Nine Defense Policy Board members have
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NATION BRIEFS
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Anti-war protests continue
Activist target corporate media in New York
“Truth has died;” protest in
New York City on Mar. 27, 2003. Photo by Fred Askew, courtesy of nyc
Indymedia
Compiled by Shawn Gaynor
Apr. 2 (AGR)—Tens of thousands of anti-war demonstrators
kept up the pressure on the Bush administration this week, voicing concerns
that the war on Iraq is illegal and unjustified. The corporate media
was also a target of protest ire this week as anti-war protesters leveled
accusations of blind acceptance of government information and underreporting
of dissent.
In New York 216 people where arrested as they staged a “die-in”
on Manhattan’s Fifth Ave. on Thursday. The protest, which over
a thousand attended, disrupted traffic for four hours, as protesters
broke though police barricades and surged into the streets. The protest
which was in support of a “No Business as Usual” call to action
against the war, was centered around Rockefeller center. The complex
is home to media giants such as: NBC, CBS, Associated Press, AOL Time
Warner Inc. (who owns CNN), and Fox News Channel.
Other demonstrators stood nearby with signs like “Embedded or in
bed?,” “Don’t Parrot the Right-wing Propaganda”
and the simple “Fox Sucks.”
“I’m saying there can be no business as usual in this country
so long as our government continues to commit atrocities around the
world, so long as this war against Iraq continues. We say as a people
living in this country it is our responsibility for the horrors that
the government is committing in our name…and we will do everything
in our power to resist and stop not only the war in Iraq, but the war
on the world,” said one speaker who addressed the crowd.
As the protest raged outside FOX news headquarters, the company broadcast
messages on their marquee to lambaste the protest, such as “War
protester auditions here today... Thanks for coming!”, and “How
do you keep a war protester in suspense? Ignore them.”
But protesters were undeterred chanting “Bring them home,”
as hundreds lay in the streets. As police began arresting the group
committing civil disobedience, the crowd began to yell, “arrest
the war makers not the peace makers!”
One of the protesters quoted by Democracy Now! said, “I just retired
Marine Core, 33 years. I’m going to tell you something, I wish
they would stop. War is not the answer, man. I served two tours in Vietnam.
I know what its about— death and destruction for the poor and under
privileged. The rich up in the White House call the shots, but their
kids don’t go out there and die. It don’t make no sense …
it’s not about weapons of mass destruction, it’s about awe,
its about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poor.”
Another protester said “the war could not occur without the media’s
complicity.”
The labor union AFTRA held a rallying in Bryant Park to protest ClearChannel.
A smaller group gathered in protest in front of a Trump building that
houses CBS.
Elsewhere across the city, smaller groups shut down traffic. A “funeral
march” wound its way though mid-town, and several intersections
became impassable from small groups filling them with debris.
Another group gathered to draw attention to the Carlyle Group, whose
influential board includes George Bush Sr., that stands to make millions
from the war. Carlyle, a government contractor, invests in defense companies,
medical labs, and telecommunications.
At noon time New York University students walked out by the hundreds,
staging a die-in and occupying a campus student center building.
On Friday a Critical Mass bike ride against the war. Over 400 bikes
tied up evening theater traffic. At one point, a car kept trying to
intimidate the crowd, who surrounded it. A policeman on a bike told
the driver, “Don’t even try it. Reverse, go back, you aren’t
going to win.”
On Wednesday, 16 antiwar protesters, linked by handcuffs, were arrested
for blocking a busy midtown Manhattan intersection near Rockefeller
Center again by lying down in the street.
In San Francisco several hundred people marched, and staged a demonstration
outside of CNN’s San Francisco bureau on Mar. 26 to denounce what
they believe is unbalanced media coverage of the war.
Protester claimed CNN is an underreporting Iraq casualties and over
reporting of American patriotism.
Some protesters laid small white coffins bearing pictures of children
on the sidewalk and others chanted, “independent journalism is
dead and gone when the media is in bed with the Pentagon.”
“We are here to say that bombs are not smart,” demonstration
spokeswoman Medea Benjamin, dressed in fake blood covered clothing and
clutching a bloody baby doll, said to the crowd. “Show us what
collateral damage really means.”
All 12 demonstrators arrested in San Francisco, on felony charges during
last week’s protests, had their charges dropped or reduced to misdemeanors.’
In Boston, the Boston Common was awash with people on Saturday, as 50,000
people rallied and marched against the war.
MC Ama Nyameke who addressed the crowd said, “Youth programs, education,
etc. are being cut. Why don’t they cut the ROTC?”
Moonamum Jones, a Wompanoag Indian and Vietnam veteran whose son is
now in the army in Iraq also spoke at the rally. Jones said, “If
you go to any black, Latino, Native American, or for that matter white
working class family’s home, you will probably see a picture of
a young man or woman in uniform. Those are our children coming home
in body-bags.”
The march, which made its way through Boston, was lead by members of
Veteran for Peace who chanted “Support our troops—Bring them
home!”
In Washington DC, Two Nobel Peace Prize winners, and two bishops where
arrested as protesters climbed over police barricades closing off Lafayette
Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, and sang and
prayed until they were arrested. Police said 65 people were taken into
custody. Protesters left behind some roses and pictures of Iraqi civilians
that they said represented those who could die in the war.
Those arrested included: Nobel laureates Mairead Corrigan Maguire of
the Northern Ireland Peace Movement and Jody Williams of the International
Campaign to Ban Landmines, as well as Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop
Thomas Gumbleton of the Detroit archdiocese, Bishop C. Joseph Sprague
of the United Methodist Church in the Chicago area, and Dave Robinson,
national coordinator of Pax Christi USA, the Catholic peace movement.
Thirteen anti-war demonstrators were arrested Friday at 14th & Pennsylvania
NW during morning rush hour, after doing a lock-down in the street and
blocking traffic through the intersection in all directions.
They were joined by an additional 15-20 people who dressed in carnival
costumes to celebrate “Cirque de Deceit, The Greatest Sham on Earth.”
The street was filled with clowns, jugglers, roller skaters, and a few
people with hula hoops.
In Madison, WI, on Thursday, police used pepper spray on anti-war demonstrators,
arresting two people as protesters burned army literature at the University
Square Army recruiting center. Eye witness reports stated that the police
gave no order to disperse, and did not alert the crowd of several hundred
before resorting to the chemical attack.
Earlier in the week two protesters where arrested as protesters locked
down at the gate of Truax Air National Guard base outside of Madison.
In Seattle, WA a group of women blocked and disrupted the entrance to
a Navy Recruitment Center Thursday.
Protesters spilt fake blood at the center to call attention to the violent
effects of war on women and the exploitative nature of recruitment in
poor communities and communities of color. The women announced that
the recruitment center was “closed for business” in honor
of the soldiers and civilians who continue to be placed in harm’s
way in Iraq.
“We have closed the recruitment center because it is through this
doorway that many young women and men from poor communities and communities
of color take their first steps in seeking access to job training and
education money. What they step into is an institution that does not
have their best interests in mind.”
In Santa Barbara, CA, action was taken to non-violently breach the security
of Vanderberg Air Force Base, and disrupt business as usual. Because
of the bases highly classified mission as a strategic electronic command
post, the breach of the security perimeters by unauthorized people,
specifically the unarmed nonviolent members of the Vandenberg Action
Coalition, triggered disruptive alerts, partial lockdowns, and security
responses that interfere with the smooth and full functioning of the
strategic targeting/command facility.
Hundreds of people took a walk for peace in Santa Cruz, CA on Saturday.
In San Diego, CA there was a flurry of anti-war activism as young activists
have led “die ins”, blocked traffic, got arrested, made noise,
reclaimed the plaza in front of the Federal Building.
In St. Louis, MO 300 peace activists from the St. Louis area targeted
the Boeing Plant in St. Charles for a non-violent direct action.
Boeing has been the target of anti-war actions in the St. Louis area
because the St. Charles plant manufactures the Joint Defense and Munitions,
guidance systems, or JDAMS which convert the bombs and missiles that
have hit Iraqi cities into so-called “smart weapons.”
The demonstration ended with 14 peace demonstrators getting arrested
for civil disobedience.
In Montpelier, VT Protesters showed up to the Statehouse with 99 red
balloons, while a boombox blared rock singer Nena’s anti-war “99
Red Balloons.” The balloons were brought by concerned citizens
opposed to the war in Iraq and also demanded that Vermont politicians’
“attention be turned towards the corporate neo-liberal agenda and
the waves of militarism imposing this strategy around the world.”
Vermont state police and State House security seized 66 of the balloons
before they could be released.
Each balloon had a message of peace, a fact about corporate control,
a plea for representation in the state house and in Washington, or a
picture of innocent people that are affected by the US sponsored terror
in countries like Iraq and Colombia.
In Minneapolis, MN this week, at the federal courts building, over 50
were arrested during a rally and following a march. Protesters locked
themselves to metal detectors inside the building and blocked all entrances
into the building as well as to the parking garage. This follows 28
arrests at the office of pro-invasion Senator Norm Coleman, and a large
turnout for the student strike at the University of Minnesota.
In Baltimore, MD a group of about 30-40 bicyclists gathered downtown
yesterday to roll out in protest against the unjust, un-ending war on
Iraq. Riders wore clown wigs, blew whistles, and beat bucket drums,
decorated bikes with colorful streamers, paper-mache horse heads and
flowers. Four arrests were made and the ride’s only African America
participant was beaten by police, and hospitalized.
Dozens of other anti-war protests occcured across the nation.
Sources: New York Indymedia,
IPS, Democracy Now!, Boston IMC, San Francisco Chronicle, DC Indymedia,
AP, Washington Indymedia, A-infos, Boston Globe, Cleveland IMC, Baltimore
IMC, Minneapolis IMC, Vermont IMC
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Nine Defense Policy Board members have
ties to defense contractors
By Andre Verley and Daniel Politi
Data by Aron Pilhofer
Mar. 28— Of the 30 members of the Defense Policy
Board, the government-appointed group that advises the Pentagon, at
least nine have ties to companies that have won more than $76 billion
in defense contracts in 2001 and 2002. Four members are registered lobbyists,
one of whom represents two of the three largest defense contractors.
The board’s chairman, Richard Perle, resigned yesterday, Mar. 27,
2003, amid allegations of conflicts of interest for his representation
of companies with business before the Defense Department, although he
will remain a member of the board. Eight of Perle’s colleagues
on the board have ties to companies with significant contracts from
the Pentagon. Members of the board disclose their business interests
annually to the Pentagon, but the disclosures are not available to the
public. “The forms are filed with the Standards of Conduct Office
which review the filings to make sure they are in compliance with government
ethics,” Pentagon spokesman Maj. Ted Wadsworth told the Center
for Public Integrity. The companies with ties to Defense Policy Board
members include prominent firms like Boeing, TRW, Northrop Grumman,
Lockheed Martin, and Booz Allen Hamilton and smaller players like Symantec
Corp., Technology Strategies and Alliance Corp., and Polycom Inc.
Defense companies are awarded contracts for numerous reasons; there
is nothing to indicate that serving on the Defense Policy Board confers
a decisive advantage to firms with which a member is associated. According
to its charter, the board was set up in 1985 to provide the Secretary
of Defense “with independent, informed advice and opinion concerning
major matters of defense policy.” The members are selected by and
report to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy — currently
Douglas Feith, a former Reagan administration official. All members
are approved by the Secretary of Defense. The board’s quarterly
meetings — normally held over a two-day period — are classified,
and each session’s proceedings are summarized for the Defense Secretary.
The board does not write reports or vote on issues. Feith, according
to the charter, can call additional meetings if required. Notices of
the meetings are filed at least 15 days before they are held in the
Federal Register.
The board, whose list of members reads like a who’s who of former
high-level government and military officials, focuses on long-term policy
issues such as the strategic implications of defense policies and tactical
considerations, including what types of weapons the military should
develop.
Richard Perle, who has been a very public advocate of the war in Iraq,
resigned the chairmanship of the Defense Policy Board after being criticized
in recent weeks because of his involvement in companies that have significant
business before the Defense Department. He did not return the Center’s
phone calls.
Perle reportedly advised clients of Goldman Sachs on investment opportunities
in post-war Iraq and is a director with stock options of the UK-based
Autonomy Corp., whose customers include the Defense Department.
Potential conflicts not limited to Perle
Perle, however, is not the only Defense Policy Board member with ties
to companies that do business with the Defense Department.
Retired Adm. David Jeremiah, a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff who served over 38 years in the Navy, is a director or advisor
of at least five corporations that received more than $10 billion in
Pentagon contracts in 2002. Jeremiah also sat on the board of Getronics
Government Solutions, a company that was acquired by DigitalNet in December
2002 and is now known as DigitalNet Government Solutions. According
to a news report by Bloomberg, Richard Perle is a director of DigitalNet
Holdings Inc., which has filed for a $109 million stock sale.
Retired Air Force Gen. Ronald Fogleman sits on the board of directors
of companies which received more than $900 million in contracts in 2002.
The companies, which all have longstanding business relationships with
the Air Force and other Defense Department branches, include Rolls-Royce
North America, North American Airlines, AAR Corporation, and the Mitre
Corp. In addition to being chief of staff for the Air Force, Fogleman
has served as a military advisor to the Secretary of Defense, the National
Security Council and the President. He also served as commander-in-chief
of the US Transportation Command, commander of Air Mobility Command,
the 7th Air Force and the Air Component Command of the US/ROK Combined
Forces Command.
Retired Gen. Jack Sheehan joined Bechtel in 1998 after 35 years in the
US Marine Corp.
Bechtel, one of the world’s largest engineering-construction firms,
is among the companies bidding for contracts to rebuild Iraq. The company
had defense contracts worth close to $650 million in 2001 and more than
$1 billion in 2002. Sheehan is currently a senior vice president and
partner and responsible for the execution and strategy for the region
that includes Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia. The
four-star general served as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic
and Commander in Chief US Atlantic Command before his retirement in
1997. After his leaving active duty, he served as Special Advisor for
Central Asia for two secretaries of Defense.
Former CIA director James Woolsey is a principal in the Paladin Capital
Group, a venture-capital firm that like Perle’s Trireme Partners
is soliciting investment for homeland security firms. Woolsey joined
consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton as vice president in July 2002.
The company had contracts worth more than $680 million in 2002. Woolsey
told the Wall Street Journal that he does no lobbying and that none
of the companies he has ties to have been discussed during a Defense
Policy Board meeting. Previously, Woolsey worked for the law firm Shea
& Gardner. He has held high-level positions in two Republican and
two Democratic administrations.
William Owens, another former high-level military officer, sits on the
boards of five companies that received more than $60 million in defense
contracts last year. Previously, he was president, chief operating officer
and vice chair of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC),
among the ten largest defense contractors. One of the companies, Symantec
Corp., increased its contracts from $95,000 in 2001 to more than $1
million in 2002. Owens, who served as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, is widely recognized for bringing commercial high technology
into the US Department of Defense. He was the architect of the Revolution
in Military Affairs (RMA), an advanced systems technology approach to
military operations that represents a significant change in the system
of requirements, budgets, and technology for the US military since World
War II. Owens serves on the boards of directors for several technology
companies, including Nortel Networks, ViaSat and Polycom.
Harold Brown, a former Secretary of Defense under President Jimmy Carter,
and James Schlesinger, who has served as CIA director, defense secretary
and energy secretary in the Carter and Nixon administrations, are two
others that have ties to defense contractors. Brown, a partner of Warburg
Pincus LLC, is a board member of Philip Morris Companies and a trustee
of the Rand Corporation, which respectively had contracts worth $146
million and $83 million in 2002. Schlesinger, a senior adviser at Lehman
Brothers, chairs the board of trustees of the Mitre Corp., a not-for-profit
that provides research and development support for the government. Mitre
had defense contracts worth $440 million in 2001 and $474 million in
2002.
Chris Williams is one of four registered lobbyists to serve on the board,
and the only one to lobby for defense companies. Williams, who served
as a special assistant for policy matters to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld
after having been in a similar capacity for Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.),
joined Johnston & Associates after leaving the Pentagon. Although
the firm had represented Lockheed Martin prior to Williams’ arrival,
the firm picked up two large defense contractors as clients once Williams
was on board: Boeing, TRW, and Northrop Grumman, for which the firm
earned a total of more than $220,000. The firm lobbied exclusively on
defense appropriations and related authorization bills for its new clients.
Johnston & Associates is more often employed by energy companies;
its founder, J. Bennett Johnston, is a former Democratic senator from
Louisiana who chaired the Energy Committee.
None of the members with ties to defense contractors responded to requests
for comment.
Source: Center for Public
Integrity
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