Had Ashcroft thought to check this out with the CIA-or even NBC-he would have learned that the "al-Qaeda spokesman" was actually "Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades"-a fact later conceded with some embarrassment by the FBI. According to a senior US intelligence official, this "group" may consist of no more than one person with a fax machine. The "Brigades" have nonetheless claimed responsibility for the power blackout in the Northeast last year, a power outage in London, and the March 11 train bombings in Madrid. NBC news analyst Roger Cressey, a former deputy to counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, notes, "The only thing they haven't claimed credit for recently is the cicada invasion of Washington."
http://www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern06022004.html

With only five months before the election, the president's men are getting desperate. Iraq is going from bad to worse and the prospect of substantial improvement before November is virtually nil. Worse still, revelations of the past few weeks strongly suggest that the president, Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, et al. have deeply personal incentive to make four more years for Bush a sure thing.

Put yourself in their position. Addressing whether or not Washington should honor the Geneva Conventions on Prisoners of War, the president's chief legal counsel, Alberto Gonzales, warned him in a memorandum of January 25, 2002 that US law-the War Crimes Act of 1996 (18 U.S.C. 2441)-prohibits "war crimes" defined to include any grave breach of the Geneva Conventions on Prisoners of War. Gonzales made it clear that this prohibition applies to US officials and noted that punishments for violations of Section 2441 include the death penalty.

Gonzales advised the president that, in the opinion of Ashcroft's Justice Department, the Geneva Conventions do not apply to al-Qaeda and that the president had the authority to determine that they also do not apply to the Taliban.

Gonzales described Ashcroft's opinion as "definitive," but added that the State Department had expressed "a different view." Buried in the legalese is thinly disguised nervousness that others, too, might have a different view. Under the "positives," Gonzales notes:

"It is difficult to predict the motives of prosecutors and independent counsels who may in the future decide to pursue unwarranted charges based on Section 2441. Your determination would create a reasonable basis in law that Section 2441 does not apply, which would provide a solid defense to any future prosecution."

For the Bush administration, the nightmare is losing the November election-a prospect believed to be unlikely until just recently. For many of us citizens, the nightmare is the president and his associates resorting to extra-legal measures to ensure that there is no "regime change" in Washington for four more years. Logic and human nature would suggest that possible liability to prosecution under the War Crimes Act are among the more weighty factors they take into account.

In a recent op-ed in a newspaper in Maine, Charles Cutter poses the key question for the next five months. Cutter asks:

"How far would they go? With blood on their hands and God on their side, what actions would Bush & Co. consider too extreme-when the goal is to extend their control over the financial and military power of the American presidency?"

An elevated threat level justifying martial law and postponement of the election? No doubt such suggestions will seem too alarmist to those trusting that there is a moral line, somewhere, that the president and his senior advisers would not cross. I regret very much to say that their behavior over the past three years leaves me doubtful that there is such a line. If my doubts are justified, the sooner we all come to grips with this parlous situation the better.

Meanwhile, don't be taken in by "credible intelligence."