[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 102 (Friday, July 11, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1443-E1444]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[[Page E1443]]
PETITION DRIVE TARGETS BUSH ADVISOR KARL ROVE
______
HON. DENNIS J. KUCINICH
of ohio
in the house of representatives
Thursday, July 10, 2003
Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, the Bush Administration led this Nation
into war against Iraq based on false intelligence about the threat Iraq
posed our Nation. The attached petition, from the American
intercollegiate debate community, details the strategy of deception
that the Bush Administration adopted to gain support for the war
against Iraq.
Petition Drive Targets Bush Advisor Karl Rove
debaters oppose administration strategy for public debate on war
The American intercollegiate debate community has been
dedicated to the pursuit of open deliberation on timely
policy issues for centuries. The basis of debate practice is
openness in argumentation--a willingness to allow the best
argument to win, rather than relying on force or power to
overwhelm opponents. Some members of the debate community
have articulated disappointment with the Bush
administration's strategy for convincing American and world
publics of the need for a preventive military first-strike on
Iraq, and are joining in a petition drive to highlight the
inadequacy of the Bush administration's approach to gaining
consent for war.
Karl Rove, senior political advisor to George W. Bush, was
an avid high school debater in Salt Lake City, Utah. Rove's
tactics as a debater appear to have influenced his strategy
as a political advisor. James Moore and Wayne Slater have
detailed the roots of Rove's political strategy in their book
Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential
(Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2003):
``Debaters kept their arguments on 3 X 5 cards, which they
carried about in shoeboxes or metal containers. Rove had the
most impressive collection of debate cards at Olympus High.
If his teammates had a shoebox filled with the cards, Rove
carried two, which he plunked down on the table in an ominous
display of force. By his senior year, the arsenal had swelled
to 5 or 10 boxes. Rove figured that if two or three boxes
unnerved an opposing team, why not something truly
overwhelming? Why not a table full of cards? Why not buy them
by the thousands and wheel them in on hand-carts? Why not
throw the fear of God into the enemy before the debate even
began? The thing was, the thing nobody knew was, that the
cards were mostly fake. `We went out and bought thousands, if
not tens of thousands, of debate cards,' says debate partner
Emil Langeland, now a lawyer in Salt Lake City.
`` `Everybody was using 3 X 5 cards. And we decided we'd
better have 4 X 6--a little bigger than the next guy. And we
had shoeboxes, a table full. We would come in and set up
those boxes with file cards in them, color-coded, with tabs
sticking up, and there were literally thousands and thousands
of them. And you know what? There wasn't a thing on 99
percent of them. If they gave us a 4 X 4 table, we'd make it
a 4 X 8 table and we'd stack this information--what appeared
to be information--on the table. We'd lay out all these
papers. The reality was that the core of our attack or
strategy was on 20 or 30 cards. We never used much more than
that. But we'd just hand truck them in, then go back out into
the hall and hand truck another set in and set them up on the
table almost to the point where you couldn't see us. It was
all psychological, to psych out your opponent.' Rove didn't
just want to win, he wanted his opponents destroyed. His
worldview was clear even then: There was his team and the
other team, and he would make the other team pay. He would
defeat them, slaughter them, and humiliate them. He would win
by any means, but he would win (118-119).''
Rove's strategy of totally destroying the opposition in
debate competition is mirrored in the American ``win at all
costs'' approach to public diplomacy. The Bush administration
has tried to overload public spheres of deliberation with
evidence that links Iraq to weapons of mass destruction and
terrorism, yet key evidence has turned out to be fabricated,
plagiarized, or exaggerated in this rhetorical campaign.
Niger forgery. Evidence used by the Bush administration to
demonstrate Iraq's noncompliance with the nuclear materials
section of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 turned out to
be based on forged documents. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
has asked the FBI to investigate who forged the letters and
why U.S. intelligence officials did not authenticate them
before claiming them as proof of Iraqi noncompliance. In a
letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller, Rockefeller wrote,
``there is a possibility that the fabrication of these
documents may be part of a larger deception campaign aimed at
manipulating public opinion and foreign policy regarding
Iraq.''
Plagiarized British dossier. In his February 5 speech to
the UN Security Council, Secretary of State Colin Powell
lauded a British government report as ``a fine paper.'' Yet
this paper turned out to be a mosaic of old open source
material previously published. The British dossier, entitled
``Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and
Intimidation,'' plagiarized long stretches of a paper by
Ibrahim al-Marashi, a postgraduate student at the Monterey
Institute of International Studies in California. The
British report drew heavily from al-Marashi's account of
Mukhabarat, the Iraqi directorate of general intelligence.
However, where al-Marashi listed among the Mukhabarat's
duties ``aiding opposition groups in hostile regimes,''
the British authors substituted the more incriminating
phrase ``supporting terrorist organizations'' in hostile
regimes.
Baseless aluminum tubes charges. UN weapons inspector Hans
Blix and former IAEA expert adviser David Albright both
reject the Bush administration's claim that Iraq's attempt to
acquire aluminum tubes was driven by a desire to build
uranium enrichment centrifuges for its nuclear program, yet
administration officials continued to rely on such
discredited evidence.
In addition to these evidentiary inadequacies, the
administration's broader strategy to coalesce a ``coalition
of the willing'' utilizes manipulative foreign policy tools
that rely on coercion rather than democratic processes of
deliberation.
Utilizing financial leverage to induce cooperation
circumvents the will of citizens abroad. The United States'
manipulation of loans and grants to potential collaborators
as a way to ``buy off' other countries'' dissent by
leveraging power in international finance frustrates
democratic participation. Reliance on a business-marketing
model for public diplomacy rigs communicative exchanges in a
way that forecloses freewheeling argumentative give-and-take.
Demonizing countries that resist the push for war polarizes
conflict and lessens the possibility of a united post-war
effort for reconstruction. High-ranking European Union
officials have indicated that generating support for funding
the reconstruction of Iraq will face difficulty because of
the perception that the United States has used heavy-handed
tactics to gain assent for preventive military intervention.
Spying activity against United Nations delegates,
documented in the so-called ``Koza memo'' generates suspicion
about U.S. tactics to persuade Security Council members to go
along with resolutions advancing the cause of war.
Surveillance techniques could be utilized to gain unfairly
acquired weight in negotiations.
These techniques are at odds with the fundamental tenets of
democratic deliberation that rely on transparency, honesty,
and public argumentation to gain assent from allies.
Deception in wartime has long been accepted as a legitimate
military strategy. However, expanded deception programs
designed to manipulate domestic and allied public opinion
raise a different set of strategic dilemmas. While deception
strategies may be effective as military levers deployed to
complicate enemy planning, they are less useful as weapons of
mass communications--propaganda tools designed to influence
public opinion in public spheres. To be truly effective, any
strategy to defuse terrorism in this way requires that the
political legitimacy of U.S. policies be established in
international public spheres. This process is best
accomplished through fair and open public debate, rather than
deceptive and manipulative methods exercised by the Bush
Administration.
The national championships represented a culmination of the
season's competitive debating activity that has focused on
the topic of multilateralism as a foreign policy approach. In
pursuit of these principles, debaters organized a petition
campaign at the two national championship debate tournaments
this spring, attended by over 250 teams from across the
country:
PHOENIX, Arizona, Cross Examination Debate Association
national championship tournament, Arizona State University,
March 20-25, 2003
ATLANTA, Georgia, National Debate Tournament national
championship tournament, Emory University, April 3-7, 2003
petition text
We object to the Bush Administration's manipulation of
public deliberation in the implementation of its preventive
military intervention policy. Worldwide political legitimacy
for that policy can be forged only through a process of fair
and honest public
[[Page E1444]]
argument. Uncritical use of forged documents purporting to
link Iraq to Niger's nuclear industry, reliance on a
deceptive British report that plagiarized and misrepresented
the work of a California graduate student and intimidation
tactics at the UN Security Council are each part of the Bush
administration's `win at all costs' approach to public
diplomacy. These argumentative strategies must be
reconsidered immediately, because the alienation and mistrust
sown worldwide by their implementation bankrupts the
political legitimacy of U.S. foreign policy and polarizes
diplomatic conflict. This exposes U.S. soldiers to harm by
dividing allies, worsens the terrorist threat by
stimulating recruitment and undermines cooperative
security ventures ranging from allied intelligence sharing
to international peacekeeping and post war reconstruction.
Petition signers and debate affiliations
Abbott, Blake, Mercer University, GA; Ashe, Allison,
University of Georgia, GA; Bannigan, Virginia, Wake
Forest University, NC; Baron, Chris, Towson University,
MD; Barsness, Paul, University of Georgia, GA; Bates,
Benjamin, University of Georgia, GA; Beerman, Ruth,
Mercer University, GA; Bellon, Joe, Georgia State
University, GA; Berger, Alex, Dartmouth College, NH;
Blair, LoriBeth, Georgia State University, GA; Boggs,
Joshua, West Virginia University, WV; Branelt,
Caroline, Riverwood H.S., AZ; Breshears, David,
University of Texas, TX; Brigham, Matt, Baylor
University, TX; Brock, Kimberly, West Virginia
University, WV; Bruschke, Jon, California State
University-Fullerton, CA; Bsumek, Pete, James Madison
University, VA.
Campbell, Peter O., Univ. of Puget Sound, WA; Carr,
Adrienne, University of Georgia, GA; Cashman, Bryan,
State University New York-Binghamton, NY; Chalus, Peg,
University of Pittsburgh, PA; Clark, Josh, California
State University-Fullerton, CA; Cole, Hayley, San Diego
State University, CA; Colston, Nicole, University of
Miami, FL; Congdon, Kelly, University of Pittsburgh,
PA; Crachiolo, Sarah, Georgia State University, GA;
Crittenden, Eli, Emporia State University, KS; Czapla,
Anna, University of Rochester, NY; D'Amico, Steve,
University of Rochester, NY; Davies, Alexis, San Diego
State University, CA; Davis, Alysia, University of
Georgia, GA; Davis, Dan, West Georgia University, GA;
DeButts, Jessica, Fresno City College, CA; Dillard,
Tiffany, University of Louisville, KY; Douglas, Lara,
Cornell University, NY; Drake, Brian, Mercer
University, GA; Dunn, Izak, Idaho State University, ID;
Dybvig, Kristin, Arizona State University, AZ; Eberle,
R.J., Georgia State University, GA; Ellis, Andy, Marist
College, NY; Ellis, Steven Andrew, Marist University,
NY.
Galloway, Ryan, University of Georgia, GA; Garen, Adam,
Dartmouth College, NH; Garner, Ricky, New York
University, NY; Gaston, Bryan, University of Central
Oklahoma, OK; Gedmark, Elizabeth, Wake Forest
University, NC; Gorelick, Nate, New York University,
NY; Goss, Tiffany, Fresno City College, CA; Gossett,
John, University of North Texas, TX; Green, R.J.,
University of Louisville, KY; Grindy, Matt, University
of Miami, FL; Haddad, Nader, California State
University-Fullerton, CA; Hahn, Allison, University of
Pittsburgh, PA; Hall, Brad, Wake Forest University, NC;
Hall, Brooke, San Diego State University, CA; Hamrick,
Kevin, Northwestern University, IL; Hanson, Jim,
Whitman College, WA; Harris, Sean, University of Puget
Sound, WA; Haskell, David, California Polytechnical-San
Luis Obispo, CA; Hausrath, Barry, University of
Richmond, VA; Hayman, Jethro, Cornell University, NY;
Helwich, David Cram, Macalester College, MN; Hines,
John, University of North Texas, TX; Hingstman, David,
University of Iowa, IA; Holland, Shannon, University of
Georgia, GA; Hovden, Jan M., Weber State University, UT;
Hughes, Michael, University of Pittsburgh, PA.
Janette, David, Pace University, NY; Jenkins, Eric, James
Madison University, VA; Johnson, Kevin, University of
Texas-Austin, TX; Jones, Elizabeth, University of
Louisville, KY; Julian, Monica, California State
University-Chico, CA; Kaplan-Sham, Eana, University of
Rochester, NY; Keane, Tom, University of Georgia, GA;
Keller, David, Emporia State University, KS; Kelley,
Patricia, University of Georgia, GA; Kemp, Andy, Kansas
State University, KS; Kenemer, Ben, Mercer University,
GA; Kenyon, Christopher, Wichita State University, KS;
Kerns, Diana, Baltimore Urban Debate League, MD;
Ketsdever, Nathan, University of Rochester, NY; Klaff,
Dan, Cornell University, NY; Klein, Ronald, Binghamton
University, NY; Knops, Jennifer, University of Vermont,
VT; Knox, Corey, University of Louisville, KY; Korcok,
Michael, Bakersfield Community College, CA;
Krinrochter, Brian, San Diego State University, CA;
Kuswa, Kevin, University of Richmond, VA; Kwinfor,
Benjamin, Macalester College, MN; Lain, Brian,
University of North Texas, TX; Lantzy, Rob, University
of Pittsburgh, PA; Lee, Adam, University of Rochester,
NY; Lee, Ed, University of Alabama, AL; Limprevil,
Sheila, University of Vermont, VT Littlefield, Lindsay,
Wake Forest University, NC; Loghry, Chris, University
of Missouri-Kansas City, MO; Lundberg, Chris,
Northwestern University, IL.
Mabrey III, Paul E., Fort Hays State University, KS;
Maldonado, Darinka, University of Pittsburgh, PA;
Mancuso, Steve, Catholic University of America, DC;
Marks, David, Dartmouth College, NH; Marples, Thomas,
University of Rochester, NY; Marshall, Stephen, West
Virginia University, WV; Martin, Josh, California State
University-Chico, CA; Marty, Jillian A., University of
Vermont, VT; Massey, Jackie, University of Vermont, VT;
Mathes, Eric, Georgia State University, GA; Maurer,
Sam, Emporia State University, KS; Melander, Lindsey,
University of Vermont, VT; Miller, Josh, University of
Vermont, VT; Miller, Nikole D., University of Alabama,
AL; Mitchell, Gordon, University of Pittsburgh, PA;
Moore, Matthew, Augustana College, IL; Moore, Stephen,
Emporia State University, KS; Morgan, Ainetta, West
Virginia University, WV; Morris, Eric, University of
Kansas, KS; Morrison, Catherine, James Madison
University, VA; Motes, Eric, University of Vermont, VT;
Mueller, Eric, Weber State University, UT; Munksgaard,
Jane, University of Pittsburgh, PA; Murray, Craig,
Cornell University, NY; Nelson, Sam, University of
Rochester, NY; Newnam, Bill, Emory University, GA;
Odekirk, Scott, Weber State University, UT; Patel,
Nirav, University of North Texas, TX; Perry, Michael
J., Wake Forest University, NC; Pfister, Damien,
University of Pittsburgh, PA; Phillips, Tameka,
University of Alabama, AL; Pomorski, Michael, Catholic
University of America, DC; Porth, Raj, North Gwinnett
H.S., GA; Puszczewicz, Rich, University of Louisville,
KY; Quijas, Richard, Kansas City Kansas Community College,
MO; Radford, James, Jr., Samford University, AL; Rani,
Reena, Pace University, NY; Rast, Lisa, Columbia
University, NY; Reimes, Tim, University of Vermont, VT;
Renegar, Valerie, San Diego State University, CA; Renken,
Judd, DePaul University, IL; Riepel, Christina, Loyola
University-Chicago, IL; Rolfe-Redding, Justin, University
of Chicago, IL; Rosminder, Rafael, Towson University, MD;
Roston, Michael, George Washington University, DC; Rufo,
Ken, University of Georgia, GA; Rundus, Dan, Kansas City
Kansas Community College, MO; Samuels, Phillip, Emporia
State University, KS; Schatz, Joe, State University New
York-Binghamton, NY; Schnurer, Maxwell, Marist University,
NY; Schriver, Kristina, California State University-Chico,
CA; Schueler, Beth, Whitman College, WA; Schwartz, Rae
Lynn, University of Iowa, IA; Seaver, Frank, Woodward HS,
GA; Sherman, Jerrod, Georgia State University; Shmerling,
Brian, Riverwood H.S., AZ; Siadak, John, Augustana
College, IL; Silva, Angela, California State University-
Sacramento, CA; Simpson, Amanda, Florida State University,
FL; Skinner, Donna, Garden City HS, KS; Slusher, Eric,
Gonzaga University, WA; Smith, Ross K., Wake Forest
University, NC; Snider, A.C., University of Vermont, VT;
Stevens, Jeremy, University of Texas-San Antonio, TX;
Stevens, Monte, University of Missouri-Kansas City, MO;
Stokes, Candice, Towson University, MD; Sullivan, John,
Harvard University, MA.
Thatcher, Elizabeth, Mercer University, GA; Thomas,
Nicholas A., California State University-Long Beach,
CA; Tinsley, Jordan, University of Kansas, KS; Todero,
Anthony, University of Pittsburgh, PA; Torre,
Stephanie, University of Miami, FL; Tribble, Nathan,
University of Redlands, CA; Turley, Serena, California
State University-Fullerton, CA; Watson, Hays,
University of Georgia, GA; Webster, Christy L.,
University of Rochester, NY; Webster, Sandra,
University of Louisville, KY; Whalen, Shawn (Cross
Examination Debate Association President), San
Francisco State University, CA; Witte, Erin, Mercer
University, GA; Wright, Sarah, Mercer University, GA;
Zompetti, Suzette, Mercer University, GA; Zompetti,
Joseph, Mercer University, GA.
____________________