Bush Nuremberg Rally a Dud

by redjade Wed Jun 29, 2005 18:00

Bush speech draws mixed response

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-06-29-bush-speech_x.htm

In a televised, prime-time speech from Fort Bragg, N.C., Bush said Tuesday that although images of violence in Iraq are horrifying, "The proper response is not retreat, it is courage."

"We will stay in the fight until the fight is won," he said.

Congressional critics of Bush's Iraq policy argued Wednesday that the administration lacks sufficient troops on the ground to mount a successful counterinsurgency.

Democrats in particular criticized Bush for again raising the Sept. 11 attacks as a justification for the protracted fight in Iraq after the president proclaimed anew that he plans to keep U.S. forces there as long as necessary to ensure peace.

[....]

"The president's numerous references to September 11 did not provide a way forward in Iraq," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said. "They only served to remind the American people that our most dangerous enemy, namely Osama bin Laden, is still on the loose and al-Qaeda remains capable of doing this nation great harm nearly four years after it attacked America."

by redjade Wed Jun 29, 2005 18:03

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
-- Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister

- - - - -

Bush Speech Transcript
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/06/20050628-7.html
This Fourth of July, I ask you to find a way to thank the men and women defending our freedom -- by flying the flag, sending a letter to our troops in the field, or helping the military family down the street. The Department of Defense has set up a website -- http://www.AmericaSupportsYou.mil

. . . . .

TROOPS SERVED ROTTEN, YEAR-OLD FOOD:

A former food manager in Iraq for Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) testified that the dining hall where he worked in early 2004 routinely served foods that were " outdated or expired as much as a year ( http://democrats.reform.house.gov/Documents/20050627170106-72589.pdf ) ," or that had been removed from trucks whose convoys had been attacked. "[W]e were told to go into the trucks and remove the food items and use them after removing the bullets and any shrapnel from the bad food that was hit," the manager, Rory Mayberry, said. Yet during the same period, approximately three times each week, "KBR would cater events for KBR employees, like management parties and barbecues" where sanitary food was served. (Mayberry added, "Government auditors would have caught and fixed many of the problems. But KBR managers told us not to speak with auditors. ( http://democrats.reform.house.gov/Documents/20050627170106-72589.pdf )

AmericaSupportsYou.mil

1 2 3 4 - What are we fighting for? - A Pint on the way on 'Route Irish'

by redjade Wed Jun 29, 2005 18:06

"Many Americans did not watch the speech. Those who did were 2-to-1 Republican, so most were arguably already in the president's camp."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/06/28/poll.bush.speech.iraq/index.html

New York Times Editorial
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/29/opinion/29wed1.html
''But we had hoped he would resist the temptation to raise the bloody flag of 9/11 over and over again to justify a war in a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks.''

. . . .

Prez says Dance with the Girl Who Brung Ya
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/6/28/214723/360
Joshua Micah Marshall
The press folks seem to have gotten down to a fine descriptive science the president's now well-practiced tactic of not quite explicitly connecting Iraq and 9/11, but repeating both in succession so many times as to create the impression of a connection without any verbal fingerprints.

We've at least become sophisticates of our own bamboozlement, I guess.

. . . .

Bush Flops in Prime Time
by Mike Whitney
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/June05/Whitney0629.htm
''In case your eyes glazed over and left you in a comatose state of vacuity, that was George W. Bush at the podium last night giving the most abysmal performance of his five-year presidency. For a moment, it seemed like General Westmorland was back among the living giving his immortal “light in the tunnel” speech. Nothing in Bush’s palavering even approached that level of discourse. Instead, Bush droned on endlessly, exhuming the same bedraggled bromides in the most mind-numbingly dreadful speech of all time.''

Official Pentagon Freedom Lover's Hat (not kidding)

by bog da dog Fri Jul 01, 2005 22:47

"Released: June 30, 2005 No Bounce: Bush Job Approval Unchanged by War Speech; Question on Impeachment Shows Polarization of Nation; Americans Tired of Divisiveness in Congress—Want Bi-Partisan Solutions—New Zogby Poll

President Bush’s televised address to the nation produced no noticeable bounce in his approval numbers, with his job approval rating slipping a point from a week ago, to 43%, in the latest Zogby International poll. And, in a sign of continuing polarization, more than two-in-five voters (42%) say they would favor impeachment proceedings if it is found the President misled the nation about his reasons for going to war with Iraq.

The Zogby America survey of 905 likely voters, conducted from June 27 through 29, 2005, has a margin of error of +/-3.3 percentage points.

Just one week ago, President Bush’s job approval stood at a previous low of 44%—but it has now slipped another point to 43%, despite a speech to the nation intended to build support for the Administration and the ongoing Iraq War effort. The Zogby America survey includes calls made both before and after the President’s address, and the results show no discernible “bump” in his job approval, with voter approval of his job performance at 45% in the final day of polling.

Where voters live has some impact on their perceptions. The President’s job rating remains relatively strong in the South, with 51% rating his performance favorably; in all other regions, those disapproving his performance are in the majority.

In a more significant sign of the weakness of the President’s numbers, more “Red State” voters—that is, voters living in the states that cast their ballots for the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2004—now rate his job performance unfavorably, with 50% holding a negative impression of the President’s handling of his duties, and 48% holding a favorable view. The President also gets negative marks from one-in-four (25%) Republicans—as well as 86% of Democrats and 58% of independents. (Bush nets favorable marks from 75% of Republicans, 13% of Democrats and 40% of independents.)

Impeachment Question Shows Bitterness of Divide

In a sign of the continuing partisan division of the nation, more than two-in-five (42%) voters say that, if it is found that President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should hold him accountable through impeachment. While half (50%) of respondents do not hold this view, supporters of impeachment outweigh opponents in some parts of the country.

Among those living in the Western states, a 52% majority favors Congress using the impeachment mechanism while just 41% are opposed; in Eastern states, 49% are in favor and 45% opposed. In the South, meanwhile, impeachment is opposed by three-in-five voters (60%) and supported by just one-in-three (34%); in the Central/Great Lakes region, 52% are opposed and 38% in favor.

Impeachment is overwhelmingly rejected in the Red States—just 36% say they agree Congress should use it if the President is found to have lied on Iraq, while 55% reject this view; in the “Blue States” that voted for Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry in 2004, meanwhile, a plurality of 48% favors such proceedings while 45% are opposed.

A large majority of Democrats (59%) say they agree that the President should be impeached if he lied about Iraq, while just three-in-ten (30%) disagree. Among President Bush’s fellow Republicans, a full one-in-four (25%) indicate they would favor impeaching the President under these circumstances, while seven-in-ten (70%) do not. Independents are more closely divided, with 43% favoring impeachment and 49% opposed."

by boggle the doggie Fri Jul 01, 2005 23:55

Sitting in what's left of my cubicle as our corporation division
melts down, filing project development drawings in binders
that noone will ever read, archiving e-mails in folders that'll
be lost on some recycle-center hard drive, wiping down the
white boards of their IT gobble-de-gook, I glanced out the
window at the street below, and it was like a bonifide vision
of The Virgin Mary ... driving by at that exact moment was a
big beautiful black new SUV with the words 'Titan Corp.'
in helvetica bold, writ large on the gleaming side panel.

Corporate hadn't shut down our network yet, and we were
free to look for new employment until our layoffs on Friday,
so I Googled "Titan", and what do you know, it's part of L-3,
the big Defense conglomerate. "Titan is a leading provider
of comprehensive information and communications products,
solutions, and services for National Security and the Security
of our Homeland." Titan has 1098 IT job openings right now,
for US citizens only, with security clearances. In other words,
another white male deadwood welfare agency, and one part
of the sum of the 175,000 new jobs created by US Defense,
every month. Just Google on L-3, or Lockheed, or Boeing.
That's where the new job creation goes, into Fed Deficit.

While IT private side is melting down and outing overseas,
the Defense Department has been quietly building a little
Neo American apartheid Homeland for IT good old boys,
laid out here: http://www.governmentcontractswon.com/
It's big business, so big, in fact, it's the fastest growing
e-industry sector there is, civilian contracting for Defense.
No wonder Carlyle Group has gotten so wealthy on war,
and no wonder we are augering-in so horribly in deficit.

I remember riding with my pa for his private pilot's license
checkout flight, a long, long time ago. The instructor said he
should stall the plane, whatever that meant, then he set the
flap roller over a notch, and pulled back on the wheel. I got
that funny feeling like the clik-clik-clik on the roller-coaster
ride before you nose over and drop, and then the stall alert
came on. "Ee-n-n-n, e-e-n-n-n, e-e-n-n-n!" and the plane
snapped off it's left wing and headed straight for the ground
in a wicked tight spiral, like the US stock markets this week.

That memory, and countless like it, came flooding back
yesterday when der Busch spoke blue-screen to all of US,
and McClellan did his dipsy-dango best to say, "That's not
what he meant, were you even at the speech?" as though
you had to have sat at Moses' knee to understand his Writ.

And another memory surfaces, of a friend of my fathers', a
skeet-shooting German guy from Nebraska who used to
hunt pheasant in the fall with my pa. We were sitting at the
table, eating the roast and picking the lead shot out of our
teeth, when this guy tells us the story how, as a Hitler Youth,
he had bounced on the Fuehrer's knee. Apparently his own
pa was some high-placed Nazi from the Schwartzwalden.

And it occurs to me, Titan and their ilk are exactly what the
Nazi's did in Germany, a National Corporate Socialism as
Moussolini described it, the Party becomes the economy,
and all the jobs go to the party elite, the Aryan white males.
"After May 1937 public employees were required to become
Nazis, or lose their jobs." Shades of Homeland Defense!
By the end of WWII, only four years long, brief by Gulf War
standards, Nazis had 12,000,000 loyal defense workers.

This war is as much a political-economic power struggle,
as some mop-up campaign against Middle East terrorism.
I'd go further. Whether we "win", or "lose" and get driven
out of Iraq, Iran or whereever, war becomes la manière,
the means to its own end: Neo racist white apartheid,
the rise of a new class of wealthy white defense elite.

I remember a paragraph from the Nuremberg Tribunals,
describing how these Hitler Volk had once been bakers,
butchers and barbers, but once they put on those boots,
and carefully tailored uniforms, they were transformed,
transmogrified into monsters who could gas a thousand
innocents in a morning, then eat schnitzel and sourbraten
all afternoon, and laugh the whole time they were doing it.

It's close to the tipping point now. The Conservatives
and the Veterans, G-d bless them, have had the veils
torn from their eyes these last few months. They see.
They know. They link, and distribute and spread the
word. That's why Bush got no bounce. The Emperor
has no clothes. But he still owns the Fundamentalists,
and the NeoCons, and the Likudniks, and he has the
hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of the civilian
defense contractors and the Homeland Security and
Pentagon civilian employee staffs, most of the brass.
And he owns the Legislature, and soon, the SCOTUS.
Iraq, and here in America, is pitching towards civil war.

Maybe when Deep Impact slams into Tempel One
on Fourth of July, the explosion will be so colossal
the heavens will light up, and each evening the new
star will shine in the West, and three kings will rise
up, and journey towards a New Jerusalem, and a
New Tabernacle, and a New Ka'ba, then once again,
the world may breath some peace, free at last from
this Neo Millenium scourge of Anti-Humanism, free
from the curse of two thousand year old goat herders.

We can only hope.

"We will stay in the fight until the fight is done." GWB
Jesus H. Christ, if that's not feral insanity, what is?!




Posted by: tante aime | July 1, 2005 03:47 AM | #

by bogle the dogle Fri Jul 01, 2005 23:58

Billmon [ http://www.billmon.org ] is spot on, this is about slavery versus freemasonry, if you will, but before you get too caught up in SCOTUS and the nuclear meltdown in Congress, do a little doodling to see just whom is going to be slave or freemason to whom.

Having nothing better to do at my workstation, since today is our corporate division's massive RIF last day, and we've been told to just sit in our cubbies until we get our pink slips, I ran a little spreadsheet, which is what I "do" around here, an actuals management rollup on ... me.

Projecting combined income, assets, expenses, kid's tuition, actuary tables, retirement and the HMO hospitalization expenses, even when I get a replacement job Tuesday, (I have ever reason to believe I can find work until I retire), by the time I hit 72, even with the most optimistic bond investment returns and lowest cost-of-living inflation allowance, my kids are gonna have to start ponying up to support their old parents to the tune of $25,000 in their peak income years.

Assuming they land your average American job at some $40,000 a year, and are saving the average American 0.5% and falling, then they simply won't have any way to support their parents, other than for us to go live with them during their own peak family years expense curve themselves.

Even before their financial help was to have kicked in, of course, our life savings would be drained, net zero, and our options reduced to sitting on the couch, watching the kids go to work, come home, watching whatever passes for television, a bib, a wipe, and off to bed.

What a reward after fifty years of wage slavery.

Now multiply that by some 40,000,000 Americans retiring in the next ten years, and then tell me about Sandra O'Conner, and why we should care about the nuclear option, when the center cannot hold, and our way of life is about to come apart.

Maybe the Enrons and Worldcoms and Adelphias and NeoCons are simply those folks that did the math.




Posted by: tante aime | July 1, 2005 02:39 PM | #

by brechtian Sat Jul 02, 2005 00:58

The neocons were able to bring Dick Cheney on board for the Iraq project because of the Energy Task force. During the energy task force, Matthew Simmons an energy investment banker from Houston warned Cheney that the Saudi oil reserves were being drastically over-estimated. Unless about two million barrels per day of new production capacity could be brought on line by 2006 the world would face a shortfall in crude oil production. If you look around the world, there was only one place where it looked like there was that kind of low-hanging fruit available for the picking. Saddam's Iraq.Why do you think that Cheney has been willing to fall on his sword to prevent the workings of this task force from being made public? To protect executive privilege? Please. The answer to the question 'Why did we invade Iraq?' is that it was an integral part of Dick Cheney's energy policy. You remember. The energy policy that considers conservation to be a sign of personal virtue but essentially useless in the grand scheme of things. The sad fact is that intuitively, the American public understood this. People have soured on the Iraqi adventure, not because of the death and the chaos. Prewar estimates of American casualties projected 2000 American deaths and we didn't blink. The average American citizen has soured on the war because it failed in its prime objective. It didn't result in cheap plentiful gasoline."




Posted by: SW | July 1, 2005 09:17 AM | #

by redjade Sat Jul 02, 2005 15:59

What Iraq needs is a Walter Cronkite
President Bush went on the air this week to pretend again that things are OK in Iraq. Shades of President Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam nearly 40 years ago.

The most important similarity between Iraq and Vietnam is that both Democratic and Republican presidents lied to us in wartime.

[....]

The crucial difference between Vietnam and Iraq is that there is no Cronkite to call Bush's bluff. Without a strong, trusted, non-political voice, too many of us remain Bush-blinded. Bush tried keeping the wool over our eyes again Tuesday on national TV by repeatedly tying Iraq to 9/11. That charge is as phony as his discredited prewar claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

[....]

They also remind me that war is hell, that we must fully support our servicemen and women and put their lives at risk only for honest and just and noble causes.

That's why I'm convinced the best way to support our troops in Iraq is to bring them home. Sooner rather than later.

by redjade Sat Jul 02, 2005 16:11

By Stan Goff:
Not only are the troops suffering, but the families of those who are on their second and third deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan are living with unremitting fear, and I am one of those families. My grandson has seen his father for only a few months of his two and a half years.

Yet, tonight the President of the United States is going to come here to Fort Bragg and tell everyone in the country that this war is making people safer. In fact, since the Bush administration opportunistically used the terrible shock of 9-11 to advance what we now know to have been a pre-determined agenda, the number of terror attacks in the world has dramatically increased.

Let me say this very clearly, because the empirical evidence is very clear. Bush’s war has not made anyone safer. It has, however, destroyed the lives of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and according to international polls, the United States is now held in lower public esteem in the world than China.

• Worth reading the rest & comments...
http://stangoff.com/index.php?p=143

2nd term presidency accomplished

by eeekkkkk Sat Jul 02, 2005 16:17

"But when the crowd did not respond on Tuesday, he seemed to speed up his delivery a bit.

Then, toward the end of the 28-minute speech, there was an outbreak of clapping when Bush said, "We will stay in the fight until the fight is done."

Terry Moran, an ABC White House correspondent, said on the air on Tuesday night that the first to clap appeared to be a woman who works for the White House, arranging events.

Some other reporters had the same account, but Earnhardt and others in the back of the room say the applause was started by a group of officers."

by redjade Sat Jul 02, 2005 18:10

“Not only can they not find WMD in Iraq,” I commented to E. as we listened to the Bush speech, “But they have disappeared from his speeches too!” I was listening to the voiceover on Arabiya, translating his speech to Arabic. He was recycling bits and pieces of various speeches he used over two years.

E., a younger cousin, and I were sitting around in the living room, sprawled on the relatively cool tiled floor. The electricity had been out for 3 hours and we couldn’t turn on the air conditioner with the generator electricity we were getting. E. and I had made a bet earlier about what the theme of tonight’s speech would be. E. guessed Bush would dig up the tired, old WMD theme from somewhere under the debris of idiocy and lies coming out of the White House. I told him he’d dredge up 9/11 yet again… tens of thousands of lives later, we would have to bear the burden of 9/11… again.

I won the bet.

more at
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#112017374927547660

by GWB Sat Jul 02, 2005 23:32

http://agitprop.typepad.com/4thJulySpeech.mp3

by redjade Sun Jul 03, 2005 15:34

July 3, 2005
The Two Wars of the Worlds
By FRANK RICH

Meanwhile, the war's die-hard supporters, now in the minority, keep clinging to the hope that some speech or Rovian stunt or happy political development in the furtherance of democratic Iraqi self-government can turn public opinion around. Dream on. The most illuminating of all the recent poll numbers was released by the Pew Research Center on June 13: the number of Americans who say that "people they know are becoming less involved emotionally" with news of the war has risen from 26 percent in May 2004 to 44 percent now. Like the war or not, Americans who do not have a relative or neighbor in the fight are simply tuning Iraq out.

The president has no one to blame but himself. The color-coded terror alerts, the repeated John Ashcroft press conferences announcing imminent Armageddon during election season, the endless exploitation of 9/11 have all taken their numbing toll. Fear itself is the emotional card Mr. Bush chose to overplay, and when he plays it now, he is the boy who cried wolf.

[....]

Mr. Bush could have addressed that question honestly on Tuesday night. Instead of once more cooking the books - exaggerating the number of coalition partners, the number of battle-ready Iraqi troops, the amount of non-American dollars in the Iraq kitty - he could have laid out the long haul in hard facts, explaining the future costs in manpower, money and time, and what sacrifices he proposes for meeting them. He could have been, as he is fond of calling himself, a leader.

It was a blown opportunity, and it's hard to see that there will be another chance. Iraq may not be Vietnam, but The Wall Street Journal reports that the current war's unpopularity now matches the Gallup findings during the Vietnam tipping point, the summer of 1968.

more at
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/opinion/03rich.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&oref=login

Poll numbers released by the Pew Research Center:
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=246

by redjade Sun Jul 03, 2005 16:31

Juan Cole:
'The political process in Iraq has not helped end the guerrilla war. It has excluded Sunnis or alienated them so that they excluded themselves. It offers no hope in and of itself.

There was nothing new in Bush's speech, and most of what he said was inaccurate.

Tomdispatch.com takes apart Bush's moral relativism or amoral relativism and is worth a read.'

Read all at
http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/arguing-with-bush-bushs-speech.html

Tomdispatch.com link:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=4027

by eeekkkk Sun Jul 03, 2005 17:55

The majority of Iraqis are angry, hurt, underemployed and under extreme stress. Yet most have not rejected or blamed God. Most retain a devotion to a religion, that like most, gathers its believers together, studies great and holy men and women, and attempts to explain human suffering while simultaneously embracing an all powerful God, whose creatures include both beasts of the field and the American enemy.
They don’t trust the central government in Baghdad. They judge the American state’s intent solely from the American state’s actions, never its words.
They are wary of state efforts at law enforcement, and work hard to stay out of its dangerous and lumbering way.
They love their country, and have no intention of permanently leaving its future in the hands of either the Americans or beholden U.S. allies in the region, be they of Saudi, Kuwaiti, Turkish or Israeli persuasion.
Some resist passively, some actively. They don’t understand everything that is happening, but most Iraqis have decided to pursue one or more of the countless paths of resistance to the state. Iraqis, like Russians and East Europeans before them, honed these skills under Saddam Hussein, as we hone our skills today in early totalitarian America.
All are qualified to resist. None are excluded.

A Patriot

by kev. Mon Jul 04, 2005 13:35

Turned on the telly at the end of the bed
Saw a tin pot dictator with a grey empty head
Insult his whole country with stories and lies
Bout the war in Iraq and how it was wise
900 troops are under the earth, with countless
Iraqui's dead in the place of their birth!
Madness continue's by day and by night
This egotistical maniac believes that he's right
Oh George please tell us just what you see
As you kneel down in church and lie through your teeth
Is it a vision from him, yer man up above
Or the millions of dollars from oil revenue you love?

I flicked the remote he won't go away
Thats the worst of a nuisance, he'll allways stay
As I pulled the pillow case over me head
That Bush gives me nightmares
Of the kind I just dread
As a kinda deja-vu that is called Viet Nam
Is on its way back to haunt the Bushman
Wise boys in the states now refuse to enlist
I can't say I blame them with a head honcho like this!

I'm down on me knees, I'm begging you please
Put a stop to this carnage, dieing, disease
You've made a mistake now let's turn it round
Before thousands more bodies end up in the ground
Can oil and dollars be worth all this life?
All you seem to create is more hunger and strife
There's no proof the youth of Iraq are your foe
Wanted for 9-11? It wasn't them, as you well know!

Put the UN in place and get out of town
Before the rest of Iraq is raised to the ground
Lives can be saved if you do it right now
Its never to late don't seem right...somehow
As I flick on the remote to take all this away
Let's Give Peace A Chance as John Lennon would say!

Peace.

kev.
________________________________________

by kev Wed Jul 06, 2005 14:40

As the stadium was cleared of smoke
The two teams took the field
The team in white were underdogs
The team in red reviled

The fans were waving banners
With photo's of the dead from days gone past
Those who's faces swayed within the wind
Wouldn't be the last

The game itself was ugly
As these things always are
As blood so red and precious
Was splattered on the grass

Diplomats and ministers
Stood clapping in the stands
Then pulled out wads of dollars
To wipe blood from their hands

A pent up roar thought team had scored
But it was a near miss
As fairness tried to referee
The diplomats did hiss

As reporters from the media
Were told just what to say
'Say the match was beautiful'
A five star general did bay

As children sat around the pitch
Trying to look pleased
They could'nt fail to see the rich
Robbing the deceased

As interval in all this toil
Broke up the proceedings
The fans were sold 'do as your told
Or we'll give you a beating'!

As soldiers tried to dictate
Who and what should win
The president just stood there
With a knowing grin

All this boils down to oil
As sure as day turns into night
As match resumed to army tunes
To spur the team to fight
The whites were stonger than the reds
Who's team were filled with awful sights

The heat in streets around the ground
By now was getting high
As funeral processions
Sadly passed close by

On the field the holy field
There wasn't any score
As whites of peace
Failed to increase
The score against reds of war!!!

So as the game was over
PR had won the day
Remember to believe all they say
When they tell you its okay!!!

There'll be another game soon
I can't tell you where
As soon as greed and his eleven men
Feel a need for war somewhere!!!

peace.

'We really must put this war behind us and move on' Tony B.Liar. Yeah Right!


© kev 2005

by redjade Wed Jul 06, 2005 18:04

SUBJECT: Waiving Prohibition on United States Military

Assistance with Respect to the Dominican Republic

Consistent with the authority vested in me by section 2007 of the American Servicemembers' Protection Act of 2002 (the "Act"), title II of Public Law 107-206 (22 U.S.C. 7421 et seq.), I hereby:

• Determine that the Dominican Republic has entered into an agreement with the United States pursuant to Article 98 of the Rome Statute preventing the International Criminal Court from proceeding against U.S. personnel present in such country; and

• Waive the prohibition of section 2007(a) of the Act with respect to this country for as long as such agreement remains in force.

You are authorized and directed to report this determination to the Congress and to arrange for its publication in the Federal Register.

GEORGE W. BUSH