| If you don't get MER, you just don't
get it! 22 Oct 2004 - MiddleEast.Org -  MER is
Free |
||
| News, Views, &
Analysis Governments,
Lobbies, & the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know The most honest, most comprehensive, and most mobilizing news and analysis on the Middle East always comes from MER. It is indispensable!" Robert Silverman - Salamanca, Spain |
TALK ABOUT AMERICAN
IMPERIALISM and CHUTZPA!
Hillary wants to be President
And Georgetown U hires former CIA Director
"Tenet called the war on Iraq 'wrong' in a
speech Wednesday night... He did not elaborate."
MIDDLEEAST.ORG - MER - Washington - 22 October: The reaction in many quarters must be 'Oh My God'.
The former Clinton President now wants to be Secretary-General of the United Nations. And his former First Lady, now Senator from New York, wants to be President of the United States.
And while we're at it. Georgetown University has rewarded the former resigned and some think disgraced head of the C.I.A., George Tenet, with a Professorship.
This is the same George Tenet by the way whom Clinton had overseeing the disastrous Middle East 'Peace Process'...
the same George Tenet who insisted right there in the Oval Office that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were all over the place and a 'slam dunk case'...the same George Tenet who so blatantly tried to trick and deceive the world, but who now says the Iraq war was 'wrong' after all. And now he's going to be spinning his tales and feeding his face at Georgetown University -- how shameful.
Next thing maybe we'll be hearing is that Monica Lewinsky wants to be a nun, Paul Wolfowitz wants to be Secretary of State, and maybe just a few weeks from now that John Kerry and Al Gore and probably Shimon Peres as well are all looking to Clinton to give them cushie jobs at U.N. Headquarters.
By ROLAND FLAMINI, UPI Chief International Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has set his sights on becoming U.N. secretary-general. A Clinton insider and a senior U.N. source have told United Press International the 56-year-old former president would like to be named leader of the world body when Kofi Annan's term ends early in 2006.
"He definitely wants to do it," the Clinton insider said this week.
A Clinton candidacy is likely to receive overwhelming support from U.N. member states, particularly the Third World. Diplomats in Washington say Clinton would galvanize the United Nations and give an enormous boost to its prestige. But the former president's hopes hang on a crucial question that will not be addressed until after the presidential elections: can he get the support of the U.S. government -- a prerequisite for nomination?
The political wisdom is that a second George W. Bush presidency would cut him off at the pass. The notion of Clinton looming large in the international arena from "the glass tower" in New York would be intolerable to the Bush White House. If Democratic candidate, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., wins on Nov. 2 the prospect of Clinton as secretary-general won't exactly be welcome either, but Kerry would find it much harder -- if not impossible -- to go against it.
After a Middle East U.N. Secretary General (Boutros Boutros Ghali) and an African (Kofi Annan) it is generally considered Asia's turn to fill the post, U.N. experts say. No announcement has been made, but behind the scenes China is already pushing the candidacy of Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai, who also seems to have U.S. support. If Clinton does emerge as a candidate, however, China would most likely shift its support, the experts say.
No American has ever been U.N. secretary-general, but the United States is both host country to the United Nations and the major contributor to its budget. A hostile U.S. Congress held up its dues for years -- until the Clinton administration negotiated a payment plan for Washington's arrears. Clinton also revived U.S. membership of UNESCO though the Americans did not actually move back into their offices at the Paris-based scientific and cultural U.N. agency until after the start of the Bush presidency.
President Reagan had taken the United States out of UNESCO in protest against alleged corruption by former top agency officials.
Clinton is currently recovering from the heart bypass surgery he had to undergo last month, and this has kept him away from the Kerry campaign after a few initial support appearances. The former president has told friends and Kerry staffers he plans to resume campaigning for Kerry, but on a limited scale because his recovery has been gradual. He has talked of his interest in taking over at the United Nations since the publication of his commercially successful autobiography, which he recently said had sold 1.9 million copies. Writing the book kept him busy after leaving office in 2000, but he is now ready to channel his considerable political skills and energy into another role in public life.
There had been rumors that he would run the Third Way organization, the world Social Democratic movement he had talked of launching together with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. But the political alliance had come unstuck and the idea ran out of steam partly because Blair and Schroeder found themselves on opposite sides in the Bush-led Iraq war.
Putting Clinton in charge of the United Nations would be a real test of international intentions, observers say.
"Critics of the U.N. complain that it's an organization without the muscle and will to put its decisions into effect," the U.N. source observed. "There's a good chance that Clinton could significantly change that situation, and then we'll see if the critics mean what they say."
Although he emphasized that the Central Intelligence Agency
boasts "tremendously talented men and women," former CIA Director
George Tenet said it "did not live up to our expectations as
professionals" regarding the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the
search for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
"We
had inconsistent information, and we did not inform others in the
community of gaps in our intelligence," Tenet said. "The extraordinary
men and women who do magnificent work in the CIA are held accountable
every day for what they do, and as part of keeping our faith with the
American people, we will tell you when we're right or wrong."
Tenet
called the war on Iraq "wrong" in a speech Wednesday night to 2,000
members of The Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan at Lake Michigan
College's Mendel Center. He did not elaborate.
Despite
proclaiming to be "as forthcoming as I can," Tenet made light of a
question about whether or not the United States made an error in
committing intelligence to the search for nonexistent WMDs in Iraq
rather than exploring terrorism elsewhere.
Tenet apologized for being rude but did not answer the question.
He did add that he doesn't think the Iraq war was wholly bad.
Tenet was faulted in April's 9/11 Commission report for not having a strategy to battle terrorism before the terrorist attacks. He also took responsibility for a later discredited line in President George Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, which alleged that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa. Tenet said the CIA had seen and approved the speech in advance, and he assumed responsibility for the error.
Tenet said that while the Iraq war was "rightly being challenged," the CIA was making important strides toward success in the greater war on terrorism.
He said the United States is "winning the war on terror" due to the CIA's efforts to "capture or kill" three-quarters of al-Qaida's leaders, pinpointed before 9/11. He expects to see Osama bin Ladin captured.
Tenet highlighted places throughout the world, including Iran and North Korea, that are potential terrorism threats, while commending the cooperation of Pakistan and Libya with U.S. efforts.
He said the Pakistani president "came to our side" after 9/11 and allowed for important al-Qaida captures in a nation the terrorist organization once considered safe. Libya initiated contact with the CIA and explicitly committed to dismantling its weapons program - the first time any such program was self-dismantled without a shot being fired, Tenet said.
"Demographics and distribution trends are something we also need to keep an eye on," Tenet said. "The developed world is not reproducing at levels to maintain its position, while developing nations who cannot afford it, mostly Muslim ones, are exploding."
Tenet said a developing nation's low per capita income, high unemployment among young men and high infant mortality rate strongly increase its likelihood of becoming a "terrorist safe haven."
"In 2010, 100 million people outside of Africa will be infected with HIV," Tenet said. "The secondary implications of this are staggering."
He said the work of public health officers, missionaries and literacy teachers in third world nations are crucial to the war on terrorism, because terrorists build supporters by spinning poverty as a form of humiliation caused by wealthy nations like the United States.
