German intelligence leak to Die Zeit journalist
In a recent post ("Nobody's Perfect," 08/13/04), I noted that sources close to the German "Bundesnachrichtendienst" intelligence agency (BND) have lately been been claiming they were unconcerned about Iraqi WMD programs, despite evidence to the contrary from as late as three months before the war.

Jochen Bittner, of the major German newsweekly Die Zeit, published that freshly minted BND outlook in his article "Pullach's Saddam Dossier."* The sources close to or formerly associated with the BND were responding to charges by Hans Blix, the chief of UN inspections in Iraq before the war, that German intelligence had exaggerated the threat of Iraqi WMD and had "overinterpreted" the evidence they had.

Now an anonymous BND source has contacted Bittner to set the record straight. On Thursday, Bittner published excerpts from that correspondence in his blog, "Beruf [profession -- ed.] Terrorist The Enemy of All The World":

As an employee of the BND I feel it's my duty to to help lift the fog around the Iraq analyses of the BND (...)

Hans Blix's claim is correct that the BND, too, assumed in its analyses before the last Iraq war that there was a threat from biological and chemical weapons programs. Remember the mobile biological weapons laboratories. The information about this came from a single BND source, but was internally consistent [in sich schluessig] and very detailed and were therefore taken seriously, by the German government as well, by the way. The acquisition of pox viruses in Germany and other NATO countries was very much a consequence of this and further information. (...)

Indications of an Iraqi chemical weapons program were drawn from the analysis of procurement activities, which is quite legitimate for intelligence activities.
(ellipses as per Bittner)

The writer goes on to dispute Bittner's depiction of the "Rabta" affair, in which the BND was said to have failed to realize that Libya was working on chemical weapons with the help of the German company Imhausen Chemie. The anonymous BND source says the BND was quite aware of the issue, but claims the German government at the time ignored BND warnings and made it the scapegoat when the scandal came to light. (Speaking with Bittner for his article, "Against All Enemies" author Richard Clarke said the scandal affected BND credibility in Washington.)

No mention is made of the most alarming BND claims, reported in 2001 and 2002 by Reuven Pedatzur of Ha'aretz, that Iraq was three years away from a nuclear weapon.

Bittner makes interesting use of his blog in publishing excerpts of the letter. Since the letter can't be published in the regular letters to the editor section or used journalistically without knowing the correspondent's name, Bittner appeals to the correspondent to come forward to the editors of Die Zeit, and guarantees his anonymity if he does.


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* The BND headquarters are currently located in the Bavarian town of Pullach.
EDITS, 8/28: "Beruf" translation inserted; 11/9: typo corrected. posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:20:00 PM -- |  

 
A mother's advice, a hard-won right

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

84 years ago today, women gained the right to vote in the United States when Secretary of State Bainbridge certified the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

Eight days earlier, on August 18, 1920, Tennessee had become the 36th state to ratify the amendment. Writing for the "BlueShoe Nashville" travel guide site, Cheryl Hiers tells the story well; pro- and anti-suffragist supporters had descended on the the Tennessee capital wearing roses: yellow for suffragist, red for anti-suffragists. The voting in the Tennessee State House was close; after 2 votes, the legislators were deadlocked at 48-48. What happened next?

With wilted collars and frayed nerves, the legislators squared off for the third roll call. A blatant red rose on his breast, Harry Burn--the youngest member of the legislature--suddenly broke the deadlock. Despite his red rose, he voted in favor of the bill and the house erupted into pandemonium. With his "yea," Burn had delivered universal suffrage to all American women. The outraged opponents to the bill began chasing Representative Burn around the room. In order to escape the angry mob, Burn climbed out one of the third-floor windows of the Capitol. Making his way along a ledge, he was able to save himself by hiding in the Capitol attic.

What did Burn tell his erstwhile anti-suffragist allies? He'd received a telegram from his mother Febb, urging him to "be a good boy" and vote to ratify the amendment. "I know that a mother's advice is always safest for her boy to follow," said Burn, in what Gail Collins once noted "may have been the only truly useful political speech ever on the subject of motherhood."

Getting there wasn't always this sweet by any means; only three years earlier, women picketing the White House for the right to vote were thrown into an Occoquan, Virginia prison where they were routinely subjected to abuses culminating in "The Night of Terror" of November 14, 1917:

On Whittaker's order, one woman wrote later, "I was immediately seized by two heavy guards, dragged across the room, scattering chairs and furniture as I went...so fast that my feet could not touch the ground...to the punishment cells, where I was flung into a concrete cell with an iron-barred door."

"I saw Dorothy Day brought in," wrote Mary Nolan, at 73 the oldest of the suffragist prisoners. "The two men handling her were twisting her arms above her head. Then suddenly they lifted her up and banged her down over the arm of an iron bench -- twice...and we heard one of them yell, ‘The damned suffrager!'"*

To Dorothy Day, Mary Nolan, and Febb Burn; to Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt, Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton; to countless others, and yes, to Harry Burn: thank you from me, and on behalf of my favorite little person.

To all the women old enough to vote this November: don't take it for granted. Register to vote if you're not already registered. You have about a month left in most states.


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* The account is from "Suffragists' Storm Over Washington," by William and Mary Lavender, writing for TheHistoryNet. (EDIT, 8/27)

posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:59:00 PM -- |  

 
Abu Ghraib detainee abuse: online documents
I'm compiling a "Backflip" list of key resources and documents about Iraq detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib, and have added it to the "resources" list on the left margin. The list is sorted by institution or news organization and title. Suggestions are welcome.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:57:00 AM -- |  

 
The Wikisphere strikes back
German blogger Rochus Wolff caught the major German newsweekly SPIEGEL copying Wikipedia entries for company name etymologies -- right down to putting Lonsdale, a boxing equipment manufacturer, ahead of toy company LEGO in their alphabetic list. Mr. Wolff provides screen shots of the relevant SPIEGEL pages -- I'd say that's fair use under the circumstances -- so you don't need to understand German to get the point.

SPIEGEL has since credited Wikipedia. (Via Jens Scholz)

This reminds me of a short science fiction story I once read in which an alien doomsday machine is foiled in a similar manner. I think the author was Fred Saberhagen, because as I remember, the machine was called a "Berserker." But to keep my faint hopes for the Presidency alive, I won't claim that's "seared into my memory." posted by Thomas Nephew at 7:33:00 PM -- |  

 
Bush losing ground ...at The Weekly Standard

Reading some of the anti-Kerry attacks over the last several weeks, you might conclude that this is the new conservative position: A veteran who volunteered for combat duty, spent four months under fire in Vietnam, and then exaggerated a bit so he could go home early is the inferior, morally and otherwise, of a man who had his father pull strings so he wouldn't have to go to Vietnam in the first place.

Needless to say, the proposition will be a hard sell in those dim and tiny reaches of the electorate where voters have yet to make up their minds. Indeed, it's far more likely that moderates and fence-sitters will be disgusted by the lengths to which partisans will go to discredit a rival. But this anti-Kerry campaign is not designed to win undecided votes. It's designed to reassure uneasy minds.

Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard.

I don't know what Kerry "exaggerated a bit so he could go home early." Other than that, nice job.

See also:
William Rood testimonial, Chicago Tribune
Records Counter a Critic of Kerry, Washington Post
America Can Do Better, Kerry Campaign

I guess I shouldn't have claimed I wasn't going to write about this subject any more.


Call it a hunch, but he's not doing so well with Matthew Yglesias either

I'm really so furious about this whole situation that I don't know what to say. I'm taking out my credit card and making some donations and I would strongly advise any readers who don't feel like continuing to see a lying, cowardly, idiot who's willing to go to any lengths whatsoever to maintain his grasp on political power (and that's all there is to it, this isn't deception in pursuit of some higher goal, the man has no ideological principles whatsoever other than his own self-aggrandizement) so that the gang of criminals he's employed at the highest levels of government can avoid prosecution serve in the White House I would suggest that you do the same. The purpose of negative ads is to demobilize your opponent's supporters. Don't let it work. Give the DNC some money. Or your favorite 527. Whatever you can. It's increasingly clear that the bad actors have, quite literally, no shame whatsoever and will stop at nothing to maintain their grip on the government.

Yup.


"Turn 90"
Democratic National Committee
MoveOn.org
People for the American Way
Media Matters for America

posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:20:00 AM -- |