Too much democracy for Bush

While Bush was paying lip-service to the notion of democracy at the UN yesterday, his administration continues to undermine the practice of democracy at home:

The State Department has interceded in a congressional investigation of Blackwater USA, the private security firm accused of killing Iraqi civilians last week, ordering the company not to disclose information about its Iraq operations without approval from the Bush administration, according to documents revealed Tuesday.

In a letter sent to a senior Blackwater executive Thursday, a State Department contracting official ordered the company “to make no disclosure of the documents or information” about its work in Iraq without permission.

In 2004 Bush’s Viceroy for Iraq, Paul Bremer, enacted Iraqi laws which exempted Blackwater from Iraqi criminal laws. Now, Bush is putting the kibosh on any Congressional oversight into the company’s operations.

Bush is also acting to block Congressional investigation into corruption in the current Iraqi government we are supporting at a cost of hundreds of lives and tens of billions of dollars a year:

In his letter to Rice, Waxman also objected to a move by the department to bar its officials from speaking with committee investigators about corruption inside the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

An e-mail received by the committee Monday night indicated that the State Department was treating information about corruption as classified, suggesting it might undermine bilateral relations.

“The scope of this prohibition is breathtaking,” Waxman wrote. “On its face, it means that unless the committee agrees to keep the information secret from the public . . . the committee cannot obtain information about whether Mr. Maliki himself has been involved in corruption or has intervened to block corruption investigations.”

Waxman said that previous official reports of corruption within Iraqi ministries were treated as “sensitive but unclassified.” The State Department retroactively classified the reports after his committee requested them, Waxman said.

We’re told the surge, which was supposed to give the Maliki government time to stabilize its grip on Iraq, is working but at the same time Bush is blocking inquiries into whether that government has the capacity to coalesce into an honest, stable government.