Rain Storm -- an online journal of opinion and culture

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tried to rewrite history this week when he denied making prewar claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Rumsfeld's latest attempt at backtracking on his prewar rhetoric came Thursday in Atlanta, at a contentious public forum where he faced a handful of hecklers and a war protester in the audience, who charged that he had lied about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction -- President Bush's top rationale for war.

But senior administration officials said Bush had lost confidence in Goss, 67, almost from the beginning and decided months ago to replace him. In what was described as a difficult meeting in April with Negroponte, Goss was told to prepare to leave by May, according to several officials with knowledge of the conversation.

"There has been an open conversation for a few weeks, through Negroponte, with the acknowledgment of the president" about replacing Goss, said a senior White House official who discussed the internal deliberations on the condition of anonymity. Another senior White House official said Goss had always been viewed as a "transitional figure" who would leave by year's end. His departure was accelerated when Bush shook up his White House staff in hopes of beginning a political turnaround.

Mr. Goss's resignation also comes amid the controversy regarding the man he appointed to the CIA's third-highest post, Mr. Foggo. Mr. Foggo is under federal criminal investigation relating to the awarding of CIA contracts, people with knowledge of the inquiry said Friday.

When Mr. Goss became CIA head in 2004, Mr. Foggo was his surprise choice for executive director. Although Mr. Foggo had been with the CIA for more than 25 years, he had mainly been assigned to middle-management logistical and administrative jobs, and had never held any senior headquarters position. [emphasis added]

Four former deputy directors of operations once tried to offer Goss advice about changing the clandestine service without setting off a rebellion, but Goss declined to speak to any of them, said former CIA officials who are aware of the communications. The perception that Goss was conducting a partisan witch hunt grew, too, as staffers asked about the party affiliation of officers who sent in cables or analyses on Iraq that contradicted the Defense Department's more optimistic scenarios.

When he took office in April 2005, Negroponte, a veteran diplomat, moved quickly to exert his authority over the CIA. He took over the job of giving President Bush his daily intelligence briefing, a task that once allowed CIA directors to bond with the presidents they served. He took a central role in briefing Congress on intelligence issues. He transferred some CIA officers to new joint intelligence centers. And when it appeared that Goss was not fully on board, officials said, Negroponte and his deputy, Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, quietly complained to the White House -- apparently contributing to Goss' decision to resign Friday.

Neither Bush nor Goss offered a reason for his departure.

Wilkes has deep ties into the CIA. The focal point of those ties is to Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the man Porter Goss appointed to the #3 position at CIA when he took over the Agency last year. Remember, Wilkes' scam was getting corrupt contracts deep in the 'black' world of intelligence and defense appropriations, where there's little or no oversight. Foggo was in the contracting and procurement field at the CIA. So you can see how he and Wilkes, who have been friends since high school, had plenty to talk about.

The CIA wasn't the only place Wilkes and his protege Wade plied their corrupt trade. There were also in the mix contracting on the Bush Pentagon's extra-constitutional spying operations. And I am told that senior appointees at the DOD knew about their corruption but overlooked it.

Now, since the Cunningham scandal got under, and particularly of late, there's been a big tug of war between federal law enforcement and the CIA over whether to really go after Wilkes. Probably a little more specificity is in order there, folks at CIA in the orbit of Foggo and presumably Goss.

Now, how does Goss know Foggo?

That's how we get into the other part of this story -- those 'hospitality suites', that moveable feast of food, poker and love, Brent Wilkes ran in Washington for maybe fifteen years. We hear that's how Goss got to be friends with Foggo, whom he later promoted to executive director of the CIA, the number 3 post at the Agency.

It's jutting up from one of seven lobes of fresh volcanic rock that have been pushing their way through the surface of the crater since October 2004.

The fin-shaped mass is about 300 feet tall and growing 4 feet to 5 feet a day, though it occasionally loses height from rockfalls off its tip, said Dan Dzurisin, a geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey.

It began growing last November, steadily moving west and pushing rock and other debris out of its way as it goes.

"Everybody in the government this week is suddenly trying to think of ways to conserve energy. For example, the smoke that blows out of the president's ass when he's talking about this issue is now from clean-burning ethanol."---Bill Maher
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"Condoleezza Rice is the most popular member of the Bush administration. Experts say that claiming to be the most popular member of the Bush administration is like claiming you got the 'good' kind of Herpes." ---Conan O'Brien
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"Today, of course, was the `Day Without Immigrants' ... Or as the Native Americans call it, the good old days.---Jay Leno

Things are too fucked up to give someone else on-the-job training. We need someone who’s already on top of all this stuff and can hit the ground running.

REALITY HAS A LIBERAL BIAS

"I thought some of it was funny, but I think it got a little rough," Hoyer said. "He is the president of the United States, and he deserves some respect."?

Note to Steny Hoyer (D-Md), the House Minority Whip:

Iraq got a little rough.

Katrina got a little rough.

Guantanamo got a little rough.

When the guy who is responsible for those disasters gets a send up at a black tie dinner in DC, that's not rough Congressman, it's fucking hilarious.

Hat tip to Kos.

That's nice. I mean, we wouldn't want Bush to blow a gasket over the fact that he lied to the American people, totally blew the war in Iraq, keeps his top aide on staff even though he's a traitor and a known security risk, lost an entire American city while he was on vacation, blew the Clinton budget surplus, has destroyed America's image in the world, was asleep at the switch on September 11, has yet to catch Osama, was ready to sell our ports to the United Arab Emirates, gutted mining safety right before those miners died, and oh so much more.

No, what apparently wakes Bush up from his stupor is a comedian making fun of him.

On Chris Matthews' Hardball Monday evening, just moments ago, MSNBC correspondent David Shuster confirmed what RAW STORY first reported in February: that outed CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson was working on Iran at the time she was outed.

Today the Daily News says Cheney is a target of Fitzgerald's probe. The WaPo says that Cheney's feud with the CIA may have contributed to the outing of Valerie Plame. And there are even rumors that Cheney will resign. All this begs the question, if Cheney resigns (and/or is indicted) and Karl Rove resigns (following his pending indictment), who is going to tell Flight Suit Boy that it's time for him to talk to his lawyer?

UPDATE Tuesday afternoon: The scary part of the Cheney resignation rumor is the speculation that Bush would elevate Condi Rice to the vice presidency:

"It's certainly an interesting but I still think highly doubtful scenario," said a Bush insider. "And if that should happen," added the official, "there will undoubtedly be those who believe the whole thing was orchestrated – another brilliant Machiavellian move by the VP."

...."Almost every day we sent a package to the White House that had overhead imagery of the house he was staying in. It was a terrorist training camp...experimenting with ricin and anthrax...any collateral damage there would have been terrorists."

So why wasn't Bush willing to hit Zarqawi, a known al-Qaeda terrorist in a known location? Scheuer says he was told it was because Bush was afraid of annoying the French — a theory that seems a bit of a stretch, non? Others believe it was because Zarqawi was politically convenient: having him alive allowed Bush to pretend that Saddam was "harboring terrorists," thus providing useful ammunition for the war.