Epstein Secrets

ld," said President Bush. So much for accountability. Then, of course, there was Vice President Cheney: "We do know, with absolute certainty, that (Saddam Hussein] is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon." -- "No. I think we may wel

s liberators, and that will help us to keep requirements down ... It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post- Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army. Hard to imagine. And the bi

e do know, with absolute certainty, that (Saddam Hussein] is using his procurement system to acquire the e

ks to operate above the law is at one with the philosophy that has guided both the Bush and the Obama administrations during the financial collapse. Tim Geithner, former head of the New York Federal Reserve bank under Bush and Treasury Secretary under Obama, would preach that it was necessary to "foam the ru

ngs on whom America depended to help protect its interests. They were constant, if not always agreeable, companions. Egypt's Mubarak, Jordan's King Hussein, Tunisia's Ben Ali, Yemen's Ali Saleh, Morocco's King Hassan II, Saudi Arabia's kings Fand and Abdullah. The PLO's Yasir Arafat rounded out the gr

ghts abuses, authoritarian behavior, and faux reforms. Then there were the adversarial authoritarians. Here, a smaller group photo featured Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Syria's Assads (father and son), and Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi. America sought to check and constrain their power, even removing one through inva

nstrain their power, even removing one through invasion. But at times, the United States found common ground with them too. (See: cooperation with Saddam against the Iranian mullahs, and dancing with Assad on the peace process.) As pure and unadulterated dictators, however, they were incorrigible, be

her successor. Old habits, however, die hard, and the most influential lips in Washington still whisper about the next Hillary rather than the next Tim Geithner. EFTA00660304

irst black president of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama. The plaque could very well read that he h

ton on issues ranging from the size of its military budget and share of NATO commitments to the management of its economies — as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner found a year ago, when European finance ministers simply ignored his exhortations to act more decisively to address their debt crisis. On Tuesday,