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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Soldier for the Truth: Exposing Bush's talking-points war

posted by admin on Saturday February 21, @04:51PM

by Marc Cooper

After two decades in the U.S. Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, now 43, knew her career as a regional analyst was coming to an end when — in the months leading up to the war in Iraq — she felt she was being “propagandized” by her own bosses.

With master’s degrees from Harvard in government and zoology and two books on Saharan Africa to her credit, she found herself transferred in the spring of 2002 to a post as a political/military desk officer at the Defense Department’s office for Near East South Asia (NESA), a policy arm of the Pentagon.

Kwiatkowski got there just as war fever was spreading, or being spread as she would later argue, through the halls of Washington. Indeed, shortly after her arrival, a piece of NESA was broken off, expanded and re-dubbed with the Orwellian name of the Office of Special Plans. The OSP’s task was, ostensibly, to help the Pentagon develop policy around the Iraq crisis.

She would soon conclude that the OSP — a pet project of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld — was more akin to a nerve center for what she now calls a “neoconservative coup, a hijacking of the Pentagon.”

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Poor to Put 'Bushville' Tent City at NY Convention

posted by admin on Thursday February 19, @05:21PM

By Grant McCool

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A group fighting poverty announced plans on Thursday to erect a tent city called "Bushville" during the Republican Party convention in August, one of several demonstrations expected in a summer of political protest in New York.

The Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign will put up the tents for five days before the Aug. 30-Sept. 2 meeting, which will nominate President Bush to run for a second four-year term in the Nov. 2 election.

The group said it will also demonstrate at the Democratic Party's national convention in Boston at the end of July, but had no plans to set up a symbolic shantytown there.

"We will be marching because both Democrats and Republicans alike have failed to address our real life and death issues," said spokeswoman Cheri Honkala. She said the political establishment neglected poor and homeless people and issues such as health care, housing and farm workers' rights.

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Scientists Accuse White House of Distorting Facts

posted by admin on Wednesday February 18, @07:10PM

By JAMES GLANZ
Published: February 18, 2004

The Bush administration has deliberately and systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry at home and abroad, a group of about 60 influential scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, said in a statement issued today.

The sweeping charges were later discussed in a conference call with some of the scientists that was organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent organization that focuses on technical issues and has often taken stands at odds with administration policy. The organization also issued a 37-page report today that it said detailed the accusations.

Together, the two documents accuse the administration of repeatedly censoring and suppressing reports by its own scientists, stacking advisory committees with unqualified political appointees, disbanding government panels that provide unwanted advice, and refusing to seek any independent scientific expertise in some cases.

"Other administrations have, on occasion, engaged in such practices, but not so systematically nor on so wide a front," the statement from the scientists said, adding that they believed the administration had "misrepresented scientific knowledge and misled the public about the implications of its policies."

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Powell admits Iraq may not have had WMD

posted by Mactyler on Sunday January 25, @07:18AM

By Salamander Davoudi in Washington, James Blitz and Mark Huband in London and FT staff
Published: January 25 2004 12:52 | Last Updated: January 25 2004 12:54

Colin Powell, US secretary of state, admitted at the weekend that it was an open question whether Iraq ever had any weapons of mass destruction after David Kay, the top US weapons inspector, resigned.

"The open question is how many stocks they had, if any, and if they had any, where did they go. And if they didn't have any, then why wasn't that known beforehand," the secretary of state said as he travelled to Georgia to attend the inauguration of Mikhail Saakashvili as president.

When Mr Kay stepped down on Friday he said he did not believe there were any large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq.

Source...
http://news.ft.com

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Global Eye - Royal Flush

posted by admin on Saturday January 24, @07:32PM

By Chris Floyd

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Grand Jury Hears Plame Case - (The Political OUTING of WMD CIA OFFICER)

posted by admin on Thursday January 22, @09:51PM

TIME -January 22

Testimony begins in front of a grand jury in the investigation into whether the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame was improperly leaked to the press 

By JOHN DICKERSON AND VIVECA NOVAK

Thursday, Jan. 22, 2004
Sources with knowledge of the case tell TIME that behind closed doors at the E. Barrett Prettyman federal courthouse, nearby the Capitol, a grand jury began hearing testimony Wednesday in the investigation of who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak and other journalists.

Prosecutors are believed to be starting with third-party witnesses, people who were not directly involved in the leak of Plame's identity. Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, claims that the leak was an act of retaliation against him for undercutting Bush's weapons-of-mass-destruction rationale for going to war in Iraq. Soon enough, witnesses with more direct knowledge will be called to testify, and a decision to subpoena journalists for their testimony will also be made. In December, the FBI asked some administration staffers to sign a waiver releasing reporters from confidentiality agreements in connection with any conversations they had about the Wilson affair. Novak's attorney, Jim Hamilton, had no comment about the latest developments.

Grand juries aren't always used in criminal probes, but they are the preferred way to go in cases with potential political fallout, if only to lend credibility to the result. One conclusion to be drawn from this latest step, said one lawyer familiar with the case, is that investigators clearly have a sense of how the case is shaping up. "They clearly have a sense of what's going on and can ask intelligent questions" to bring the grand jury up to speed. A grand jury is not a trial jury, but is used as an investigative tool and to decide whether to bring indictments in a case.

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NYT: Bush AWOL charge appears in debate

posted by admin on Thursday January 22, @09:23PM

GW Bush Went AWOL - Home Page
... Bush goes AWOL when soldiers need care By George McEvoy, Palm Beach Post, 9/20/03. ... Call
Bush AWOL, missing in action -- or just too busy fundraising. ...
Description: Alleges that Bush failed to report for his National Guard service term in Alabama during Vietnam.
Category: Society > History > ... > Bush, George Walker > Opposing Views
www.awolbush.com/ - 101k - Cached - Similar pages

Michael Moore Responds: W. was AWOL for at least 12 months. That is an undisputed fact.

Bush AWOL charge appears in 2nd NYT article

WP: Bush AWOL issue makes Howard Kurtz's column

January 23, 2004

Democrats Vow to Battle Bush on Social Issues
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

GOFFSTOWN, N.H., Jan. 22 — In their final debate before the New Hampshire primary, the Democratic presidential candidates declared on Thursday that they could withstand election-year attacks from President Bush on social values and tax cuts, as they sought to allay concerns among Democrats about the party's hopes of winning back the White House this fall.


...

General Wesley K. Clark repeatedly defended his Democratic credentials, as he explained why he had voted for Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan. And he declined to disavow a remark made by Michael Moore, the filmmaker, who at a rally in which he appeared with General Clark had described the president as a deserter.

"Michael Moore has the right to say whatever he feels about this," General Clark said. "I don't know whether this is supported by the facts or not. I've never looked at it."

Mr. Clark said Mr. Moore was "not the only person who said that," even while admitting that he had not taken the time to check the facts of Mr. Bush's attendance record with the National Guard in Texas.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/23/politics/campaign/23DEBA.html?hp

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Claim: Hollinger bought Newspapers without bidding process

posted by ewing2001 on Sunday January 04, @07:19AM

Hollinger's ties with Trireme Partners of board members Richard Perle and Gerald Hillman, the background of other members Henry Kissinger, Alfred Taubman or Richard Burt and their dirty tricks start to puzzle U.S. Media

Black & co said to have paid $US1 for Hollinger asset

Sydney Morning Herald -January 5, 2004

Toronto: Hollinger International has declined to comment on allegations that Conrad Black and associates bought a chain of small newspapers from Hollinger International for $US1 without a bidding process or an evaluation of the offer.

Molly Morse, of Kekst and Co, a New York communications company hired by Hollinger, said the Chicago-based publishing group would not comment on specific allegations raised in a claim filed by Cardinal Value Equity Partners LP.

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Leakergate: Time to whistleblow?

posted by ewing2001 on Friday January 02, @01:01PM

The CIA Agent Flap: FBI Asks for Reporters to Talk

Photo: Was Lewis "Scooter" Libby responsible for the leak?

TIME -Friday, Jan. 02, 2004

FBI investigators looking into the criminal leak of a CIA agent's identity have asked Bush Administration officials including senior political adviser Karl Rove to release reporters from any confidentiality agreements regarding conversations about the agent.

If signed, the single-page requests made over the last week would give investigators new ammunition for questioning reporters who have so far, according to those familiar with the case, not disclosed the names of administration officials who divulged that Valerie Plame, wife of former ambassador Joe Wilson, worked for the CIA.

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Christmas Terror "Suspect" was 5-year-old child

posted by ewing2001 on Friday January 02, @03:39AM

Dennis Kucinich called already on Dec 27th, "terror alert a government scare tactic", for "political gain while confusing Americans and accomplishing little"

Name Mixup Behind Air France Groundings

AP/Guardian -Friday January 2, 2004 3:31 PM

PARIS (AP) - Six cases of mistaken identity were behind the pre-Christmas grounding of six Air France flights between Paris and Los Angeles over terrorism fears, a police official said Friday.

The names of six passengers were similar to those of terrorist suspects provided by the FBI, prompting the French government to halt the flights, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Pierre Debue, director of the French border police, said one name on the list turned out to be that of a 5-year-old child. The Wall Street Journal on Friday said two other suspected terrorists turned out to be an elderly Chinese woman and a Welsh insurance agent.

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UK Documents: U.S. planned War for Oil in 1973

posted by ewing2001 on Wednesday December 31, @12:13PM

America preparing a war for the Gulf oil in 1973

Was America preparing a war for the Gulf oil in 1973?
Papers released under the 30-year rule show Britain worried about Middle East conflict and what to buy for a royal wedding

By Cahal Milmo

U.S. Planned to Seize Oil in '73 Crisis

Independent UK -01 January 2004

The British Government believed America was preparing for a lightning war in the Middle East to end the 1973 oil crisis, including an invasion of Kuwait, documents released today to the National Archives show.

The Joint Intelligence Committee, the body that acts as the link between the intelligence services and Downing Street, warned the Prime Minister, Edward Heath that Washington was planning to seize oil fields in Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait to secure the Western economies.

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Army Corps of Engineers removed from Iraq role

posted by ewing2001 on Wednesday December 31, @04:46AM

Halliburton to Lose Iraq Oil Project

AP -Dec 31, 2003

(AP) - Just weeks after Pentagon auditors said Halliburton may have overcharged taxpayers to import oil to Iraq, the Defense Department is removing the Army Corps of Engineers from its role in supervising the program.

The Defense Energy Support Center, which buys fuel for the military throughout the world, will supervise the shipments and choose new contractors to replace Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company.

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LeakerGate: Ashcroft recuse himself from an investigation

posted by ewing2001 on Tuesday December 30, @06:42AM

Ashcroft Recuses Self From CIA Leak Probe

AP -December 30

Attorney General John Ashcroft will recuse himself from an investigation into who leaked the name of a CIA operative, Justice Department sources said Tuesday.

The investigation will be headed by the U.S. attorney in Chicago, Patrick Fitzgerald, who will report to Ashcroft's new deputy, James Comey, the officials said. It was not immediately clear why Ashcroft made the decision.

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Atomic Agency: "There wasn't any weaponization" in Libya

posted by ewing2001 on Monday December 29, @07:02AM

Libya Used 'Network' for Nuke Technology

AP/ABC -December 29

Libya received its nuclear technology from a "sophisticated network" of individual foreigners but not necessarily with the knowledge of any government, the U.N. nuclear chief said after touring four atomic sites in the North African nation.

Mohamed ElBaradei also said Libya's technology was of a "familiar design" meaning its origins would not be hard to trace and that its nuclear program was not advanced. "What we have seen is a program in the very initial stages of development," he said.

"We haven't seen any enriched uranium," he added, referring to the essential material for a nuclear bomb. "We haven't seen any industrial-scale facility to produce highly enriched uranium."

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Scarlet Cloud: Classified BioTerror Drill in November

posted by ewing2001 on Sunday December 28, @09:58AM

Since 2000, biodefense specialist Jerome Hauer and many other government related persons, supported U.S. BioDrills like Topoff 1 (May 2000), Dark Winter (June 2001), Silent Vector (October 2002), Topoff2 (May 2003) or Determined Promise (August 2003).

Anthrax drill shows weaknesses, officials say

CNN -Sunday, December 28, 2003

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A drill testing U.S. agencies' ability to distribute and administer antibiotics in the event of an anthrax attack found the federal government unable to respond quickly enough to prevent large numbers of deaths, officials said Sunday.

The simulation -- held in mid-November and dubbed Scarlet Cloud -- demonstrated that perhaps thousands of fatalities might have occurred had such a widespread attack been real, according to a Department of Homeland Security official.

"It's an exercise to find our weaknesses, our vulnerabilities," the official said. "We did. It showed us how to determine where to apply our different efforts and energies.

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Rumsfeld: New documents about Iraq Overture '84

posted by ewing2001 on Tuesday December 23, @10:02AM

Rumsfeld backed Saddam even after chemical attacks

Rumsfeld Made Iraq Overture in '84 Despite Chemical Raids

Update: NATIONAL ARCHIVE: The Saddam Hussein Sourcebook
Declassified Secrets from the U.S.-Iraq Relationship

Update: Rumsfeld deflects questions about his relationship with Saddam Hussein
(Dod Press Conference 12/24)

Independent UK - NY Times Fresh controversy about Donald Rumsfeld's personal dealings with Saddam Hussein was provoked yesterday by new documents that reveal he went to Iraq to show America's support for the regime despite its use of chemical weapons.

The formerly secret documents reveal the Defence Secretary travelled to Baghdad 20 years ago to assure Iraq that America's condemnation of its use of chemical weapons was made "strictly" in principle.

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HS raised Terror Alert to Orange

posted by ewing2001 on Sunday December 21, @09:34AM

Ridge didn't reveal sources for Sep11th-like "chatter"
Update: Pentagon to conduct terror drill
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon Tuesday morning is scheduled to conduct a so-called "continuity-of-government" exercise, scheduled as a direct result of the heightened terror threat level (12/23)

Terror Risk May Be Highest Since 9-11

U.S. Raises Terror Threat Level on `Increased' Risk

KTVU Bloomberg - December 21

Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. raised its security alert to the second-highest level of orange, or ``high,'' because of a ``substantial increase'' in the potential for terrorist attacks during the holidays, the Department of Homeland Security said.

The status was raised from yellow, or ``elevated,'' to one tier below the highest rating of red, or ``severe.'' Homeland Security Secretary Thomas Ridge said ``credible threats'' received ahead of the Christian and Jewish holidays prompted the change.

``Recent intelligence has indicated that al-Qaeda desires to attack the U.S. are at a greater point than at any other time since Sept. 11,'' Ridge said at a press briefing in Washington.

... It is the fifth time the orange alert has been activated since the system began in March last year.

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AFP: Hussein Was Held by Kurds Before "Capture"

posted by ewing2001 on Saturday December 20, @03:59PM

Hussein Was Held by Kurds Before U.S. Capture, AFP Reports

Update: Revealed: who really found Saddam? (Sunday Herald 12/21)

Bloomberg/AFP ABC Australia

Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. troops only after being held prisoner by Kurdish forces, who had had drugged and abandoned him, Agence France-Presse reported, citing a Sunday Express newspaper report.

The Kurdish Patriotic Front, which fought alongside U.S. forces during the Iraq war, held Hussien until it negotiated for more political advantage in the Middle East, AFP said, citing the paper, which quoted an unidentified Iraqi intelligence officer.

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Halliburton accused of stonewalling

posted by ewing2001 on Friday December 19, @05:24AM

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Halliburton unscathed by overcharge flap

ABC 28 -December 19
Washington-AP -- According to Vice President Cheney's former company Halliburton, the Pentagon had no business reading a company audit.

In fact, a Halliburton spokeswoman says a Pentagon auditor may have broken the law by reading the internal audit.

Asia Times -December 20 By Hussain Khan

TOKYO - The timely capture of Saddam Hussein virtually eclipsed, for a while, the embarrassing scandal involving the apparent US$128 million overcharging of US taxpayers by Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's old firm, which received $7 billion in no-bid contracts for oil services and other work in Iraq. The total overcharge, revealed by a Pentagon audit, covers about $61 million for fuel and another $67 million for supplying army food services.

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Saddam: EU against Death Penalty

posted by ewing2001 on Wednesday December 17, @06:48PM

EU against death penalty for Saddam

Newly released photo in Chalabi's Newspaper: Saddam Hussein as he meets with Ahmad Chalabi, left.

EU Business -17 December 2003

The European Union is opposed "by principle" to the death penalty for former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, a spokesman for the European Commission said Wednesday.

"The position of the European Union against capital punishment is very clear," said Diego Ojeda, a spokesman for EU external relations commissioner Chris Patten.

"It's a position of principle, whatever the circumstances, the gravity of the crimes committed," said the spokesman for the commission, the EU's executive branch.

Against death penalty is Britain’s Foreign Office, German Government and their Opposition, Spain's Foreign Minister Ana Palacio, Italian Defence Minister Antonio Martino, but also Australian's Prime Minister Howard, who "would support the death penalty if it was the wish of the Iraqi people" and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, who said "it was too early to be discussing punishment".

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Lawsuit against New York Stock Exchange

posted by ewing2001 on Wednesday December 17, @05:46AM

Calpers Sues NYSE, Alleges Fraud

Reuters -December 17

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Calpers, the biggest U.S. public pension fund, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the New York Stock Exchange and its specialist trading firms, claiming that widespread fraud and lax oversight cost investors millions of dollars.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, comes three months after Calpers' protests helped push out former NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso following the disclosure of his $188 million compensation package.

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