being included in his article. I wonder how that happened.

To make matters even worse, when Wilson was informed that his lie of ommission had been uncovered and exposed, what was his response? In an interview by Time:

Wilson dismissed the suggestion, included in CIA Director George Tenet's own mea culpa last week, that this validates what the President claimed in this State of the Union address: "That then translates into an Iraqi effort to import a significant quantity of uranium as the President alleged? These guys really need to get serious."

Of course, no Administration source has made the claim that his report was the only basis for the claim. In fact, they readily acknowledge that his report in and of itself was 'weak' and 'inconclusive'. What they DO say, a charge that is completely supported (in stark contrast to, say, Wilson's), is that his investigation in fact buttressed the claim Bush made in the SOTU, and did nothing to dimish it.

What IS new is not only the identity of who was possibly looking to buy uranium, but his position. Up until now I had understood it to be a businessman. That is how he was described by George Tenet. To now learn that it was an Iraqi minister that was the contact is astonishing.

That the minister in question later became famous as "Bagdad Bob" is irrelevant. He was doing Saddam's bidding when he was lying to CNN & Co., and he was doing Saddam's bidding in Niger.

Where is Wilson's Mea Culpa? Never forthcoming, of course. The man has no shame.

BTW, is anyone else unsurprised that he released his book, imaginatively titled "The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies That Led to War and Exposed My Wife's CIA Identity", before the investigation into the matter of his wife's "outing" has concluded?

From my limited knowledge of him, Joe Wilson has never been one to wait for facts (or, for that matter, to bother with inconveniently contrary ones) before spouting off. These are just the latest examples.

The way the promisory note was written up would explain not only why Kerry lost so much money by early termination, and give a much better estimate of his actual loss.

This puts the lie (again) to his statements to the effect that there were no "real" transactions for him to report to the Senate. This also (again) puts the lie to his statements that this was a total loss for his "initial" investment.

Again, it's been awhile since my Finance days, so some of my terminology will probably not be very precise and may sound strange to someone more conversant in the field. With that said, the promisory note was written in something like the format of a zero coupon bond. The amount given as the "Principal" was not the amount loaned to Kerry, but the amount due at maturity - it was the amount loaned PLUS two years interest.

This explains why Kerry lost his shirt by early termination - the provision governing this option in the contract states that:

"The borrower shall have the right to prepay at any time before maturity the principal of this note" (emphasis added)

So Kerry was on the hook for two years of interest no matter when he repaid the loan. From this if you assume that Kerry was truthful (shaky assumption, on this topic at least) about when he terminated the agreement, he paid 24 months interest on a loan of roughly 4 months duration. Four months of interest on 200,000 at 9% is about $6000. This would make Kerry's loss roughly $32,500.

Bonus questions:

1. Why take out a loan with, essentially, that same amount of cash as collateral? Why not just use your cash? (It's not like Kerry was trying to build his credit).
2. Given that Kerry says that he didn't declare his loss, I would say that it is highly likely that he didn't declare the interest expense of $6000 either (remember that this transaction was done via the shell of Gin Vest (or Ginvest) so as a business expense both were I would imagine deductible. He could have reduced his loss by around 10,000 in the form of tax savings if he had taken these deductions. Was there more reason to hide this than is indicated by what information is currently available?
2.

John Kerry's tax shelter, a time line:

Sometime in 1983 - Receives a "windfall" of $225,105
Dec 5 1983 - Sets up Peabody Commodity Trading Corp with about $200,000
Dec 13, 1983 - Takes out a loan of about $200,000, with shares of Peabody as collateral
"March or April" 1984 - Kerry says that he "cancelled" the agreement, on advice of his accountant

Interesting news on two fronts: cancer and aging. Though of course they only give a cryptic hint as to the potential value of this discovery in the search to cure aging.

One particular molecule, called RAD51D, appeared repeatedly at the site of the telomeres, suggesting it was interacting in some way with the timer mechanism.

When researchers blocked the activity of RAD51D they found substantial damage to the telomeres and other parts of the genome - the telltale signs of accelerated ageing.

They suggest this shows that the molecule usually acts as a protective "cap" for the telomeres in cancer cells, preventing the normal telomere shortening.

To understand why this could be so important:

Dr Madalena Tarsounas, who led the study, said: "Cancer has an amazing ability to shake off the shackles of ageing and death, which is one of the reasons why it can be so hard to treat.

"Understanding how cancer cells remain eternally young has been a key focus of research for more than a decade, so it's particularly exciting to have made such a striking discovery."

She added: "We have found evidence of a completely new mechanism for stopping the clock on a cancer cell's timer and preventing its lifespan from ticking down.

"It raises the possibility of starting the clock again and making cancer cells susceptible to death once more."

She added: "As well as opening the way to new types of treatment for cancer, our study has shed light on the complex but intriguing processes which control how and when we get old."

Via Real Clear Politics, I found a link to this series of three pages on the Boston Globe's site. Kerry had an offshore tax shelter? It's rather interesting in light of his stated positions on both taxes and "exporting American jobs". (After all, investing money in companies abroad means that the money WASN'T invested in American companies, ultimately costing American workers potential jobs.)

While I have a degree in Finance, I am many years out of UF and have not relied on those skills much in my professional life, so I am certainly no expert in these matters. However, I do have enough knowledge to believe that the Globe is in error in one major specific - the amount of money that Kerry was investing offshore.

From my reading, rather than investing a mere 25 to 30 thousand, Kerry in fact invested closer to 200 thousand dollars. Notice on page one, Kerry is promising to pay $238,527.5 two years later. That's pretty much the future value (FV) of $200,000 at about 9 percent interest.

UPDATE: Curiouser and curiouser. I found the original article that goes with those pages. It looks much worse for Kerry from my reading. His explanation really does not jibe with the documents at all. I wonder why this has never been followed up on?

Notice that I worked out that Kerry was in fact investing 200,000 dollars, and in the article it states that the "financially struggling" Kerry of that time received a "windfall" of 225,000. If you are going to bother with a tax shelter, why do it with a piddling 11-13 percent of your "windfall" income? It doesn't make any sense to set up some exotic tax shelter on such a small (25-30 thousand) amount. 200 thousand, on the other hand... I can imagine that Kerry LOST 25-30 thousand on this scheme, but I don't believe for a second that his actual investment was less than 6 figures. Total investment and loss on said investment are just not the same thing.

Some damning passages:

"You need a major overhaul of the tax structure," Kerry told a panel of reporters on a May 6 broadcast of WBZ-TV (Channel 4). "You need to close crazy loopholes that are non-productive."
....

Weeks before that interview, Kerry, by his own account now, had jettisoned an investment of between $25,000 and $30,000 in an exotic tax shelter after his accountant questioned its legitimacy. In an interview with the Globe, Kerry acknowledged that fear of political embarrassment was a factor in his decision to swallow the loss.

and

Kerry said he wanted to protect some of the money at tax time, and, on advice of some of his fund-raisers, jumped into the commodities investment.

"I thought it was a way to try to minimize tax consequences," he said.

and

"I did not want to file an income tax return as a public person that I thought could have been subject to question," Kerry said.

He also did not cite the investment in his financial disclosure statements filed with the US Senate, and only a fragment was in his Massachusetts statement of financial interests for calendar year 1983, when Kerry was lieutenant governor.

and

For the next year, when Kerry was a sitting senator, he did not report the investment. Unlike candidates, senators must report all financial transactions exceeding $1,000 in the preceding year. Kerry campaign counsel Marc Elias said Kerry's abandonment of his investment did not constitute a reportable transaction -- "purchase, sale, or exchange" of an asset -- under the Senate's guidelines.

"My understanding is that the shares were returned to the promoter; that he was no longer going to take advantage of the investment," Elias said. "He simply unwound the transaction."

Now we get to the documents in question that I originally commented on in this post:

Kerry has never reported a stake in Peabody Commodities, which, like Sytel Traders, was registered in the Cayman Islands, according to records of the Register of Companies office in the Caymans, where strict secrecy rules conceal corporate ownership interests. Peabody Commodities was registered eight days before Kerry's transaction, the records show.

Kerry did not dispute the authenticity of the documents, but he dismissed them as "paperwork" that did not reflect real assets, actual debt, or liability arising from the complex scheme.

"There was no real collateral that I was involved in; none whatsoever," Kerry said. "It was paperwork. That's why my accountant said it sucked. . . . I was never, ever on the hook for any number in that note. Nobody ever noticed me to that effect nor was that in fact the legal reality. I completely walked away from my own personal investment. End of issue."

This is either a complete, utter, baldfaced lie to that reporter, or Kerry committed fraud with the documents he signed with Sytel. I don't see any other way to read it. He signed a promisory note for over 200 thousand dollars (future value), and pledged as collateral a specific number of shares in a specific company. If that collateral was mere "paperwork" and was "no[t] real", then how is that not fraud? It reminds me of that textbook accounting fraud case "Z Best", in which a company (Z Best) forged work contracts, which it then used as collateral to borrow huge sums of money.

No one ever "noticed" Kerry to the fact that he was on the hook for large sums of money??? That's what the contract that he signed stated! What type of bullshit is this?

I'm sorry, but from what data I see available, the most favorable explanation that I can come up with is that Kerry invested in an (self-admittedly) illegitimate offshore tax avoidance scheme. He was later advised that this could blow up in his face, and he pulled out, incurring a penalty of at least 25 thousand dollars. He tried his best to hide the entire fiasco, going at least as far as lying on his senate disclosure forms.

Now this is the best that can be said of Kerry from what few details he has not been able to keep unpublicized. The truth may be worse.

UPDATE2: The more I think about this, the more it smells. The "financially struggling" John Kerry was willing to blow off 25+ thousand dollars just to keep this quiet? While I'm sure that, being a politician, the news of this would have the potential to harm him more than most, this seems a little excessive. What's really got me thinking is this bit (from the same Globe article:

But records kept by a Kerry aide at the time and reviewed by the Globe indicate Kerry also owned stock in another company, Peabody Commodities Trading Corp., as part of the transaction. In an agreement he signed on Dec. 13, 1983, Kerry pledged 2,470 shares he held in Peabody Commodities as collateral for a $238,527.40 promissory note he signed the same day to Sytel Traders Ltd. Sytel was to lend that amount to "Gin Vest Inc." to cover forward contracts to buy and sell unspecified commodities.

Kerry has never reported a stake in Peabody Commodities, which, like Sytel Traders, was registered in the Cayman Islands, according to records of the Register of Companies office in the Caymans, where strict secrecy rules conceal corporate ownership interests. Peabody Commodities was registered eight days before Kerry's transaction, the records show.

Now, why would you register a company in the Caymans, presumably put your investment of $200,000 into it, and a mere EIGHT DAYS LATER, borrow the same $200,000 from a different company using your recent investment as collateral? In addition to potential tax evasion, this begins to sound like the first stage in a money laundering scheme. As the State Dept describes each activity:

Money laundering generally involves a series of multiple transactions used to disguise the source of financial assets so that those assets may be used without compromising the criminals who seek to use the funds. These transactions typically fall into three stages: (1) Placement, the process of placing, through deposits, wire transfers, or other means, unlawful proceeds into financial institutions; (2) Layering, the process of separating the proceeds of criminal activity from their origin through the use of layers of complex financial transactions; and (3) Integration, the process of using an apparently legitimate transaction to disguise the illicit proceeds. Through this process the criminal tries to transform the monetary proceeds derived from illicit activities into funds with an apparently legal source.

The United States and other nations are also victims of tax evasion schemes that use various financial centers around the world and their bank secrecy laws to hide money from tax authorities, undermining legitimate tax collection. Financial centers that have strong bank secrecy laws and weak corporate formation regulations, and that do not cooperate in tax inquiries from foreign governments, are found worldwide. These financial centers, known as "tax havens," thrive in providing sanctuary for the deposit of monies from individuals and businesses that evade the payment of taxes in their home jurisdictions and allow them to keep the money they have deposited from the knowledge of tax authorities.

UPDATE3 - I noticed that the header by the Boston Globe in the original documents that Real Clear Politics linked to has another major error, though the article got it right. Kerry did not "pledge to buy" those Peabody shares, he was actually using them as collateral for his loan.

UDATE4 - More here

Fisking John Kerry on GMA:

ABC NEWS GOOD MORNING AMERICA'S CHARLIE GIBSON: Now joining us from West Virginia is himself senator John Kerry. He's in the town of Glen Easton, West Virginia, today. Good to have you with us.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: i'm glad to be with you. i really am.

Translation: "I'm screwed. I wish I didn't have to deal with this, I REALLY do."

GIBSON: 1984, senator, to the present. you have said a number of times, as brian pointed out as recently as friday with the ""los angeles times,"" have you said a number of times that you did not throw away the vietnam medals themselves. but now this interview from 1971 shows up the in which you say that was the medals themselves that were thrown away.

KERRY: no, i don't.

First response, the BIG LIE.

GIBSON: can you explain?

KERRY: absolutely. that's absolutely incorrect. charlie, i stood up in front of the nation. there were dozens of cameras there, television cameras, there were -- i don't know. 20, 30 still photographers. thousands of people and i stood up in front of the country, reached into my shirt, visibly for the nation to see, and took the ribbons off my chest, said a few words and threw them over the fence. the file footage, the reporter there from the ""boston globe,"" everybody got it correctly. and i never asserted otherwise. what i said was and back then, you know, ribbons, medals were absolutely interchangeable . senator simmington asking me questions in the committee hearing, look ad at the ribbons and said what are those medals? the u.s. navy pam let calls the medals, we referred to them it is a symbols, representing medals, ribbons, countless veterans through the ribbon -- threw the ribbons back. everybody did. veterans threw back dog tags. they threw back photographs, they th rew back their 14's. there are photographs of a pile of all of those things collected on the steps of the capitol. so the fact is that i have -- i have been accurate precisely about what took place. and i am the one who later made clear exactly what happened. i mean, this is a controversy that the republicans are pushing , the republicans have spent $60 million in the last few weeks trying to attack me. and this comes from a president and a republican party that can't even answer whether or not he showed up for duty in the national guard. i'm not going to stand for it.

Translation: "The Navy doesn't make a distinction between medals and ribbons, but I sure do!

Oh, and by the way, the Republicans are making political hay from my lies. That isn't fair, and I won't stand for it!"

GIBSON: senator, i was there 33 years ago and i saw you throw medals over the fence and we didn't find out until later -
KERRY: no, you didn't see me throw th. charlie, charlie, you are wrong. that's not what happened. i threw my ribbons across. all you have to do -

GIBSON: someone else's medals, correct in?

KERRY: after -- excuse me. excuse me, charlie. after the ceremony was over, i had a bronze star and a purple heart given to me, one purple heart by a veteran in the v.a. in new york and the bronze star by an older veteran of world war ii in massachusetts. i threw them over because they asked me to. i never --

GIBSON: let me come back to the thing just said which is the military --

KERRY: this is a phony -- charlie, this is a phony controversy.

Like the phony AWOL controversy, which you desperately and disingenuously are now trying to resuscitate to deflect attention from your lying problems?

GIBSON: the military makes no distinction between ribbons and medals but you are the one who made the distinction. in 1984 --

KERRY: no . we made no distinction back then, charlie. we made no distinction.

But your whole phony defense IS in making such a distinction. Moron.

GIBSON: senator, i don't want -- i just want to ask the question. in 1984 when you were running for the senate, that was the first time that you called someone in from labor because they were upset that you had thrown ribbons away.

KERRY: no.

GIBSON: you called them and you made the distinction and said i didn't throw my medals away. i just threw the ribbons away. you made the distinction.

Just as he is STILL making such a distinction to this day, this very interview.

KERRY: i was asked specifically in greater detail about what took place. i answered the question truthfully. which is consistent with what happened in 1971. i mean, charlie, go back and get the file footage. there are were millions of people watching. i took my ribbons off my chest just as other veterans did. this is a phony controversy. this is being pushed yesterday by karen hughes of the white house on fox. it shows up at a several different stations at the same time. the republicans are running $10 million this week to attack my credentials on defense. this comes from a president who can't even show or prove that he showed up for duty in the national guard.

Translation: "Don't pay any attention that this is in complete contradiction to what I actually said in 1971.

Why don't you guys cover that phony AWOL issue like you used to? Leave me alone! Don't you know I served in Viet Nam?"


GIBSON: senator --

KERRY: i'm not going to stand for it. i'm in the going to stand for it.

GIBSON: i-understand you are feeling politics is behind this. but i ask you, is it not --

KERRY: i know politics is behind this.

And....? Politics was behind the Watergate hearings too. Did that make them wrong? You are a politician, so stop complaining about politics!

GIBSON: when trying to appeal to the anti-war people in 1971, you said as in that interview, it was the medals and then when the people who supported the war were giving you political problems, you then said i didn't throw the medals away 13 years later.

KERRY: that's the most -- with all due respect, that's the most ridiculous thing i have ever heard. because i stood up in front of the country, in front of cameras, a reporter of the ""boston globe"" got it correct . he wrote about the medals but knew they were my ribbons. everybody understood what we were doing. i even said in that interview we threw away the symbols of what our country gave us for what we had gone through. and if i was -- you know, back then, trying to appeal to somebody, i stood up against richard nixon, stood up against the withar, took a position, and it wasn't popular, and it was polarizing. i didn't have to do it. if i was trying to hide something, i would have never stood there in floment of everybody and thrown them over the fence. i threw my ribbons over. i threw the medals of two veterans who asked me to throw them over, after the ceremony, completely separate, and i'm the one -- if hi something to hide, i'm the one who made it known exactly what happened. to me, it is one in the same. and i'm proud of it.

The Globe reporter "got it right" when he wrote about MEDALS? Yet somehow Kerry divines that the reporter "knew" that they were only ribbons even though he wrote "medals"? Interesting.

Also unintentionally revealing to me is his comment that that "back then, trying to appeal to somebody, i stood up against richard nixon, stood up against the withar, took a position". So this wasn't something he did from principle, but something that he did to try to "appeal to somebody"? How pathetic.

GIBSON: let me ask you, too, about two other things that you have said. subsequent to that. 1985, you said to ""the washington post,"" it is such a personal thing i did no want to throw my medals away. then 1996, you said to the ""boston globe,"" i didn't bring my own medals to throw because i didn't have time to go home and get them. which one was it?

KERRY: i expressed there was great sense of wrench being the whole thing. many of us -- we had a long argument the night before, charlie. it is a matter of record. as to how we were going to do it. and the vote was taken. i was not in favor of throwing them over the fence. i thought we ought to lay them on a table and put them in front of people in a way that, you know, wouldn't be as challenging to many americans. other veterans felt otherwise. they took a vote. the vote was made, they voted to throw. i threw my ribbons. i didn't have my medals. it is very simple . what the republicans are trying to do is make this into an issue because they have no record to run on and they can't go out and talk about jobs or health care or environment. they are going to attack 35 years ago. last week in an unprecedented attack, they sent congressmen to the floor of the senate of the house to attack me on the anniversary of my speech. george bush has yet to explain to america whether or no t to tell the truth about whether he showed up for duty. i'm not going to get attack order something i did that's a matter of record that the press saw, that i did in front of the entire nation and everyone then understood there was no distinction. we threw away the symbols of the war. i'm proud i stood up and fought stood up and fought against it. proud i took on richard nixon. and i think to this day, there's no distinction between the two.

There was no distinction between throwing medals and ribbons away, or there was no distinction between throwing your decorations away and "taking on Richard Nixon"? Or both? If the first, then stop trying to make the distinction now. It's called trying to have your cake and eat it too. If the second, then you are a moron.

It's also interesting that you are accusing the Republicans about not having anything to run on, when that criticism, of course, is much more apt in regards to you. What have you accomplished in your tenure in Congress? What policies have you articulated except "Bush is bad". (Other than "let's turn everything over to the UN", that is.) That's why YOU are the one to have made such an issue of your own record of 35 years ago. And that's why this 33 year old controversy has dogged you your entire career.

Oh, and by the way, am I the only one to notice the gall of complaining of being attacked for a 30+ year old issue while IN THE SAME INTERVIEW trying to revive the dead horse of the AWOL issue not once, but twice?

GIBSON: all right. senator, i appreciate your being with us this morning. i'm glad to have you here. thank you. all the best. diane?

Hey, it's been awhile. I just wanted to make a post on the "accident" made by the NY Times in substituting photo of Pete Coors for that of a murderous KKK member. How exactly could such a "mistake" have been made? How could a photograph of a Republican Sentate candidate be substituted for that of a criminal?

And why did this "error" "just happen" to mirror the lefty conspiracy theories about the Coors family?

PS If you've never heard of them, just do a search on Coors and KKK.

Den Beste has a post up about the EU's newest attempt to promote themselves, this time in Japan. It reminded me of the indescribably inept French ad campaign in the US after they stabbed us in the back at the UN. They had Woody Allen - Woody Allen! - talking about how he didn't want to kiss his wife, he wanted to "french" kiss her.

Yeah, there's nothing like the mental image of Woody Allen giving his (ex-)daughter the tongue to make you want to give France another chance to stick the knife in deeper.

In relation to a Musil post last month, I mentioned how biased Larry Sabato has revealed himself to be. Well, I hadn't seen anything yet. You might as well listen to Teddy Kenedy, judging from Sabato's latest:

the U.S.-occupied country that is starting to look like Vietnam without the jungle....the similarities are scary.
.....
if people want to extricate the country from the Iraq quagmire, they will have no choice but to vote for John Kerry, however much they may dislike him or disagree with him on other issues. If the preeminent issue in November is Iraq, Bush will lose. (Bold FROM the original)
.....
the President intends to keep his July 1 turnover deadline in Iraq. Let the Iraqi Governing Council deal with the violence and kidnapping and rioting during the general election campaign! Iraq, We Hardly Knew Ye.
....
The stunning addition of 308,000 jobs in March--plus an upgrading of job gains for January and February--offers Bush his salvation. The trick, though, is that he needs strong numbers through the early fall in order to convince Americans that this shift is real, and not simply an election-year manipulation of the depressing statistics to which they have become accustomed for the entire Bush term. (emphasis added)
....
Barely elected and headed for a mediocre, one-term presidency, Bush was sent to the summit of public adulation after September 11, 2001

Sabato

One whopper after another.

BTW, if anyone is wondering what the hell I'm talking about by my assertions regarding all of the lies told by our mainstream media on the issue of Iraq seeking uranium in Africa, here is a great post on the issue from a far left Al Gore freind and supporter:

Did Saddam Hussein seek uranium in Africa? Here at THE HOWLER, we have no idea. Was British intelligence to that effect well-founded? We don?t know that, either. But a Perfect Storm has been constructed around Bush?s 16-word statement. In the process, one pundit after another has suggested that the British intelligence which Bush cited was all about uranium-from-Niger, and was based on those famous forged documents. When the documents turned out to be fake, we?ve been told, so did the British intelligence.

But did the British intelligence concern Niger? We thought we?d show you how that intelligence was framed when it first became public. On September 24, 2002, Tony Blair made a formal presentation to Parliament in which he made a new allegation: ?We know Saddam has been trying to buy significant quantities of uranium from Africa, though we do not know whether he has been successful.? This is the famous British intelligence referred to by Bush in his 16-word statement. But what did this British intelligence concern? Was it really about Niger? In the next day?s Guardian, writers James Astill and Rory Carroll seemed to say that the focus was the Congo:

.....

There was much more detail, but you get the idea. Is any of this true? Was Saddam seeking uranium from the Congo? We have no idea. But on the same day?September 25?the Times of London (writers: Michael Evans, Richard Beeston) also suggested that the Congo was the primary focus:

....

This report was specifically tracked to the British JIC. Meanwhile, the Financial Times made it three this day, also naming the Congo as the country of greatest concern. Indeed, the FT?s writers specifically said that countries like Niger were of less concern due to international oversight:

.....

For the record, the American National Intelligence Report of October 2002 seemed to support the idea that Iraq sought uranium from African nations other than Niger. ?Reports indicate Iraq also has sought uranium ore from Somalia and possibly the Democratic Republic of the Congo,? the NIE said. ?We cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources. Reports suggest Iraq is shifting from domestic mining and milling of uranium to foreign acquisition.? True or false? We simply don?t know. But if you got the impression from recent reporting that the Brit intel was all about Niger, you just may have been snookered again.

Eugene Volokh does a very good job covering Ted Kennedy's Jane Fondaesque speech and countering the arguments put forth by Kennedy's supporters like Mark Kleiman. I did think that one more point should be added. It may seem completely unrelated, but bear with me.

When, in discussing the evidence that Saddam Hussein was searching for WMD, Bush sourced a particular piece to the British, his critics were outspoken in their belief that this was somehow underhanded. Let's quote Kleiman himself for this argument:

According to the postmodernist ethics now being practiced by the Bush Administration, that addition made the assertion true, even though the underlying statement about uranium purchases was false, because it was in fact the case that British intelligence had prepared an analysis containing the (false) statement about uranium purchases. He never said that the Iraqis tried to buy uranium, he only said that the British had "learned" that the Iraqis tried to buy uranium. No problem.

....

That quibble may be good enough to avoid a criminal charge ... [b]ut morally it's worthless: anyone hearing that speech was intended to believe that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger, not merely that the Brits had a report that said so.

I have always strongly disagreed with the spin the Democrats and the (overwhelmingly Democratic) media put on that line. They were pitching a load of bullshit, frankly. Kleiman, to his credit - unlike the vast majority of the media then and now - didn't materially change Bush's quote (though he DOES mis-state it one time by talking about a "Niger fairytale").

While I completely disagree with his opinion and conclusion on this particular topic, I DO understand and, in fact agree, with his logic in general (it was his premise that threw him off). If you insert a line in a speech with the SOLE purpose of creating a particular (likely false) impression, then the fact that it could be construed a different way is truly a "morally worthless" defense. Ted Kennedy has proven yet again by his Iraq=Viet Nam speech that he himself continues to be morally worthless.

So Clarke is the person directly responsible for not just US anti-terrorism efforts on 9/11 and for years prior, but also our complete lack of assistance to (and seemingly outright obstruction of those who DID want to help) those being massacred in Rwanda. The Clarke relevant quotes from The Atlantic article mentioned below:

Against this backdrop, and under the leadership of Anthony Lake, the national-security adviser, the Clinton Administration accelerated the development of a formal U.S. peacekeeping doctrine. The job was given to Richard Clarke, of the National Security Council, a special assistant to the President who was known as one of the most effective bureaucrats in Washington. In an interagency process that lasted more than a year, Clarke managed the production of a presidential decision directive, PDD-25, which listed sixteen factors that policymakers needed to consider when deciding whether to support peacekeeping activities: seven factors if the United States was to vote in the UN Security Council on peace operations carried out by non-American soldiers, six additional and more stringent factors if U.S. forces were to participate in UN peacekeeping missions, and three final factors if U.S. troops were likely to engage in actual combat. In the words of Representative David Obey, of Wisconsin, the restrictive checklist tried to satisfy the American desire for "zero degree of involvement, and zero degree of risk, and zero degree of pain and confusion." The architects of the doctrine remain its strongest defenders. "Many say PDD-25 was some evil thing designed to kill peacekeeping, when in fact it was there to save peacekeeping," Clarke says. "Peacekeeping was almost dead. There was no support for it in the U.S. government, and the peacekeepers were not effective in the field." Although the directive was not publicly released until May 3, 1994, a month into the genocide, the considerations encapsulated in the doctrine and the Administration's frustration with peacekeeping greatly influenced the thinking of U.S. officials involved in shaping Rwanda policy.

......

At an interagency teleconference in late April, Susan Rice, a rising star on the NSC who worked under Richard Clarke, stunned a few of the officials present when she asked, "If we use the word 'genocide' and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November [congressional] election?" Lieutenant Colonel Tony Marley remembers the incredulity of his colleagues at the State Department. "We could believe that people would wonder that," he says, "but not that they would actually voice it."

......

Anthony Lake recalls, "I was obsessed with Haiti and Bosnia during that period, so Rwanda was, in William Shawcross's words, a 'sideshow,' but not even a sideshow—a no-show." At the NSC the person who managed Rwanda policy was not Lake, the national-security adviser, who happened to know Africa, but Richard Clarke, who oversaw peacekeeping policy, and for whom the news from Rwanda only confirmed a deep skepticism about the viability of UN deployments. Clarke believed that another UN failure could doom relations between Congress and the United Nations. He also sought to shield the President from congressional and public criticism. Donald Steinberg managed the Africa portfolio at the NSC and tried to look out for the dying Rwandans, but he was not an experienced infighter and, colleagues say, he "never won a single argument" with Clarke.
.......

On April 15 Christopher sent one of the most forceful documents to be produced in the entire three months of the genocide to Madeleine Albright at the UN—a cable instructing her to demand a full UN withdrawal. The cable, which was heavily influenced by Richard Clarke at the NSC, and which bypassed Donald Steinberg and was never seen by Anthony Lake, was unequivocal about the next steps. Saying that he had "fully" taken into account the "humanitarian reasons put forth for retention of UNAMIR elements in Rwanda," Christopher wrote that there was "insufficient justification" to retain a UN presence.
.....

After the UN vote Clarke sent a memorandum to Lake reporting that language about "the safety and security of Rwandans under UN protection had been inserted by US/UN at the end of the day to prevent an otherwise unanimous UNSC from walking away from the at-risk Rwandans under UN protection as the peacekeepers drew down to 270." In other words, the memorandum suggested that the United States was leading efforts to ensure that the Rwandans under UN protection were not abandoned. The opposite was true.

There's more in this quite long article, but this gives the gist. Amazingly enough, Clarke later on protests that he has nothing to be ashamed about, and would do everything the exact same way if he had to do it over again. He blames everyone else.

Sounds like a pattern.

Shot in the Dark has discovered, via The Sydney Morning Herald/The Guardian that the Clinton Administration sat on their hands while they KNEW what was happening in Rwanda in 1994. He also asks why American media hasn't reported on this story.

However, I knew I had already read roughly the same material a number of years ago. I found the article, and it was in fact worse than both the Guardian article and my own recollection. It was in The Atlantic:

In March of 1998, on a visit to Rwanda, President Clinton issued what would later be known as the "Clinton apology," which was actually a carefully hedged acknowledgment. He spoke to the crowd assembled on the tarmac at Kigali Airport: "We come here today partly in recognition of the fact that we in the United States and the world community did not do as much as we could have and should have done to try to limit what occurred" in Rwanda.

This implied that the United States had done a good deal but not quite enough. In reality the United States did much more than fail to send troops. It led a successful effort to remove most of the UN peacekeepers who were already in Rwanda. It aggressively worked to block the subsequent authorization of UN reinforcements. It refused to use its technology to jam radio broadcasts that were a crucial instrument in the coordination and perpetuation of the genocide. And even as, on average, 8,000 Rwandans were being butchered each day, U.S. officials shunned the term "genocide," for fear of being obliged to act. The United States in fact did virtually nothing "to try to limit what occurred." Indeed, staying out of Rwanda was an explicit U.S. policy objective.

I was quite surprised to find that our friend Dick Clarke makes an appearance. I wonder why he never wrote a book about this:

Against this backdrop, and under the leadership of Anthony Lake, the national-security adviser, the Clinton Administration accelerated the development of a formal U.S. peacekeeping doctrine. The job was given to Richard Clarke, of the National Security Council, a special assistant to the President who was known as one of the most effective bureaucrats in Washington. In an interagency process that lasted more than a year, Clarke managed the production of a presidential decision directive, PDD-25, which listed sixteen factors that policymakers needed to consider when deciding whether to support peacekeeping activities: seven factors if the United States was to vote in the UN Security Council on peace operations carried out by non-American soldiers, six additional and more stringent factors if U.S. forces were to participate in UN peacekeeping missions, and three final factors if U.S. troops were likely to engage in actual combat. In the words of Representative David Obey, of Wisconsin, the restrictive checklist tried to satisfy the American desire for "zero degree of involvement, and zero degree of risk, and zero degree of pain and confusion." The architects of the doctrine remain its strongest defenders. "Many say PDD-25 was some evil thing designed to kill peacekeeping, when in fact it was there to save peacekeeping," Clarke says. "Peacekeeping was almost dead. There was no support for it in the U.S. government, and the peacekeepers were not effective in the field." Although the directive was not publicly released until May 3, 1994, a month into the genocide, the considerations encapsulated in the doctrine and the Administration's frustration with peacekeeping greatly influenced the thinking of U.S. officials involved in shaping Rwanda policy.