So the madness imposed by panic can be wrestled back into the dark,. dank place whence it sprang. Ye olde scribe takes a modest measure of some pride in having repeatedly pointed out the exact same stance in law (and in the tradition of Constitutional protection) as the court has determined, from the time the very first charges were brought, and even before.

In a decision that could ban the military’s favorite methods of prosecuting Guantanamo Bay detainees, a federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned the 2008 military commission conviction of Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s former driver.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote for a three-judge DC Circuit panel that Hamdan could not be prosecuted for acts that were not crimes at the time they were committed. That’s because the Constitution prohibits Congress from passing laws ex post facto—after the fact. The government cannot make something a crime after you’ve already done it and then charge you for doing it. But that’s exactly what Congress seemed to do in 2006 when it made “material support for terrorism” a war crime and encouraged the military to prosecute Gitmo detainees—who had already been imprisoned for years—for committing it.

“This is a massive blow to the legitimacy of the military commissions system,” says Zachary Katznelson, a senior attorney at the ACLU. The commissions “have been trying people for years for something that isn’t even a war crime.”

[snip]

“Not only did the president sign the legislation knowing there wasn’t a legal basis for this charge,” Katznelson says, “but his administration then prosecuted people for something that was not a war crime at all.” Source

Nothing can ever replace or recompense the egregiously extended vita interruptus of too, too many dumped into the den of shame that is the black hole of Guantánamo, but that the established judicial system, albeit grindingly slowly, can and does adhere to the bedrock truisms of the American system and clearly enunciates that war (or anything which might be labeled ‘war,’ declared or not) does not put the protections afforded by the instruments of liberty in a lockbox and does not and cannot supersede the rule of law is exceedingly praiseworthy.

“At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.”
- Aristotle

So this is how an extended, unwarranted, atrocious, panicked action shambles off the highway of history: Not with a bang, nor with a whimper, but with “nostalgia.”

“There was a signing of papers of receivership that gave Iraq custody of the base effective today,” [U.S. military spokesman Col. Barry] Johnson said. “It’s quite nostalgic. It was the center of gravity for what we were doing here for all these years,” he added.  Source

Officially, the second “I” and the “O” in the term IIO used as a title here incessantly over the years may be retired. The leading “I” can never be expunged.

Update December 19: In on a lie, and out on a lie.

For security reasons, the last soldiers made no time for goodbyes to Iraqis with whom they had become acquainted. To keep details of the final trip secret from insurgents, interpreters for the last unit to leave the base called local tribal sheiks and government leaders on Saturday morning and conveyed that business would go on as usual, not letting on that all the Americans would soon be gone. Citation

Shock and awe that there exists such a thing as a declared end. Dismal, simply dismal.

U.S. Admiral James W. Stavridis, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, also expressed regrets in a letter read at the ceremony. He “there were hopes to continue the mission beyond 2011 ” and added: “We are concluding earlier than we had hoped.” Source

Those who have followed the multiple citings of stories about the MEK, Camp Ashraf and the Bulgarian troops assigned there during the bulk of the occupation will find this of keen interest.

Iraqi forces raided a camp housing members of an Iranian opposition group on Tuesday, sharply escalating tensions that have been on the rise since the U.S. military turned over responsibility for the camp to the Iraqis.

Four people were killed by the Iraqi police and scores more injured…

[snip]

The raid came a day after the Iraqi government, which has maintained a security cordon around the camp’s perimeter, said it would assume complete control of the camp but promised to protect the people inside.

Shortly afterward, the group’s leaders announced they were willing to return to Iran if they were guaranteed immunity from prosecution. They insisted on guarantees in writing from Iran, the United States, the United Nations and Iraq.

A legal counsel at the camp, Behzad Saffari, said the Iraqis also opened fire in Tuesday’s melee. He claimed American troops witnessed the event but did not intervene except to take pictures. Source

As U.S. forces ostensibly “pull back” to the barricaded acreage of 300-plus bases on Iraqi soil:

Al-Maliki’s government has declared Tuesday National Sovereignty Day and decreed a public holiday.

[snip]

Iraqi officials have warned people to stay away from crowded places and al-Maliki appealed for national unity. Source

With friends like these…

Among the countries congratulating Mr Ahmadinejad on his victory were Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela and North Korea. Source

More:

As European capitals appear to weigh their reaction to the Iranian poll against their desire to engage Tehran in constructive talks, most of Iran’s neighboring states have opted for simply congratulating the winner.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai was the first head of state to do so as he called Ahmadinejad on June 14. Karzai’s office said he congratulated the Iranian people “for making a decision about their destiny” and hoped Afghanistan’s ties with Iran would continue to strengthen during Ahmadinejad’s second four-year term in office.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani followed shortly after with a telegram to Ahmadinejad expressing confidence that their two countries “friendly and neighborly relations” will improve in the coming years.

Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, told Ahmadinejad the victory was “an acknowledgment of your outstanding services.”

[snip]

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Musa also congratulated Ahmadinejad….Source

’nuff said.

Other side of the coin: Unlike major capitals of the EU, Canada voices sharply stated outrage.

Awful bookends for this month of May.

End of the month — Maj. Gen. (ret.) Anthony Taguba (Source):

“The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it.”

Start of the month — Gen. (ret.) Barry McCaffrey (Source):

“We should never, as a policy, maltreat people under our control, detainees. We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A.”

Noting the last egress of British forces in Iraq now underway.

“The role of British ground forces is finished,” a defence official said, having completed their mission of mentoring and training two Iraqi army divisions. [The] ceremonies were in many ways symbolic. British forces had been winding down their presence in Basra for many weeks and had already handed over responsibility for Basra’s security to the Iraqis at the start of the year.

It was significant that UK forces handed over their base not to the Iraqis but the Americans. US forces will remain in Basra protecting the important supply route from Kuwait, and helping the Iraqi army and police force. Source

Brutality — and recognized as such by the bar.

“I ain’t no angel,” admitted a 172nd Infantry Brigade noncommissioned officer shortly before a military jury sentenced him Thursday to life in prison with the possibility of parole for the execution-style murders of four Iraqi detainees in 2007.

[snip]

Capt. John Riesenberg, assistant government trial counsel, told the jury that their sentence should be aimed at stopping other first sergeants and soldiers from doing what the Company A soldiers did.

“Send a message to the world that this is an army that recognizes that it is different, that American soldiers just don’t do this. They don’t execute detainees in the middle of the night by shooting them in the back of the head when they are bound and blindfolded and dump their bodies in a canal,” he said. Source

The bulk of the American media will only highlight an Iraq story if a bomb goes off and includes fatalities above some inscrutable threshold. The other quotidian violence remains mostly unbroadcast or beneath the radar in the U.S.

Beyond that, in the streets and the alleys – in the context of the building blocks of a society – how’s that “liberation” going?

Virtual labor slavery and insular hunt and assassinate squads? You betcha.

Click and read (short yet troubling articles from just the past few days) here and here.

It must be mentioned that we don’t know the circumstances of the reported confession (i.e., whether or not it was coerced). But what is reported is a picture of psychosis — of a bitter, superstitious, delusional, crazy as a bedbug, heinous, exceptionally criminal serial sociopath.

A woman suspected of recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers has confessed to organising their rapes so she could later convince them that martyrdom was the only way to escape the shame. Source

For years now it has been torrentially raining cash, and too many shady, greedy, mercenary, malfeasant or just plain incompetent or compromised or clandestine people have had a near-infinite supply of buckets.

“Before we go pouring more money in, we really need to know what we’re trying to accomplish (in Afghanistan),” said Ginger Cruz, deputy special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. “And at what point do you turn off the spigot so you’re not pouring money into a black hole?”

[snip]

Cruz, along with Stuart Bowen, the top U.S. official overseeing Iraq’s reconstruction, delivered a grim report to the Wartime Contracting Commission. Their assessment, along testimony from Thomas Gimble of the Defense Department inspector general’s office, laid out a history of poor planning, weak oversight and greed that soaked U.S. taxpayers and undermined American forces in Iraq.

[snip]

Congress created the bipartisan panel a year ago over the objections of the Bush White House, which complained the Justice Department might be forced to disclose sensitive information about investigations.

There are 154 open criminal investigations into allegations of bribery, conflicts of interest, defective products, bid rigging and theft in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait, said Gimble, the Pentagon’s principal deputy inspector general. Source

Most, but not all, of Iraq’s provinces will be voting (awash in communal restrictions and major security precautions) in provincial elections on Saturday. It is – and remains – a sign, not anywhere near a solution.

So what can the Iraqi elections achieve? Hopefully, they will reverse the destabilizing repercussions of the January 2005 polls, when the absence of key constituencies led to highly imbalanced councils, and the preponderance of religiously-guided, exile-bred parties produced poor administration and pervasive corruption.

Likewise, the elections will be a good test-run for a parliamentary vote later this year. They are a potential bellwether for nationwide political trends including the role of religion, the endurance of ethnic and sectarian identities, and the deepening conflict over decentralization.

[snip]

…The voting will indeed be a sign of revival. We should see it as an indicator of things to come. But we should not interpret it as conclusive evidence that Iraq has been fixed. There, elections are just the beginning. Source

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Also, FYI:

The State Department will not renew Blackwater Worldwide’s contract to protect American diplomats in Iraq when it expires in May, a senior U.S. official said Friday. The official told The Associated Press that the contract will lapse because of the Iraqi government’s decision to deny Blackwater a license to operate. Source

Missing from this and all previous related stories is whether any new or expanded contract with another private contractor shall include checks against hiring in or subcontracting for Blackwater employees.

…are now promises kept.

And methodically continuing onward.

President Barack Obama was to sign Thursday a series of executive orders to close the Guantanamo “war on terror” prison, end harsh interrogation tactics and shutter secret prisons, marking a dramatic reversal of policy from his predecessor.

[snip]

The president was to kick off the day by signing an executive order that would start the process of closing the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, a White House official said.

“The detention facilities at Guantanamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order,” said the draft order, posted on the website of the American Civil Liberties Union and confirmed by a White House source.

White House counsel Greg Craig told Democratic and Republican lawmakers late Wednesday “to expect ’several’ executive orders on Guantanamo Bay,” the Washington Post said citing sources familiar with the briefings.

The orders involve “altering CIA detention and interrogation rules, limiting interrogation standards in all US facilities worldwide to those outlined in the Army Field Manual, and prohibiting the agency from secretly holding terrorist detainees in third-country prisons,” it said.

[snip]

The New York Times said the “orders would bring to an end a Central Intelligence Agency program that kept terrorism suspects in secret custody for months or years.” Source

More:

The intelligence agency built a network of secret prisons in 2002 to house and interrogate senior Qaeda figures captured overseas. The exact number of suspects to have moved through the prisons is unknown, although Michael Hayden, the departing director of the agency, has in the past put the number at “fewer than 100.”

The secret detentions brought international condemnation, and in September 2006, President George W. Bush ordered that the remaining 14 detainees in CIA custody be transferred to Guantánamo Bay and tried by military tribunals.

But Bush made clear at the time that he was not shutting down the CIA detention system, and in the last two years, two Qaeda operatives are believed to have been detained in agency prisons for several months each before being transferred to Guantánamo Bay.

A government official said Obama’s order on the CIA would still allow its officers abroad to temporarily detain terrorism suspects and transfer them to other agencies, but would no longer allow the agency to carry out long-term detentions.

[snip]

The order also directs an immediate assessment of the prison itself to ensure that the men are held in conditions that meet the humanitarian requirements of the Geneva Convention. That provision appeared to be a pointed embrace of the international treaties that the Bush administration often argued did not apply to detainees captured in the war against terrorism. Source

---

In under-the-radar developments, if an integrated classified intelligence/Pentagon version of Google (Spookle?) is to be set up, better it and its rules and strictures be set up by the new administration than the last.

U.S. spy agencies’ sensitive data should soon be linked by Google-like search systems, nearly five years after the intelligence community was rebuked by the 9/11 Commission for failing to “connect the dots” and detect the attack.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell has launched a sweeping technology program to knit together the thousands of databases across all 16 spy agencies. After years of bureaucratic snafus, intelligence analysts will be able to search through secret intelligence files the same way they can search public data on the Internet.

Linking up the 16 agencies is the challenge at the heart of the job of director of national intelligence, created after 9/11. Dennis Blair, nominated by President Barack Obama to succeed Mr. McConnell, faces a confirmation hearing Thursday where senators are likely to ask how he will make agencies with different histories and missions work together.

The new information program also is designed to include Facebook-like social-networking programs and classified news feeds.…

[snip]

The program is likely to get a review from Mr. Blair. The new administration is expected to make sure it is adequately funded, effective and protects privacy.Source

That last bit in the snippet may be of the most import, expecially in consideration of keeping such a powerful tool within, and under the control of, mutliple entities (wherein the normalcy of bureaucratic tensions and inter-agency turf wars can act to mitigate and flag misuse, abuse and mission creep), ensuring it is not placed (or yanked) under direct, solitary control of any one of the departments or agencies designated as users and creating from the day it is switched on inextricably interwoven oversight and accountability with real teeth.

Addendum (10:45 a.m.):

It is well and good (and more than necessary) to virtually put a red ‘X’ through egregious, disreputable and venal policies of the last administration.

There remains more than sufficient room on the page (for example, number 3 as listed here) for the new administration to make its own marks.

Go for it.

As the dawn breaks on a fresh year, the wide and welcoming horizon and a path to it mayhaps (and thankfully) is coming into illuminated focus as the past eight years’ trail of woeful, dangerous and calculated aberration spirals into whichever dark, dank place it deserves to decompose.

Out of sight, but never out of mind. Dazed, but not confused. We shall never forget what transpired. We shall never forget the panoply — the odious blot — of twisted, malevolent, shameful, conscienceless. neo-Orwellian undertakings and overreaches besmirching our stalwart name.

By Cam Cardow of the Ottawa Citizen, courtesy of caglecartoons.com

And, as the U.N. mandate regarding Iraq expired at midnight, today can be viewed from one angle as the first day of the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

The walls of the majestic Republican Palace in Baghdad’s Green Zone have been stripped bare. The vaults that secured American cash and classified documents are gone, and the cement blast walls that protected the front entrance were taken down this week. The U.S. military dining facility inside what was once the American Embassy served its last meal New Year’s Eve. Source

A is for Accountability. It is also for Always. And come accountability shall. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but the scales of justice will recover balance.

---

Off-topic, but 90^th birthday wishes to J.D. Salinger.

BUSH: …One of the major theaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand. This is where al Qaeda was hoping to take …

Raddatz: But not until after the U.S. invaded.

Bush: Yeah, that’s right. So what?… Source

Enough to make the blood boil, isn’t it? Here is the woebegone G. Walker representationally carving the phrase “President of the U.S.: “So what?” into the grave marker of every person dead as a result of his administration’s invasion and occupation.

That despicable two-word casual dismissal surpasses disaffection and denial and treads firmly into the realm of sociopathy and psychosis.

Have mentioned the infusion of members filled with demented hate over the years here and in previous oncarnations of this blog.

The situation remains unaddressed, if not entirely sweept under the carpet. Small in gross numbers, perhaps, but it doesn’t take more than one or a very few professionally lethally trained, mentally irrational, venom-infused human time bombs to wreak great havoc.

…Military and Defense Department officials seem to have made no sustained effort to prevent active white supremacists from joining the armed forces or to weed out those already in uniform.

Furthermore, new evidence is emerging that not only supports the Intelligence Report’s original findings, but also indicates the problem may have worsened since the summer of 2006, as enlistment rates have continued to plummet, and the military has struggled to meet recruitment goals in a time of unpopular war. Asked about the latest developments, military officials this fall declined to comment.

A new FBI report confirms that white supremacists are infiltrating the military for several reasons. According to the unclassified FBI Intelligence Assessment, “White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel Since 9/11,” which was released to law enforcement agencies nationwide: “Sensitive and reliable source reporting indicates supremacist leaders are encouraging followers who lack documented histories of neo-Nazi activity and overt racist insignia such as tattoos to infiltrate the military as ‘ghost skins,’ in order to recruit and receive training for the benefit of the extremist movement.”

[snip]

Currently, 46 members of the white supremacist social networking website Newsaxon.com identify themselves as active-duty military personnel. Six of these individuals are members of “White Military Men,” a New Saxon sub-group.

Earlier this year, the founder of White Military Men identified himself in his New Saxon account as “Lance Corporal Burton” of the 2nd Battalion Fox Company Pit 2097, from Florida, according to a master’s thesis by graduate student Matthew Kennard. Under his “About Me” section, Burton writes: “Love to shoot my M16A2 service rifle effectively at the Hachies (Iraqis),” and, “Love to watch things blow up (Hachies House).”

[snip]

As part of the research for his thesis, “The New Nazi Army: How the U.S. military is allowing the far right to join its ranks,” Kennard used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain from the Army’s Criminal Investigative Division investigative reports concerning white supremacist activity in 2006 and 2007. They show that Army commanders repeatedly terminated investigations of suspected extremist activity in the military despite strong evidence it was occurring. This evidence was often provided by regional Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which are made up of FBI and state and local law enforcement officials. Source

It’s been a while since the term has been used here (see glossary at bottom of blog).

A new draft report mapping the tip of this dreadful and deadly iceberg cries out for it to be used again now.

An unpublished, 513-page federal history of the American-led reconstruction of Iraq depicts an effort crippled before the invasion by Pentagon planners who were hostile to the idea of rebuilding a foreign country, and then molded into a $100 billion failure by bureaucratic turf wars, spiraling violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society and infrastructure.

The history, the first official account of its kind, is circulating in draft form here and in Washington among a tight circle of technical reviewers, policy experts and senior officials. It also concludes that when the reconstruction began to lag — particularly in the critical area of rebuilding the Iraqi police and army — the Pentagon simply put out inflated measures of progress to cover up the failures.

[snip]

An unpublished, 513-page federal history of the American-led reconstruction of Iraq depicts an effort crippled before the invasion by Pentagon planners who were hostile to the idea of rebuilding a foreign country, and then molded into a $100 billion failure by bureaucratic turf wars, spiraling violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society and infrastructure.

The history, the first official account of its kind, is circulating in draft form here and in Washington among a tight circle of technical reviewers, policy experts and senior officials. It also concludes that when the reconstruction began to lag — particularly in the critical area of rebuilding the Iraqi police and army — the Pentagon simply put out inflated measures of progress to cover up the failures. Source

Much more here.

A trio of stories which ye old scribe found of particular interest today and which are recommended with little beyond introductory comment.

Drip, drip, drip.

A military contractor has provided federal investigators with a first-person account of a shooting in Baghdad last year that resulted in the death of 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians, according to a court filing just unsealed. […] According to the proffer, one Iraqi “was shot in his chest, while standing in the street with his hands up.” Additionally, none of the victims “was an insurgent, and many were shot while inside of civilian vehicles that were attempting to flee…. Source

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Mucking out the stalls of the woebegone G. Walker administration: Having someone head an agency tasked with protecting the environment who does not possess (or, worse, who has rejected) even the most rudimentary concepts (for example: rejection, refutation, revision or alteration resultant from reproducible experiment and test, inclusive of any foundational core) of the differences between a science and an ideology — an unmitigated retrograde disaster for the agency, for the public, for the planet.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson willingly endorsed the Bush administration’s push to put business interests ahead of his agency’s mission to “to protect human health and the environment” An extended profile of Johnson published Sunday by the Philadelphia Inquirer reveals that the evangelical Johnson is unwilling – or unable – to separate religion from science.

[snip]

Johnson will leave office having tarnished the reputation of the agency, decimated staff morale, and degraded the health and safety of the American public. Condemnation of his tenure is near-universal. Four former Republican administrators — Russell Train (Nixon and Ford), William K. Reilly (George H.W. Bush), Christine Todd Whitman (George W. Bush), and William Ruckelshaus (Nixon and Reagan) all criticized Johnson to the Inquirer for deferring to the president and polluters instead of obeying his sworn oath to enforce the law. Source

---

Knowledge is power, and power is not exclusive: Empowering the general public via access.

President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team is giving another hint of how its approach to open government would be different from the Bush administration’s: It is posting the suggestions it is receiving from interest groups on its Web site.

[snip]

The new disclosure policy is certainly a way of making good on Obama’s campaign promises of open government, but it’s also a way of putting the greatest possible distance between the new administration and Vice President Dick Cheney, who famously refused to release the names of the people and groups who had advised his energy task force. Obama specifically cited the Cheney example in his campaign proposal to increase transparency in government.

“It signals to the public that this is going to be an open administration, not just in the White House, but throughout the executive branch” said Ellen Miller, co-founder of the Sunlight Foundation, a group that advocates greater openness in government. Source

Little mentioned, but yet another demonstration of how the Hawaiian tradition of pono is seemingly a bedrock principle being dutifully and deliberately thrust into practice under President-elect Obama.

The woebegone G. Walker administration. determined on going out on a carpet of lies, still brazenly attempting simplistic methodologies of dissembling, misdirection, and cherry-picking. In short,

1) The blind leading the bland.

2) Blather, rinse, repeat.

We long ago gave up hope that President Bush would acknowledge his many mistakes, or show he had learned anything from them. Even then we were unprepared for the epic denial that Bush displayed in his interview with ABC News’ Charles Gibson the other day, which he presumably considered an important valedictory chat with the American public as well.

[snip]

After everything the American public and the world have learned about how Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney manipulated Congress, public opinion and anyone else they could bully or lie to, Bush is still acting as though he decided to invade Iraq after suddenly being handed life and death information on Saddam Hussein’s arsenal.

The truth is that Bush, Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had been chafing to attack Iraq before Sept. 11, 2001. They justified that unnecessary war using intelligence reports that they knew or should have known to be faulty. And it was pressure from the White House and a highly politicized Pentagon that compelled people like Secretary of State Colin Powell and George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, to ignore the counter-evidence and squander their good names on hyped claims of weapons of mass destruction.

Despite it all, Bush said he will “leave the presidency with my head held high.” And, presumably, with his eyes closed to all the disasters he is dumping on the American people and his successor. Source

Accountability, thankfully, is not a dead concept. But it sure as shootin' has atrophied over the past eight years.

1) “This is such a surprise. It’s hard on the family.”

Oh, please. As compared to the weight imposed on families of the dead and maimed as a result of what has been found, investigation after investigation, to be an unprovoked massacre? Spare us the treacle and schmaltz.

Attorneys for five Blackwater Worldwide security guards charged in a 2007 shooting that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead accused the government yesterday of engaging in unfair second-guessing of the contractors’ actions in a combat zone.

[snip]

The guards were working as Blackwater security contractors for the State Department when their convoy pulled into Nisoor Square and they opened fire.

An Iraqi government investigation concluded that the guards fired without provocation, and the U.S. military and the FBI found that the guards were the only ones who opened fire that day. Blackwater, which is not a target in the investigation, has consistently said the men were fired upon. Source

2) “I think ideas are often underrated in Washington,” said Federalist Society President Eugene B. Meyer. “People think it’s all about power, but at the end of the day, ideas are very important.”

Recalibrating the scales of justice is not in any context a detriment.

The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy was founded seven years ago to counter a growing right-leaning legal philosophy that has reshaped the American legal landscape on issues from the reach of federal regulation to the separation of church and state. Now, as President-elect Barack Obama assembles his administration, the little-known legal organization stands on the brink of influence it once could only imagine. Source

3) Restoration 101.

One of the most outward symbols of that power shift in the Bush years has been Vice President Dick Cheney’s attendance at weekly Senate Republican strategy luncheons. Cheney’s access to lawmakers enabled the White House to extend its reach into the legislative branch in ways unmatched in modern presidential history.

Congressional observers say Cheney’s presence helped create an atmosphere in which many Republicans favored party unity above congressional independence from the executive branch — perhaps most forcefully in debates over national security and the Iraq war.

“Cheney would come in there and try to force discipline on the Republican senators,” said Rutgers University Professor Ross Baker, who studies Congress.

“He was the Bigfoot that came into those meetings,” Baker continued. “If someone got out of line, he would put a thumb in their eyes.

“It’s something I think people will puzzle over for a long time — how passive the Republicans were, and how easily led they were by the Republican White House,” he said. “I don’t think that Reid wants a repetition of that at all.” Source