Bush, Blair affirm June 30 Iraq handover

posted by admin on Friday April 16, @08:25AM

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed on Friday that the June 30 deadline for handing over sovereignty over Iraq to the Iraqi people will be met.

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Boomers Suck! (Winter is Coming; chapters 4,5, and

posted by admin on Friday April 16, @08:24AM

jim goulding writes "Introduction: Winter is coming tells the story of a crisis era. This crisis is just a few short years away. A great deal of the theory in this book is based on two generational theorists, William Strauss and Neil Howe, (S&H;) . Neil Howe is a graduate of Yale with degrees in history and economics. William Straus is a graduate of Harvard, with degrees in law, economics, and public policy.

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"Fun With Dick and George"

posted by admin on Friday April 16, @08:21AM

Douglas O'Rourke writes ""Fun With Dick and George" by Douglas O'Rourke LOS ANGELES, April 5, 2004 (www.columnleft.com) -- It's times like these that make you wish they'd developed a reality-based version of the Bush Presidency. If Nixon lied and Reagan-Bush dissembled, then these folks have done nothing less than shape shift the truth to their own will, much as primitive man once learned to work metal to make tools. With a desperate election coming in just over 200 days, Mr. Bush and his boss, Dick Cheney, have been very busy translating unpleasant actual events into soft patriotic newspeak. Consider Baghdad. Everything's going great in Saigon on the Tigris. Posted: Monday April 5, 2004"

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Aristide forced out by US

posted by Mactyler on Monday March 01, @07:24PM

Aristide Tells AP the U.S. Forced Him Out 1 hour, 9 minutes ago

By ELIOTT C. McLAUGHLIN, Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA, Ga. - Jean-Bertrand Aristide said in a telephone interview Monday that he was "forced to leave" Haiti by U.S. military forces. http://www.yahoo.com

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War: (British) Army chiefs feared Iraq war illegal just days before start

posted by admin on Saturday February 28, @04:10PM

· Attorney-General forced to rewrite legal advice
· Specialist unit dedicated to spying on UN revealed

Martin Bright, Antony Barnett and Gaby Hinsliff Sunday February 29, 2004 The Observer

Britain's Army chiefs refused to go to war in Iraq amid fears over its legality just days before the British and American bombing campaign was launched, The Observer can today reveal.

The explosive new details about military doubts over the legality of the invasion are detailed in unpublished legal documents in the case of Katharine Gun, the intelligence officer dramatically freed last week after Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, dropped charges against her of breaking the Official Secrets Act.

The disclosure came as it also emerged that Goldsmith was forced hastily to redraft his legal advice to Tony Blair to give an 'unequivocal' assurance to the armed forces that the conflict would not be illegal.

Refusing to commit troops already stationed in Kuwait, senior military leaders were adamant that war could not begin until they were satisfied that neither they nor their men could be tried. Some 10 days later, Britain and America began the campaign.

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911: Bush to Limit Interview with 9/11 Panel to an Hour

posted by admin on Friday February 27, @09:31AM

Fri Feb 27, 2004 11:52 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States will get one hour to ask President Bush what he knew about events leading up to the suicide airline hijackings, the White House said on Friday.

"They are looking at an hour as you pointed out," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said when asked by a reporter whether he could confirm reports that Bush was limiting the meeting to an hour.

Rather than sitting down with all 10 members of the so-called 9/11 commission, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have only agreed to meet privately with its chairman, Thomas Kean, and the vice chairman, Lee Hamilton.

more...
http://www.reuters.com

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911: US Senate Panel Approves 9 / 11 Commission Extension

posted by admin on Friday February 27, @04:44AM

February 26, 2004
By REUTERS
Filed at 8:46 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday approved a two-month extension for the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but the legislation faced an uphill battle because the leader of the House of Representatives opposes it.

The Senate intelligence panel on a voice vote approved a bill that would give The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9-11 Commission, an additional $1 million and shift its deadline to July 27 to complete its final report about the circumstances surrounding the hijacked plane attacks that killed about 3,000 people.

But the legislation faced opposition from House Speaker Dennis Hastert who does not want an extension beyond the current May 27 deadline because it would delay the recommendations and potentially politicize the findings which would be released in the heart of the presidential campaign, a spokesman for the Illinois Republican said.

"There is absolutely no reason for Speaker Hastert to hold up this extension," Sen. John Rockefeller of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the intelligence panel, said in a statement. "By claiming that the independent, bipartisan commission's report may be used against the president in an election year, Speaker Hastert is prejudging the outcome of the commission's work," Rockefeller said. "It truly begs the question, what does he know and why is he intent on preventing the commission from thoroughly doing its job?"

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War: The unseen cost of the war in Iraq [Channel 4 UK]

posted by admin on Thursday February 26, @02:15AM

US Politics
Published: 10-Feb-2004
By: Jonathan Miller

More than 11,000 medical evacuees have come through Andrews in the past nine months, the Air Force says. Most, we suspect, from Iraq. But that's 8,000 more than the Pentagon says have been wounded there.

Come November, President Bush, who never fought in South East Asia, may well be up against Senator John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam vet. Could that be why the dead and wounded return to Washington in the middle of the night with no fanfare?

But when it comes to the wounded, an astonishing situation has arisen: the Pentagon's figures clash wildly with those of the US Army. The Pentagon lists 2,604 wounded in action and just 408 "non-hostile wounded". But the Army says many thousands more have been medically evacuated from the conflict zone.

If the US government was to admit to the true human cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the wounded as well as the dead, then how many Americans would support George Bush and his war?

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War: Spy case casts fresh doubt on war legality

posted by admin on Thursday February 26, @12:36AM

Richard Norton-Taylor and Ewen MacAskill
Thursday February 26, 2004
The Guardian

Dramatic new evidence pointing to serious doubts in the government about the legality of the war in Iraq was passed to government lawyers shortly before they abandoned the prosecution of the GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun.

The prosecution offered no evidence yesterday against Ms Gun, a former GCHQ employee, despite her admitting that she leaked information about an American spying operation at the UN in the run-up to the war.

She said she acted to try to prevent Britain illegally invading Iraq. But the prosecution at the Old Bailey said there was no "realistic prospect" of convicting her. She was arrested nearly a year ago and charged eight months later under the Official Secrets Act.

The leading prosecutor, Mark Ellison, said it would not be "appropriate" to go into the reasons for dropping the case.

But the Guardian has learned that a key plank of the defence presented to the prosecutors shortly before they decided to abandon the case was new evidence that the legality of the war had been questioned by the Foreign Office.

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9/11 Panel: Rice won't appear at public hearing

posted by admin on Wednesday February 25, @10:58AM

Rice has declined an invitation to testify at a public hearing of the commission investigating the September 11 attacks.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The commission investigating the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks said Wednesday that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice had declined their request to testify at a public hearing next month.

"We are disappointed by this decision," commission members said in a statement Wednesday. "We believe the nation would be well served by the contribution she can make to public understanding of the intelligence and policy issues being examined by the Commission."

The statement said that Bush and Cheney "prefer not to meet with all members of the Commission."

Former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore have agreed to meet privately with all members of the commission, the statement said.

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