Following up a BRAD BLOG article from Oct. 6th…
During the Vice-Presidential Debate Dick Cheney accused John Edwards of being “dead wrong” when Edwards asserted that “we’ve taken 90 percent of the coalition casualties.” Cheney argued that we’ve only taken 50 percent because Edwards, apparently, was not counting Iraqis as part of the “Coalition”.
To fact-check that, I went to the White House website to see who they counted as part of the “Coalition” and came across a page at the site from a special “RENEWAL IN IRAQ” report they have online. The page was entitled “The Coalition“.
On the page was a sidebar (pictured at right) with a link to a document named “Who are the Coalition Members?” Clicking that link lead to an error page that said “The file you have attempted to access cannot be found…”
Thanks to Google’s cached archive of the White House site, I was able to find the document originally linked there which listed some 40 countries as “Members of the Coalition”. None of them were named Iraq.
A Bush supporter Emailed me that accidents like that happen all the time, and I shouldn’t presume, simply from a broken link, that the White House was trying to hide something. Especially since I had also asked in my original article “what other official pieces of information once posted to the White House website (theoretically owned by the people of the United States of America) have been scrubbed as well from the historical record?” He told me that he’d written to the White House Webmaster to tell them about it, and he suggested I give them a week or so to fix the link before crying foul. He had a point, and so I too emailed the webmaster to ask what was up.
That was almost two weeks ago, and I’ve not received a reply from the White House webmaster on the topic. However, you’ll be glad to know they fixed the link. By removing it. The updated sidebar on the same page (pictured at right) no longer features a link to “Who are the Coalition Members?” It’s just been scrubbed entirely.
The White House can no longer be given the benefit of the doubt here, since someone had to actually change the linked graphic in question. Historical documentation on the people’s web site has been removed. Period. Who knows what else is no longer there, removed after it was no longer political useful to the White House to have it online? (And are they supposed to be using the tax payer supported White House website for political purposes?)
For the record, since the Iraq War began, America has taken 1,100 military casualties. All other countries combined in the “Coalition” (whoever they may be) have taken a total of 138 military casualities. America’s share of “Coalition” casualties: 89.5%.
Bush/Cheney ’04: Will Say Anything to Win.
UPDATED THOUGHT: Remember how critical the Right was of Michael Moore for showing all those happy Iraqi children playing peacefully in Saddam’s Iraq in Fahrenheit 9/11? Well, here’s the White House’s banner graphic for their special “Renewal in Iraq” report on their website:
It should be noted that some 21,800 Iraqi civilians, many of them children like the ones above, have been killed in Iraq since America started the war there.
LATE UPDATE 10/18/04: Audio and Video now being removed from White House Website as well! See this update – “More Scrubbing of White House Website!!! Audio & Video Removed!”
MUCH LATER UPDATE 10/22/04: Hooray! Mainstream media finally picks up on this story!
WAY LATER UPDATE 10/25/04: The Washington Post finally picks up the story today! Twice!
MUCH MUCH LATER UPDATE 10/29/04: BRAD BLOG SUCCESS! WH restores Audio/Video! Though much still missing…
Here’s one they missed:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/...030320-11.html
Tho maybe they will keep it there since it lists 46 countries and is accurate because it’s a press release from March 2003.
Yes, there are still a couple of OLD Press Release versions of the list of Coalition Members. Don’t know if any of them are actually *linked* to anything though. You’d have to find them with a search.
Versus the link that *used* to be available from their still updated regularly "Renewal in Iraq" report. The link in that report to "Who are the Coalition Members?" was taken down apparently once it became a political liability.
Which, again, begs the question of what is the White House doing using the people’s Website for political/campaign related issues? That is actually illegal.
If Oliver North shows up at the White House we’re all in trouble!!!
You can still find the link using the wayback site, but you have look to the prior version of the page (Feb 2004) and mouse over the "who are the coalition members" to see the link in the lower address bar. Or, click here to see the missing page. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before they remove this too.
State Dept Website Expunged: Noticed10/18/04
From 11/01 until approximately yesterday, the State website listed on its terorrnet pages, Countries in Which alQaeda Operates. Iraq was never listed. The page is now gone.
I notified buzzflash and DU, and posted these short paragraphs on my weblog. I plan to note your findings there and I will link back to this article as well.
tom pea
The information about Bush policy which I wish was in the news, but cannot find, is the apparent priority Bush & Co. has to forever steal the resources of Iraq by allowing U.S. corporations to operate there and control the main resource of oil and to make profits there without being taxed in Iraq. This policy obviously comes from a group whose background is corporate bottom-line mentallity instead of military or international cooperation mentality. In the past few months, I have been harboring a tentative thought that, given enough ‘up-the-corporate-ladder’ experience, some leaders have truly sloughed off human values and could care less about deaths and despair of common folk. I wonder whether the outcries about deaths and turmoil are even useful to some business mentalities as cover for theft.
Hey, Brad – In re "WH Scrubs Website" – they did indeed move it. I contacted a friend in DC who went to look at the list a few weeks ago and couldnt find it, so then went to the Pentagon which couldn’t find it, so they called the white house who gave them the new link — I think it is on the multinational force web site…so it’s not gone entirely but it’s definitely not as easily found as it once was. Pentagon was unaware that they moved it and was mildly cranky becasue it is more difficult to get to.
Hey, great minds think alike? I had posted to my blog the same question about the White House link because I as well wondered about Dick Cheney apparently adding the Iraqi Security Forces to the coalition list. On 10/8 I posted,
http://theprogressivewolf.blogs...f-missing.html
No surprise they scrubbed the link, the coalition is becoming an embarassment to the White House, I call it the Coalition Of The Dwindling.
I can’t understand why there are so many naive voters out there. If you just take a little time to investigate as an independent (rather than being one sided), you will see that taking out Saddam was the right thing to do. For instance, where did the 9/11 terrorists train? Maybe in some of the 27 known Al-Queda training camps located in Iraq? One of the Al-Queda training camps in Iraq even had an aircraft fuselage used for terrorist training. Since the camps were there, you know that Saddam knew about them. It was no secret that he funded the Al-Queda. He may not have participated DIRECTLY in 9/11, but he certainly was helping Al-Queda.
I’m sad to say that no matter who is elected, we are in trouble. Kerry is absolutely not a leader. And if Bush is elected, like the Clinton’s want, then Hillary will be up for election. Not only that, but Bill is up for UN Secretary General. They’re plan is for the United Nations to govern the world, which means bye-bye to all of your freedom in the US. US law will now be controlled by the leaders of the UN, which takes away your say, through voting, on how we live.
Make the best decision for you, your family and your country by knowing the facts before voting. Don’t take just what you hear in the media. Hate to tell you, but liberal groups own the media, for example The New York Times. Everyone knows they are liberal and are for the Democratic party. They own many of the local news stations and newspapers across the country, and they control what the local news people can report. If you don’t believe me, ask someone at a local newspaper or news tv station that you know.
I usually vote independent, but I have no choice this time due to the severity of this election.
Norm asked:
"For instance, where did the 9/11 terrorists train? Maybe in some of the 27 known Al-Queda training camps located in Iraq?"
No. Not that I’ve ever heard, nor that the 9/11 Commission reported. Do you have *any* evidence to back up your suggestion? Any? Or just wishful thinking?
"It was no secret that he funded the Al-Queda."
Really? If that’s no secret, where is the information to prove your allegation? I would be interested to look at it. From my understanding, al Qaeda had called for the toppling of Saddam, so it seems odd that Saddam would fund them.
"And if Bush is elected, like the Clinton’s want, then Hillary will be up for election. Not only that, but Bill is up for UN Secretary General. They’re plan is for the United Nations to govern the world"
Whoops, Norm. You just screwed the pooch on your "I usually vote independent" cover story. Quoting unsubstantiated Rush Limbaugh and Dick Morris blather tends to do that.
Good try though!
EVEN BETTER DIRT: BUSH WAS COMPLICIT IN THE 9/11 ATTACKS!
Hey this is a good story about White House censorship, but you guys are missing the boat on a far more important story about evidence on the White House Web site. There is information there which implicates Bush in the 9/11 attacks. Seems Bush claimed TWICE (and in both cases transcripts of his speeches are right there on the WH web site, they cannot be denied although they too may be removed soon) that he saw the FIRST plane hit the WTC while he was waiting outside the Florida classrom. He even talked about how he figured at first it had to be an accident by a dumb pilot, so you know for sure he can’t be simply confused and thinking about the SECOND strike, which would have been as unambiguously an attack for him as it was for everyone else in the country. Trouble is, there were no live television broadcasts of the FIRST strike because nobody (except of course the perpetrators) was expecting it! HOW could Bush have seen it, then? He would have had to have foreknowledge somehow, with speculation that perhaps he had a private CIA video feed. That would have been the only way for even part of his lies to be true!
Yep, that’s right. Bush had to have been in on 9/11 from the get-go, and the evidence is right there on the White House Web site, you can see it for yourself. Hopefully, like Richard Nixon’s tapes trapping him, when people catch on to this revelation the bastard Bush is going to be run out of office. And the sooner the better. But since it is clear that he was involved in the 9/11 attacks, he should be tried for treason and then hung for his crimes. Too bad he can’t be hung once for every person who died that day.
There is a good page at http://serendipity.ptpi.net/wot/bushflub.htm which puts it all together and provides the relevant links to the White House site with the text you need to look for.
THIS PROVES BUSH WAS COMPLICIT IN THE 9/11 ATTACKS!