The New American

Why So High?

Steven Yates — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:00:00 CDT

In early March a sign in front of a Citgo station read Regular/Unleaded: $3.19 per gallon, and I told my companion, “That’s absurd! Why would anyone buy gas there?” We’d just left a “cut-rate” station where it cost “only” $2.98 per gallon. Today, of course, who wouldn’t welcome $3.19 per gallon for regular/unleaded gasoline?

As this is being written (June 16, 2008), the national average price for regular/unleaded gasoline is $4.08, up from $4.04 on June 9 and up from $3.72 on May 12. A year ago, a gallon of regular/unleaded cost $3.00. Diesel fuel, used by large tractor-trailers, is considerably higher, at a national average of $4.69 per gallon, up from $2.80 one year ago. These record highs have been going up almost every week and will likely be higher by the time you read this.

Many people are frustrated, and those whose means of earning a living involve driving long distances (independent truck drivers, for example) are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. The big question on everybody’s mind is, “Why?” Why have these prices gotten so high? Are the oil companies gouging us with obscene profits? Are we running out of oil? How much higher will the price go? Will the day come when driving to another part of the country or even commuting a distance of several miles to work is no longer affordable? Can anything be done to reduce the price, or at least keep it from continuing to rise?

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Value of the Dollar

Oil is not the only commodity that is becoming more and more expensive to buy. The cost of food is also going up. So is the cost of just about everything else. One major reason for this overall rise in prices is because the dollar does not buy as much as it used to. And the reason the dollar does not buy as much as it used to is because the Federal Reserve System (along with the U.S. Treasury Department) is inundating our economy with newly created dollars. Their intent is to finance the federal government’s massive expenditures as well as to prevent a deepening recession. The newly created dollars won’t solve our economic problems, of course, since each new dollar added to the economy devalues the dollars already in circulation, causing prices to rise.

Inflation is usually, and erroneously, defined as rising prices. Rising prices are in reality an effect of inflation. Properly understood, inflation is expansion of the money supply: more dollars chasing the goods and services available in the market. Each dollar buys less. Since oil companies are not responsible for increasing the money supply, they are not responsible for the effect inflation has on prices. If the number of dollars in circulation is doubled, then all other things being equal, oil companies would eventually have to charge twice as much for their product.

How much of the rise in gas prices is attributable to the overall rise in prices caused by dollar inflation? One way of finding out is to measure the price of gasoline in terms of “constant” dollars instead of nominal dollars. For instance, in 1971 — the year is significant because that was when President Richard Nixon took us totally off the gold standard — a gallon of gasoline that cost 50 cents a gallon would cost $2.66 today in 1971 dollars, as calculated by the Consumer Price Index. In fact, this is a very conservative estimate of the devaluation of the dollar for the reason that the CPI increasingly underreports the actual overall increase in the cost of goods and services. (See “Dangers of an Underreported CPI” in our June 23 issue.) But even this conservative estimate shows that most of the increase in the price of gasoline from 50 cents in 1971 to $4.00 today is attributable to the dollar’s overall loss of purchasing power, a devastating consequence of inflation.

Supply and Demand

But inflation, though hugely important, is not the only factor. To be sure, the price of gasoline is heavily dependent on the price of crude oil, which like any other commodity is affected by supply and demand. Either an increase in demand or a drop in supply (or both at once) will cause prices to rise. Rising prices also encourage more production and discourage wasteful usage.

Global energy consumption has been rising. According to the American Petroleum Institute (API), the demand for oil rose from 77 million barrels per day in 2001 to 85 million barrels per day in 2007. The API suggests, based on U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projections, that world oil consumption will grow by 1.2 million barrels per day in 2008 and by 1.3 million barrels per day in 2009. Much of this projected increase will be due to the rapid growth of the economies of China, India, and other Asian countries, as well as the Middle East oil-producing nations.

Production of oil comes with a hefty price, and the price has been increasing. In 2005, the price of crude oil averaged $50.23 per barrel. It just recently surpassed $130 per barrel, topping out at a record $139.89 on June 16. The price of crude oil, which itself is affected by inflation, is the single biggest component driving the price of gasoline. According to the API, in the first quarter of 2008, crude oil alone made up 70 percent of the price at the pump.

The increase in demand is also an issue. Moreover, while demand is increasing, supply is tightening — OPEC’s spare production capacity has declined from 6 million barrels per day a few years ago to around 2 million barrels per day as we move through 2008. Tightening supplies put upward pressure on the price of any commodity.

This situation is made worse by the fact that the United States has become dangerously dependent on foreign oil. Put simply, we now consume far more oil than we produce. According to EIA statistics, the United States produces 10 percent of the world’s oil and consumes 24 percent. The difference is made up in imports. Over 65 percent of the oil we consumed during 2007 was imported. Some 18 percent of our net petroleum imports (imports minus exports) came from the relatively politically unstable Middle East: Persian Gulf nations including Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates. A sufficiently large enough percentage of our oil imports comes from the Middle East to mean that political uncertainty and instability there is bound to affect prices here.

Obviously, political instability in the Middle East — including the quagmire in Iraq as well as the looming threat of war with Iran — greatly affects the price of oil from the region as well as the price Americans pay at the gasoline pump.

Political strife and uncertainty are not limited to the Middle East. Nigeria, another major oil exporter, is embroiled in civil strife. Venezuela, a major source of South American crude, faces some uncertainty because of an ongoing war of words with the Bush administration over actual and proposed hemispheric trade agreements (e.g., a Free Trade Area of the Americas, strongly supported by President Bush and North American internationalists). Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez sees these as threats to the economic independence of the region. None of these nations share the American vision of a free society based on the ideals of constitutionally limited government; none of them are particularly friendly to the United States. Political reasons could cause any of them to restrict or curtail the oil they now sell us.

Many American consumers doubtless realize what our political class seemingly does not, that we place ourselves at risk by becoming dependent on foreign and potentially hostile regimes for a basic need of our civilization.

America’s Energy Resources

Tragically, our dependence on foreign oil is not only dangerous but unnecessary. America has abundant energy resources, including oil reserves that remain largely untapped. For example, significant untapped reserves exist in the Gulf of Mexico, off both our Pacific and Atlantic coasts, and both on land and offshore in and around Alaska. According to API, “The U.S. government estimates that deepwater regions of the Gulf of Mexico may contain 71 billion barrels of oil.” API estimates that there are 10.5 billion barrels off the shores of California and the Pacific Northwest, 3.8 billion barrels off the Atlantic coastline, and 18 billion barrels onshore and 26.6 billion barrels off the Alaska coast and in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). This adds up to 138.1 billion barrels of oil, enough to power over 60 million automobiles for 60 years according to government estimates. (These same reservoirs could supply 656 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, sufficient to heat 60 million homes for the next 160 years.)

The domestic political climate, however, hasn’t been conducive to developing these reserves. The above oil reserves have been largely off limits. While the Prudhoe Bay area in Alaska’s North Slope currently supplies 17 percent of domestic oil production, ANWR remains closed despite geological studies done in 1987 and again in 1998 indicating significant amounts of untapped oil there. Well-funded environmental groups have thus far successfully fought the development of ANWR. Meanwhile, the same kinds of groups have steadfastly opposed drilling off the California coast despite major technological advances that have rendered offshore drilling environmentally safe.

What domestic oil we are able legally to remove from the ground must of course be refined, and here, too, environmentalist groups and environmental regulations have hamstrung the oil industry — to the extent that not a single major new refinery has been built on U.S. soil since 1976. How limited is our refinery capacity? Hurricane Rita answered that question when she stormed through the Gulf of Mexico in late summer 2005. Although Katrina received more press coverage, having devastated New Orleans a few weeks earlier, Rita actually did more to disrupt the process that supplies gasoline to millions of American consumers. Rita damaged a number of major refineries along the Texas coastline, temporarily affecting supply and causing a spike in prices. For the first time, we saw gas prices increase to over $3 per gallon; this happened in less than 24 hours. As the refineries were repaired and supplies were restored, however, prices retreated.

Some states, moreover, have passed restrictive laws resulting in higher prices for consumers. California is an example. The State of California operates its own reformulated gasoline program, calling for special oxygenated, reformulated, and low-volatility gasolines to reduce toxic emissions. These cost more to produce than conventional gasoline. In other words, California state law is stricter than what the federal government requires. In addition to the added costs of the additional refinement, California imposes a combined state and local sales and use tax of 7.25 percent on top of an 18.4 cent-per-gallon federal excise tax and an 18 cent-per-gallon state excise tax. California’s refineries must run at or near full capacity at all times to meet the state’s fuel requirements. If more than one refinery experiences operating difficulties, the result will be supply problems and a spike in gas prices in the state. There are relatively few suppliers of the unique blend of gasoline required by California state law.

Taxes added by federal, state, and even local governments do contribute to higher gas prices elsewhere. We just noted how federal excise taxes account for 18.4 cents per gallon of gas. State excise taxes account, on the average, for another 21 cents per gallon. Eleven other states add additional state sales and other taxes. This does not account for local city and county taxes which can also impact significantly on the cost of a gallon of gasoline, varying from location to location.

Though the aforementioned cost factors may seem to contradict the reasons given in mainstream media behind rising gas prices — i.e., that malicious unregulated oil speculation (buying oil futures, betting prices will rise) is driving up gas prices — they are not contradictory. Speculators purchase futures contracts, hoping to sell the contracts in the future for a higher price, thereby making a profit. But even in unregulated markets, commodities prices can only continue higher as long as commodity supplies remain low. When high prices cause a commodity glut, prices drop or stay stable. In the case of oil, high oil demand, along with tight oil supplies and huge government infusions of new cash into the markets (which prompt increased speculation), are driving oil prices up. The speculators are not evil; they are responding to market forces.

Alternatives to Oil?

In addition to pumping crude oil out of the ground, the technology has existed for decades to convert our vast supplies of coal reserves — a whopping 27 percent of the world’s total — into liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Coal-to-liquid technologies have gotten a bad rap over time because they were expensive and polluting, but now they can be made economical and clean. If nuclear power were used to transform coal into diesel fuel and gasoline, our country could replace the majority of our country’s oil imports with a fuel so clean that even many of those most fearful of human-caused global warming could agree with its use. (See “Coal in Your Car’s Tank,” in our June 9 issue.) Additionally, modern nuclear plants can be built so that meltdown becomes an impossibility, and 97 percent of nuclear “waste” can be recycled.

Nuclear power could also be used to reduce our dependence on crude oil from either domestic or foreign sources — directly by replacing oil now being used to produce electricity (though that particular form of electrical generation is not all that significant), and indirectly by replacing coal-fired plants and therefore allowing that coal to be converted into liquid fuel for your gas tank.

Oil Company Profits

But what about the profits that large oil companies make? Are they not gouging the public?

The API Primer on oil and natural gas (available for free on the API’s website) contains an analysis suggesting otherwise. Oil and natural-gas revenues are large; there is no question about that. But so are the industries themselves, and so are the costs involved in providing fuel to consumers. Oil company profits allow for reinvestment in facilities, technology, and infrastructure. Reports on oil company profits can be misleading because they focus exclusively on earnings and don’t take into account the size of the operations. Earnings alone, therefore, do not tell the whole story. Relative to other major industries, oil company profits are about average, at 8.3 cents for every dollar of sales, compared to the chemical industry’s 12.7 cents for every dollar of sales, the computer industry’s 13.7 cents and the pharmaceutical industry’s 18.4 cents for every dollar of sales.

Some politicians would like to see a new era of “windfall profits” taxes on oil companies. Their contention, based on the illusion of earnings figures alone, would clearly do more harm than good to an industry they do not understand. By and large, America’s oil companies aren’t owned by the small groups of insiders that control political parties. The percentage of industry shares owned by oil executives is only around 1.5. The rest is owned, indirectly, by tens of millions of American shareholders, often through their mutual funds, IRAs, or other personal retirement accounts, most of which invest in oil and natural gas stocks. If politicians were to institute a “windfall profits” tax or — worse yet — attempt to nationalize the oil and natural gas industries under the belief that this would get prices under control, who would really be hurt? The answer: these millions of ordinary investors with mutual funds, IRAs, or other personal retirement accounts.

Like any other enterprise operating in the marketplace, oil companies need to make a profit if they are to stay in business. But the fact of the matter is that the more competition there is, not just among oil companies but among energy producers in general, the harder they will work to innovate, economize, and hold down prices to consumers. If the now-existing roadblocks to the development of energy resources in this country were removed, there would be much more domestic oil exploration, drilling, and refining. There would also be more effort put into developing our energy resources and technologies. We could begin to end our long stretch of dependence on foreign oil and work toward the energy independence a sovereign nation requires.

What Can Be Done?

At present, the reality is that our economy is dependent on oil and will remain so for at least another generation. Thus our short-term goal should be to do what we can to ensure that the cost of both producing oil and refining it into gasoline is contained, so that gasoline remains affordable to American consumers. Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) has introduced new legislation, H.R. 2415, the Affordable Gas Price Act. The bill states its own purpose: “To reduce the price of gasoline by allowing for offshore drilling, eliminating Federal obstacles to constructing refineries and providing incentives for investment in refineries, suspending Federal fuel taxes when gasoline prices reach a benchmark amount, and promoting free trade.”

With this last, Dr. Paul means real free trade, not the managed, pseudo-free trade of NAFTA, CAFTA, and the like. The point is, the federal government has proven to be the biggest obstacle to our achieving energy independence and thus containing the alarming escalation of gas prices. Environmental groups may run a close second, but their influence is felt through legislation passed by Congress. What Congress has done in the past, it must now undo. H.R. 2415 would go at least part of the distance if it can obtain cosponsorship and support so that it will receive committee action and eventually come to the floor for a House vote.

Were such a bill to become law, it would mean developing oil fields that have been off-limits for political reasons.

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Steven Yates, Ph.D., teaches philosophy at the University of South Carolina Upstate and Greenville Technical College.

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A Tale of Two Reactors

Ed Hiserodt — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:00:00 CDT

A nuclear power plant is arguably the most extraordinary product of engineering and scientific know-how in the history of mankind. Once every 18 months or so, a truckload of metal is delivered to the nuclear plant. The metal is uranium, which has been processed to increase the proportion of the isotope known as Uranium-235. This fuel for the power plant is not dangerous and can be held in one’s hands without risk. Only a few decades ago, its primary use was to impart an orange color to ceramics such as Fiestaware.

When the metal is put in a precise geometric formation along with other materials and surrounded by water, it becomes a source of heat energy like man has never seen on this Earth. A typical nuclear plant can generate 1,000 Megawatts of power, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, except for occasional outages for refueling and maintenance. The Watts Bar 1 reactor in Tennessee recently set a record of 512 days of continuous operation — day and night, whether or not the wind was blowing.

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Figures like 1,000 Megawatts (MW) are difficult to get one’s mind around. But most of us can imagine being in a new fuel-injected, V-6, Ford F150 pickup truck that is loaded and screaming up a hill at full throttle. Now stretch your mind to picture a line of such vehicles, bumper-to-bumper, 22 miles long — 6,635 trucks — all operating at maximum performance. That is the equivalent of the electrical power of a 1,000 Megawatt power plant. To create such power with coal requires 100 coal cars per day, each with 100 tons of coal.

Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant

In 1965, the Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO) announced plans to construct a power plant to be known as Shoreham. It was to be relatively small, with an electrical output of 540 MW (only 3,593 pickups), and cost between $65 million and $75 million. In those days the Atomic Energy Commission was encouraging utilities to build nuclear plants, and little did LILCO President John Touhy know he was signing his company’s death warrant.

The capacity of the proposed plant was increased to 820 MW in 1968 due to the rapidly increasing demand for power on Long Island. Construction began in 1973, but was plagued by union slowdowns, alleged organized crime influences on local labor, and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) mandates causing the cost estimate for building the plant to soar to $2 billion. Then came the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island, which despite the media hype resulted in a release of radiation far below that which would cause adverse effects.* Yet the Three Mile Island accident and its inflammatory coverage by the media led to 15,000 people demonstrating against the Shoreham reactor on June 3, 1979.

Shoreham’s trial run was delayed until 1985, the plant having finally received federal permission for low-power (five-percent capacity) testing. However, more pseudo-environmentalist and regulatory harassment followed. While Three Mile Island had proven to scientists and engineers that evacuations of a populace were more dangerous than a nuclear meltdown,† radical anti-nuke forces insisted that the reactor not be allowed to operate until LILCO created and received approval for evacuation plans and routes, which were to be widely publicized. Obviously, the intent was to convince the unknowing public of a false sense of radioactive peril, constantly reinforced by signs and “public service” announcements.

The evacuation propaganda proved to be the plant’s undoing, and in 1983, 15 members of the Suffolk County Legislature doomed themselves and their constituents to high utility rates by voting that the county could not be safely evacuated. Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo went along by ordering his representatives not to sign a proposed Emergency Evacuation Plan or approve any plan put forth by LILCO. Consequently LILCO was forced to sell their spanking-new nuclear plant to the State of New York (for a dollar), whereupon it was dismantled and decommissioned. The decommissioning process cost the same as if the plant had been generating power for 40 years instead of just doing low-power testing. These unnecessary costs were borne by both taxpayers and ratepayers, who were to suffer a three-percent surcharge for 30 years. They are still suffering. In 2006, the NY State Comptroller announced an expected increase of 17 percent to Long Island utility bills, which were already the fourth-highest in the nation (with Alaskan communities taking the booby prize.)

After nearly 20 years of litigation, the final cost of Shoreham rose to $6 billion plus $186 million for decommissioning. Zero power put on the grid.

Millstone 1 Nuclear Reactor

The Millstone 1 nuclear reactor, a near-twin sister to Shoreham that was approved in 1966, is a different story. Absent the sham-environmentalist and political opposition Shoreham encountered, the 660 MW Millstone 1 power station was licensed in 1970 and began producing full commercial power on January 6, 1971. It was the top-performing boiling water reactor in the world for 1983, 1988, and 1993 — no mean feat out of several hundred such reactors. It continued to produce power until 1995 when it was closed by bureaucratic fiat. The reactor had caused no injuries, no deaths, and no threat to public safety — but there had been shortcuts taken on refueling to lessen the $500,000 per day charge that its owner was required to pay for power when Millstone 1 was not in operation. It remained in limbo till 1998, when Connecticut Power & Light (CP&L) announced its closing. But based on the success of Millstone 1, Millstones 2 & 3 are still operating and providing 2,020 MW of safe, reliable electrical energy for the fortunate ratepayers of Connecticut.

Economic and Humanitarian Costs

It is difficult to comprehend what the economic loss of the $6 billion, operational Shoreham nuclear power plant really means. But let’s look at the situation using our deluxe F150 pickup trucks, costing $32,000 from the showroom. Imagine a barge taking 1,000 new trucks out to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and dumping them with their leather seats, GPSs, V-6s, and all the other options you can come up with into the briny depths never to be seen or used again. Then imagine this happens every day — for 187 days. That is approximately $6 billion dollars. Yet that’s not the most expensive cost of New York’s decision.

A major factor in “standard of living” is the access individuals have to affordable energy. Decreasing the overall wealth of a society by deep-sixing the equivalent of 187,000 new pickup trucks will no doubt have a negative affect on the well-being of a population. But when this terrible waste is that of a life-giving source of energy, it is a double disaster. For of all the factors that benefit the health and prosperity of a society, available energy is second only to liberty.

It is an undisputed economic axiom that the wealthier a society is, the higher its standard of living, including improvements in health and longevity. Two things happened when Shoreham was shoved over the cliff: the price of power increased thereby decreasing its availability to those such as the poor or sick who might be only marginally able to afford it; and more electricity was generated by coal-fired power plants.

Coal-fired power plants — as opposed to nuclear, hydroelectric, and natural-gas facilities — have a definite effect on human health. As long ago as 1976, Petr Beckmann cited in his classic Health Hazards of NOT Going Nuclear independent studies showing between 20 and 100 deaths per year from a 1,000 MW coal-fired plant. Thus in the 24 years that Shoreham could have been operating, between 300 and 1,500 people were doomed to an early death by the anti-nuclear radicals and their political and media lackeys. It is probably a good thing that the families of these departed are unaware that their elected representatives were complicit in these avoidable deaths.

One should understand, however, that the health hazards of burned coal pale in comparison to the health hazards of not having access to reliable electrical power. When we compare the obvious effects of emissions to the conditions in areas where there is no electricity and thus no water distribution, no sanitation, little lighting, only human and animal labor to perform the most grueling and repetitive tasks — a modern form of human bondage — only then do we realize how much our well-being is dependent on our access to electrical energy.

* As summarized by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “detailed studies of the radiological consequences of the accident have been conducted by the NRC, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now Health and Human Services), the Department of Energy, and the State of Pennsylvania,” and “several independent studies have also been conducted” that showed “the average dose to about 2 million people in the area was only about 1 millirem.” For comparison, passengers on a coast-to-coast jet flight receive about 5 additional millirems owing to cosmic radiation.

† An argument could be made for a temporary evacuation of the area near Chernobyl, but anti-nukes have carefully avoided addressing the differences in the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl reactors. The former (as is the case with all U.S. power reactors) is modulated by water, which when not present due to a coolant loss, stops the nuclear reaction. Moreover, all U.S. reactors have a containment structure for additional safety. Chernobyl did not. Chernobyl was moderated by flammable graphite which caught fire and “convected” radioactivity out of the burning reactor into the atmosphere. Even so, evidence accumulates that while fire fighters and rescue workers were killed in the early hours of the fire, there has been no harm to the public except for the stresses caused by forced evacuation.

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Soft Green

On the site of the dismantled Shoreham nuclear power plant, an alternate source of power generation has taken over: two windmills proudly proclaimed by the Long Island Power Authority “capable of generating about 150,000 to 200,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy each year.” One might compare this to the capabilities of the nuclear plant destroyed by environmentalist political pressure: 7,200,000,000 kWh per year. Thus it would take another 72,000 windmills to equal Shoreham’s loss — assuming the wind is blowing.

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		Shoreham	�	Millstone 1
Conceived/Permit	�	1965	�	1966
Construction Completed	�	1985	�	1970
On-line 100% Power	�	Never	�	1971
Cost of Construction	�	$6 billion	�	$101 million
Years of Operation	�	0	�	24
Power Generated	�	0	�	114,370,000,000 kWh†

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† One kWh is the energy required to power a 100-watt light bulb 10 hours.

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Did We Get Lied Into War?

Warren Mass — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:00:00 CDT

On June 5, the Senate Intelligence Committee, concluding five years of investigations (and partisan disagreements), released its report about whether the Bush administration had based its decision to attack Iraq on valid intelligence estimates or had lied us into war. The New York Times summed up the report: “The 170-page report accuses Mr. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other top officials of repeatedly overstating the Iraqi threat in the emotional aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. Its findings were endorsed by all eight committee Democrats and two Republicans, Senators Olympia Snowe of Maine and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.”

The chairman of the committee, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), noted in a statement accompanying the report: “The president and his advisers undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the attacks to use the war against Al Qaeda as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein.”

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The committee’s minority leader, Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), and three of his Republican colleagues disagreed with the majority conclusion. Committee Vice-chairman Bond and Republicans Saxby Chambliss, Orrin Hatch, and Richard Burr signed a “minority views” statement that did not dispute the reality that “after-the-fact,” postwar evidence indicated that the decision to go to war in Iraq was based on faulty information. However, they accused the majority that produced the report of having a partisan agenda, which — despite the benefits derived from making this information available to the American public — is possible. And they also correctly pointed out that some Democrats also made statements back in 2002 charging that Saddam Hussein was aggressively trying to build a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.

In determining if the Bush administration was culpable of publicly twisting the intelligence to suit its ends, it is helpful to start with the report’s own definitions of its scope and methodology. It notes that its scope (quoting from the original 2004 unanimous committee agreement) is to assess “whether public statements and reports and testimony regarding Iraq by U.S. Government officials made between the Gulf War period and the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom were substantiated by intelligence information.”

The committee focused especially on five key speeches made by administration officials concerning “the threats posed by Iraq, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Iraqi ties to terrorist groups, and possible consequences of a US invasion of Iraq.”

The committee also noted that it selected statements from those five speeches pertaining to eight categories: nuclear weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons, weapons of mass destruction, methods of delivery, links to terrorism, regime intent, and assessments about the postwar situation in Iraq. The report is very repetitious and includes a section for WMDs, though the report itself says WMDs commonly refers collectively to “nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.” Here is a sampling of quotes by members of the Bush administration and the report’s conclusions as to the truthfulness of the statements:

Nuclear Weapons

“Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year.” (Bush, September 12, 2002)
“We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons program. On the contrary, we have more than a decade of proof that he remains determined to acquire nuclear weapons.” (Powell, February 5, 2003)

Regarding the above and many other administration statements, the committee report concluded: “Statements … regarding a possible Iraqi nuclear weapons program were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates, but did not convey the substantial disagreements that existed in the intelligence community.” (Emphasis added throughout article.)

The committee also noted that after the United States invaded Iraq, “Postwar findings revealed that Iraq ended its nuclear weapons program in 1991, and that Iraq’s ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively declined after that date.” While these “postwar findings” are not relevant in a discussion of what the Bush administration knew before the war, they nevertheless highlight the gap between the Bush administration’s prewar assertions and the reality of the situation.

Biological Weapons

“The Iraqi regime … possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons.” (Bush, October 7, 2002)
“From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to place to evade inspections. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed them.” (Bush, January 28, 2003)

The committee report’s conclusion noted: “Statements in the major speeches analyzed, as well as additional statements, regarding Iraq’s possession of biological agent, weapons, production capability, and use of mobile biological laboratories were substantiated by intelligence information.”

Again, however, the committee concluded: “The postwar review by the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) determined that Iraq was not conducting biological weapons production or research after 1996.”

Chemical Weapons

“United Nations’ inspections also revealed that Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard and other chemical agents, and that the regime is rebuilding and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical weapons.” (Bush September 12, 2002)

The committee’s conclusions initially related that statements by the administration “regarding Iraq’s possession of chemical weapons were substantiated by intelligence information.” But then it added: “Statements … regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.”

The committee’s “postwar findings” once more contradict prewar administration allegations, finding: “The Iraq Survey Group conducted its review of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs and found that there ‘were no caches of CW munitions.’”

Links to Terrorism

“Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements made by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda.” (Bush, January 28, 2003)

The report concluded: “Statements … regarding Iraq’s support for terrorist groups other than al-Qa’ida were substantiated by intelligence information.... Statements and implications … suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.... Statements … regarding Iraq’s contacts with al-Qa’ida were substantiated.... However, policymakers’ statements did not accurately convey the intelligence assessments of the nature of these contacts, and left the impression that the contacts led to substantive Iraqi cooperation or support of al-Qa’ida.”

The committee’s “postwar findings” statement noted: “Postwar findings indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa’ida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, and refused all requests from al-Qa’ida to provide material or operational support. No postwar information indicates that Saddam ever considered using any terrorist group to attack the United States.”

There are many more revealing statements in the report that space does not allow us to include. However, readers can find the Senate Intelligence Committee’s complete report at http://intelligence.senate.gov/ under the “Publications” section.

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Shooting the Messenger

William F. Jasper — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:00:00 CDT

For six years, Sibel Edmonds has been carrying out an heroic crusade to protect her adopted country from national security threats within the top levels of the American government. Hired as an FBI translator in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, Edmonds, a Turkish American, threw herself into the daunting task of translating thousands of hours of recordings of backlogged intercepts in Turkic, Farsi, and Azerbaijani. What she heard on the tapes was alarming: Turkish agents in the United States bribing high-level U.S. officials and obtaining our military and intelligence secrets. What she witnessed at the FBI was even more appalling: translators who were intentionally filing false translations and passing information to foreign powers; and, what’s even worse, FBI superiors who did nothing about it when these serious breaches were brought to their attention.

Unwilling to settle for the bureaucratic “don’t rock the boat” response she faced from immediate supervisors, Sibel Edmonds decided to take her concerns higher up the FBI chain of command. The result? She was fired, and those she tried to have investigated got off scot-free; some fled the country to avoid potential prosecution, while others continued their alleged criminal and treasonous activities. Some of the FBI colleagues who blocked her efforts were promoted.

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How could this be, especially in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, when “homeland security” was our number one concern? And especially since FBI Director Robert Mueller had expressly promised that the agency’s notorious penchant for punishing whistle-blowers was now a thing of the past.

In a November 2001 memorandum to all FBI employees, Director Mueller stated: “I will not tolerate reprisals or intimidation by any bureau employee against those who make protected disclosures, nor will I tolerate attempts to prevent employees from making such disclosures.”

However, Director Mueller’s assurances notwithstanding, the case of Sibel Edmonds is Exhibit A in a long line of examples indicating that reprisal and intimidation against whistle-blowers continues to be standard operating procedure at the FBI and other federal agencies. The public may be tempted to wonder: “Well, if the national security compromises Mrs. Edmonds alleges are as grave as she claims, why doesn’t she go the Congress, or the courts, or the media?” She has attempted to do all of that, but has been blocked at every turn by a smothering gag order imposed by the Bush administration under the “State Secrets Privilege.” The gag order not only classified all of Edmonds’ testimony to the 9/11 Commission, to the investigative staffs of congressional committees, and to the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), but even letters by members of Congress requesting information from the executive branch.

Turkish Spy in the FBI?

Governments, obviously, have a legitimate interest in protecting secrets vital to national security. But as history abundantly shows, governments frequently invoke “national security” to avoid embarrassment or to protect those guilty of criminal negligence, corruption, or treason.

Sibel Edmonds has been threatened with prosecution and imprisonment if she reveals what she knows. Plain and simple, the administration has been trying to make her disappear into a black hole. However, the petite, plucky whistle-blower refuses to be bowed or intimidated.

Considering the meat of Sibel Edmonds’ charges, we may be fortunate indeed that she has been so tenacious and unyielding before the fearsome threat of a retaliatory indictment. The information she reportedly was privy to on nuclear proliferation alone is, literally, explosive, of the kind that has to do with the ultimate nightmare terrorist scenario: a nuke attack inside the United States.

Since Edmonds herself has been prevented from publicly naming names and providing details, most of what is now in the public domain about her case has come from leaks of documents by anonymous sources in government and the investigative work of “alternative media” journalists and Internet activists.

In December 2001, Sibel and her husband, Matthew Edmonds, received a surprise visit to their Alexandria, Virginia, home by one of Sibel’s co-workers, Melek Can Dickerson, and her husband, Douglas. Like Sibel Edmonds, Melek was a Turkish translator for the FBI and carried a Top Secret security clearance. Her husband Douglas is a major in the U.S. Air Force who had served as a military attaché in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. According to Sibel and Matthew Edmonds, Maj. Dickerson proposed that the Edmonds become members of a certain Turkish “semi-legitimate organization,” as Sibel Edmonds put it.

It has since been revealed (by others) that the organization referred to is the American Turkish Council (ATC), a lobbying and cultural organization that also allegedly functions as an intelligence front for the Turkish government.

Maj. Dickerson’s mention of the “semi-legitimate organization” and high-level friends at the Turkish embassy in Washington, D.C., immediately set off Sibel’s internal alarms; the ATC and some of the individuals he named were subjects of FBI counterterrorism investigations that she was working on.

It sounded to the Edmonds like they had just been propositioned to spy against their country for payoffs by a foreign power. According to Sibel Edmonds, she recounted the incident, both verbally and in writing, to her FBI superiors.

Long story short: in March 2002, the FBI fired Sibel Edmonds for having a “disruptive effect” on the agency; Melek Can Dickerson, on the other hand, kept her job. No criminal charges were brought against the Dickersons and no known counterintelligence investigation was opened on them. Indeed, it appears the government did everything possible to shield them from investigation. When attorneys for Sibel Edmonds prepared to depose the Dickersons in a civil suit in August 2002, the Air Force conveniently transferred the Dickersons beyond legal reach, to a NATO assignment in Belgium.

Vindication and Warning

In July 2004, the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General finished its investigation of the Edmonds’ case — but it was immediately classified, assuring that its contents would not reach the public. Finally, in January 2005, the Office of the Inspector General released an unclassified summary of its report, which, at least partially, vindicated her claims. The OIG report reads, in part:

We found that many of Edmonds’ core allegations relating to the co-worker were supported by either documentary evidence or witnesses other than Edmonds. Moreover, we concluded that, had the FBI performed a more careful investigation of Edmonds’ allegations, it would have discovered evidence of significant omissions and inaccuracies by the co-worker related to these allegations. These omissions and inaccuracies, in turn, should have led to further investigation by the FBI.

The OIG found that “the FBI should have investigated the allegations more thoroughly” and that “the FBI’s handling of these allegations reflected an unwarranted reluctance to vigorously investigate these serious allegations or to conduct a thorough examination of Edmonds’ allegations.”

Moreover, the Inspector General’s report noted, “The FBI did not, and still has not, conducted such an investigation.” (Emphasis added.) Finally, the OIG reported, “Rather than investigate Edmonds’ allegations vigorously and thoroughly, the FBI concluded that she was a disruption and terminated her contract.”

Senators Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), both of whom sit on the Judiciary Committee and have heard Sibel Edmonds’ classified testimony, express confidence in her. “She’s credible,” Grassley told CBS 60 Minutes, in a 2002 interview, one of the few broadcasts about Edmonds’ case by the major media. “And the reason I feel she’s very credible,” the senator continued, “is because people within the FBI have corroborated a lot of her story.” Does her case fall into any pattern of conduct on the part of the FBI, he was asked. “The usual pattern,” Senator Grassley responded. “Let me tell you, first of all, the embarrassing information comes out, the FBI reaction is to sweep it under the rug, and then eventually they shoot the messenger.”

A ray of hope seemed to appear in 2005 when Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) promised Edmonds that if the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006, he would hold hearings on her case. “But you know what happened,” Edmonds told THE NEW AMERICAN in a recent interview, “the Democrats did win the House and Rep. Waxman did become chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. But nothing has changed; there has been no investigation.” Rep. Waxman seems to have developed selective amnesia, a common affliction on the Potomac. He has not responded to any of her calls or inquiries.

Bipartisan Obstruction

Perhaps, she suggested to THE NEW AMERICAN, Rep. Waxman is aware that Democrats could be as damaged by the revelations of bribery and espionage as the Republicans. “This didn’t start with the Bush administration,” she reminds us. “Many of the wiretaps I was translating at the FBI were from the 1990s, during the Clinton administration.”

Following up on her revelations, independent researchers have begun putting names on some of the “high-level officials” Edmonds had been referring to, but not identifying, over the past few years.

Late last year, Edmonds decided the stalling game had gone on long enough. In December 2007, she approached the British newspaper, the Sunday Times, which ran an explosive story, “For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets,” on January 6. Edmonds described for the paper how “foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.” She told how “one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.”

This same State Department official, she told the Times, “was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.”

The above-mentioned official, whom Edmonds and the Times did not identify, was outed in an article in the American Conservative by retired CIA officer Philip Giraldi. According to Giraldi, the official in question is Marc Grossman, a career State Department bureaucrat, who served as ambassador to Turkey under Bill Clinton, and retired in 2006 after serving as Under Secretary of State (the Number 3 position at the State Department) for George Bush.

In retirement, Grossman has followed a familiar career trajectory, accepting a lucrative “consulting” position at The Cohen Group, the lobbying outfit set up by former Clinton Defense Secretary William Cohen that counts Turkey as one of its chief clients.

Other former high officials who now openly ride the Turkey gravy train as paid lobbyists/consultants include former Democratic House Speaker Richard Gephardt and former Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Hastert, allegedly, is one of the officials identified in FBI intercepts as receiving multiple cash payoffs through the American Turkish Council.

“If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case,” Edmonds told the Times, “you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials.” Perhaps that explains why top Republicans and Democrats would rather see Sibel Edmonds locked up with a permanent gag order.

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Indiana Jones Film Offers Rare Negative Portrayal of Soviets

JBS Staff — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:00:00 CDT

Nostalgia for previous Indiana Jones productions guaranteed that the fourth film in this series would be a box-office success. Starring an aging Harrison Ford, the two-hour, action-packed Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull starts in Nevada, visits a mythical U.S. university, takes the viewers to Peru, and winds up back at the university where “Indy” is a professor of anthropology. Filled with an almost never-ending string of improbable escapes from capture and death, the Spielberg-Lucas production doesn’t disappoint lovers of adventure fantasies. However, its portrayal of Soviet forces as brutal savages in a major Hollywood action flick is unique.

Over the years, moviegoers have seen many films confirming how bad the Nazis were, but few Hollywood productions have ever shown the brutal face of the USSR. Starting off with a depiction of a 1957 slaying of American forces by a convoy of Soviet troops at a military base in Nevada, the film never fails to portray the USSR’s best as evil characters seeking world domination. The prize that would help them achieve their nefarious goal is the crystal skull and its great psychic powers. As the chief Soviet villain, Cate Blanchett plays the seductive but ruthless Irina Spalko outfitted in Soviet military garb. Hollywood’s discovery that the USSR was truly an “evil empire” is welcome even though long overdue.

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Ron Paul Ends His Campaign for President, Starts a New Venture

JBS Staff — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:00:00 CDT

With a letter sent to supporters on June 12, and with a speech delivered at a rally coinciding with the Texas GOP convention in Houston that same day, Congressman Ron Paul ended his campaign for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party. He did not win any primaries, but he got 24 percent of the vote in Idaho (his best showing in a primary) and about 1.2 million votes overall.

He told supporters that his delegates (the 24 he earned during primaries) and other supporters will attend the GOP convention in St. Paul in September “without disruption.” He also announced that space has been reserved at the Williams Arena at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis for a rally on September 2 while the GOP convention is being held across the river in the other of the Twin Cities.

Having withdrawn from the race for the GOP nomination, Dr. Paul also announced the formation of the Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty. The new organization is designed to continue spreading his message of “freedom, sound money, non-interventionism, and free markets.” He expects members of the Campaign for Liberty to “make our presence felt at every level of government” through lobbying and through identifying and supporting candidates who will run “against the empty suits the party establishments offer the public.”

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Senate Climate Change Bill Crashes

JBS Staff — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:00:00 CDT

On Monday, June 2, the U.S. Senate began deliberating on the Climate Security Act (S. 3036), in what many hoped would mark the start of a historic debate. But progress was thwarted by partisan bickering over judicial nominations and by procedural maneuvers, such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s insistence that all 492 pages be read into the record, which took more than eight hours. Finally, on Friday, June 6, Democrats failed to get the 60 votes needed to defeat any attempted Republican filibuster and bring the bill to the floor for a vote. While few expected that the legislation would pass in this Congress, many were surprised at how quickly the effort fizzled.

Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe was not surprised, however, commenting, “As I suspected, reality hit the U.S. Senate when the economic facts of this bill were exposed. When faced with the inconvenient truth of the bill’s impact on skyrocketing gas prices, very few Senators were willing to even debate this bill.”

Indeed, S. 3036 would have allowed the federal government to restrict greenhouse gas emissions to a very low level and then extract trillions of dollars from the economy by selling carbon credits to U.S. industries. Ultimately, the legislation was a massive wealth confiscation scheme masquerading as an environmental agreement.

Although the bill barely got a hearing, similar legislation is bound to come up in the next Congress, after the November elections, when Democrats are expected to have bigger majorities in both the House and Senate. Also, the threat of a presidential veto will be absent, as McCain and Obama both support a mandatory cap-and-trade program to deal with global warming.

For details on the consequences of such a program, see the commentary in "Warming Legislation Would Chill Economy."

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Top Iranian’s Explanation for High Oil Prices

JBS Staff — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:00:00 CDT

If even a stopped clock can tell the right time twice a day, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the leader of the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter, just might have given the world a rational partial explanation for high oil prices recently. Speaking at a June 17 OPEC meeting held in the Iranian city of Isfahan, Ahmadinejad charged: “Certain hands, for political and economic ends, are controlling the price in an artificial manner.” In a televised speech, Ahmadinejad also said: “At a time when the growth of consumption is lower than the growth of production and the market is full of oil, prices are rising and this trend is completely fake and imposed.”

Ahmadinejad said that the fall in the value of the dollar has affected “the world economy and in particular the economy of world energy exporters.” He also stated: “The ever-increasing decrease in the dollar’s value is one of the world’s major problems.”

It is hardly disputable that the shrinking value of the U.S. dollar is a problem, and that this problem is reflected in the price of oil when measured in dollars. But Ahmadinejad’s solution is something else entirely: “I repeat my suggestion made six months ago at the OPEC summit in Riyadh to create a basket of credible currencies which would be the basis for oil transactions. Or alternatively, that OPEC countries create a new currency for their transactions.”

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Oops! California Democrat Leaks Desire to Nationalize Oil

JBS Staff 12:00:00 — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:00:00 CDT

During a recent hearing of the House Judiciary Committee dealing with rising oil prices, John Hofmeister, the president of Shell Oil, testified: “I can guarantee to the American people, because of the inaction of the United States Congress, ever increasing prices, unless the demand comes down — and the five dollars [a gallon gas] will look like a very low price in the years to come if we are prohibited from finding new reserves, new opportunities to increase supplies.”

In response to Hofmeister, Representative Maxine Waters, a Democrat from Los Angeles, began: “And guess what this liberal [referring to herself] will be all about. This liberal will be all about socializ-… uh, uh…” Realizing she had inadvertently revealed more of her agenda than she intended, Waters stumbled for the right word before continuing: “… would be about, basically taking over, and the government running all of your companies.”

Fox News reporter James Rosen, who was covering the story in Washington, observed: “The word obviously that Maxine Waters was looking for there was nationalizing the oil industry.”

An incredulous Fox News anchorman Shepard Smith questioned Rosen: “Wow! How did Shell Oil answer that one?”

Replied Rosen: “Basically, by saying, we’ve seen this movie before, it’s called Hugo Chavez, in Venezuela.”

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Gingrich Issues Curious Comments About Terror Attacks

JBS Staff — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:00:00 CDT

On tour promoting Days of Infamy, a new novel about World War II he coauthored with history professor William Forstchen, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich responded during a Q&A session at a New York bookstore with an unusual, even provocative, perspective about why the United States hasn’t been hit with more terrorist attacks. “I honestly don’t know,” he told a questioner, “I would have expected another attack.” Not leaving it at that, the ever-loquacious ex-congressman, who once taught history himself, called the absence of additional terrorism “one of the great tragedies of the Bush administration.” Continuing, he stated, “The more successful they’ve been at intercepting and stopping bad guys, the less proof there is that we’re in danger.” Suggesting that the American public may have been lulled into a false sense of security because no more terrorism has occurred, he concluded, “And it’s almost like they [the administration] should every once in a while have allowed an attack to get through just to remind us.”

Not content with such a controversial attitude, the Georgia native then recommended dividing the FBI into two separate units. One would operate against the customary domestic crime and would honor American civil liberties, he proposed, but the other would be a “small but very aggressive anti-terrorism agency with extraordinary ability to eavesdrop.” He ended his response to his questioner by expressing fear of some “kind of attack that would lead us to favor a dictatorship for security.”

In GOP nominee John McCain’s search for a running mate, the name of Newt Gingrich will likely be considered. Perhaps his suggestion that it would be good for the nation to endure a reminder terrorist attack will disqualify the ex-Speaker for consideration.

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Bilderberger Confab in United States Goes Unreported … Again

JBS Staff — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:00:00 CDT

The ultra-elite Bilderberg Group held its annual secret meeting at the sealed-off Westfields Marriott Hotel in Chantilly, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., June 5-8. Attendees at Bilderberger gatherings comprise the A-list of global power brokers from the worlds of politics, business, central banking, finance, and media. They also represent the top levels of membership of globalist, one-world organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the Trilateral Commission, the World Economic Forum, and the Bohemian Grove.

As usual, the entire proceedings were held behind closed doors and cordons of armed personnel, including the U.S. Secret Service, local police, and private security guards. A brief press release issued by the group on June 5, stated: “The Conference will deal mainly with a nuclear free world, cyber terrorism, Africa, Russia, finance, protectionism, US-EU relations, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Islam and Iran. Approximately 140 participants will attend, of whom about two-thirds come from Europe and the balance from North America. About one-third is from government and politics, and two-thirds are from finance, industry, labor, education and communications. The meeting is private in order to encourage frank and open discussion.”

Government officials participating in this year’s secret event included General Keith B. Alexander, director of the National Security Agency; Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve System; Timothy F. Geithner, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Secretary of the Treasury Henry M. Paulson; Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Mark Sanford, Governor of South Carolina; and Kathleen Sebelius, Governor of Kansas. Corporate executives included representatives of Microsoft, Google, Royal Dutch Shell, Royal Bank of Scotland, Merrill Lynch & Co., Lazard Freres & Co., and Perseus LLC.

Topping the Bilderberg list was 93-year-old eminence griese David Rockefeller, reputedly the only attendee to have been at the founding 1954 meeting (at the Bilderberg Hotel in Holland, from whence the group takes its name) and all meetings since. Other longtime veterans at this year’s event included former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz.

Media representatives included Paul Gigot (Wall Street Journal), Donald Graham (Washington Post), Charlie Rose (PBS), and Vendeline von Bredow and Adrian Wooldridge (both from The Economist). In keeping with the vow of secrecy (known as the Chatham House rule), none of these kept “journalists” has revealed to their public audiences what transpired at the Chantilly conclave of the high and mighty.

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Bush, Bilderbergers Push EU Membership for Turkey

JBS Staff — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:00:00 CDT

The increasing presence of representatives from Turkey — both corporate executives and government officials — at the annual Bilderberg conferences has coincided with stepped-up pressure from the White House, the State Department, and the bureaucracy of the European Union to grant the Islamic nation full EU membership. There is, however, strong resistance to Turkey’s EU accession in virtually every EU country, based on memories of centuries of bloody Turkish conquest, the fear of Turkish mass migration, and the likelihood of massive transfers of economic aid from EU taxpayers to Turkey, as occurred when other poor countries acceded to EU membership.

President Bush has been pushing for EU membership for Turkey since early in his administration, heedless of the fact that outside of the ranks of the EU’s ruling elites, common Europeans resent this meddling in their vital internal affairs. The 2006 Bilderberg meeting in Ottawa, Canada, included six Turkish representatives, among whom was Egemon Bagis, member of parliament and foreign policy adviser to the prime minister. Bilderberg 2007 was awash in Turks, as the organization held its first summit in Turkey, in Istanbul. Expect economic and political pressure from Washington and Brussels for Turkey’s admittance to the EU to increase, despite legitimate widespread concern among Europeans about the already serious “Islamification” of Europe.

Turkish representation at the 2008 confab in Virginia included Foreign Affairs Minister Ali Babacan, journalist Zeynep Gogus, Member of Parliament Faik Oztrak, and business executives Mustafa Koc and Ferit Sahenk — as well as a number of high-level former American officials whose lobbying and consulting firms represent Turkish government and financial interests.

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