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Is Bush's Nominee for CIA Chief Porter Goss a Decoy For Re-Election?
Parents Mourn Son's Suicide After Returning From Iraq Duty:
"He's a Casualty of War But He'll Never Be Known As That"
Anti-War Group Asserts Right to Protest RNC in Central Park
Is Bush's Nominee for CIA Chief Porter Goss a Decoy
For Re-Election?
President Bush nominates Republican congressmember Porter
Goss of Florida to head the Central Intelligence Agency. We
speak with former CIA analyst Ray McGovern and Slate.com columnist
Fred Kaplan about the nomination and why some are calling
it a purely political move.
President Bush has nominated Republican congressman Porter
Goss of Florida, to head the Central Intelligence Agency,
replacing George Tenet who resigned as director in July.
Bush made the announcement Tuesday in the White House Rose
Garden said Goss is "the right man to lead this important
agency at this critical moment in our nation's history."
Goss was himself a CIA spy for 9 years. He was stationed
in Miami during the Cuban missile crisis, then in Haiti, the
Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Western Europe. For the past
eight years he has been the Republican chairman of the House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
The nomination which is subject to confirmation by the Senate
comes amid calls for sweeping intelligence reforms proposed
by the 9/11 commission including subordinating the head of
the CIA and the chiefs of other such agencies under a single,
new intelligence director as well as the recent report from
the Senate Intelligence Committee on lapses failures regarding
Iraq.
Reactions to the nomination were mixed. Some government officials
expressed support, but others came out in strong opposition,
calling the choice a partisan political move.
Goss recently criticized Democratic presidential nominee
John Kerry for supposedly having voted for cuts to the CIA's
budget back in the 1990s.
In the Valerie Plame case months earlier, Goss told the Herald
Tribune of Florida that the uproar over allegations that someone
in the White House purposely identified a covert CIA agent
appeared largely political and didn't yet merit an investigation
by the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Goss said he
would act if he did have evidence and said, "Somebody
sends me a blue dress and some DNA, I'll have an investigation."
Senator John Rockefeller, the vice chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, which will hold hearings on the nomination,
declared that it was a mistake to select "any politician,
from either party." Former CIA Director Stansfield Turner,
who served in the Carter administration, called the nomination
"the worst appointment that's ever been made."
The timing of the nomination has also come under question
because of the potential for opposition in Congress in the
middle of a presidential campaign. A "Republican political
operative" told the Washington Post that Bush chose Goss
because "poll data showed Kerry had closed the gap with
Bush on handling of terrorism."
If confirmed, Goss would be only the second congressman to
head the CIA after George H.W. Bush.
- Ray McGovern, 27-year career analyst with the CIA. He
is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity. He worked under George Bush Sr., both when he was
director of central intelligence, as well as when he was
Vice President. He was one of his daily briefers.
- Fred Kaplan, writes the "War Stories" column
for online magazine Slate.com.
He is the author of "The Wizards of Armageddon"
and a former staff reporter for the Boston Globe, having
been its military correspondent, Moscow bureau chief, and
New York bureau chief.
Parents Mourn Son's Suicide After Returning From
Iraq Duty: "He's a Casualty of War But He'll Never Be
Known As That"
We continue our conversation with Kevin and Joyce Lucey,
the parents of Jeffrey Lucey, a 23 year-old U.S. soldier who
hung himself a year after returning home from military duty
in Iraq.
During the Democratic National Convention in Boston, the
parents of Jeffrey Lucey, a U.S. soldier who killed himself
after returning home from military duty in Iraq, spoke publicly
for the first time on Democracy Now!
Lucey signed up for the Marine Reserves straight out of high
school. In February 2003, one month before the invasion, he
was shipped out to Iraq. He was deployed there for five months,
during which he fought in the battle of Nasiriyah. He returned
to the U.S. later that year.
A few months after his return, Jeffrey's parents, Kevin and
Joyce, began noticing signs of what they later came to know
as post-traumatic stress syndrome. In late May 2004, they
had Jeffrey involuntarily committed to a military veteran's
hospital after he ignored his parents' and sister, Debbie's
pleas to seek help. The hospital discharged him after a few
days.
Three weeks later on June 22nd, Jeffrey Lucey took his own
life. He was 23 years old. His father, Kevin came home to
find his son had hung himself with a hose in the cellar of
their house. The dog tags of two Iraqi prisoners he said he
was forced to shoot unarmed, lay on his bed.
Shortly after his death, Kevin and Joyce Lucey joined us
on the program to talk about their son. After the broadcast,
we continued our conversation with them.
Anti-War Group Asserts Right to Protest RNC in Central
Park
New York City again rejects a request by protest group United
For Peace and Justice to the rally in Central Park before
the opening of the Republican National Convention. [includes
rush
transcript]
A group of family members of victims of the 9/11 attacks,
are walking from the Democratic National Convention in Boston
to the Republican National Convention in New York where some
of them join antiwar protests in Manhattan. But where they
will be rallying is still unknown.
New York City has once again rejected a request by protest
group United For Peace and Justice to hold rally in Central
Park before the opening of the Convention.
The group submitted another permit request yesterday but
the city rejected it within hours. Now, protest organizer
Leslie Cagan, said the group may take their case to federal
court.
Cagan held a press conference yesterday in New York to announce
the group's decision to hold the rally in Central Park.
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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