FEMA -- Failing Everyone Made Addressless

Thousands of evacuees face eviction

Other Katrina victims homeless after aid problems
By Richard Wolf, USA TODAY
Two months after Hurricane Katrina displaced more than 1 million people, problems with federal housing aid threaten to spawn a new wave of homelessness. In Texas, thousands of evacuees who found shelter in apartments face eviction threats because rents are going unpaid. In Louisiana, some evacuees are beginning to show up in homeless shelters because they haven't received federal aid or don't know how to get it. Advocates for the poor say the situation will worsen this winter.
“They are the poorest folks … and they are the ones who are going to be left with nothing,” says Sheila Crowley, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “It's going to show up at homeless shelters this winter.”
The housing crunch could get tighter in November, because FEMA wants to move an estimated 200,000 Katrina evacuees out of hotels as soon as possible. That increases the need for apartments, trailers and mobile homes. Pressure is building on FEMA to alter its policies. Two programs provide rent money directly to evacuees or reimburse local governments. But many evacuees have not received the cash or have used it for other needs. And some cities refuse to spend their own money up front. Representatives of apartment owners who met with federal officials in Dallas on Thursday say about 15,000 Katrina evacuees in Texas alone face eviction in November for unpaid rent or for other reasons. “You face the possibility of people who rent apartments being displaced again,” says Jim Arbury of the National Multi Housing Council.
FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews says the agency is not considering changes. Any city that runs its own program will be reimbursed, she says. Evacuees who have trouble using FEMA's three-month, $2,358 rent checks can get help from caseworkers. “If (landlords) choose to evict people,” she says, “they're free to do that.” Houston spent its own money for apartments for more than 5,000 families and issued rent vouchers for 25,000 more, says Sharon Adams of the city's Hurricane Housing Task Force. Dallas used private funding to house about 2,000 families for two months, but the money will run out soon. “As callous as it sounds, our commitment to them was two months,” says Celso Martinez of the Dallas mayor's office.
In Louisiana, directors of homeless shelters in Baton Rouge say they have taken in some evacuees from New Orleans who have nowhere else to go. “We're trying to help them get federal help, but they've sort of slipped through the cracks,” says Michael Acaldo, CEO of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, which operates several shelters.

Meet Judge Samuel "Scalito" Alito

Top Democrat says choice could pose a 'lot of problems'
President Bush said Monday he has nominated 3rd Circuit Appeals Court Judge Samuel Alito for the U.S. Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
"Judge Alito is one of the most accomplished and respected judges in America," Bush said from the White House, with Alito by his side. "And his long career in public service has given him an extraordinary breadth of experience." Alito, a former U.S. attorney who has been a judge for 15 years, is considered a favorite of the conservative movement and is Bush's third pick for O'Connor's seat. Legal experts consider the 55-year-old Alito so ideologically similar to Justice Antonin Scalia that he has earned the nickname "Scalito." In 1991, in one of his more well-known decisions, he was the only dissenting voice in a 3rd Circuit ruling striking down a Pennsylvania law that required women to notify their husbands if they planned to get an abortion.
Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said Sunday he had been consulted by the White House about Miers' replacement but had not been informed of who the president plans to nominate. Specter said he is "very worried" that Democrats could filibuster a candidate they perceive as an extreme right-wing jurist. The topic that "dominates the discussion," Specter said, is abortion. Both sides of the debate want to know in advance how a nominee will vote on the issue, but that is an answer that "no one is entitled to. There could be a real tough battle here and a real tough fight, depending on whom the president puts up," said Specter, who supports abortion rights.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid -- a Nevada Democrat who had recommended Miers -- said Sunday he feared Bush would "try to placate the right wing" with his next nominee, "and that's a mistake. If he wants to divert attention ... he can send us someone who's going to cause a lot of problems," Reid told CNN, saying the "radical right wing" was "pushing all his buttons, and he may just go along." Reid said the choice of Alito "would create a lot of problems. That is not one of the names that I've suggested to the president," he said. "In fact, I've done the opposite."

PROSECUTOR PLANS ON CALLING CHENEY AS WITNESS IN OPEN COURT
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is planning to call Vice President Dick Cheney as a witness in the trial of Lewis Libby, the DRUDGE REPORT has leaned. But the high stakes move could result in an executive privilege showdown between the White House and Fitzgerald, a top government source said Sunday.
"If Mr. Fitzgerald is going to demand a public recounting of conversations between the vice president, or even the president, and his staff, on matters he, himself, has acknowledged are 'classified,' executive privilege will obviously be invoked."
Fitzgerald has made it clear to lawyers involved in the case that he prefers Cheney appear as a witness in open court. "Mr. Fitzgerald is starting from the position that this should not be done on remote or videotape," the well-placed source said. Fitzgerald and Libby's attorney Joseph Tate discussed possible plea options before the indictment was issued last week, TIME magazine reports in new editions. But the deal was scotched because the prosecutor insisted that Libby do some "serious" jail time.

Avian Flu: Genetically Modified Chickens to replace world chicken population?
(Ah, so that's what it's really all about!)
Tamiflu vaccine conflicts are perhaps just the tip of the iceberg of the Avian Flu story. There is high-level biological research underway in Britain and presumably also the United States to develop a genetic engineering method to make chickens and other birds ‘resistant’ to Avian Flu viruses.
British scientists are reportedly genetically engineering chickens to produce birds resistant to the lethal strains of the H5N1 virus devastating poultry in the Far East. Laurence Tiley, Professor of Microular Virology at Cambridge University and Helen Sang of the Roslin Institute in Scotland are involved in developing ‘transgenic chickens’ which would have small pieces of genetic material inserted into chicken eggs to allegedly make the chickens H5N1 resistant.
Tiley told the Times of London on October 29, ‘Once we have regulatory approval, we believe it will only take between four and five years to breed enough chickens to replace the entire world (chicken) population.’ The real question in this dubious undertaking is which GMO giants are underwriting the research and development of GMO chickens and who will control their products. It is increasingly clear that the entire saga of Avian Flu is one whose dimensions are only slowly coming to light. What we can see so far is not at all pretty.

British military investigator found hung in Basra
by Julie Hyland, World Socialist Web Site
A senior British military police officer in Iraq, Captain Ken Masters, was found hung in his military accommodation in Basra on October 15. Masters was commander of the Royal Military Police’s Special Investigations Branch (SIB), charged with investigating allegations of mistreatment of Iraqi civilians by British soldiers. According to the Independent newspaper, in this capacity Masters “had examined almost every single serious allegation of abuse of Iraqi civilians by British troops,” including “the cases of the fusiliers convicted of abusing prisoners at Camp Breadbasket near Basra and a paratrooper who has been charged in connection with the death of Baha Mousa, a hotel receptionist.”
In recent weeks, Masters was thought to have been involved in the investigation into the events of September 19, when Iraqi police arrested two British undercover Special Air Service (SAS) officers in Basra. According to the BBC, the SAS men were disguised as Arabs and were travelling in an unmarked car containing “weapons, explosives and communications gear” when they were challenged at an Iraqi security checkpoint. The two opened fire, reportedly killing one person and wounding several others, including police officers, before they were taken into Iraqi custody. In response, the British Army launched a military assault on the facility in which the SAS men were being held, demolishing parts of the building. Several Iraqis were killed and wounded during the attack.
In a statement on Masters’ death, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said the “circumstances were not regarded as suspicious.” The only explanation offered as a justification for suggesting that Masters took his own life is that he was suffering due to the stresses of his job. Such explanations are problematic in any circumstances, but more so given the politically sensitive nature of Masters’ work. Masters, aged 40, had 24 years’ experience in the British Army. Married with two children, he was due to return to Britain in just two weeks. Reports indicate that he had displayed no signs of stress or illness and that no suicide notes were found at the scene. The Mirror newspaper cited “senior military sources and colleagues” in Basra saying that his death had been a “devastating surprise.” Moreover, Masters’ death is only the latest in a series of suspicious incidents in Basra surrounding the September 19 conflict provoked by the arrest of the two SAS officers. Numerous sources have questioned whether the two men were acting as agents provocateurs.
Writing for the Globalresearch web site, Michel Chossudovsky states, “Several media reports and eyewitness accounts suggested that the SAS operatives were disguised as Al Qaeda ‘terrorists’ and were planning to set off the bombs in Basra’s central square during a major religious event.” He cites an interview broadcast by the Arab news channel Al Jazeera with Fattah al-Shaykh, a member of the Iraqi National Assembly, denouncing “British provocations” in Basra.
The SAS men were in “a booby-trapped car laden with ammunition” that “was meant to explode in the centre of the city of Basra,” before they were arrested, al-Shaykh claimed. The British Army’s attack on the prison facility was aimed at concealing the nature of the SAS officers’ operation, he continued.
In another report, Al Jazeera quoted Sheik Hassan al-Zarqani, a spokesman for the Mehdi army led by Moqtada al-Sadr, stating, “We believe these soldiers were planning an attack on a market or other civilian targets.” The news agency continued, “If allegations that the soldiers’ car was loaded with explosives are proved, this will strengthen the theory suggesting that British and American intelligence are involved in the persistent and violent acts of ‘terror’ spreading across Iraq, which means that the current ‘counterinsurgency’ efforts involve the premeditated killing of innocent civilians to achieve US policy objectives.”
Basra officials have reportedly called for the two Britons to face an espionage trial. Initial reports in Britain on the SAS officers’ arrest had claimed that the two were working undercover to root out Iranian-backed “terrorists” who were using sophisticated bombs to kill British soldiers. The subsequent army assault on the Jamiyat prison was justified with the claim that the captured SAS officers had been handed over by prison staff to local militias and that the militias had heavily infiltrated Basra’s police. Nor has there been any explanation offered as to why an undercover surveillance operation would involve weapons and explosives.
The revised account has only fuelled suspicion of dirty tricks.
Chossudovsky questions whether the British military were “blocking Captain Masters’ police investigation,” citing a report by the Independent newspaper of “apparent disagreements between British military commanding officers and the military police officials dispatched to the war theater in charge of investigating the actions and behavior of military personnel.”
In addition, the October 16 Independent on Sunday revealed that eight British soldiers killed in ambushes in Iraq were the victims of bombs “developed by the IRA using technology passed on by the security services in a botched ‘sting’ operation more than a decade ago.” Citing anonymous military personnel, the newspaper continued, “the bombs and the firing devices used to kill the soldiers, as well as two private security guards, were initially created by the UK security services as part of a counter-terrorism strategy at the height of the troubles in the early 1990s.
“According to investigators examining past collusion between the security forces and paramilitaries in Northern Ireland, members of the shadowy army undercover outfit, the Force Research Unit, and officers from MI5 learned in the early 1990s that a senior IRA member in south Armagh was working to develop bombs triggered by light beams. They decided the risks would be diminished if they knew what technology was being used.
For the Independent, revelations of an IRA pedigree for the bombs was significant because it contradicted the Blair government’s claims that Iran had been working with insurgents in Basra to make the devices. But they raise another important question as to how such bombs have turned up in Iraq. The Independent suggests the route was directly between the IRA and Palestinian and/or other Middle Eastern groups. However, this is not the only possible explanation, given the involvement of British security forces in dirty tricks operations in Ireland and their alleged role in developing the bomb in question.
Yet another incident has yet to be explained. On October 4 it was reported that a British civilian and nine Iraqis had been arrested by Iraq’s border security force. An Iraqi police official in Najaf told CNN that the “ten suspected terrorists” had been arrested near the Saudi border the day before. The group were reportedly travelling in three GMC Suburbans containing machine guns and GPS satellite technology when they were stopped. The Briton, Colin Peter Wanley, had claimed to be a contractor, but was briefly detained after his identification failed to support this. Wanley was said to be working on bomb disposal at a water treatment plant in southern Iraq for his UK-based firm, Ammtech International Consultants Ltd. Subsequent reports indicate that Wanley had served in the British Army for 12 years in Northern Ireland before leaving to set up his company, and had previously been involved in “humanitarian” work in Bosnia.
Why an engineer should be in possession of an invalid visa, let alone Kalashnikov rifles and satellite navigation equipment, has never been revealed. Nor has the nature of Wanley’s relations with the nine Iraqis detained with him.
Instead, media coverage of the incident quickly fell silent.

Intentional negligence--sound familiar?

Enabling the Insurgency--was it on purpose?
from OpEdNews:
There has been much commotion over the lack of armor on Iraq vehicles and vests, but that’s always been a trade-off: if you reinforce a HUMV enough to survive an RPG strike, you may make it too heavy to accelerate enough to avoid getting hit, and full body armor suits are great, except when 120° temperatures causes heat prostration. As our death toll passes 2000, the far more egregious outrage is why these hundreds of thousands of tons of ordnance were allowed to be looted by insurgents in the first place.
The Pentagon admits a breathtaking 250,000 tons of heavy ordnance (out of 650,000 tons total): aircraft bombs, artillery and tank shells, mines, rockets were allowed to be looted by our undermanned army in the 4-30 weeks after invasion through gross negligence at the top- equivalent to 1 million 500 lb bombs. At ten 500 lb. roadside mines or market closeouts a day, that's enough for 274 years of attacks.

"During the fall of 2003, what you would see was Iraqis going in at night, individually and in trucks," US weapons inspector David Kay told U.S. News . "They would pull ordnances out and drive off." Security was so bad after Saddam Hussein's regime fell, Kay recalled, that his team was often shot at by insurgents when they went to inspect the sites: "There were just not enough boots on the ground, and the military didn't give it a high enough priority to stop the looting. Tens of thousands of tons of ammunition were being looted, and that is what is fueling the insurgency." -US News+WR report

David BeBatto, a Military counterintelligence officer at the massive Camp Annaconda 50 miles north of Baghdad, in charge of hunting the deck-of-cards Baathists, found a 5 square mile ammo dump under 2 miles south of the camp in April 2003 “littered with anti-aircraft missiles, land mines, rocket-propelled grenades, plastic explosives” in dozens of bunkers. He reported it again and again in written reports to his battalion commander Lt. Col. Timothy Ryan, even giving him a tour of the dump. “Local Iraqis told us- ‘these guys’ – and they would point to looters in the distance- ‘are fedayeen. They’re going to take this and make it into bombs and use it against you,’” he said in an interview. Nothing was done. “We had enough people.. if we had placed 4,5,6 guys at the main entry to that facility, that would have been enough!.. Every time I went back there, there was less.”
Two other intelligence agents also reported seeing that and many unsecured ammo dumps all over Iraq bursting with deadly material- all of which were massive looted. “They were wasting people for really menial things: KP, when there were a thousand Iraqis begging to do it for a jug of water. I would have feasts with shieks and ministers- when I came back me and my team of counterintelligence special agents would be.. emptying out latrines. Bottom line is they ignored it- (because of) a lack of people, ignorance, and .. absolute lack of planning for the occupation. Every day was a new day- you made it up as you went along.” Ryan’s commander from July 2003 was Col. Thomas Pappas, convicted of dereliction of duty and relieved for his part in Abu Graib abuse scandal, who directed Ryan to take no action about the looting.
When questioned about the looting*, Donald Rumsfeld, famously replied with the blithe insolence of a drunken teenager who had crashed the family car, “Freedom's untidy. And free people are free to commit mistakes, and to commit crimes and do bad things…. Stuff happens.” (Sounds like his general rationale for life--certainly frees him up to order torture, doesn't it?) The looting was "part of the price" for the liberation of Iraq and not uncommon for countries that experience significant social upheaval. Incredibly Rumsfeld seemed to think the looting was a finger in Saddam’s eye and a healthy release of “pent-up feelings that may result from decades of repression”, although after the invasion America owned Iraq and would have to fix any damage.
* questions were about looting of Baghdad infrastructure and Museum; deadly munitions never came up.
The First Rule of Occupation since the Sumerians is: disarm the population, but Rumsfeld knew better, wanting to test his faster lighter cheaper invasion theories, and blindly convinced we would be feted as liberators. DeBatto says, “They made a decision at the highest level- Rumsfeld- to just let it go. They wanted not to be seen as brutal occupiers and didn’t react at all. You had these heavily armed Americans who could have stopped anything, yet they let these looters take everything they wanted. We have given every weapon Saddam stored for 30 years.. to every terrorist and 2-bit thug in the Middle East.”
Worst was the Manhattan-sized weapons dump of Al Qaqa'a (an issue before the 2004 US election), loaded with 380 tons of HMX, RDX, PETN high explosives, so powerful they are used in nuclear bombs, and useable in making near undetectable IED's out of rubble (no metal). The 101 Airborne Div., who swept the area April 7-10, 2003, said they "did not receive orders to search and secure the entire facility or search for high explosive-type munitions." By May 27, it was stripped of all explosives by looters.
Even the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Facility was allowed to be looted under the noses of US troops, putting a lie to the entire WMD excuse for invasion, and releasing dangerous radioactive compounds. Although only the IAEA knew what existed there, the administration blocked them from inspecting it for 2 months. Debatto found empty shells meant to be filled with chemicals and bills of lading from the late 80’s. “The only WMD I found in Iraq was supplied by the USA… sanctioned by George Bush Sn. when we were still buddies.”
The cost has been borne by soldiers blasted by massive IED’s and car bombs, which were easily available only because of the looting: 745 coalition deaths (Iraq Coalition Casualty Count) and 2000-5000 wounded by Oct 26. Insurgents have destroyed everything short of Abrams tanks with these artillery shell or air bomb IED’s, sometimes daisy chained together or shaped to penetrate armor. Although US forces are stopping half of them, IED’s now cause the majority of US deaths in Iraq, 176 (59%) from IED or car bomb in the last 4 months alone (May-Aug 2005) compared to only 77 from the same period in 2004. The Marines have really suffered: in June, 24 of 28 Marine fatalities, 85%, were from IED’s and car bombs. In addition, helicopter crash deaths from anti-aircraft missiles, RPG and missile attacks on vehicles, even mortar fatalities could be largely blamed on the unlimited looting.
America initially had enormous authority as the new overlord who had easily vanquished a brutal dictator. The looting of all institutions first caused amazement among Iraqis, then outrage, then disgust, finally contempt; which allowed the insurgency to flower. America wasn’t all powerful; but seemed incompetent, careless, impotent, reckless; and the protective aura of invincibility evaporated. The one thing Iraq required was order, but the USA refused to keep it, although an explosion of looting was to be expected once the pressure cooker lid was finally released on totalitarian Iraq (where no heavy weapons were in the hands of the populace). Even hundreds of high power transmission towers and lines were destroyed.
We were ignorant towards their culture too. “Iraq is a tribal country- everything revolves around the sheiks,” explains DeBatto. “They came hundreds of miles and said, ‘We will contain our tribe, we guarantee there will be no problem in this sector as long as you deal with (pay) me and don’t go in on your own.’ The Army refused to deal with that. They said, ‘Nope… we are the law and you don’t tell us what to do.’”
“It all comes back to Rumsfeld: he tried to do the war on the cheap at the expense of the miltary,” fumes DeBatto. “If we had contained the looting, I firmly believe, Iraqis would have still liked us, we could have sent the vast majority of our people home, and left a small number to train their people. Things would be very different today.”
Rumsfeld said in the 2004 Congressional hearings on Abu Graib that, "I would resign in a minute if I thought that I couldn't be effective.” He wasn’t effective-- he cavalierly ignored the most basic rules of invasion and perhaps 1000 Americans have paid the ultimate price for his arrogance and hubris. He should resign or be fired, or suffer the endless chants of Cindy Sheehans camped at his door, or the doorstep of his mind.They say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure; or in this case, a quarter million tons and 140,000 troops of it.

Endless Sunset
by Rachel Neumann, AlterNet
Most of the provisions of the USA Patriot Act, including access to library records, were supposed to "sunset" this month, five years after the law's passing. Instead, both the House and the Senate have already voted to renew the entire act, with only minor revisions.
While they're at it, they'd like to add some decidedly unpatriotic amendments to expand the death penalty.These new amendments would let prosecutors shop around for another jury if the one they have is deadlocked on the death penalty; triple the number of terrorism-related crimes eligible for the death penalty; and authorize the death penalty for a person who gives money to an organization whose members kill someone, even if the contributor did not know that the organization or its members were planning to kill.
The Patriot Act was enacted during what President Bush called "a state of emergency." It wasn't even read by most of the members who voted for it. But the whole point of the sunset clause was to allow Congresspeople to actually read the bill and debate it in calmer times. Now, the Act is effectively being made permanent with little or no debate or discussion.
Still, the House and the Senate are still in negotiations over the final wording of the bill and so it hasn't been made final yet. The Bill of Rights Defense Commitee is asking people to make one last push to keep it from getting renewed. They list possible actions you can get involved in and ways to educate your communities about threats to civil liberties.

Who is Judge Reggie Walton?
From the DailyKos
I was poring over the various news reports of Scooter Libby's indictment and discovered that Judge Reggie Walton will be presiding over the arraignment. So, who is Reggie Walton? Well, I couldn't get to his bio page, but the cached copy informs us that he was appointed by shrubya. But don't throw your monitor out the window just yet; Walton seems to be quite a mixed bag.

Especially encouraging is the knowledge that in a case involving FOIA requests, he ruled that the Bush administration had no right to withold the pertinent information.

Last Friday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Bush Administration has violated the Freedom of Information Act by concealing documents related to a deal cut in secret that makes development possible on millions of acres of America's last wild lands.
..."The Bush Administration and Gov. Leavitt worked in secret to end consideration of wilderness protection for millions of acres of public lands in Utah, and tens of millions more across the country," said Leslie Jones, an attorney for The Wilderness Society, the group that is seeking the public records. "The Federal court's ruling says that the government's can't use bogus excuses to hide how the deal was reached."
...On Friday, Federal District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton ordered the Interior Department to release the redacted documents within 30 days or come up with a legal explanation for withholding them. Judge Walton found that none of the reasons provided by the agency for hiding documents met the law's strict limits on when the government can keep information from the public.

He's also the judge who ordered USA Next to stop using the unlicensed photograph of AARP infamy:

A federal judge on Thursday prohibited a conservative group supporting President Bush's Social Security plan from using a photo of a gay couple in its online ads attacking AARP.... U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton issued a temporary restraining order forbidding use of the photograph by USA Next.

His comments in regard to the Stephen Hatfill anthrax case:

"They're undermining what this country is supposed to be about - that is, that we treat people fairly," Walton said of the anonymous sources. "If you don't have enough to indict this man, then it's wrong to drag his name through the mud."

"That's not a government I want to be a part of. It's wrong, and you all need to do something about it," he added.

All pretty encouraging so far; we'll call these "the good." Now, for the bad:

For nearly 30 years, the D.C. government has conducted a public policy experiment based on the theory that if you deprive citizens of their constitutional right to keep and bear arms, you'll reduce crime. Two weeks ago, federal district court judge Reggie Walton, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that that experiment should continue. In his decision in Seegars v. Ashcroft, et al., Judge Walton rejected a Second Amendment challenge to the District's comprehensive gun ban.Of course, Judge Walton is under no illusions that depriving citizens of their right to keep and bear arms actually results in a safer city. Nor, interestingly enough, is the D.C. government attorney defending the ban in Seegars. As Rezneck and Walton admit, the D.C. government has done little or nothing to disarm violent criminals. It has, however, done a marvelous job of disarming law-abiding citizens who "work hard and play by the rules," as a certain Southerner used to put it. And, as a result, the District is the most dangerous large city in America, edging out Detroit for the 2003 murder capital of the U.S. One might suppose that such a regulatory scheme constitutes an infringement on the right of the people to keep and bear arms, if anything does. But Judge Walton disagrees, declaring in the Seegars opinion that "the Second Amendment does not confer an individual right to possess firearms" but rather grants some vague, unenforceable collective right. Walton's interpretation is, of course, at odds with the fairly clear text of the Constitution. The Framers were careful enough with language not to confuse the "right of the people" with the rights of a state. Just as in the First and Fourth Amendments, "the right of the people" in the Second Amendment is an individual right.

And the ugly? Walton is the judge who upheld the government's right to state secrets in the Sibel Edmonds case.

Information she provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee several years ago was recently deemed classified under the state secrets privilege. And lawyers filing a lawsuit stemming from the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks wanted to depose her, but their request was quashed for the same reason. Edmonds has testified in closed session to the 9/11 commission and has made claims that the FBI possessed some information prior to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon which could have proved helpful in preventing the terrorist strikes. ...U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton agreed with the government's position.
"The Court finds that the plaintiff is unable to establish her First Amendment, Fifth Amendment and Privacy Act claims without the disclosure of privileged information, nor would the defendants be able to defend against these claims without the same disclosures ... the plaintiff's case must be dismissed, albeit with great consternation, in the interests of national security," Walton wrote in the opinion.
Just how great is that consternation? Who knows? IANAL and I won't pretend to know the intricacies of how his various positions translate legally. Like I said, Walton seems to be rather a mixed bag. Needless to say, I'm troubled by the ruling in the Edmonds case. It is incomprehensible to me that a violation of individual rights can be so cavalierly dismissed, state secrets or no. I just hope that his "consternation" was more than lip service. And with any luck, we'll find out soon; Libby's arraignment is in a few weeks.

Bird flu and pandemic flu: threat of pandemic is unlikely
Editorial from the British Medical Journal:
The lack of sustained human-to-human transmission suggests that this AH5N1 avian virus does not currently have the capacity to cause a human pandemic.
The optimistic alternative to the apocalyptic viewpoint is that the appearance of a modified avian virus capable of triggering a human pandemic is unlikely: there have been more than 3300 flu outbreaks in birds with 150 million killed and only 118 human cases, and the disease in birds is proving containable with good surveillance and prompt action.

More scandalous behavior

• "If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration."-- White House press secretary Scott McClellan, Sept. 29, 2003
  

• "If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. "-- President Bush, Sept. 30, 2003

• "If somebody committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration." --President Bush, July 18, 2005

Grand jury issues new subpoenas in DeLay investigation

"Councellor, can't we get the Democrats off the Grand Jury?"
The latest subpoenas issued by District Attorney Ronnie Earle request correspondence to and from e-mail addresses belonging to John Colyandro, Jim Ellis and Warren RoBold. He did not ask DeLay to provide e-mails. Colyandro was executive director of Texans for a Republican Majority, a political action committee founded by DeLay. Ellis runs DeLay's national fundraising committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, and RoBold is a Republican fundraiser in Washington. Prosecutors allege that DeLay and his associates funneled corporate money given to the Texas committee to an arm of the Republican National Committee, which sent it back to seven GOP candidates for the Texas Legislature.
Texas law prohibits corporate money from being used directly in a political campaign.
(Am I alone in thinking that would make a great US National Law?)
DeLay, Ellis and Colyandro are charged with conspiracy and money laundering. Colyandro and RoBold are charged with accepting or making restricted corporate donations.
The officials may be asked to testify at a hearing Tuesday to decide whether state District Judge Bob Perkins should continue to preside over DeLay's case. DeLay wants the judge removed because of contributions Perkins has made to the Democratic candidates and causes.
(DeLay's lawyer claims the judge is wearing a "Hammer Time" t-shirt under his robe that he purchased HERE)

Halliburton hired illegals for NOLa military contracts
USA Today 10/24/2005

"Federal officials are investigating how at least 10 undocumented immigrants performed hurricane reconstruction work at a naval base near New Orleans... Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Jamie Zuieback said Sunday that the agency was asked to come to Belle Chasse Naval Air Station on Thursday by base officials. Zuieback said 10 workers were found who were not authorized to work in the United States. They were denied base access, and the agency is investigating "the circumstance surrounding their employment," she said. Navy spokesman Lt. Sean Robertson said that 13 individuals had been barred from the base. Neither he nor Zuieback could explain the discrepancy between the numbers.
The Greater New Orleans AFL-CIO, said about 75 union electricians lost their jobs after the Bush administration temporarily suspended the Davis-Bacon Act, which guarantees the prevailing local wage for workers hired under federal contracts.
... Zuieback would not give the name of the employer. Robertson said they worked for BE&K, an Alabama-based contractor, and Texas-based BMS Catastrophe. BE&K spokeswoman Susan Wasley said no company employee had been cited, removed or barred from the base. "We haven't done anything wrong," she said. BMS Catastrophe did not return calls for comment. BE&K is a subcontractor for Halliburton, which is doing the bulk of the reconstruction work at the base. It was not clear whether BMS Catastrophe also is a Halliburton subcontractor. KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary overseeing the Belle Chasse work, issued a statement that did not address the probe's specifics..."

Bye-Bye, Scooter!

Top Cheney aide Libby indicted, quits post

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was indicted Friday on five charges that include obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury in the investigation into the leak of a covert CIA agent’s name. Moments after the indictment was announced, the White House said that Libby had resigned. The five-count indictment accuses Libby of lying about how and when he learned about CIA official Valerie Plane's identity in 2003 and then told reporters about it. The information was classified.
“The charges allege that Libby lied to FBI agents who interviewed him on October 14 and November 26, 2003; committed perjury while testifying under oath before the grand jury on March 5 and March 24, 2004; and engaged in obstruction of justice by impeding the grand jury’s investigation,” prosecutors said in a news release. The grand jury that handed up the indictment had been hearing the case for nearly two years and its term expired Friday. Prosecutors said that Libby, if found guilty on all charges, faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a $1.25 million fine. In each of the counts, the basic allegation against Libby is that he lied about his conversations with reporters. He is not accused of purposely revealing the identify of a spy, the potential charge that Fitzgerald was initially appointed to investigate.
“In our system of government an accused person is presumed innocent until a contrary finding is made by a jury after an opportunity to answer the charges and a full airing of the facts. Mr. Libby is entitled to that opportunity,” Cheney said. (Funny, that's not the criteria for the people accused of "terrorism"-- such hypocrisy) Libby is considered Cheney’s alter ego, a chief architect of the war with Iraq. Any trial of Libby would give the public a rare glimpse into Cheney’s influential role in the West Wing and his behind-the-scenes lobbying for war.
The leak case has put a spotlight on the sometimes aggressive tactics the White House uses to counter critics of the Iraq war. It has also focused attention on the administration’s shifting justifications for the 2003 invasion, from the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction — which were never found — to a need to spread democracy.
The lack of an indictment against Karl Rove is a mixed outcome for the administration. It keeps in place the president’s top adviser, the architect of his political machine whose fingerprints can be found on virtually every policy that emerges from the White House. But leaving Rove in legal jeopardy keeps Bush and his team working on problems like the Iraq war, a Supreme Court vacancy and slumping poll ratings beneath a dark cloud of uncertainty.


Top Bush Fundraiser Indicted in Ohio
One of the most prominent Republican fundraisers for President Bush in Ohio has been charged with illegally funneling money to Bush's re-election campaign. A federal grand jury also charged businessman Thomas Noe with making false statements to the Federal Election Commission. The three counts lodged against Noe each carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine. The indictment alleges that Noe laundered $45,000 in contributions by recruiting and providing money to 24 friends and associates who made contributions in their names so Noe could avoid the individual campaign contribution limit of $2,000.

Attack on Palestine Hotel Aimed at Private Security Firm?
Time magazine is reporting that the target of this Monday's attack against Baghdad's Palestine Hotel may not have been foreign journalists as was originally believed. The magazine, citing sources inside the Iraqi resistance, says the real target was a private security firm based in the hotel. The well-coordinated attack involving truck bombs killed at least six people. Time says resistance fighters believe the targeted security firm is actually a Western or Israeli government intelligence agency.

Cartoonist Writes Names of All 2,000 Soldiers Killed in Iraq
As the US military death toll in Iraq surpassed 2,000 dead this week, Atlanta Journal Constitution editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich marked the tragic milestone by hand-writing the name of each one in his Wednesday editorial cartoon. Together, their names spell out the question: WHY? The Pulitzer Prize-winning Luckovich told Editor and Publisher, "I was trying to think of a way to make the point that this whole war is such a waste. But I also wanted to honor the troops I believe our government wrongly sent to Iraq."

Bye-bye, Harriet!

Miers Withdraws Supreme Court Nomination
Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination to be a Supreme Court justice. Earlier today President Bush announced he had accepted her decision. Miers had come under intense criticism from the Christian Right and many Republican senators. In a letter dated today, Miers said she was concerned that the confirmation process "would create a burden for the White House and our staff that is not in the best interest of the country." (And Miers on the Supreme Court is not in the best interest of the country, either).
Before Bush chose Miers on Oct. 3, speculation focused on Miers and two other Bush loyalists: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Bush's longtime friend who would be the first Hispanic on the court; and corporate lawyer Larry Thompson, who was the government's highest ranking black law enforcement official as deputy attorney general during Bush's first term. Other candidates mentioned frequently included conservative federal appeals court judges J. Michael Luttig, Priscilla Owen, Karen Williams, Alice Batchelder and Samuel Alito; Michigan Supreme Court justice Maura Corrigan; and Maureen Mahoney, a well-respected litigator before the high court.

Demoted General Janis Karpinski: "Rumsfeld only wanted to tour Saddam's old torture chambers"

AMY GOODMAN: Did you take Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld on a tour of Abu Ghraib?
JANIS KARPINSKI: I did.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you show him how prisoners are held, how they are hung, how they are tied with ropes to metal bars in the ceiling?
JANIS KARPINSKI: No. He came to visit Abu Ghraib. There was a schedule that was reviewed and approved for his time at Abu Ghraib. We were going to walk him through all of the -- we wanted him to see the renovations that had been completed in the cell blocks, those kind of things. He arrived there. He went over to the notorious hanging chambers and torture chambers that were used under Saddam and spent time there, had a look around, received a briefing, and then changed the schedule, said he didn't want to go and see the rest of Abu Ghraib. He wanted some soldiers to be able to come over and have photographs taken with him. So, he never saw the rest of Abu Ghraib.

Rumsfeld To Profit From Bird Flu Hoax
The fundamnetal issue is who owns the intellectual property rights over Tamiflu. The media reports suggest that the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche will make billions. While the drug is produced by Roche, it was developed by Gilead Sciences Inc.which owns the intellectual property rights. Gilead, which has maintained a low profile, has outsourced the production to Roche. Donald Rumsfeld was appointed Chairman of Gilead Sciences, Inc. in 1997, a position which he held in the years prior to becoming Secretary of Defense.in the Bush adminstration. Rumsfeld had been on the Board of Directors from the establishment of Gilead in 1987.
"Gilead is fortunate to have had Don Rumsfeld as a stalwart board member since the company's earliest days, and we are very pleased that he has accepted the Chairmanship," Dr. Riordan said. "He has played an important role in helping to build and steer the company. His broad experience in leadership positions in both industry and government will serve us well as Gilead continues to build its commercial presence."
Finally, the pieces of the puzzle start to add up. Not long ago, President Bush sought to instill panic in this country by telling us a minimum of 200,000 people will die from the avian flu pandemic, but it could be as bad as 2 million deaths in this country alone.This hoax is then used to justify the immediate purchase of 80 million doses of Tamiflu, a worthless drug that in no way shape or form treats the avian flu, but only decreases the amount of days one is sick and can actually contribute to the virus having more lethal mutations. So the U.S. placed an order for 20 million doses of this worthless drug at a price of $100 per dose. That comes to a staggering $2 billion. We are being told that Roche manufactures Tamiflu and, in a recent New York Times article, they were battling whether or not they would allow generic drug companies to help increase their production. But if you dig further you will find that a drug was actually developed by a company called Gilead that 10 years ago gave Roche the exclusive rights to market and sell Tamiflu. Since Rumsfeld holds major portions of stock in Gilead, he will handsomely profit from the scare tactics of the government that is being used to justify the purchase of $2 billion of Tamiflu.


Govt. Ordered to Notify Prison Lawyers on Force Feedings
Lawyers for hunger-striking prisoners at Guantanamo Bay won a federal court order Wednesday mandating the government to provide them with clients’ medical records and to notify them before their clients are subjected to involuntary force feedings. As Democracy Now reported last week, scores of hunger-striking detainees have been force-fed with tubes up their noses at the U.S. military prison.

Inquiry: Over 2000 Companies Paid Kickbacks to Iraq Regime
The independent inquiry investigating the United Nations Oil for Food program in Iraq will release a report today that says over 2000 companies paid illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s regime. This according to the New York Times. The oil for food program was in place from 1996 to 2003, and allowed the Iraqi government to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods. The inquiry, headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, says Hussein made $1.8 billion dollars from oil for food surcharges and kickbacks. That number is dwarfed by the almost $11 billion dollars the report says Hussein made from oil smuggling to U.S. allies Jordan and Turkey, all with the full knowledge of the U.S. government. (Why aren't these companies on trial?)

Renewed Patriot Act to Alter Death Penalty Rules
The Washington Post is reporting the House bill that would renew the USA Patriot Act includes little-noticed provisions that would dramatically alter the federal death penalty system. The bill allows for smaller juries to decide on executions and grants prosecutors the right to re-try suspects if a jury deadlocks on sentencing. The bill also triples the number of terrorism-related crimes eligible for the death penalty. The Justice Department has already endorsed the provisions. Jennifer Daskal of Human Rights Watch, told the Post : "These are radical changes in the way federal death penalty cases are litigated, and they were added virtually without any debate."
The Senate version of the bill does not include the death penalty expansions. Senate Democrats argue that the proposals are extraneous to the Patriot Act and should not be approved without fuller debate. Death penalty opponents and defense attorneys also contend that the measures would increase the risk that innocent people could be executed by removing some of the safeguards now in place. The Justice Department has endorsed the provisions and a spokesman for House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., said Tuesday that the proposals were viewed as relatively uncontroversial because they were approved overwhelmingly on the House floor. A Republican staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee said the death penalty issue was “one of several concerns” about the House bill, which also includes fewer restrictions on surveillance and search powers than the Senate version.
Under the proposals, 41 new crimes would be added to the 20 terrorism-related offenses now eligible for the federal death penalty. Prosecutors would also find it easier to impose a death sentence in cases in which the defendant did not have the intent to kill.

U.S. Energy Companies Report Record Quarterly Profits
U.S. energy companies are reporting record quarterly earnings this week. Exxon Mobil has reported a third-quarter profit of $9.92 billion -- the largest quarterly total ever for a U.S. company. The Los Angeles Times notes the figure amounts to more than what Coca-Cola Co., Intel Corp. and Time Warner Inc. earn in an entire year. Third-quarter profits at ConocoPhillips, the country's third-largest oil company, are up 89 percent. Together, the 29 major oil and gas firms are expected to earn $96 billion this year, up from $68 billion last year.

CBS Replaces News Chief With Sports Head
In media news, CBS has replaced its news chief with its top sports broadcasting executive. CBS Sports Head Sean McManus will replace Andrew Heyward, who headed CBS News since 1996. The New York Times notes McManus has no formal news experience. A CBS spokesperson confirmed reports on political blogs that McManus had made a $250 contribution to the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004. He has also made political contributions to Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy. (Pathetic--next they'll put the Ace Hardware football commentator on "60 Minutes")

Bush Administration Reinstates Waved Davis-Bacon Act in Gulf Coast
This news in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina -- the Bush administration has agreed to reinstate a workers rights law it had waived for the reconstruction effort in the Gulf Coast. The waiver of the Davis-Bacon act allowed federal contractors to pay workers less than the area’s prevailing wage. The move drew widespread criticism from Democrats and labor groups. Prevailing wages in the region were already among the lowest in the country. (I guess they shipped all the Mexican migrant workers back to Texas).

Retouched Web Site photo of Condi Rice looked "Demonic"

USA Today removed a digitally altered photo of Condoleezza Rice from its Web site Wednesday after several bloggers complained that it made the Secretary of State look demonic. The Associated Press photo appeared on the USA Today Web site Oct. 19 with a story about Rice's comments that troops could remain in Iraq for up to 10 years, according to USA Today spokesman Steve Anderson. He said the photo did not appear in the newspaper itself.
"USAToday.com, like other news organizations, often adjusts photos for sharpness and brightness to optimize appearance," Anderson told E&P. He added that an online editor sharpened the photo to brighten Rice's face, but did not do so in an effort to make her look strange.
(Doesn't take much to achieve that-- it's written all over her face)

More reasons to vote out GOP in 2006

Panel Approves $10B Cut in Health Care
Washington, AP-- A Republican-led effort to slow spending on health care programs for the poor, elderly and disabled survived a stern test in the Senate Tuesday.That chamber's Finance Committee, voting along party lines, approved legislation that would trim overall spending on Medicare and Medicaid by about $10 billion over five years. The committee's 11 Republicans supported the legislation. The committee's nine Democrats opposed it. In doing so, Democrats cited what they believed was inadequate assistance for victims of Hurricane Katrina. In particular, Democrats wanted to temporarily extend Medicaid coverage to thousands of people currently ineligible for the program even though they have lost their jobs and their home.
"Eight weeks ago yesterday, Katrina made landfall. Eight weeks ago today, the levees broke. And eight weeks later, I cannot in good conscience join in cutting health care, when Congress has left the health care needs of Katrina's victims unaddressed,'' said Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee.

Republicans said they weren't thrilled with the bill, either, mainly because they said it did not go far enough to overhaul Medicaid, the nation's health insurance program for the poor. But they rejected the notion that beneficiaries would get a reduced level of care as a result of the changes they approved.
``We are not cutting health care services to the beneficiaries,'' said Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa. ``We have squeezed some fraud out. We have squeezed providers.''
The legislation reflected the difficult balancing act facing the committee's chairman, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
Grassley had to maintain support from all 11 committee Republican to ensure the measure's passage. But some wanted more significant reductions in Medicaid than others were willing to accept. ln the end, the legislation the panel approved Tuesday would reduce Medicare spending by about $5.8 billion over five years and Medicaid by about $4.3 billion during that time. Even with those reductions, however, the Congressional Budget Office projects that financing of the two programs would grow substantially over the coming five years.

The CBO predicts Medicaid spending will increase from about $192 billion in 2006 to about $260 billion in 2010. Medicare spending will increase from about $385 billion in the coming year to about $525 billion in 2010. The increases reflect growing health care costs and a growing number of people becoming eligible for the programs. This week, several committees in both chambers are considering legislation that would reduce spending on programs over which they have jurisdiction. Their contribution will be made part of an overall bill that would reflect a congressional budget blueprint passed in April. The blueprint called for $35 billion in spending cuts and $70 billion in tax cuts, a point that Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., emphasized when he said that legislation billed as reducing the deficit would actually increase it.
"`It's almost as if words have lost their meaning,'' said Conrad, another Finance Committee member.
But Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said he viewed the legislation as not cutting taxes, but as preventing tax increases that would occur if Congress does not act. Lawmakers filed 131 amendments to the legislation, but all of the amendments that came up for a vote Tuesday were defeated. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is expected to take up legislation Thursday that would reduce Medicaid spending by about $11 billion over five years.

Meanwhile, Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, proposed a change in the broader budget bill that would curb spending for student loans by about $14-15 billion over five years, mostly by cutting subsidies to lenders, but also by changing the interest rate structure for students. ``We're squeezing the lenders pretty good,'' said Boehner, chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee. The Boehner plan also would raise about $6 billion through overhauling the federal pension insurance system. The bill would immediately increase per-employee pension premiums paid to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. from $19 to $30. It also would charge a total of $3,750 in exit fees for companies emerging from bankruptcy that shed their pension responsibilities while in bankruptcy.

Separately, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Robert Goodlatte, R-Va., has drafted a plan to cut the food stamp program by $1.1 billion over five years. It would tighten eligibility requirements, leading to a drop of perhaps 300,000 working families from food stamp rolls. It also would make legal immigrants wait 10 years instead of five to be eligible for the program and limit benefits for able-bodied beneficiaries without children. The plan also would cut $3.1 billion from farm programs and would not extend a hotly contested program that provides income payments to dairy farmers.

The New West Wing?

Cheney Gave CIA Agent's Name to Libby
This update on the CIA leak case - The New York Times is reporting today that it was Vice President Dick Cheney who first informed his chief of staff Lewis Scooter Libby that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA operative. Lawyers involved in the case say the two discussed Plame on June 12, 2003 - weeks before she was outted in the press. Plame is the wife of former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson, who has accused the White House of outing his wife because he had publicly criticized the Iraq war. Cheney reportedly learned of Plame from then CIA director George Tenet. This development raises new questions about whether Libby mislead the grand jury. Previous reports indicate Libby told investigators that he learned of Plame's identity from members of the press. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is expected to seek indictments this week.

Cheney Lobbies for CIA Exemption to Torture Ban
The New York Times is reporting Vice President Dick Cheney and CIA Director Porter Goss met with Senator John McCain last week to urge him to back exempting CIA officers from a proposed Senate ban on torture. Three weeks ago the Senate voted 90 to 9 to ban the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of any detainee held by the government. Cheney reportedly said the CIA needed to be exempt because the president needs maximum flexibility in fighting the so-called war on terrorism. Tom Malinowski, of Human Rights Watch, responded to the news by saying "They are explicitly saying, for the first time, that the intelligence community should have the ability to treat prisoners inhumanely." Meanwhile the American Civil Liberties Union announced Monday at least 21 detainees have died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. The ACLU reached that number based on released Pentagon documents.

Super-soldiers may get brain-chip
US military experts are attempting to create an army of super-human soldiers who will be more intelligent and deadly thanks to a microchip implanted in their brains. Scientists believe the implant will vastly improve the memory of troops so that they can recall every detail of their training and become more effective fighters.
Researchers at the University of Southern California's bio-engineering department have created the chip, which acts in exactly the same way as the hippocampus - the part of the brain that deals with memory. In experiments, the team removed that section of the brain of dead rats and inserted the chip in its place. The implant sent exactly the same electronic signals as the real thing. The next stage of the project is to test the implant on live animals. If this work proves to be as successful, experiments could one day be carried out on soldiers.

Microwaves, Lasers, Retired Generals For Sale
by William Arkin, Wash. Post
Friends tell me that this week's Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting & Exposition at the Washington Convention Center was all that an orgy of self-congratulation can be. Contractors galore, beltway bandits, luncheons, awards, howitzers, all topped off with a speech by Dick Cheney. The buzz on the floor was "directed energy" laser, high-powered microwaves, and acoustic weapons that are getting a boost from the prolonged fighting in Iraq. Supporters are hoping that these new exotic technologies will help in the battle against improvised explosive devices and in countering snipers and hidden insurgents.
Directed energy is also the star of this week's Air Force Futures Game 05, being held at Booz Allen Hamilton in Herndon. The game, which posits a major war in the 2025 time frame, has high powered microwave and laser weapons zapping the bad guys. Highly controversial directed energy weapons have been pushed for almost two decades as the next silver bullet. It's been two decades because along the way, they have run into complications, some having to do with the technology itself -- aim and controllable effects, compact power sources, military ruggedness -- but mostly their problem has been moral principles. Military leaders have been concerned about legality (funny, that never stopped them from torturing people!). Commanders have been hesitant or skeptical about new technologies with uncertain effects. Those concerns are being brushed aside as the weapons advance along the familiar development path of boosters and patrons feeding information to war gamers who feed study participants who feed researchers who feed manufactures. At the end of the day, it is hard to tell whether high powered microwaves and laser came into being because someone conceived it out of need or because its existence in the laboratory created the need.
This week, for example, one of my favorite directed energy patrons -- retired General Ron Fogleman -- received appointments at two corporations, as a "senior advisor" to the Galen Capital Group, LLC; and as a member of the board of advisors of Novastar Resources. The former chief of staff of the Air Force is a military-industrial legend, head of his own consulting company Durango Aerospace Inc. with a client list that includes Boeing, FMC, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and RSL Electronics. A quick check on the web shows that Fogleman also serves on the boards of no few than 14 corporations: AAR Corp, Alliant Techsystems, IDC, Mesa Air Group, MITRE Corporation, Rolls-Royce North America, Thales-Raytheon Systems, First National Bank of Durango, International Airline Service Group, ICN Pharmaceuticals, DERCO Aerospace, EAST Inc., World Airway, and North American Airlines. He is also Senior Vice President of something called Projects International, a DC consultancy and is or was a partner in Laird and Company, LLC. And he is a member of Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, on the NASA Advisory Council, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Advisory Board, chairs the Falcon Foundation and the Airlift/Tanker Association. This guy is busy!
Fogleman gave up the job as the most powerful man in the Air Force on principle when he could no longer serve Secretary of Defense William Cohen. Since leaving, however, he has dispensed so much wisdom one wonders how much principle could be left. One of Fogleman's first jobs upon leaving the Air Force was to chair the 1998 Directed Energy Applications for Tactical Airborne Combat study (known as "DE ATAC") which identified 65 concepts, particularly microwave weapons, selecting 20 for further analysis. The laboratory then awarded short-term concept development contracts for the five most promising to Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Coherent Technologies, and Sanders.
All during the 1990's, money flowed into continued development of directed energy weapons, but frankly not much happened. Everyone talked about an E-bomb being used in Iraq in 2003, but once again for a variety of technical and ethical reasons, and because the real world intervened, the silver bullets remained on laboratory benches or in the world of "black" super-secret contracts, waiting for an opportunity. And with the quagmire in Iraq, that opportunity came. So it just a coincidence that Fogleman's company Alliant Techsystems was awarded a contract earlier this year to develop the Scorpion II high powered microwave weapon "capable of defeating … improvised explosive devices (IEDs) currently threatening U.S. and allied troops in Iraq." Maybe Fogleman had nothing to do with the directed energy work already flowing to Boeing and Raytheon.
The introduction of a completely new weapon -- particularly one that could cause excruciating pain, blindness, and hearing loss -- requires the most deliberate process, and the unintended consequences -- humanitarian, public relations, the possibility of the same weapon ending up in the hands of our enemies -- needs to be carefully weighed. The United States may indeed have within technological reach the ability to disperse rioters with a beam and not a bullet, and it might be able to cripple a modern society with the push of a button, but then again, so too does the United States possess the technology to turn Baghdad into a radiating ruin.

The Fallen Legion
As the possibility that officials high up in the Bush administration face indictments this week, we take a look at other officials who were forced out or resigned because of the stances they took against policies of the administration. In an article posted on TomDispatch.com, titled the "Fallen Legion," writer Nick Turse compiled a list of these people and their reasons for leaving. Nick writes about “a seemingly endless and ever-growing list of beleaguered administrators, managers, and career civil servants who quit their posts in protest or were defamed, threatened, fired, forced out, demoted, or driven to retire by Bush administration strong-arming. Often, this has been due to revulsion at the President’s policies -- from the invasion of Iraq and negotiations with North Korea to the flattening of FEMA and the slashing of environmental standards -- which these women and men found to be beyond the pale.”

Here are some of the names of those listed at TomDispatch.com:

• Bunnatine ("Bunny") Greenhouse, the top official at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in charge of awarding government contracts for the reconstruction.
  
• Richard Clarke, he held the position of the president's chief adviser on terrorism on the National Security Council -- a Cabinet-level post.
  
• Paul O'Neill, served nearly two years in George W. Bush's cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury.
  
• Flynt Leverett, Ben Miller and Hillary Mann: A Senior Director for Middle East Affairs on President Bush's National Security Council (NSC), a CIA staffer and Iraq expert with the NSC, and a foreign service officer on detail to the NSC as the Director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs.
  
• Larry Lindsey: A "top economic adviser" to Bush.
  
• Ann Wright: A career diplomat in the Foreign Service and a colonel in the Army Reserves.
  
• John Brady Kiesling: A career diplomat who served four presidents over a twenty year span.
• ( he served four presidents over a 20-year span. And on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, he tendered his resignation and said that the policies that we're now asked to advance are incompatible, not only with American values, but also with American interests.)
• John Brown, 25 veteran of the Foreign Service.
  
• Rand Beers, he National Security Council's senior director for combating terrorism.
  
• Anthony Zinni: A soldier and diplomat for 40 years, Zinni served from 1997 to 2000 as commander-in-chief of the United States Central Command in the Middle East, called back to service by the Bush administration to assume one of the highest diplomatic posts, special envoy to the Middle East (from November 2002 to March 2003).
  
• Eric Shinseki, the Army's chief of staff
  
• Karen Kwiatkowski: A Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force who served in the Department of Defense's Near East and South Asia (NESA) Bureau in the year before the invasion of Iraq.
  
• Charles "Jack" Pritchard: A retired U.S. Army colonel and a 28-year veteran of the military, the State Department, and the National Security Council, who served as the State Department's senior expert on North Korea and as the special envoy for negotiations with that country.

The complete list of 42 officials can be found at the TomDispatch.com website.

Former UN Weapons Inspector: Don't Rule Out Staged Government Terror
Alex Jones: Ritter says Neo-Cons are embattled, surrounded, could resort to desperate measures to further global domination

Former United Nations weapons inspector and Marine Scott Ritter appeared on The Alex Jones Show and stated that he wouldn't rule out the possibility of the Bush administration staging a terror attack in order to jolt a wavering foreign policy agenda back on track. Ritter compared the atmosphere within the administration to that during the time of Watergate, where Nixon considered utilizing America's nuclear arsenal to create a devastating diversion from domestic calamity.
"Nothing this administration would do would surprise me, they're desperate right now. If you go back and take a look at the Nixon administration during the height of Watergate Nixon was talking about using nuclear weapons against the Soviets in the Middle East, insanity of this nature. When you have an irresponsible administration like the Nixon administration, like this current administration, and they start to feel embattled, surrounded, they take on a fortress like mentality where everybody becomes the enemy."
Asked if he thought a staged terror attack was possible, a scenario previously considered by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, Ritter responded, "Yeah, you have people who have no regard for the rule of law. These aren't people who appreciate the Constitution, to them the Constitution is an impediment, it's an obstacle, it's something in the way, it's something to be avoided. They are married to an ideology of global domination, of global imperialism and they're not going to deviate from this."
Regarding the issue of imminent indictments of top Bush administration officials, Ritter stated, "I think the President should be investigated to determine whether he's committed a crime and if a crime has been committed then the President must be held accountable, fully accountable, to the rule of law. This is about reasserting the rule of law as set forth by the Constitution and reasserting the power of the people."
On the subject of which country will be subject to the next Neo-Con invasion, Ritter commented, "There are elements within the Bush administration, especially Donald Rumsfeld's associates, Doug Feith, Wolfowitz and others whose long goal crossed the line of serving America and they started serving another country out there, Israel. This administration wants to go to Syria, wants to go to Iran. Iran has turned into a little more difficult of a proposition both diplomatically and militarily, and financially. So Iran may be pushed to the back-burner right now, doesn't mean it's going away, we should never forget that. We're going to go small first and I think that with Syria the feeling in the Bush administration is that this is a very easy target, it's one that would make Israel very happy if we took out this regime. I'm not sure it's going to be as easy as they think it's going to be."
Ritter's claims have continually been proven to be accurate even in the face of numerous establishment media and government attempts to defame his character. Ritter is the latest of a rash of credible people both inside and outside of government to voice concerns that a staged terror attack blamed on Iran or Syria could be used as the pretext to instigate pre-planned invasions and further entrench a police state in the US. Former CIA analyst and Bush 41 staffer Ray McGovern gave similar sentiments as well as British Member or Parliament George Galloway.

Jerrold Nadler, NY Rep: Broaden investigation

Nadler: Fitzgerald Must Broaden Investigation
“Did the Bush Administration deliberately mislead Congress about the war?
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In light of recent developments in the CIA leak investigation and other recent revelations, Congressman Jerrold Nadler today called for Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to expand his investigation to include a criminal investigation to examine whether the President, the Vice President, and members of the White House Iraq Group conspired to deliberately deceive Congress into authorizing the war in Iraq.
“The CIA leak issue is only the tip of the iceberg,” Congressman Nadler said. “This is looking increasingly like a White House conspiracy aimed at misleading our country into war – in part by manufacturing now-refuted evidence in support of its rationale, in part by smearing and silencing critics, and in part by manipulating media complicity. There is mounting evidence that there may have been a well-orchestrated effort by the President, the Vice President, and other top White House officials to lie to Congress in order to get its support for the Iraq War.”
It is a crime to lie to Congress under several federal statutes. Congressman Nadler requested that Special Counsel Fitzgerald follow the leads he has already discovered and broaden his investigation to include charges of lying to Congress. In his letter to Acting Deputy Attorney General McCallum asking for a broadening of Special Counsel Fitzgerald’s investigation, Nadler cited the President’s infamous reference to African Uranium in the 2003 State of the Union Address, reports of the White House Iraq Group’s singular mission to sell the war at all costs, assertions made in the “Downing Street Memo,” and reporters’ own accounts of media manipulation.
“Honest, if mistaken, reliance on faulty intelligence to convince Congress to authorize a war is bad enough,” Congressman Nadler wrote in his letter to McCallum. “But, if, as mounting evidence is tending to show, Administration officials deliberately deceived Congress and the American people, this would constitute a criminal conspiracy against the entire country.
“We are no longer just talking about a Republican culture of corruption and cronyism,” Nadler added. “We now have reason to believe that high crimes may have been committed at the highest level, wrongdoing that may have led us to war and imperiled our national security.”
Congressman Nadler demanded answers to the following questions in his letter to McCallum:

• Was the CIA leak incident merely one part of a larger illegal effort by the Administration to deceive Congress about a matter of war and peace?
• Who was involved?
• Were any of their actions criminal?

Dems Tap Patrick Fitzgerald For Impeachment Probe
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are so pleased with reports that Leakgate prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is about to indict senior White House officials that they want him to lead an impeachment investigation into whether President Bush lied to Congress about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
"The CIA leak issue is only the tip of the iceberg," House Judiciary Democrat Jerrold Nadler complains in a message posted to his web site. "We now have reason to believe that high crimes may have been committed at the highest level [and] wrongdoing that may have led us to war and imperiled our national security." If there is evidence that Bush or Cheney authorized aides to deliberately mislead lawmakers, Nadler told Congressional Quarterly: "That would be an impeachable offense.'"
The Manhattan Democrat is asking Acting Deputy Attorney General Robert McCallum to direct Fitzgerald to probe efforts by the White House to discredit critics of the Iraq war like former Ambassador Joe Wilson.
Nadler wants Fitzgerald to determine whether attacks on Wilson were part of a "broader conspiracy knowingly to mislead Congress into authorizing a war." Even before leaks from Fitzgerald's investigation indicated he planned indictments, Rep. Maurice Hinchey let slip the Democrats' plan to impeach Bush for alleged Iraq war lies.
In quotes picked up by the Ithaca Journal, Hinchey said in August: "My greatest hope is that all of these things will be revealed, they will be revealed in a very direct and legal context, and that in 2006 a Democratic majority will be elected to the House of Representatives, and in February of [2007] impeachment proceedings will begin."

Pardon our Progress

Secret Ministry of Defence poll: Iraqis support attacks on British troops
Millions of Iraqis believe that suicide attacks against British troops are justified, a secret military poll commissioned by senior officers has revealed. The poll, undertaken for the Ministry of Defence and seen by The Sunday Telegraph, shows that up to 65 per cent of Iraqi citizens support attacks and fewer than one per cent think Allied military involvement is helping to improve security in their country. It demonstrates for the first time the true strength of anti-Western feeling in Iraq after more than two and a half years of bloody occupation. The nationwide survey also suggests that the coalition has lost the battle to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, which Tony Blair and George W Bush believed was fundamental to creating a safe and secure country.
The results come as it was disclosed yesterday that Lt Col Nick Henderson, the commanding officer of the Coldstream Guards in Basra, in charge of security for the region, has resigned from the Army. He recently voiced concerns over a lack of armoured vehicles for his men, another of whom was killed in a bomb attack in Basra last week.
The secret poll appears to contradict claims made by Gen Sir Mike Jackson, the Chief of the General Staff, who only days ago congratulated British soldiers for "supporting the Iraqi people in building a new and better Iraq".
The Sunday Telegraph disclosed last month that a plan for an early withdrawal of British troops had been shelved because of the failing security situation, sparking claims that Iraq was rapidly becoming "Britain's own Vietnam".
The survey was conducted by an Iraqi university research team that, for security reasons, was not told the data it compiled would be used by coalition forces. It reveals:

• Forty-five per cent of Iraqis believe attacks against British and American troops are justified - rising to 65 per cent in the British-controlled Maysan province;
• 82 per cent are "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops;
• less than one per cent of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security;
• 67 per cent of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation;
• 43 per cent of Iraqis believe conditions for peace and stability have worsened;
• 72 per cent do not have confidence in the multi-national forces.

The opinion poll, carried out in August, also debunks claims by both the US and British governments that the general well-being of the average Iraqi is improving in post-Saddam Iraq. The findings differ markedly from a survey carried out by the BBC in March 2004 in which the overwhelming consensus among the 2,500 Iraqis questioned was that life was good. More of those questioned supported the war than opposed it.
Immediately after the war the coalition embarked on a campaign of reconstruction in which it hoped to improve the electricity supply and the quality of drinking water. That appears to have failed, with the poll showing that 71 per cent of people rarely get safe clean water, 47 per cent never have enough electricity, 70 per cent say their sewerage system rarely works and 40 per cent of southern Iraqis are unemployed.

Why did Mehlis' Report go to UN Sec. Council when his source, Sadik, was exposed as a liar?
(English Translaation from Der Speigel)
The creditibility of one of the key witnesses in special investigator Detlev Mehlis’ report on the Hariri murder case is in doubt. Suheir Sadik is a multiply convicted swindler.
The alleged intelligence agent al-Sadik, 42, on whose testimony a considerable portion of the investigation is based, has been convicted of , embezzlement and fraud, among other crimes. Even within the UN Commission investigating the murder of Lebanon’s former Prime Minster Rafik al-Hariri, which presented its report on Thursday, there is doubt of the credibility of the Syrian witness.
Sources within UN circles say that Sadik had undeniably lied. At first he had claimed to have left Beirut in the month prior to the deed. Then, at the end of September he admitted to having been involved in the implementation of the assassination. Apparently Sadik had received money from a third party for his testimony. According to a statement by his brother, Sadik had called him from Paris in late summer and said “I’ve become a millionaire!”
The skepticism is also nurtured by the fact that the contact to Mhelis was inititated through the Syrian dissident Rifaat al-Assad,, an uncle of President Bashir al-Assad, who opposes the regime in Damascus. Sadik is supposed to have made his apartment in the Beirut suburb Chalda available for several preparatory meetings in which Syrian intelligence officers participated. Sadik himself claims to have collected information for Syrian Intelligence in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps.
The Syrian administration had already made a dossier with incriminating evidence about Sadik available to Western governments weeks ago, which was to show that Mehlis had been had by a notorious Syrian swindler.

Central witness to Mehlis report revealed as a paid swindler
The most prestigious German political news-magazine, Der Spiegel, revealed today that the central witness, Zuheir al-Siddiq on whom Detlev Mehlis had relied during his investigations into the assault on Rafiq Hariri, was a dubious person with a criminal record as a convicted felon and swindler. Even the UN Commission which had submitted the Mehlis report to the UN Security Council yesterday, is raising serious doubts about the reliability and credibility of al-Siddiq's declarations, since it was revealed that the alleged former officer of the Syrian secret services had in reality been convicted more than once for penal offences related to money subtraction.
The German magazine reports that the UN investigating Commission is well aware that it had been lied by Siddiq, who at first had affirmed to have left Beirut one month before the assault on al-Hariri, but then had to admit at the end of September his direct involvement in the implementation of the crime. It is quite evident by now that the witness had received money for his depositions, considering that his siblings reveal to have received a phone-call from him from Paris, in late summer, in which Siddiq announced "I have become a millionaire". Doubts regarding the credibility of the man were further fuelled by the revelation that Siddiq had been recommended to Mehlis by the long-term Syrian renegate Rifaat al-Assad, an uncle of the Syrian President who more than once offered himself as "alternative President of Syria".
To Mehlis the central witness Siddiq is supposed to have declared that he had put his apartment in Beirut to the disposition of the conspirators to kill Hariri, among them several Syrian intelligence officials. Of himself he had declared to have gathered intelligence for the Syrian services regarding Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. But the Syrian government, revealed Der Spiegel, had sent weeks ago a documentation regarding the man to various Western governments, hoping that Detlev Mehlis would not get caught in the trap of a notorious imposter.

Plame plans to sue White House officials
Joseph Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame are preparing to file a civil suit against Bush administration officials. Plame was the covert CIA agent allegedly unmasked by the White House. Now she is preparing to file a civil lawsuit against the Bush administration officials who may have disclosed her identity and scuttled her career, Salon.com reported Thursday.
"There is no question that her privacy has been invaded. She was almost by definition the ultimate private person," said the couple's attorney, Christopher Wolf. Wolf said the couple would make a final decision on filing a lawsuit after special prosecutor Patick Fitzgerald has completed his investigation, Salon said.

Australia: Leaked “Anti-Terrorism” Bill details draconian police-state plans
(Sound familiar?)
A leaked copy of an “in-confidence” draft of the Anti-Terrorism Bill 2005 has confirmed the police-state character of the measures being drawn up by the federal Howard government, with support from the Australian state and territory chief ministers. Under the guise of combatting terrorism, the legislation will introduce unprecedented and draconian police and intelligence powers. Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Chief Minister Jon Stanhope posted the document on his official web site last Friday, provoking furious denunciations by Prime Minister John Howard and other ministers, who had planned to keep the legislation under wraps until November 1. Their intention was to push it through both houses of parliament in just two weeks, without any serious debate by MPs, let alone genuine public scrutiny and discussion.
First and foremost, the legislation provides for extensive detention without charge or trial, on the flimsiest of pretexts. With no notice or legal hearing, any person can be thrown into secret “preventative detention” or placed, by a “control order,” in isolation under house arrest.
Deadly force can be used to break into houses to drag someone away for detention. The Bill authorizes police to use lethal force to stop someone “fleeing” custody, if they deem it necessary to prevent serious injury to another person. The police are only obliged to call on the person to “surrender” (“if practicable”) before opening fire. This specifically allows for the “shoot-to-kill” policy used in the gunning down of an innocent Brazilian immigrant worker, Jean Charles de Menezes, by British police in a London subway carriage last July.
The peak legal body, the Law Council of Australia, has pointed out that detention and control orders could easily be used to round up people to prevent planned anti-war or anti-corporate demonstrations, like the protests in recent years against gatherings of politicians or corporate executives. The scope for political repression is great, because “terrorism” is defined so broadly that it can cover many traditional forms of protest, such as blockading a building in pursuit of a political cause.
None of these powers has anything to do with fighting terrorism. The underlying motivation behind the legislation is revealed in its criminalization of a wide range of political free speech.
The Attorney-General can use this power to unilaterally ban any group as a “terrorist organization,” thus exposing all its members, supporters and financial donors to years of imprisonment. The provision can extend to outlawing political parties and publications that express any sympathy for, or even call for an understanding of, the causes of terrorist actions.
Secondly, the Bill dramatically expands the scope of sedition, and more than doubles the punishment, from three to seven years imprisonment.
The Bill extends to the police wide-ranging powers to stop, interrogate and search people in public places, and to seize items. The government can also declare “prescribed security zones,” in which police can exercise these powers without having to allege any specific connection to a planned terrorist act.
Secret surveillance cameras can be installed in airports and aircraft, and airline and shipping company passenger details can be seized, as can the customer records of financial institutions. The “war on terrorism” is now being utilised to extend the political policing powers of the state machinery far further, explicitly trampling over fundamental civil liberties and legal rights previously regarded as sacrosanct.

Bush to face Canadian court on Torture charges?

Bush publication ban lifted
A Vancouver lawyer has won a procedural victory in her attempt to prosecute U.S. President George W. Bush under the Criminal Code. Gail Davidson, cofounder of an international group of jurists called Lawyers Against the War, expressed her delight on October 18 following the lifting of a publication ban on court proceedings against the U.S. president. The Kitsilano lawyer got the ball rolling against Bush as soon as he set foot on Canadian soil for his November 30, 2004, visit. As a private citizen, she charged him with seven counts of counselling, aiding, and abetting torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay naval base. She had her charges accepted by a justice of the peace in Vancouver Provincial Court. Bush faces prison time if the case goes to trial and he is found guilty.
“It’s not a frivolously filed application,” Davidson said last year in court. “The application was filed on the 30th [of November] because Mr. Bush was in Canada, thereby giving Canada the jurisdiction to prosecute under 269(1) [of the Criminal Code of Canada], the torture section.”
Davidson pointed out that Canada signed the 1987 Convention Against Torture. As a result, she said, “amendments to the Criminal Code were made to allow Canada to expand its jurisdiction to prosecute crimes of torture.” Addressing directly the Crown’s question of immunity, Davidson referred to the Rome Statute, defining torture as a war crime and barring immunity for torture and other war crimes.

Bush National Guard Story Breaking?
Oddly, this is at the far-right wingnut site WorldNetDaily:

Miers panel to hear 'explosive testimony'?
Gag order lifted for ex-lottery boss claiming Miers kept 'lid' on Bush Guard controversy

As WorldNetDaily has reported, Littwin allegedly was fired by Miers because he wanted to investigate improper political influence-buying by lobbyists for GTECH, the firm contracted to run the lottery. Corsi believes that Littwin, according to an examination of hundreds of contemporary Texas newspaper accounts, will be able to establish under oath that the GTECH contract was preserved on a no-bid basis by then-chairwoman of the Lottery Commission Miers in order to "keep the lid on" the National Guard controversy involving then-Gov. Bush. The lobbyists included Ben Barnes, the former Texas lieutenant governor who claims he pulled strings to get Bush into the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. GTECH agreed to release Littwin from his gag order under pressure from Senate Judiciary Committee attorneys, Corsi said. Littwin, who was hired by Miers in June 1997 and fired just five months later, wanted to reopen the GTECH contract for competitive bid, according to Corsi.. . . When Littwin sued GTECH over losing his job, Barnes gave a five-hour deposition. But GTECH settled with Littwin for $300,000, under the condition that he destroy all documents pertaining to the litigation, including the Barnes deposition.
Until now, Corsi reports, Littwin has been under a gag order as part of his "negotiated settlement" with GTECH, under which he would suffer a $50,000 penalty if he discussed openly any details of his Texas Lottery employment. Corsi says insiders following the Texas Lottery Commission scandals believe Littwin's testimony is "potentially explosive."

UN Hariri report controversial
THE JERUSALEM POST
The last-minute alterations made to the Detlev Mehlis report on the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri may have been made under pressure by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Israel Radio reported Friday afternoon. Syria on Friday rejected UN findings that linked Damascus to the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri as false, unprofessional and politicized.
"I think the report is far from professional and will not lead us to the truth," Mehdi Dakhlallah, the Syrian information minister, said in an interview on Al-Jazeera television from the Syrian capital. He said the report, about which he had seen media reports but did not have an official text, was "100 percent politicized" and "contained false accusations."
The report of the UN probe, submitted to the UN Security Council late Thursday, implicated top Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officials in the Feb. 14 assassination of Hariri in a massive bombing in Beirut that also killed 20 others. The report also raised questions about Lebanon's pro-Syrian president, Lahoud, who it said received a phone call minutes before the blast from the brother of a prominent member of a pro-Syrian group, who also called one of the four Lebanese generals, Raymond Azar, who have been arrested in the probe. Lahoud's office "categorically denies" the media reports about Lahoud receiving a phone call, saying "there is no truth to it."
The statement said the accusations are part of continued campaigns against the president and the office "and the national responsibilities he shoulders and will continue to do so at this delicate stage in Lebanon's history." Since the arrest of four Lebanese generals in August as suspects, anti-Syrian (read: ISRAELI) groups have focused on Lahoud, demanding his resignation. Lahoud has refused to step down, saying his hands are clean and that he supports punishing those found guilty of killing Hariri.
Dakhlallah, the Syrian minister, said the investigation led by Mehlis was biased against Syria and his report was "part of a pressure campaign against Syria which does not stop at accusing Syria of anything evil that happens in the world." This report "is contrary to the most essential conditions and methods of investigation," he said. "I don't believe we are closer to the truth. On the contrary, probably there is a kind of deception which runs against the truth, against the interest of Syria and Lebanon and against stability in the region," the Syrian official added. Asked if Syria would end cooperation with the investigative process, Dakhlallah said Syria would wait for clarifications of the content of the report.
Lebanese police and army took additional security measures ahead of the release of the report out of concern that clashes would erupt in the country between pro and anti-Syrian activists.
Ephraim Halevy, former chief of the Mossad, said it was not necessary to prove a direct involvement by Assad. "The head of the Syrian pyramid is Bashar Assad," Halevy told Army Radio. "I don't think ... there is any doubt that this was an extensive and coordinated operation that was planned for many months. Lots of people from the Syrian elite were involved." (HE WOULD say that)
Likud MK Yuval Steinitz, head of the Knesset's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, called for regime change in Damascus. "As far as I am concerned ... and here I have a dispute with some of the people in the (Israeli) security establishment, it is not just an American interest but a clear Israeli interest to end the Assad dynasty and replace Bashar Assad," said Steinitz. (Pretty obvious who's behind this whole smear campaign-- could Mossad have killed Hariri for regime change goals?)

Israeli Settler saboteurs target Palestinian olive trees
Mahfuz Abu al Nasr, a Palestinian farmer from the West Bank village of Salem, was grieving yesterday over the wreckage of his livelihood. Jewish settlers had come in the night and destroyed 30 olive trees he planted a decade ago, in revenge for the deaths of three young Israelis in a drive-by shooting last Sunday.
This was not the first time that militant settlers, waging a war of attrition against their neighbours in the hills east of Nablus for the past four years, had raided his grove.
Arik Ascherman, the director of Rabbis for Human Rights, which has campaigned for the olive farmers, said the security services were trying harder this autumn to enable them to harvest their crop, but said they lacked a coherent plan, and the backing of the courts."We have seen an improvement in preventive activity and even a high number of arrests," he said. "But when it goes into the judicial system everything falls apart."

Judith Miller is Unnamed Woman in AIPAC Spy Ring Indictment
www.SW-Asia.com
More Notes by Barry O'Connell

Page 24 Paragraph numbered 7of the AIPAC Spy Ring Indictment (see below)
http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/dod/usfrnklin80205ind.pdf
This is in reference to a meeting between Larry Franklin and Naor Gilon at the Pentagon Officers Athletic Club. The woman referenced is Judith Miller. Miller is a reporter for the New York Times who was held 85 days in a Federal Facility in contempt of court. She wrote many now discredited stories on WMDs for the Times. The Charitable work was The Iraqi Jewish Archive. Judith Miller and Harold Rhode cooperated on with Ahmad Chalabi.
I have reason to believe that the conversation between Larry Franklin and Naor Gilon about Judith Miller included a reference to Valerie Plame. This case becomes a time bomb if it is revealed that Mossad had a part in the outing of CIA agent Plame.

Was Plame Outed by a Foreign Spy?

Cheney aide David Wurmser, whose Israeli-born wife Meyrav is director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the neoconservative Hudson Institute, is the principal author of a by-now-famous 1996 policy paper, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," prepared for then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the Jerusalem-based Institute for Advanced Strategic Political Studies. The "Clean Break" strategy proposed an attempt by Israel to break out of its military and political isolation in the midst of a hostile Arab sea by pursuing regime-change in Iraq, and eventually Syria. Wurmser sought to mobilize the far-right wing of Israel's Likud party, represented by Netanyahu, around a vision of a Greater Israel surrounded by much lesser enemies. Syria, in Wurmser's view, was the main target, but the road to Damascus, he contended, had to run though Baghdad. "Whoever inherits Iraq dominates the entire Levant strategically," he wrote. The key to Israel's regional hegemony was in rejecting "land for peace" and creating a "natural axis" consisting of Israel, Jordan, and a Hashemite Iraq that could "squeeze and detach Syria from the Saudi peninsula." This would be "the prelude to redrawing the map of the Middle East" – to Israel's advantage, of course.

NY TIMES' Friedman has the glass-house problem
by Drew Hamre

It's tempting to make excuses for Thomas L. Friedman. But the atrocities that Friedman ascribes to the Sunni (Star Tribune, Oct. 14) are tactics he himself has advocated in the New York Times. Friedman has urged terror bombing to force regime change in Serbia ("Let's see what 12 weeks of less than surgical bombing does," April 6, 1999) and arguably in prewar Iraq ("bombing Iraq, over and over and over again," Jan. 31, 1998). Friedman has advocated bombing electrical grids, knowing full well the mortal damage that results when refrigerators and filtration pumps die ("It should be lights out in Belgrade," April 23, 1999; "Blow up a different power station in Iraq every week," Jan. 19, 1999). In Friedman's latest, he cries "genocide" in the context of a mosque bombing; he conflates a group of female war critics with mass murderers. All in all, this is a particularly nasty work.
Friedman simplifies the violence in Iraq to toe the "Sunni-Shiite" line, though he must know this is shorthand for Iraq's stew of clan loyalties, class differences, rising criminality, and the desperation of a wartime population. He appears intent on caricaturing a people, and then demonizing them. This is worrisome, given Friedman's track record. Friedman has previously argued for war on a people, not just its government ("Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation"). On Sept. 28, he advocated what critics call the "Rwanda option" for Iraq: "If [the Sunni] come around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible. If they won't, then we are wasting our time. We should arm the Shiites and Kurds and leave the Sunnis of Iraq to reap the wind. (Spoken like a true Israeli mouthpiece). Perhaps a few of Friedman's excesses might be laid to the deadline pressures of his craft. But the larger charge Friedman makes (Sunni leadership tolerates genocide) is not only false, it's one to which Friedman and his paper are vulnerable.
Finally on Oct. 7, Friedman wrote that America's biggest intelligence failure: "was the failure to understand just how devastated Iraq's society, economy and institutions had become -- after [two wars] and then a decade of U.N. sanctions." Friedman's employer almost always includes the Darfur excess death estimate in its coverage. The comparable figure for Iraq has rarely, perhaps never, appeared. When pressed to clarify, one of the Times editors said in an e-mail: "the absence of one particular statistic (500,000 excess deaths) does not require a 'clarification' " by the Times. Simply put, the Times is not the podium for a lecture on silence and genocide, nor is Friedman the speaker. Civilians are civilians, and state-sponsored terror is still terror. But no more excuses for Thomas Friedman.

(He makes my skin crawl).

The #1 Most Buried Story: Halliburton pumping the oil that’s not even metered
No it’s not the Downing Street Memo, or the $9 Billion lost in Iraq, or the 52 warnings before 9/11 (info that was suppressed before the election, which should nullify the election)…
The #1 buried story is the fact that Halliburton has been pumping the oil in Iraq since 2003, and it hasn’t been metered. This was revealed by the Inspector General’s report on the missing $9 billion, and highlighted by Galloway’s awesome testimony before the Senate this May:

Have a look at the oil that you didn’t even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where?

Gee, and oil prices have been at all time highs… coincidence? Don't forget, Exxon/Mobil reported an all-time high profit of 10 Billion for the 3rd Quarter of 2005, the highest profit figure for one quarter year in the history of the US.

Former FEMA official charged with taking kickbacks in Miami-Dade
A former Federal Emergency Management Agency inspector was arrested Thursday on charges she took kickbacks to sign off on false damage claims filed by Miami-Dade County residents after Hurricane Frances last year. Tywanishia Preston artificially inflated four applicants' disaster claims in return for money, according to federal authorities. A Miami-Dade federal grand jury indicted her on four counts of making a false claim and four counts of receipt of bribes by a public official.
Preston is the first FEMA inspector to be arrested as part of a continuing federal investigation in Miami-Dade, where FEMA paid out more than $31 million to residents after Frances. The Labor Day storm only brushed the county, with the eye hitting more than 100 miles away.
The federal inquiry, which has since spread into Broward County, followed South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports of the disproportionately large amount of FEMA money flowing into Miami-Dade. Residents there told the newspaper they saw neighbors intentionally damaging their belongings so they could collect money.
The Miami-Dade payouts prompted a U.S. Senate committee investigation.
Subsequent Sun-Sentinel reports detailed how the national disaster response system is fraught with fraud and waste. The newspaper found that within the last five years FEMA poured at least $330 million into communities that were largely spared the devastating effects of fires, hurricanes, floods and tornados. Taxpayer money meant to help victims of natural disasters has gone to thousands of people who suffered little or no damage.
If found guilty, Preston could face up to 15 years in prison on each of the bribery counts and five years on each of the counts of making a false claim. She will be arraigned Thursday at the Miami-Dade federal courthouse.

Congressman makes waves over cruise-ship housing

Cruise ships being used as temporary housing on the Gulf Coast are likely yielding a larger profit than Carnival Cruise Lines, their owner, has let on, Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California charged Thursday. He said an internal financial review from the cruise company suggests that the $236 million government contract is nearly 50% more than the company would be earning if its ships were engaged in normal cruising.
The company has the further benefit of reduced costs because it does not have to pay 493 employees who would be providing bar, casino, entertainment and other services, Waxman said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. The new information "raises serious questions about whether the Carnival contract is a responsible use of taxpayer funds," Waxman wrote.
The 2002 financial report shows that the three ships -- the Sensation, the Ecstasy and the Holiday -- took in gross revenue of about $25 million per month in 2002, Waxman said. Adjusted for inflation, that means expected revenue during the six-month period covered by the federal contract would be about $166 million.
The Department of Homeland Security says the cruise ships are a cost-effective housing option, especially in New Orleans, where hotel rooms are unavailable and more expensive. (What about the 30,000 empty apartments in the French Quarter?) As of Oct. 12, there were 5,505 people living on the three vessels, which have a combined capacity of about 7,100.

The trial

The hidden wounded

The Costs of War
Inside Walter Reed Army Hospital is the horrible reality of the Iraq War, a reality that few Americans see, and fewer want to see.
By Stewart Nusbaumer (excerpt from Intervention)

Washington, DC -- I see in the halls of Walter Reed hospital soldiers with leg braces and neck supports, soldiers with faces slashed by bombs and stitched up by doctors. Soldiers with legs terribly mangled, soldiers with no legs -- amputees with short stumps, with long stumps, without any stumps since entire limbs are missing. A man walks by without an arm. I suddenly travel back in time to another war, to another hospital when I was one of those young men without a limb. But the human carnage and waste in Walter Reed is too overwhelming to escape for more than a flash of time. At the Army’s flagship medical facility, where thousands of wounded soldiers pass through, there is no political spin, no media filter, no presidential lies, and no patriotism without cost as there is in America. There are only the wounded and mangled from Iraq. There is the ground zero for ugly war reality.
I am walking through Ward 57, the amputee ward, walking on the 5th floor. There are grisly sights here. Sights that the dinning room and outside benches do not want to see, that I do not want to see. Bodies wrapped in blood soaked bandages. Eyes covered in agony. Nurses’ huddled over broken bodies. The air is thick on the 5th floor, hard to breath. The flag of patriotism is less intensely displayed here. The pain of war is stronger. I feel a deep anger at America rising in me.
A veteran with Iraq Veterans Against the War recently commented that after the guys return home and realize that on the home front Americans barely cared about the war, that here patriotism is an empty gesture because no one sacrifices anything, they will be become angry. But Americans are barely paying attention and would refuse to give substance to their patriotism, a clear indication this is not a war for the defense of America.
We have an administration that won’t fully fund veterans’ health care, while it does not properly equip our troops in war. And we are a people not insisting our veterans have adequate health care and our soldiers have proper equipment. This is wrong, America. Wrong to those with “road kill” legs, wrong to those with partial faces, wrong to those with missing limbs. MORE

Filmmakers get a new ending for DeLay documentary

From the San Antonio Current
By Elaine Wolff
‘The Big Buy’ spent two years tracking Ronnie Earle as he built his case against Tom DeLay
Texas filmmakers Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck planted themselves on history’s doorstep two years ago when they started filming Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle as he investigated Congressman Tom DeLay (R-Sugar Land) and his Political Action Committee, Texans for a Republican Majority. The PAC is suspected of funneling corporate donations to state elections as part of the Texas GOP’s successful 2002 plan to take control of the statehouse and redraw congressional districts in favor of Republican demographics.
History obliged the documentarians when DeLay was indicted last week on two counts of conspiracy to skirt election laws and money laundering. Birnbaum and Schermbeck already had finished and screened one version of the story, The Big Buy, when DeLay was indicted, but are now filming a new ending. They spoke with the Current in consecutive phone interviews.

DeLay’s defenders have latched on to the film as evidence that Ronnie Earle is a self-promoter with bigger political ambitions who is using this case to catapult himself onto the national stage.
MB: His bigger political ambitions are that he wants to retire. He was planning on retiring about three years ago, before all this started. I’ve come to know him as a modest fella. He’s a politician, he’s run for office; it takes a certain amount of ego to do that. But he’s not part of the kind of “in” political group here in Austin. He’s not a big guy in the Democratic party.
Ronnie Earle
If you could put the story in historical terms, what is the kernel that appealed to you?
MB: I gotta say that the story we sought to tell was not exactly dramatic, but we thought it was important, that plan that began with [the Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee] to dominate politics in the state of Texas and ultimately in the United States by first winning these elections in 2002, the state elections, then pushing through off-year redistricting, redrawing the map, so that in 2004 they could win a majority in Congress -- a perfectly legal plan, all according to the way the system is supposed to work, but for one alleged fact: For the first step of their plan, to win the 2002 elections in Texas, they used corporate money for political purposes -- a felony since 1905. And when Ronnie found out about that, he said, You can’t do that. It’s against the law. So it was also well over a year into it that we switched our stylistic approach to the story to make it a crime story, a noir film: a lot of shots of the capitol at night, which looks kind of menacing. And we started shooting our interviews at night with one bulb on the desk kind of look. And that lent an appropriate feel to the story. Ronnie Earle was pursuing a crime, a number of crimes, that had been committed.
Did you feel you came away from this with a new perspective on the political process or did it reinforce beliefs you already held?
MB: Very much so in that I wasn’t familiar with the details of this story and I was pretty unclear about what redistricting was and how that game is played. And as always happens when I make a film, I’m immersed in other people’s lives and in the details of the facts that surround their lives, so I come away learning a lot.
What do you think Ronnie Earle’s three greatest political skills are?
MB: His sense of humor. Have you heard why he said he wants to be cremated? He says becase there’d be a constant line of people waiting to piss on his grave. He’s a very deeply committed American. He just completely, deeply believes in democracy and its effectiveness -- and that is absolutely the core of what he is fighting for and trying to protect, that’s what he feels is at stake: Democracy is imperiled by this large influx of corporate money into the elections process.
When this Republican leadership is under attack they have been very adept at turning it around and undermining the accuser. Do you think this movie has the potential to counteract that kind of blowback?
MB: Hardly. I think our little movie is a just ping-pong ball on that constantly crashing wave of administration and big political power. So I don’t think they have anything to worry about from us. We made a film about campaign-finance reform without once ever mentioning the phrase “campaign-finance reform,” which causes people’s eyes to roll up in their heads. So I feel like we’ve accomplished something here; we’ve explained a complex process that most people are not aware of but that affects their lives, [that] changed the political climate of this state and of the United States.
You said that DeLay is in a class by himself; could you expand on that a little more?
JS: On the Hill his various enterprises are known as DeLay Inc. for a reason. There are interlocking committees like TRMPAC and ARMPAC and so forth. He’s had children’s charities, sometimes money comes to children’s charities, sometimes they’re linked to political activities as well. He was the organzier of the K Street Project which is now an online affair where they fill every available lobbyist position on the Hill with Republicans. So it is quite the empire.
What is your philosophy about the way the political finance system is supposed to work?
JS: Well, I think people should be allowed to give to the campaigns of their choice, and I certainly have done that. It’s how much you give and whether that twists the campaign itself and whether that money should be coming from just individuals themselves or corporations. And I think Texas has a good law -- surprisingly good for Texas -- and keeping corporate money out of those elections is a good idea. I think there were good reasons to do it in 1905 [when the law was passed]; I think there are good reasons to do it now.
After spending a lot of intimate time with Ronnie Earle, what is your measure of the man?
JS: People accuse him of being a partisan Democrat, and I don’t think that’s where he’s coming from. If there were still a chapter of the Farmers Alliance Populist Party left over from the turn of the century, I think Ronnie would be the first to sign up for that, because he’s more of a populist than a Democrat.
I’m not sure people know what “populist” means anymore. How do you define it?
JS: It’s kind of a bottom-up view of politics, putting more emphasis on the grass-roots, citizen-friendly aspects of government than on a top-down approach. It’s giving citizens at the grass-roots level more power to decide things rather than assigning that power to institutions or our government or things above them in the hierarchy.
Mark said Lon Burnam saw the film and felt that it provided a great narrative.
JS: It’s not just about Ronnie Earle, the film is really about all the events from the 2002 election onward. So it includes redistricting, and the investigation, and the indictment, and so on. I think what it does, in terms of the timeliness of what is going on right now, it puts the DeLay indictment in total historical context. People can understand why Tom DeLay might have been indicted if they see this film.

Warrant for the Community Cheat

Texas Court Issues Arrest Warrant for Tom DeLay
A Texas state court has issued an arrest warrant for Tom DeLay. This comes two weeks after two separate grand juries indicted Delay on conspiracy and money laundering charges. Delay has temporarily stepped down as House Majority leader. He will now be required to appear in Texas for booking and possibly be fingerprinted and photographed.

Senate Rejects Minimum Wage Increase
On Capitol Hill, the Senate rejected a pair of proposals Wednesday to increase the federal minimum wage for the first time since 1997. Senator Ted Kennedy had proposed raising the wage from $5.15 to 6.25. Kennedy said a single parent with two children working a minimum wage job would earn less than $11,000 a year -- $4,500 below the poverty line.

Quarter of Iraq War Vets Return With Health Problems
A new Pentagon study has found 28% of U.S. troops returning from Iraq face health problems that require medical or mental health treatment. So far this year almost 1,700 returning soldiers harbored suicidal or self-harming thoughts; nearly 20,000 reported nightmares; and more than 3,700 said they had fears they might "hurt or lose control" with someone else. The study also shows more soldiers are afraid in Iraq now than at any other point of the occupation of Iraq.

Lawyer: Guantánamo Detainees Tortured, Force-Fed, Induced to Vomit
Meanwhile at Guantanamo Bay, detainees are accusing guards and medical officials of mistreating prisoners taking part in a camp-wide hunger strike. Detainees said large feeding tubes were forcibly shoved up their noses and down into their stomachs, with guards using the same tubes from one patient to another. The force-feedings reportedly resulted in prisoners vomiting up "substantial amounts of blood." The detainees say no sedatives were provided during these procedures, which they allege took place in front of U.S. physicians, including the head of the prison hospital.

Democrats Question Bush - Rove Meeting on CIA Leak
Democrats asked the White House on Wednesday for details of President George W. Bush's private conversations in 2003 with top political adviser Karl Rove after conflicting reports about whether Bush was aware of any role by Rove in the outing of a covert CIA operative.
In a letter to Bush on Wednesday, Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, asked for details about the president's conversations with Rove after The New York Daily News reported that the president was initially furious with Rove when Rove conceded in 2003 that he had talked to the press about Wilson's wife. The Daily News account appeared to contradict assertions earlier this month by sources close to the case that Rove had kept his role from Bush, assuring him in a brief conversation in the fall of 2003 that he was not involved in any effort to punish Wilson by disclosing his wife's identity. The Daily News said those earlier reports implying Rove had deceived Bush about his involvement in the Wilson counterattack were incorrect and were leaked by White House aides trying to protect the president.
"I urge you to immediately and publicly clear up the record,'' Schumer wrote.
"When was the president told?'' asked the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan.
Scott McClellan has refused to provide details about Bush's private conversation with Rove, though he has referred to it publicly. Around that time McClellan also flatly denied that Rove and Libby had any involvement in the leak, but reporters have since identified them as sources. McClellan on Wednesday broke with his usual practice of refusing to comment on the leak case, saying of the Daily News report: ``I would challenge the overall accuracy of that news account.'' When reporters pressed him on which facts he was challenging, though, McClellan refused to say.
After initially promising to fire anyone found to have leaked information about Plame, Bush offered a more qualified pledge in July, saying, "If someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration.''

Cheney's Chickens Come Home to Roost
Indictments are expected to come down shortly as special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald completes the investigation originally precipitated by the outing of a CIA officer under deep cover. In 21-plus months of digging and interviewing, Fitzgerald and his able staff have been able to negotiate the intelligence/policy/politics labyrinth with considerable sophistication. In the process, they seem to have learned considerably more than they had bargained for. The investigation has long since morphed into size extra large, which is the only size commensurate with the wrongdoing uncovered – not least, the fabrication and peddling of intelligence to justify a war of aggression. The coming months are likely to see senior Bush administration officials frog-marched out of the White House to be booked, unless the president moves swiftly to fire Fitzgerald – a distinct possibility.

Senate serves grilled Rice
from MSNBC:
"It was striking that a conservative icon like Rice would use -- at least half a dozen times -- the phrase the "root causes" of terrorism, just as liberal criminologists used to talk about the "root causes" of crime. The "root causes" of Islamic fanaticism, she insisted, could be found in a Middle East that has what she called “deep malignancies” and “a sense of hopelessness,” a region that “has not advanced very far, where there is a freedom deficit... Unfortunately, for 60 years we chose to ignore (the lack of democracy) to try to bring about stability.”
She painted an ambitious vision of a Middle East that is “modernizing, progressive, where women’s rights are assured, where Islam finds its place alongside democracy.” She said it would be “a generational struggle” to reach these goals.
But Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., angrily told Rice that the American people “don’t want the job of rebuilding the Middle East on the backs of our brave men and women and the taxpayers of the United States.” (Boxer voted against the 2002 Iraq war resolution.)
And committee chairman Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., who voted for funding the Iraq operation, said to Rice, “Let’s say that the Iraqis, after all is said and done, really don’t want to have a united country…. Some Americans would say, ‘why are we there, if these folks not only don’t appreciate us, but they’re hashing the whole thing up, they literally don’t want to have the sort of Iraq that was envisioned by the British and French years ago?’”
Both Lugar and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., suggested to Rice that what she and Bush are trying to achieve — a unitary, multi-ethnic, democratic Iraq — may simply not be feasible.
“Are we committed to holding Iraq together in perpetuity, even if the parties involved, the Iraqi people, determine they don’t want to form the sort of visionary Iraqi nation that you and the president envision?” Obama asked Rice. She insisted that the senators were overplaying the importance of sectarian divides among Sunni, Shia, and Kurds in Iraq. “Secretary Rice is a very articulate spokesperson for the administration’s point of view, but after three hours of hearings I don’t think any of us can say what the benchmarks of success are that would allow us to bring our troops home,” Obama told MSNBC.com.
“It’s just not working,” said Feingold. “They keep using the same old mantras…. People don’t believe this idea that somehow this is the logical step in the fight against terrorism. They’ve lost all those arguments.” Feingold assailed “this continued attempt to defraud the American people by suggesting this was good move in the fight against terrorism is simply failing.”

SBS shows troops burning Taliban bodies
SBS has broadcast footage of what it says is United States soldiers burning two dead Taliban fighters as they faced Mecca and using the charred and smoking corpses in a propaganda campaign in southern Afghanistan.
The Dateline report, broadcast on Wednesday night, said US soldiers burnt the bodies for hygiene reasons but then a US psychological operations unit broadcast a propaganda message on loudspeakers to Taliban fighters, taunting them to retrieve their dead and fight. In Washington, the US Defence Department has expressed concern over the report and promised it will be "aggressively investigated."
"These are very serious allegations and, if true, very troublesome," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told Reuters. "It is the policy of the United States, as well as the Defence Department, to treat all remains consistent with the Geneva Convention and with the utmost respect. These allegations will be aggressively investigated and, if proven to be true, the individuals will be held appropriately accountable."
A US military statement released in Afghanistan said army criminal investigators had launched a probe "into alleged misconduct by US service members, including the burning of dead enemy combatant bodies under inappropriate circumstances".
"This command does not condone the mistreatment of enemy combatants or the desecration of their religious and cultural beliefs," US Major General Jason Kamiya said in the statement."This alleged action is repugnant to our common values, is contrary to our commands approved tactical operating procedures, and is not sanctioned by this command."
Dateline said the story was filmed in early October. The footage of the burning corpses was shot by Australian photojournalist Stephen DuPont who was embedded with a US unit. Dateline said the two Taliban fighters burnt on hills above the village of Gondaz north of Kandahar were killed by the US soldiers the night before. The footage showed flames licking two charred corpses, their legs and arms outstretched, and a group of five US soldiers standing watching from a rocky ledge.

Jewish terrorists attack Al Aqsa mosque
Dozens of Jewish extremists stormed the esplanade of the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the Palestinian WAFA news agency reported Wednesday. The Israeli occupation forces allowed about fifty Jewish extremists to enter the Haram al-Sharif esplanade in the morning, Muslim Wakf sources said. The Mosque’s guards clashed with a group of Jewish terrorists who stormed the Mosque's esplanade and held prayer sessions near the Mosque gates, and barred Muslim worshipers from entering it.
The Jewish terrorists were protected by the Israeli forces, said Mohammed Hussein, Director of the mosque, adding that they didn’t even try to stop them when they started provoking the Muslim worshipers.
“Since the beginning of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting for Muslim, extremist settler groups intensified their attacks against the mosque”, Hussein said, “These acts, and the court’s decision, could lead to dangerous results”.
Israel security sources revealed Wednesday that the Jewish state is considering permanently banning Palestinians from using major roads in the occupied West Bank, according to Reuters news agency. Israel started earlier this week barring private Palestinian vehicles from West Bank highways. It also expanded a network of settler-only routes.

Fake terrorism and other curious events

Former CIA Analyst: Government May Be Manufacturing Fake Terrorism
from PRISON PLANET:
"Ray McGovern, former CIA Analyst during the Regan and Bush 41 regimes, joined Alex Jones on his daily radio show Monday 17th October as part of a round table discussion of issues surrounding the Iraq war and the "war on terror". Mr McGovern stated that the war "has nothing to do with democracy or freedom or defending "our way of life", it is to do with enriching the pockets of those who support this administration." He amazingly went on to suggest that if another attack took place we should not accept what the government tells us because it could be them carrying out the terror.
"We have to be careful, if somebody does this kind of provocation, big violent explosions of some kind, we have to not take the word of the masters there in Washington that this was some terrorist event because it could well be a provocation allowing them, or seemingly to allow them to get what they want." McGovern said he would not put it past the Government to "Play fast and loose" with terror alerts and warnings and even events themselves in order to rally people behind the flag.
Last week we revealed how a major terror alert in New York was outed as a fake, and magically boosted Mayor Bloomberg's ratings. "

Baltimore Tunnel Threat Turns Out to Be Hoax
For the second time in as many weeks, the credibility of an intelligence threat that led to a terror scare in a major metropolitan city in the United States is being questioned. Two major car tunnels were closed in Baltimore Tuesday following information gleaned from an informant in FBI custody. But intelligence officials now say the informant's warning appears to have been an attempt to exact revenge on a Maryland resident he named as one of eight suspects for being involved with his girlfriend. All eight suspects were Egyptian-born Maryland residents. Last week, a terror scare led to a heightened alert and increased security presence on New York City's subways. Officials later conceded the intelligence that led to the threat warning was a hoax.

Appeals Court Allows Hatfill to Sue New York Times
From THE GUARDIAN:
"A federal appeals court on Tuesday allowed a former Army scientist to proceed with a libel lawsuit against The New York Times that claims one of the paper's columnists unfairly linked him to the 2001 anthrax killings. Steven Hatfill sued the Times for a series of columns written in 2002 by Nicholas Kristof that faulted the FBI for failing to thoroughly investigate Hatfill for anthrax mailings that left five people dead. Hatfill, a physician and bioterrorism expert, worked in the late 1990s at the Army's infectious disease laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md."
Commentary from What Really Happened:
"This will give Hatfill a chance to question some people in court over how it is that he became the focus of the publicity in the Anthrax case even though another suspect entirely, Dr. Philip Zack, was caught on the security systems entering the storage area where the Anthrax used in the letters was kept, without authorization, and AFTER being fired from his job over a racially motivated attack on an Egyptian co-worker."


Cartoon by Nick Anderson

Second Cheney aide cooperating in leak probe
A second aide to Vice President Dick Cheney is cooperating with the special prosecutor's probe into the outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. David Wurmser, Cheney’s Middle East advisor, has agreed to provide the prosecution with evidence that the leak was a coordinated effort by Cheney’s office.
Wurmser likely cooperated because he faced criminal charges for his role in leaking Wilson's name on the orders of higher-ups, the sources said.
According to those familiar with the case, Wurmser was in attendance at several meetings of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), a little-known cabal of administration hawks that formed in August 2002 to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Hannah and Wurmser were given orders by senior officials in Cheney’s office in June 2003 to leak Plame’s covert status and identity in an attempt to muzzle Wilson. Wurmser’s cooperation with Fitzgerald would certainly come as no surprise to those who have been following his career. Last year, he was questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for his possible role in leaking U.S. security secrets to Israel.
According to a 2004 story in the Washington Post, the FBI interviewed officials in Cheney’s office and the Pentagon, including Hannah and Wurmser, former Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, to determine if they were involved in leaking U.S. security secrets to Israel, the former head of the Iraqi National Congress Ahmed Chalabi and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
The revelation that Hannah and Wurmser have become prosecution witnesses, as well as being identified as the original sources of the leak, indicates Fitzgerald now may be looking into the motive for outing Plame and how Administration officials sought to derail a vocal critic of Iraq intelligence.
Wurmser was the lead author of a 1996 policy paper for then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” It called for removing Saddam from power in Iraq as part of a broad strategy to transform the region and remove radical regimes. Eight months before 9/11, Wurmser called for joint U.S.-Israeli air strikes on Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya.

No Final Report Seen in Inquiry on C.I.A. Leak
The special counsel in the C.I.A. leak case has told associates he has no plans to issue a final report about the results of the investigation, heightening the expectation that he intends to bring indictments, lawyers in the case and law enforcement officials said yesterday. The prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, is not expected to take any action in the case this week, government officials said. With the term of the grand jury expiring Oct. 28, lawyers in the case said they assumed Mr. Fitzgerald was in the final stages of his inquiry.
The likelihood that crucial details might be kept secret would be increased if Mr. Fitzgerald brought charges that were narrowly focused on perjury, false statement or obstruction of justice counts involving misstatements by officials in their testimony. But he has also examined broader potential violations, among them whether there was an illegal effort, directed by senior officials, to disclose Ms. Wilson's identity.

Judy Miller Goes Down in Flames...er...Plames
I cannot remember having as entertaining a time reading the New York Times as I did this past Sunday reading the page one story on Judith Miller and her self-imposed jail time. Without outright calling their co-worker a liar and a shill for the Bush administration's war marketing campaign, they left almost no doubt in the reader's mind not only that this was in fact what she was, but that the Times' senior management and many of her colleagues at the paper thought exactly the same thing.

Miller to testify in torture trial?
Bridgeview used car salesman Muhammad Salah recalls being beaten, housed in a "refrigerator cell" and threatened with rape by Israeli soldiers until he admitted to bankrolling overseas terrorists, according to a new filing in U.S. District Court. In an odd twist, the interrogation was witnessed by embattled New York Times reporter Judith Miller, and defense attorneys suggested Monday the best way for the U.S. government to prove its case is to call the controversial journalist to the witness stand.
"We think the government is going to call her," said Chicago defense attorney Michael E. Deutsch.
(We all know how truthful & unbiased Judith Miller is!!)

U.S. Drops Key Reconstruction Projects in Iraq
The top U.S. auditor monitoring Iraq's reconstruction says rebuilding projects will be dropped as security and maintenance costs continue to soar. The auditor, Stuart Bowen, said money needed for Iraq's health, water, oil and electrical infrastructure and current rebuilding projects "will outstrip the available revenue." Bowen said up to 26 percent of U.S. reconstruction money has gone to security costs.
(Perhaps it's time to demand some of the spoils back from KBR??)

Spanish judge issues arrest warrant for US troops
A Spanish High Court judge issued international arrest warrants on Wednesday for three U.S. soldiers in connection with the death of a Spanish cameraman during the war in Iraq. "I order the ... capture and arrest of the U.S. soldiers, with a view to extradition," High Court Judge Santiago Pedraz said in a court document, adding the order would be submitted to the international police organization Interpol.
The three men were named as Sergeant Thomas Gibson, Captain Philip Wolford and Lieutenant Colonel Philip De Camp. The United States has cleared the men of any blame, although it acknowledges a shell was fired from their tank into the Palestine Hotel where Telecinco cameraman Jose Couso and Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk were killed. A U.S. investigation concluded the men were justified in opening fire. (Yes, those Reuters people might have had incriminating footage). Pedraz said an investigation had shown the three soldiers involved in the tank attack on April 8, 2003 could be responsible for murder and crimes against the international community. The charges carry jail sentences of 15 to 20 years and 10 to 15 years respectively.
The judge said he issued the warrants because U.S. authorities had refused to cooperate. He said the warrants were "the only effective measure to ensure the accused are made available to Spanish judicial authorities."
"I just cannot imagine how any U.S. soldier can be subject to some kind of foreign proceeding for criminal liability when he is in a tank in a war zone as part of an international coalition," a U.S. State Department official, who asked not to be named, said in June. Spain has a record of tackling controversial human rights cases.
(Perhaps it's time to begin being a big more imaginative??)

Film rolls as troops burn dead
US soldiers in Afghanistan burnt the bodies of dead Taliban and taunted their opponents about the corpses, in an act deeply offensive to Muslims and in breach of the Geneva conventions. An investigation by SBS's Dateline program also filmed a US Army psychological operations unit broadcasting a message boasting of the burnt corpses into a village believed to be harbouring Taliban. "You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burnt. You are too scared to retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be," the message reportedly said. "You attack and run away like women. You call yourself Taliban but you are a disgrace to the Muslim religion, and you bring shame upon your family. Come and fight like men instead of the cowardly dogs you are."
The burning of a body is a deep insult to Muslims. Islam requires burial within 24 hours. Under the Geneva conventions the burial of war dead "should be honourable, and, if possible, according to the rites of the religion to which the deceased belonged".
US soldiers said they burnt the bodies for hygiene reasons but two reporters, Stephen Dupont and John Martinkus, said the explanation was unbelievable, given they were in an isolated area. The incident is reminiscent of the psychological techniques used in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

Two amazing PBS documentaries:
"The Torture Question" from FRONTLINE
"They can do whatever they want; they could make it appear any way they want. I will not be silenced," General Janis Karpinski tells FRONTLINE. "I will continue to ask how they can continue to blame seven rogue soldiers on the nightshift when there is a preponderance of information right now, hard information from a variety of sources, that says otherwise." "The Torture Question" traces the aggressive development of the administration's interrogation policy in the aftermath of 9/11, where the push for "actionable intelligence" led to authorization for interrogators to strip detainees, degrade prisoners with sexual humiliation techniques and use dogs for intimidation.
"Two Days in October" from AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
In Vietnam, a U.S. battalion unwittingly marched into a Viet Cong trap. Sixty-one young men were killed and as many wounded. The ambush prompted some in power to wonder whether the war might be unwinnable. Half a world away, concerned students at the University of Wisconsin protested the presence of Dow Chemical recruiters on campus. The demonstration spiraled out of control, marking the first time that a student protest had turned violent.

Saddam Hussein Pleads Innocent At War Crimes Trial
Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has pleaded innocent during the first day of his war crimes trial in Baghdad. He refused to identify himself and questioned the validity of the proceedings. He told the judges: "I preserve my constitutional rights as the president of Iraq. I do not recognize the body that has authorized you and I don"t recognize this aggression. What is based on injustice is unjust ... I do not respond to this so-called court, with all due respect." The proceedings have been criticized by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for failing to meet international standards

Harriet Miers Openly Opposed Abortion in 1989
This news on Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers: in 1989, when Miers was running for Dallas city council, she filled out a questionnaire that shows she advocated banning abortions. Miers also said she would support legislation to ban abortions if the Supreme Court ruled states could do so, and would participate in "pro-life rallies and special events." The questionnaire was written by the group Texans United for Life. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein responded to the revelation by saying: "The answers clearly reflect that Harriet Miers is opposed to Roe v. Wade."

Cartoon by Mike Luckovich

The net closes in

Cheney aide John Hannah cooperating with CIA Probe
A senior aide to Vice President Dick Cheney is cooperating with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. John Hannah, a senior national security aide on loan to Vice President Dick Cheney from the offices of then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, John Bolton, was named as a target of Fitzgerald’s probe. Insiders say he was told in recent weeks that he could face imminent indictment for his role in leaking Plame-Wilson’s name to reporters unless he cooperated with the investigation. Others close to the probe say that if Hannah is cooperating with the special prosecutor then he was likely going to be charged as a co-conspirator and may have cut a deal.
In June 2003, Hannah was given orders by higher-ups in Cheney’s office to leak Plame’s covert status and identity in an attempt to muzzle Wilson, who had been a thorn in the side of the administration since May 2003, when he started questioning the administration’s claims that Iraq was an imminent threat to the U.S. and its neighbors in the Middle East. The specifics of who issued those orders and what directives were given were not provided. To many following the case, Hannah’s involvement will not come as a surprise. Wilson pointed to Hannah as a possible leaker in his book, The Politics of Truth.
“In fact, senior advisers close to the president may well have been clever enough to have used others to do the actual leaking, in order to keep their fingerprints off the crime,” Wilson writes. “John Hannah and David Wurmser, mid-level political appointees in the vice-president’s office, have both been suggested as sources of the leak …Mid-level officials, however, do not leak information without the authority from a higher level."
The revelation that Hannah has become a prosecution witness strongly suggests that Fitzgerald is now looking into the motive for outing Plame and how Wilson’s complaints threatened to destroy public support for the war, which the Bush administration worked diligently to win.
Fitzgerald may be looking at a broader conspiracy case of pre-war machinations by the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) and by the Pentagon’s ultra-secret Office of Net Assessment, the former operating out of Dick Cheney’s office and tasked with “selling” the war in Iraq, and the latter operating out of Defense Under Secretary for Policy, Douglas Feith’s office and tasked with creating a war to “sell,” as some describe. MORE

White House Watch: Cheney resignation rumors fly
Sparked by today's Washington Post story that suggests Vice President Cheney's office is involved in the Plame-CIA spy link investigation, government officials and advisers passed around rumors that the vice president might step aside and that President Bush would elevate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"It's certainly an interesting but I still think highly doubtful scenario," said a Bush insider. "And if that should happen," added the official, "there will undoubtedly be those who believe the whole thing was orchestrated – another brilliant Machiavellian move by the VP."
Said another Bush associate of the rumor, "Yes. This is not good." "Folks on the inside and near inside are holding their breath and wondering what's next," said a Bush adviser. But, he added, they aren't focused on the future of the vice president. "Not that, at least not seriously."


CIA leak probe 'widening to include use of intelligence'
Evidence is building that the probe conducted by Patrick Fitzgerald, special prosecutor, has extended beyond the leaking of a covert CIA agent's name to include questioning about the administration's handling of pre-Iraq war intelligence. According to the Democratic National Committee, a majority of the nine members of the White House Iraq Group have been questioned by Mr Fitzgerald. The team, which included senior national security officials, was created in August 2002 to “educate the public” about the risk posed by weapons of mass destruction on Iraq. Mr Fitzgerald, who has been applauded for conducting a leak-free inquiry, has said little publicly about his 22-month probe, other than that it is about the “potential retaliation against a whistleblower”, Joseph Wilson. The prosecutor has given no indication whether he will charge anyone in the case.
According to Time magazine, both Libby and Rove, President George W. Bush's chief political adviser, who has appeared four times before the grand jury, would resign or take unpaid leave if indicted for their role in the case.Mr Rove has been adopting a lower profile, backing out of two public speeches over the last week. However, Scott McClellan, White House spokesman, said yesterday: “Karl is here at the White House doing his duties, as he always does.” The US failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq resulted in two inquiries into the prewar intelligence, one led by the Senate intelligence committee and the other by a White House-appointed panel. But both panels confined themselves to investigating the intelligence community, concluding that the White House was largely the innocent victim of faulty intelligence. Neither delved into the political use of the available intelligence by the administration.

Iran says arrested British agent for twin bombings
Tehran, Iran, Oct. 17 – An individual arrested in connection with Saturday’s twin bombings in the south-western city of Ahwaz has confessed to have received British training in Iraq to carry out the attacks, the Iranian Majlis (Parliament) deputy for the oil-rich city announced on Monday.
“The arrested individual is a deceived person who received the necessary training in Iraq”, Nasser Soudani told the Fars news agency, close to the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “Foreign agents, led by treacherous and criminal Britain, have trained teams in Iraq to create insecurity and an air of fright and terror in the province of Khuzestan”, Soudani said, referring to the ethnic Arab-dominated province whose capital is Ahwaz.
Saturday’s twin bombings in a central Ahwaz shopping centre left at least six people dead and over 100 injured.
Soudani said that two British intelligence agents arrested last month in the southern Iraqi city of Basra had ties to both the bombings on Saturday and a similar spate of bombings in the volatile city earlier in June.
British officials have said that the pair were MI5 agents working to uncover Iranian support for the insurgent attacks against British troops in southern Iraq.
Iranian officials and state-run press have been advertising the idea that Britain was behind Saturday’s bombings, a charge denied by the British embassy in Tehran. On Sunday, hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the state-run ISNA news agency that he suspected British involvement in the attacks. “We are very suspicious about the role of British forces in perpetrating such terrorist acts. Our people are used to these kind of incidents, and our intelligence agents found the footprints of Britain in the same incidents before”, Ahmadinejad said, adding “We think the presence of British forces in southern Iraq and near the Iranian border is a factor behind insecurity for the Iraqi and Iranian people”.
A demonstration has been planned to take place this morning outside the British embassy in Tehran against London’s position regarding the Islamic Republic’s suspected nuclear weapons programme at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Some analysts see a link between the spate of recent attacks on British forces in southern Iraq and the hardening anti-British voices in Tehran.


Vote Totals Under Inquiry in 12 Iraqi Provinces
Iraqi election officials said today that they were investigating what they described as "unusually high" vote totals in 12 Shiite and Kurdish provinces, where as many 99 percent of the voters were reported to have cast ballots in favor of Iraq's new constitution, raising the possibility that the results of Saturday's referendum could be called into question. The statement made no mention of the possibility of fraud, but said the re-examination of the balloting was being done in order to comply with internationally accepted standards. Election officials say that under such standards, voting must be re-examined any time a candidate or a ballot question receives more than 90 percent of the vote. Even if no evidence of fraud is found, today's announcement seems likely to trigger suspicions among many Iraqi voters, especially Sunnis, many of whom are deeply suspicious of the Shiite majority and of the Kurds. The Independent Election Commission of Iraq, which is composed of six Iraqis and one non-Iraqi, has the authority to overturn the results of the election if the panel finds that it was conducted unlawfully.

Dr. Strangelove in trouble?

Cheney likely entangled in CIA-Leak Investigation
The charges could range from a broad conspiracy case to more narrowly drawn indictments for obstruction of justice or perjury, according to lawyers involved in the case. Charges are considered less likely on the law that initially triggered Fitzgerald's probe, which makes it illegal to deliberately unmask an undercover intelligence agent, because of the difficulty in meeting that statute's exacting standards for prosecution.
MORE

Judy Miller can't remember who leaked to her--still covering for Libby
MICHAEL ISIKOFF: investigative reporter with Newsweek:
What's fascinating, if you read Judy Miller's account closely, is it's very clear she is still trying to be protective of Scooter Libby, and in fact, as I sort of reread it this morning, I saw point by point where, if she is on the stand, as presumably she would be, if Libby gets indicted and the case goes to trial, the defense lawyer for Libby could go through her account and find passages where she is giving information that could be helpful to Libby's defense.
AMY GOODMAN: What about where Libby tells Judith Miller he wants to be identified as a former congressional staffer, how this government official is being protected at every level by The New York Times. He clearly doesn't want to be in any way figured out. And she agrees to “former congressional staffer,” because at one point in his life, he worked on the Hill.
GREG MITCHELL of Editor & Publisher: Well, it's one reason why I called for her to be fired immediately. It's an incredible lack of journalistic ethics, and someone who would agree to that, to – and basically goes along with the shielding and working hand in glove with the administration on these stories, reveals as much as anything how Judith Miller was – her prime concern was not journalism, was not The New York Times, was not the public's right to know, or the readers, but in furthering the case and protecting the case of the administration to – and basically the significance of it is that she was trying to get the information out, but without linking it back to the administration or the Vice President's office. So, if you want to use a confidential source – and here she is the First Amendment martyr. She’s the person who is going around the country and about to pick up an award tomorrow, in fact, for being a hero of the First Amendment, and yet in dealing with this source, she did everything to protect where this information was coming from by agreeing to describe him as a former congressional Hill staffer, as opposed to someone in the administration.

“More and more Americans are angry,” says retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004. “They are angry about the president's incompetence and his general unwillingness to acknowledge with some humility that he has made some terrible and tragic mistakes regarding the mission in Iraq.”

US strikes kill '70 Iraq rebels'
(even the BBC puts US Military statements of who and how many they killed in quotes these days)

Helicopters and warplanes bombed two villages near Ramadi in western Iraq on Sunday, killing about 70 people, the US military says. It said all the dead were militants, although eyewitnesses are quoted saying that many were civilians. One of the air strikes hit the same spot where five US soldiers had died on Saturday in a roadside bombing. The US statement said a group of insurgents was about to place another bomb, although local people deny this. An F-15 warplane fired a precision guided bomb at the group, killing about 20 militants, the US statement said. Several witnesses quoted by Associated Press said they were civilians who had gathered near the wrecked US vehicle and 25 had died.
The victims were either standing around the wreck or scavenging bits of metal or equipment, witnesses said, as often happens after a successful insurgent attack. In a separate incident, the US military said it had killed a group of gunmen who had opened fire on a Cobra attack helicopter from the village of al-Bu Faraj. An F/A-18 warplane bombed a building where they were hiding, and 40 insurgents were killed, the military said. Witnesses quoted by AP said at least 14 of the dead were civilians. (But an Iraqi doctor who reported 20 people killed -- including six children -- and 25 wounded said all those were civilians.)

According to Colonel Sam Gardiner (USAF, Ret.)
"there were over 50 stories manufactured or at least engineered that distorted the picture of Gulf II for the American and British people." Those stories include:
*The link between terrorism, Iraq and 9/11
*Iraqi agents meeting with 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta
*Iraq's possession of chemical and biological weapons.
*Iraq's purchase of nuclear materials from Niger.
*Saddam Hussein's development of nuclear weapons.
*Aluminum tubes for nuclear weapons
*The existence of Iraqi drones, WMD cluster bombs and Scud missiles.
*Iraq's threat to target the US with cyber warfare attacks.
*The rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch.
*The surrender of a 5,000-man Iraqi brigade.
*Iraq executing Coalition POWs.
*Iraqi soldiers dressing in US and UK uniforms to commit atrocities.
*The exact location of WMD facilities
*WMDs moved to Syria.
Every one of these stories received extensive publicity and helped form indelible public impressions of the "enemy" and the progress of the invasion. Every one of these stories was false.

Ronnie Earle: DeLay Evidence Missing
The most compelling piece of evidence cited by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle to implicate House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in a money laundering and conspiracy case can't be located, Earle's prosecution team admitted on Friday. Indictments against DeLay and fundraisers Jim Ellis and John Colyandro allege that Ellis gave "a document that contained the names of several candidates for the Texas House" to a Republican National Committee official in 2002, reports the Houston Chronicle.
The document was touted as proof that DeLay was part of a scheme to swap $190,000 in restricted corporate money for the same amount of money from individuals that could be legally used by Texas candidates.
But Earle's prosecution team told the court on Friday that they had only a "similar" list and not the one allegedly given to the RNC. Late in the day, they released a list of 17 Republican candidates in Texas, but fewer than half are alleged to have received money as part of the alleged DeLay plot.
DeLay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin immediately pounced on the development, telling the Chronicle that the lack of a list "destroys" Earle's case against the three men."That's astonishing, astonishing that they would get a grand jury to indict and allege there is a list and then they have to admit in open court the first time they appear in open court that there is no list," DeGuerin said.
Prosecutor Earle engaged in similar tactics in 1993, when he twice indicted Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison for misuse of campaign funds, only to have the case dismissed both times. Earle indicted a third time, but when the case went to trial he failed to produce any evidence and was forced to dismiss all charges.

Police 'had role in' Bali blasts
INDONESIAN police or military officers may have played a role in the 2002 Bali bombing, the country's former president, Abdurrahman Wahid has said. In an interview with SBS's Dateline program to be aired tonight, on the third anniversary of the bombing that killed 202 people, Mr Wahid says he has grave concerns about links between Indonesian authorities and terrorist groups. While he believed terrorists were involved in planting one of the Kuta night club bombs, the second, which destroyed Bali's Sari Club, had been organised by authorities.Asked who he thought planted the second bomb, Mr Wahid said: "Maybe the police ... or the armed forces. The orders to do this or that came from within our armed forces, not from the fundamentalist people."

GM signs health deal with unions
General Motors has signed an initial agreement with unions to reduce its healthcare expenses by $3bn a year, sending its shares up 11%. The jump in its share price came despite the firm also reporting a $1.6bn third quarter loss, compared to a $315m profit a year ago. GM had long sought to reduce its expensive healthcare obligations, with talks starting back in the spring. The US giant on Monday also reiterated plans to cut 25,000 jobs by 2008.
Detroit-based GM has been hit by falling sales in the US, where it has struggled against tough competition from Japanese rivals, and a decline in sales of sports utility vehicles. GM's US business lost $1.6bn during the quarter and saw its market share slip to 25.6% from 28.5% a year ago. Overall worldwide group sales totalled $47bn, up from $44.8bn for the same period in 2004. GM Europe saw losses narrow in the quarter to $150m compared to $236m a year ago.
Here's my question: why don't companies like GM, Wal-Mart, United Airlines get behind taxing the rich for a national healthcare program? That would completely solve these problems.

Republican Congressman Slams Bush On Militarized Police State Preparation
Congressman Ron Paul has accused the Bush administration of attempting to set in motion a militarized police state in America by enacting gun confiscation martial law provisions in the event of an avian flu pandemic. Paul also slammed as delusional and dangerous plans to invade Iran, Syria, North Korea and China. Ron Paul represents the 14th Congressional district of Texas. He also serves on the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, and the International Relations committee. Paul appeared on the Alex Jones show yesterday and raised some interesting points about the possibility of imminent indictments of top Bush administration figures.
"I think there's a lot more excitement coming and it's not going to be good for the Republicans," stated Paul.
"The things that I hear have to do with Karl Rove and Abramoff and that's much much worse than anybody would believe and it involves DeLay as well."

"And that type of an indictment will be much more serious than the indictment of shifting campaign funds around.....there's some political infighting which could make that really interesting."
"If we don't change our ways we will go the way of Rome and I see that as rather sad.....the worst things happen when you get the so-called Republican conservatives in charge from Nixon on down, big government flourishes under Republicans. It's really hard to believe it's happening right in front of us. Whether it's the torture or the process of denying habeas corpus to an American citizen. I think the arrogance of power that they have where they themselves are like Communists....in the sense that they decide what is right. The Communist Party said that they decided what was right or wrong, it wasn't a higher source."
Paul responded to President Bush's announcement last week that he would order the use of military assets to police America in the event of an avian flu outbreak.
"To me it's so strange that the President can make these proposals and it's even plausible. When he talks about martial law dealing with some epidemic that might come later on and having forced quarantines, doing away with Posse Comitatus in order to deal with natural disasters, and hardly anybody says anything. People must be scared to death."
Paul, himself a medical doctor, agreed that the bird flu threat was empty fearmongering.
"I believe it is the President hyping this and Rumsfeld, but it has to be in combination with the people being fearful enough that they will accept the man on the white horse. My first reaction going from my political and medical background is that it's way overly hyped and to think that they have gone this far with it, without a single case in the whole country and they're willing to change the law and turn it into a military state? That is unbelievable! They're determined to have martial law."

Paul opined that the martial law provisions now being promoted by the Bush administration were a direct response to people's unwillingness to relinquish their firearms, as was seen in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. "I think they're concerned about the remnant, the remnant of those individuals who don't buy into stuff and think that they should take care of themselves on their own, that they should have their own guns and their own provisions and they don't want to depend on the government at all and I think that is a threat to those who want to hold power. They don't want any resistance to their authoritarian rule."
Paul opined that the government was on a delusional power trip that threatened the country. "These guys are ready to start a war with Iran, Syria, North Korea or China. They can't possibly do that, it's so insane, we don't have the money, we don't have the troops, we probably don't even have the ammunition. But, if they are truly delusional they just might do something that's totally irrational."
Paul expressed his hope that finally some conservatives are waking up to the fact that the Bush administration is a trojan horse, especially after arch-liberal Harriet Miers was chosen by Bush to supposedly move the Supreme Court to the right, even though her record is atrocious and she has been involved in the past covering up for the Bush crime family's activities.

Gitmo Detainees to sue George W. Bush

Gitmo Detainees to sue George W. Bush
From "Al-Jazeera" website:
Ten Saudi prisoners held in the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, plan to file cases in U.S. federal courts against President George W. Bush; demanding to know their charges and requesting a preliminary injunction to release them, Bahrain Center for Human Rights Vice President Nabeel Rajab said, adding that the prisoners will file the lawsuits the coming couple of weeks after the U.S. Center for Constitutional Rights assigned lawyers for each of them. Another 28 detainees filed similar cases in the past, as an estimated 121 Saudis remain in detention out of 520 prisoners, mainly Arabs, held by the U.S. in Guantanamo Bay without being charged.
In July, U.S. lawyers and CCR representatives met some of the Saudi detainees’ families in Bahrain in preparations to meet their clients for the first time in August; a “trust building move” after many detainees complained that U.S. military personnel in Guantanamo misrepresented themselves as lawyers. U.S. officials say that some 200 detainees have been had been returned to their home countries.
The U.S. military medics forcefully try to stop Guantanamo detainees from continuing their hunger strike by placing thick feeding tubes through their noses without painkillers, lawyers for the detainees told a federal judge yesterday. The military medics also recycled dirty feeding tubes used on other detainees, the lawyers said, according to The Boston Globe.
The attorneys described the military actions as abusive, and called on the U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler to order the military turn over their clients' medical records and to permit outside doctors to examine them.
''The allegations are very serious and certainly describe treatment that is needlessly painful, abusive, and extremely inappropriate in terms of needlessly causing further deterioration to the mental condition of the detainees," Kessler said, ordering the government to immediately respond to the allegations.

One torture victim's story
In total, al-Habashi spent 18 months in Moroccan detention. He was tortured with the scalpel once a month. He once asked a guard why they were doing this to him and was told: “It’s just to degrade you, so when you leave here you’ll have these scars and you’ll never forget. So you’ll always fear doing anything but what the US wants.” It didn’t take long for al-Habashi to start confessing to anything his torturers accused him of: that he’d met Osama bin Laden six times; that he’d suggested targets to bin Laden; that he was close to 25 leading al-Qaeda figures; that he was the al-Qaeda “ideas man”.
The other forms of torture he was subjected to included prolonged sleep deprivation; being drugged; forced to listen to music by Meatloaf and Aerosmith non-stop; being made to watch pornographic films; having naked women paraded in front of him. He says thinking of Jesus and the prophet Mohammed kept him going.
“The CIA worked on people, including me, day and night,” he says. “Plenty lost their minds. I could hear people knocking their heads against the walls and the doors, screaming their heads off.” Al-Habashi says he met a fellow prisoner in Guantanamo Bay who was in the same Kabul jail and has now “totally lost his head”. MORE

U.K. Judges liken terror laws to Nazi Germany
A powerful coalition of judges, senior lawyers and politicians has warned that the Government is undermining freedoms citizens have taken for granted for centuries and that Britain risks drifting towards a police state. One of the country's most eminent judges has said that undermining the independence of the courts has frightening parallels with Nazi Germany. Senior legal figures are worried that "inalienable rights" could swiftly disappear unless Tony Blair ceases attacking the judiciary and freedoms enshrined in the Human Rights Act.
Lord Lester QC, a leading human rights lawyer, expressed concern that the Government was flouting human rights law and meddling with the courts. "If the Prime Minister and other members of the Government continue to threaten to undermine the Human Rights Act and interfere with judicial independence we shall have to secure our basic human rights and freedoms with a written constitution," he said.
Lord Carlile, a deputy High Court judge, warned against the whittling away of historic civil liberties. "We have to be acute about protecting what is taken for granted as inalienable rights. In the United States the Patriot Act included a system whereby a witness to a terrorist incident can be detained for up to a year. This is in the land of the free."

SOCom bribery scandal widening
TAMPA - Faced with a widening bribery scandal, officials at Special Operations Command said Friday they would review all contracts to determine if the kickback scheme left the nation's secret military commandos with inferior war-fighting equipment. William E. Burke, 49, of Odessa, a defense contractor at SOCom, pleaded guilty to bribery in a plea deal and agreed to cooperate with federal investigators and identify associates in the scheme. He could face up to 15 years in prison. As word spread of other criminal targets in the investigation, panic spread among employees and private consultants.
The type of federal contracts Burke would have overseen ranged from $115,000 for a gunfire detection system to $690,000 for a field interrogation tool that would analyze stress in the voice. Burke worked for Virginia-based Sentel Corp., a multimillion-dollar company that employs about 300 people nationwide, with employees like Burke on special assignments. He gave preferential treatment to defense companies that were represented by an unindicted co-conspirator in exchange for a $3,000 bribe in January, according to federal prosecutors. He also accepted another $9,000 in exchange for providing both market research and also preferential treatment for the co-conspirator, they said. Burke's suggestions opened doors. If a proposal was not placed on the SOCom "nomination list" to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, it could not receive congressional funding, the plea deal said. In addition, Taylor said SOCom was trying to determine if special operations forces had been left with inferior equipment as a result of the bribery scheme. MORE

Paying back our soldiers
It was almost a year ago Congress passed a law requiring the Pentagon to reimburse soldiers for body armor and equipment they bought for better protection in Iraq, and nearly a year later the Department of Defense hasn't been able to figure out a way to make this reimbursement, according to an Associated Press story Thursday.
This is an incredible report in two ways. It is incredible in the first place that soldiers or parents of soldiers have to pay out hundreds or thousands of dollars for additional armor the government has not provided in an attempt to increase the soldiers' safety. And, secondly, it is impossible to understand why the Pentagon, massive bureaucracy that it is, still cannot -- 12 months after being required to -- figure out a way to reimburse these families. The AP reported Pentagon officials opposed the reimbursement idea, calling it "an unmanageable precedent that will saddle the DOD with an open-ended financial burden." The law is the law, and no one, including the Pentagon, is above it.


Did Dick Cheney order CIA agent leak?
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is trying to determine whether Vice President Dick Cheney had a role in the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame-Wilson, individuals close to Fitzgerald say. The investigation into who leaked the officer's name to reporters has now turned toward a little known cabal of administration hawks known as the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), which came together in August 2002 to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. WHIG was founded by Bush chief of staff Andrew Card and operated out of the Vice President’s office.
Two officials close to Fitzgerald told RAW STORY they have seen documents obtained from the White House Iraq Group which state that Cheney was present at several of the group's meetings. They say Cheney personally discussed with individuals in attendance at least two interviews in May and June of 2003 Wilson gave to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus, in which he claimed the administration “twisted” prewar intelligence and what the response from the administration should be. Sources close to the investigation have also confirmed that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is trying to determine Vice President Cheney's role in the outing of Mrs. Wilson, more specifically, if Cheney ordered the leak.
The White House Iraq Group operated virtually unknown until January 2004, when Fitzgerald subpoenaed for notes, email and attendance records. Bush Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. created the group in August of 2002.The group relied heavily on New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who, after meeting with several of the organization’s members in August 2002, wrote an explosive story that many critics of the war believe laid the groundwork for military action against Iraq.
On Sunday, Sept. 8, 2002, Miller wrote a story for the Times quoting anonymous officials who said aluminum tubes found in Iraq were to be used as centrifuges. She closed her piece by quoting then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice who said the United States would not sit by and wait to find a smoking gun to prove its case, possibly in the form of a “a mushroom cloud." After Miller’s piece was published, administration officials pursued their case on Sunday talk shows using Miller’s piece as evidence that Iraq was pursuing a nuclear bomb, even though those officials were the ones who supplied Miller with the story and were quoted anonymously. MORE

Neocons forge ahead with Military/Intel Putsch
The latest neocon spin is not only to attack Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald in the CIA Leakgate scandal but also to dredge up old canards that Valerie Plame and her Brewster Jennings & Associates counter-proliferation non-official cover (NOCs) team were somehow merely "desk clerks." According to well informed intelligence officials, nothing could be further from the truth. The fact remains that CIA clandestine operatives have been and continue to be disparaged and put in danger by the Pentagon's neocon cell that operates as a parallel and unsupervised operation inside the Policy and Plans directorate. The Pentagon cell, now led by Dick Cheney loyalist Eric Edelman, the replacement for Douglas Feith, owes its first allegiance to the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and other neo-con policy contrivances and apparatuses. Its mandate from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is to clip the wings of the CIA and other long standing intelligence agencies. The CIA's Damage Assessment Report on Leakgate has been termed "devastating" by a number of sources familiar with the harm the White House leak caused for the CIA's complicated and sensitive network of NOCs, case officers, informants in "denied countries" (hostile intelligence locations), private businessmen, diplomats, United Nations and IAEA technical personnel, and double agents. According to U.S. intelligence sources, it is also clear that the Pentagon's Strategic Support Branch of active duty and contract former Special Forces personnel and foreign special operations personnel purposely put in danger CIA assets who were in a position to throw cold water on a range of neo-con pre-conceived policy pillars, including Iranian and Iraqi weapons of mass destruction production and possession. MORE

How sweet it is!

Bush's Miers Predicament Forces GOP Split or Nominee Withdrawal
A growing number of Republican activists say Bush blundered in naming Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court, failing to anticipate the firestorm it would ignite among conservative backers and leading opinion makers who question her qualifications. Bush now may be forced to choose between an embarrassing withdrawal of the nomination or accepting a fissure among conservatives that could jeopardize the party's hold on power.
"Right now the base is completely fractured and people are very concerned about the impact on the 2006 elections,'' said Manuel Miranda, who heads a coalition of 150 conservative and libertarian groups and opposes Miers. "The troubling thing is that the Supreme Court was the gold ring and the president's thinking appears indiscernible, unless you're willing to take it as a matter of faith.''
Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer was similarly blunt in an Oct. 7 article: "If Harriet Miers were not a crony of the president of the United States, her nomination to the Supreme Court would be a joke, as it would have occurred to no one else to nominate her.''
The party's schism over the nomination threatens the Republicans' control of Congress, said former Senator Alan Simpson. "This will be the demise of the majority, sadly enough,'' Simpson, a Wyoming Republican, said in an interview. "Once they start giving each other the saliva test of purity, they lose.''

More complete bunk for sale:
US cannot explain suspicious Zawahri letter passage
U.S. intelligence officials who released a letter purporting to be from an al Qaeda leader to Iraq insurgency leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi this week said on Friday they could not account for a passage that has raised doubts about the document's authenticity.
The July 9 dated letter, which U.S. officials say was written by al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, appears near its close to urge the Iraq insurgent leader to send greetings to himself if visiting the Iraqi city of Falluja. (boy, these guys are dumb!!!)
"My greetings to all the loved ones and please give me news of Karem and the rest of the folks I know," says an unedited English translation posted at www.dni.gov, the office Web site of U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte. "And especially, by God, if by chance you're going to Falluja, send greetings to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi," it states. (And please ask him to bring home some baklava).
Zarqawi is the Jordanian-born leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, the most prominent segment of the deadly Iraq insurgency. His organisation has said the letter is a fabrication.
A spokesman for Negroponte, who is the U.S. director of national intelligence, or DNI, acknowledged the greetings passage was confusing but said the intelligence community was confident the letter was addressed to Zarqawi by Zawahri.
"We don't know what to make of it (the passage). It's unclear," the Negroponte spokesman said. "But we are absolutely confident that it was intended for Mr. Zarqawi, based on a review by multiple agencies over a protracted period of time." (Sure, you are).
U.S. officials have refused to disclose details of where, when or how authorities came by the letter, or what methods have been used to determine its authenticity. Some experts contend the strange passage undermines the letter's credibility.
"This would appear to be conclusive evidence that the DNI was mistaken, and that the letter was written to someone other than Zarqawi," Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists said on on Friday in his e-mail intelligence newsletter, "Secrecy News."
Aftergood cited an article in the online Slate magazine that called attention to the passage as well as the fact the letter was signed with the name, Abu Muhammad. Experts have already said the letter depicts Zawahri as making unrealistic admissions involving al Qaeda's need for money, the Pakistan army's hunt for al Qaeda leaders and the May capture of al Qaeda member Abu Faraj al Liby.

US inflation rate hits 14-year high
Worldwide concerns about inflation were stoked on Friday by official figures showing US prices rising at their fastest rate for 14 years and warnings from European central bankers about wage increases.
In the US, annual headline inflation rose to 4.7 per cent in September, its highest rate since 1991, after gasoline prices jumped by 17.9 per cent in one month alone. The monthly rate for September, at 1.2 per cent, was the highest in 25 years. There is no sign yet that Americans have been able to negotiate higher wages in response to the higher prices. In the year to September, hourly earnings rose by just 2.6 per cent, well below the rising cost of living.

U.S. military to buy huge quantities of Anthrax
It has been revealed that the U.S. army plans to buy large quantities of Anthrax, raising questions over its commitment to treaties aimed at controlling the spread of biological weapons. Edward Hammond, director of the Sunshine Project, a U.S.-German organisation that designed to prevent the use of biological and chemical weapons, discovered numerous contracts that relate to the U.S. army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, in which they ask companies to tender for the production of huge quantities of a non-virulent strain of anthrax, and equipment to produce of other biological agents.
One "biological services" contract specifies: "The company must have the ability and be willing to grow Bacillus anthracis Sterne strain at 1500-litre quantities." Other contracts included the fermentation equipment for producing 3000-litre batches of an unspecified biological agent.
"It raises a serious question over how the U.S. is going to demonstrate its compliance with obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention if it brings these tanks online," says Alan Pearson, programme director for biological and chemical weapons at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington DC.
In 1969, Washington renounced biological weapons, but small quantities of lethal anthrax were still being produced at Dugway as recently as 1998.
Commenting on the move, which could be seen as highly provocative by other nations, Hammond said: "What would happen to the Biological Weapons Convention if other countries followed suit and built large biological production facilities at secretive military bases known for weapons testing?"

Abrams and Novak and Rove? Oh My!
from 'THE NATION"
Even though the Joseph Wilson affair has convulsed the capital for many weeks, much of what makes it important is still ignored. Part of the reason is the insider establishment's deep-seated unwillingness to face up to the Nixonian depths of this Administration's moral depravity. A President, Vice President and Cabinet willing to deceive an entire nation for the purpose of war are not going to think twice before destroying the career of a loyal CIA agent in an attempt to smear her husband. Nor is a group so radical that it casts the CIA as the enemy in its plans for world domination likely to worry about the body count of innocent victims on its revolutionary path to neoconservative nirvana. The media treat this case as an aberration. It's the rule. But another part of the reason this case is so hard to explain in terms that account for why it has taken off is that it involves a shady aspect of the media/government nexus that everyone involved would prefer to leave unexamined. Reporters almost never focus on the sources of their information--even when the leak itself is the most significant part of the story.
The idea that "leaking is wrong" is something that politicians always say but only children believe. Was it wrong for Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon Papers? Are whistleblowers evil? Didn't even John Kennedy tell New York Times and New Republic editors that in retrospect, he wished they had refused his request to keep plans for the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion from their readers? ...
The contras' man in the State Department, Elliott Abrams, took to the airwaves on the Evans & Novak program on CNN. Asked whether he could offer "categorical assurance" that Hasenfus was not connected with the government, Abrams smirked, "Absolutely, that would be illegal.... This was not in any sense a US government operation. None." This performance was a part of Abrams's plea-bargained conviction for withholding information from Congress by Iran/contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh.
Finally, regarding the identity of the leakers--well, yes, Karl Rove is obviously a top suspect, given both his power and modus operandi. Ditto Dick Cheney's Rasputin, I. Lewis Libby. But what about Elliott Abrams? A convicted liar and longtime ally of Novak whiling away his time inside the National Security Council, he has played a much larger role in these war plans--and the battles that have accompanied them--than so far has been recognized by the media. Abrams has quite legalistically denied any role in "leaking classified information," according to White House press secretary Scott McClellan. But the last time Abrams pretended ignorance, he was lying. MORE

Seeing thru the lies

Maybe they are beginning to doubt the mantra?
Press Corps vs. Scott McClellan
I happened to catch this late last night on C-Span. The reporters were heckling and laughing at his repetious broken record and his pathetic ripostes. They are really beginning to give him hell, which is so refreshing.
Q Scott, why did the administration feel it was necessary to coach the soldiers that the President talked to this morning in Iraq?
MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry, I don't know what you're suggesting.
Q Well, they discussed the questions ahead of time. They were told exactly what the President would ask, and they were coached, in terms of who would answer what question, and how they would pass the microphone.
MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry, are you suggesting that what our troops were saying was not sincere, or what they said was not their own thoughts?
Q Nothing at all. I'm just asking why it was necessary to coach them.
MR. McCLELLAN: ...I think that we worked very closely with the Department of Defense to coordinate this event. And I think all they were doing was talking to the troops and letting them know what to expect.
Q But we asked you specifically this morning if there would be any screening of questions or if they were being told in any way what they should say or do, and you indicated no.
MR. McCLELLAN: I don't think that's what the question was earlier today. I think the question earlier today was asking if they could ask whatever they want, and I said, of course, the President was -- and you saw -
Q And I asked if they were pre-screened.
MR. McCLELLAN: You saw earlier today the President was trying to engage in a back-and-forth with the troops. And I think it was very powerful....(blah blah blah) ....provide for their own security as they get ready to cast their ballots again.
Q But I also asked this morning, were they being told by their commanders what to say or what to do, and you indicated, no. Was there any prescreening of --
MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not aware of any such -- any such activities that were being undertaken.
....
MR. McCLELLAN: What's important is that the Iraqi people are going to the polls this weekend, and they're going to vote on a constitution in a free Iraq. Just three years ago, the Iraqi people were under a brutal, oppressive dictator, a dictator that killed thousands and thousands of people.
Q How many have we killed?
MR. McCLELLAN: We've liberated 25 million, both in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
Q How many have we killed? MORE

Mr. Bush goes to Tikrit (almost)
Here's a funny take on the fake video conference with excerpts from it by Jeremy Scahill, writer for "The Nation" and reporter for "Democracy Now!"
It turns out that the soldiers had actually been coached by Pentagon official Allison Barber before the event and were given Bush's questions in advance. At one point during the coaching, which was caught on videotape, Barber asked, "Who are we going to give that [question] to...?" MORE

Al-Qaeda disowns 'fake letter'
A statement claiming to be by al-Qaeda in Iraq has been rejected as a fake --a letter allegedly written by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's second-in-command. US intelligence published the letter in full, saying it was intended for the alleged head of the movement in Iraq.
"We in al-Qaeda organisation announce that there is no truth to these claims, which are only based on the imagination of the politicians of the Black [White] House and their slaves," the statement said.
It is not possible to verify either the letter or the subsequent denial.News of the 6,000-word document first emerged last week. US officials insisted they believed it was genuine and recent. According to US intelligence officials, the letter offers a remarkable insight into al-Qaeda thinking. After leaking a short extract, the new director of US intelligence has now published it in full on his website in English and Arabic. (Ask yourself--who gains from this?)The Americans will not say exactly when or how they intercepted it, except that it was during operations in Iraq. The letter is not directly addressed to Zarqawi - although there is a cryptic reference to him. But US officials say it is clear he is the intended recipient.

Another Basra?
Iraqis apprehend two Americans disguised as Arabs trying to detonate a car bomb in a residential neighborhood of western Baghdad’s al-Ghazaliyah district on Tuesday. A number of Iraqis apprehended two Americans disguised in Arab dress as they tried to blow up a booby-trapped car in the middle of a residential area in western Baghdad on Tuesday.Residents of western Baghdad’s al-Ghazaliyah district told Quds Press that the people had apprehended the Americans as they left their Caprice car near a residential neighborhood in al-Ghazaliyah on Tuesday afternoon (11 October 2005).
Local people found they looked suspicious so they detained the men before they could get away. That was when they discovered that they were Americans and called the Iraqi puppet police.
Five minutes after the arrival of the Iraqi puppet police on the scene a large force of US troops showed up and surrounded the area. They put the two Americans in one of their Humvees and drove away at high speed to the astonishment of the residents of the area.
Quds Press spoke by telephone with a member of the al-Ghazaliyah puppet police who confirmed the incident, saying that the two men were non-Arab foreigners but declined to be more precise about their nationality.
Quds Press pointed out that about a month ago, the Iraqi puppet police in the southern Iraqi city of al-Basrah arrested two Britons whom they accused of attempting to cause an explosion in the city. The Britons were taken into custody by the Iraqi puppet police only to be broken out of prison by an assault of British occupation troops.That incident has created a tense relationship between the British and the local puppet authorities in al-Basrah, Quds Press noted.

Latest on Plamegate from Wayne Madsen Report:
Political insiders tracking this scandal are reporting that the GOP and neo-con political machines, which have also targeted Travis County, Texas District Attorney Ronnie Earle in retaliation for his indictments of Tom DeLay and other Texas GOP operatives, are also setting their sights on CIA Leakgate special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.
The word inside the Beltway is that if Fitzgerald delivers indictments against senior White House officials he will face unspecified "consequences."
"It's a sign of desperation on the part of the White House and Karl Rove's machine," said one individual familiar with the case. Another informed observer pointed out that Fitzgerald "is the last guy the White House would want to threaten with retaliation."
Today, Rove is scheduled to testify for the fourth time before the grand jury investigating the CIA leak and the associated conspiracy to obstruct justice by the White House Iraq Group (WHIG).

Is Presidential lying about the reason for war an impeachable offence?
(relinked from CNN website, June 6, 2003)
(FindLaw) -- President George W. Bush has got a very serious problem. Before asking Congress for a joint resolution authorizing the use of U.S. military forces in Iraq, he made a number of unequivocal statements about the reason the United States needed to pursue the most radical actions any nation can undertake -- acts of war against another nation.
Now it is clear that many of his statements appear to be false. In the past, Bush's White House has been very good at sweeping ugly issues like this under the carpet, and out of sight. But it is not clear that they will be able to make the question of what happened to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) go away -- unless, perhaps, they start another war. That seems unlikely. Until the questions surrounding the Iraqi war are answered, Congress and the public may strongly resist more of President Bush's warmaking.
Presidential statements, particularly on matters of national security, are held to an expectation of the highest standard of truthfulness. A president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and get away with it. President Lyndon Johnson's distortions of the truth about Vietnam forced him to stand down from reelection. President Richard Nixon's false statements about Watergate forced his resignation. MORE

Santa Cruz Urges Probe into Bush Impeachment
From "Common Dreams"
The Santa Cruz City Council on Tuesday became the nation's first local government to ask Congress to look into impeaching President Bush on charges he deceived the American public about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and has used the Sept. 11 attacks as an excuse to crush civil rights. In a 6-1 vote, the council decided to send a letter to members of the House Judiciary Committee asking the panel to investigate the president.
Dozens of activists cheered the decision, even though the letter was a muted version of their proposal for a council resolution in favor of impeaching Bush and other top members of his administration.
"It's a courageous action,'' said Sherry Conable, leader of a coalition of 10 local groups that support impeachment of all top administration officials. Conable held a sign saying: "Love your country and the world. Impeach Bush/Cheney.''

50% Want Bush Impeached

Poll: Americans Want Bush Impeached
By a margin of 50% to 44%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he lied about the war in Iraq, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003. The poll was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,001 U.S. adults on October 6-9.The poll found that 50% agreed with the statement: "If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable by impeaching him." 44% disagreed, and 6% said they didn't know or declined to answer. The poll has a +/- 3.1% margin of error.Among those who felt strongly either way, 39% strongly agreed, while 30% strongly disagreed. "The results of this poll are truly astonishing," said AfterDowningStreet.org co-founder Bob Fertik. "Bush's record-low approval ratings tell just half of the story, which is how much Americans oppose Bush's policies on Iraq and other issues. But this poll tells the other half of the story - that a solid plurality of Americans want Congress to consider removing Bush from the White House."

Impeachment Supported by Majorities of Many Groups
Responses varied by political party affiliation: 72% of Democrats favored impeachment, compared to 56% of Independents and 20% of Republicans.Responses also varied by age and income. Solid majorities of those under age 55 (54%), as well as those with household incomes below $50,000 (57%), support impeachment. Majorities favored impeachment in the Northeast (53%), West (51%), and even the South (50%).

Support for Impeachment Surged Since June
The Ipsos poll shows a dramatic transformation in support for Bush's impeachment since late June. (This is only the second poll that has asked Americans about their support for impeaching Bush in 2005, despite his record-low approval ratings.) The Zogby poll conducted June 27-29 of 905 likely voters found that 42% agreed and 50% disagreed with a statement virtually identical to the one used by Ipsos Public Affairs. (see footnote below)

	Ipsos 10/8-9	Zogby 6/27-29	Net Change
Support Impeachment	50%	42%	+8%
Oppose Impeachment	44%	50%	+6%
Impeachment Margin	+6%	-8%	+14%

After the June poll, pollster John Zogby told the Washington Post that support for impeachment "was much higher than I expected." At the time, impeachment supporters trailed opponents by 8%. Now supporters outnumber opponents by 6%, a remarkable shift of 14%.

Media investigating Cheney in Plame case...

The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg are working on stories that point to Vice President Dick Cheney as the target of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name.

From NEWSWEEK:
"My understanding, from talking to somebody quite close to this investigation, is that they think there are going to be indictments and possibly Karl Rove could be among them, if not for the act of the leaking information about Valerie Plame, then perhaps for perjury, because he‘s now testified four times. And there are conflicts between what Matt Cooper told the grand jury and what Rove evidently told the jury himself. And Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, is an absolute stickler for detail who has no political axe to grind here, other than keeping his own credibility. Having put Judy Miller in jail, having gone to the lengths he had, my understand is, he has got some people here, not only Rove, but perhaps Scooter Libby, the vice president‘s chief of staff."

'Scooter' Libby Mislead Prosecutors In CIA Leak Case
Speculation is growing in Washington that Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby and President Bush's top advisor Karl Rove could soon be indicted by a federal prosecutor investigating the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Investigative Journalist Murray Waas is reporting in the National Journal that Libby failed to tell the grand jury about a discussion he had with New York Times reporter Judith Miller in June 2003 - weeks before Plame's name first appeared in the press. Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald only learned of the discussion after Miller announced last week that she had discovered a set of notes on the conversation. Fitzgerald, who has been investigating the case for nearly two years, has now asked Miller to testify again today before the grand jury.

Cheney spokesman departs country as CIA leak investigation wraps up
(Trying to avoid a subpoena?)
The chief spokesman for Vice President Dick Cheney, Steve Schmidt, left the United States Oct. 3 and won't return until Oct. 26, just as the investigation into who outed a covert CIA agent wraps up, has confirmed. Schmidt has left for Iraq. An email sent to Schmidt's private White House address Tuesday yielded this reply: "I will be out of the country from October 3rd through October 26th and will have VERY limited email access. Thank you." Time Magazine recently described him as "one of the White House's most aggressive strategists." Officials told the magazine in a largely unnoticed last week Schmidt planned to fly to Iraq to shore up the communications team there, and said he was sent at the request of the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalizad. Reporter Mike Allen said the trip "is supported at the highest levels of the White House."

Cheney's Halliburton stock options rose 3,281% last year, senator finds
An analysis released by a Democratic senator found that Vice President Dick Cheney's Halliburton stock options have risen 3,281 percent in the last year, RAW STORY can reveal. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) asserts that Cheney's options -- worth $241,498 a year ago -- are now valued at more than $8 million. The former CEO of the oil and gas services juggernaut, Cheney has pledged to give proceeds to charity. The above graph released by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) charts the value of the Vice President's holdings in Halliburton in the past year.

“Halliburton has already raked in more than $10 billion from the Bush-Cheney Administration for work in Iraq, and they were awarded some of the first Katrina contracts," Lautenberg said in a statement. "It is unseemly for the Vice President to continue to benefit from this company at the same time his Administration funnels billions of dollars to it. The Vice President should sever his financial ties to Halliburton once and for all.”>Cheney continues to hold 433,333 Halliburton stock options. The company has been criticized by auditors for its handling of a no-bid contact in Iraq. Auditors found the firm marked up meal prices for troops and inflated gas prices in a deal with the Kuwaiti supplier. The company built the American prison at Guantanamo Bay. The Vice President has sought to stem criticism by signing an agreement to donate the after-tax profits from these stock options to charities of his choice, and his lawyer has said he will not take any tax deduction for the donations. concluded in Sept. 2003 that holding stock options while in elective office does constitute a “financial interest” regardless of whether the holder of the options will donate proceeds to charities. CRS also found that receiving deferred compensation is a financial interest. Cheney told "Meet the Press" in 2003 that he didn't have any financial ties to the firm. “Since I left Halliburton to become George Bush's vice president, I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest," the Vice President said. "I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had, now, for over three years.” Cheney continues to received a deferred salary from the company. According to financial disclosure forms, he was paid $205,298 in 2001; $162,392 in 2002; $178,437 in 2003; and $194,852 in 2004.

Special Forces Suicides Raise Questions
Chief Warrant Officer William Howell was a 15-year Army Special Forces veteran who had seen combat duty all over the world. Sgt. 1st Class Andre McDaniel was a military accountant. Spc. Jeremy Wilson repaired electronics. They had little in common, other than having served in Iraq with the 10th Special Forces Group based at Fort Carson, Colo. They did not know each other, and they had vastly different duties. Each, however, committed suicide shortly after returning home, all within about a 17-month period.
The Army says there appears to be no connection between the men's overseas service and their deaths, and Army investigators found no "common contributing cause" among the three. The fact they were in the same unit is only a coincidence, Special Operations Command spokeswoman Diane Grant said at Fort Bragg, N.C. Others are not so sure. Steve Robinson, a former Army Ranger and veterans' advocate, said he suspects there were problems in the men's unit — namely, a macho refusal to acknowledge stress and seek help.
Special Forces soldiers specialize in what the Army calls "unconventional warfare" — commando raids, search-and-destroy missions, intelligence gathering. They go through specialized psychological screening. They also undergo rigorous physical training and learn survival techniques and other skills, including foreign languages. (They also received an experimental malaria vaccine). Howell, 36, a father of three, shot himself March 14, 2004 — three weeks after returning from Iraq — after hitting and threatening to kill his wife, Laura. She said she did not see any warning signs until the night he threatened her."Special Forces officials said the Colorado-based unit experienced heavy combat in Iraq. Two members were killed in the first half of 2004 — one by a roadside bomb, another in a vehicle rollover. Another member, former Staff Sgt. Georg-Andreas Pogany, was sent home and charged with cowardice when the sight of the mangled body of an Iraqi caused a panic attack and prompted him to ask for psychological help. Charges against Pogany were later dropped, and he received a medical discharge.The Army says its overall suicide rate in 2003 was 12.8 per 100,000 active-duty soldiers, while the rate in the general U.S. population was 10.5 per 100,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Military officials contend the 2003 figure for the Army was skewed by a spike in suicides among soldiers in Iraq and Kuwait; the 2004 rate was 11 per 100,000, Army spokeswoman Maj. Elizabeth Robbins said. An Army surgeon general's report said the suicide rate among soldiers sent to Iraq and Kuwait in 2004 was 8.5 per 100,000.

Laura Howell said she blamed Lariam, an Army-issued anti-malaria drug, for her husband's suicide. The drug's manufacturer, Roche Pharmaceuticals, says side effects can include anxiety, paranoia, depression, hallucinations and psychotic behavior. (Maybe they were testing something else on these guys--this sounds alarmingly like "Jacob's Ladder"). Pogany, the soldier unhinged by the sight of a mangled corpse, also believes the drug played a role in his case. Roche and the military maintain the drug is safe, and it is among the drugs recommended by the CDC for preventing and treating malaria.

Wilson, 23, hanged himself in the post barracks July 9, about a month after returning from Iraq. The Associated Press was unable to find members of his family. McDaniel, 40, a father of two, shot himself in August 2004, six weeks after he returned from Iraq. He had recently been arrested for allegedly arranging to have sex with an undercover officer who had posed on the Internet as a 13-year-old girl. His widow, Linda, said her husband seemed withdrawn when he returned from Iraq. He had called home around Easter 2004 and said his unit was being shelled. "He said goodbye at that particular time because he was scared he wouldn't be coming home," she said.

The Real Reasons Why Iran is the Next Target
The Emerging Euro-denominated International Oil Marker
The Iranians are about to commit an "offense" far greater than Saddam Hussein's conversion to the euro of Iraq’s oil exports in the fall of 2000. Numerous articles have revealed Pentagon planning for operations against Iran as early as 2005. While the publicly stated reasons will be over Iran's nuclear ambitions, there are unspoken macroeconomic drivers explaining the Real Reasons regarding the 2nd stage of petrodollar warfare - Iran's upcoming euro-based oil Bourse.
In 2005-2006, The Tehran government has a developed a plan to begin competing with New York's NYMEX and London's IPE with respect to international oil trades - using a euro-denominated international oil-trading mechanism. This means that without some form of US intervention, the euro is going to establish a firm foothold in the international oil trade. Given U.S. debt levels and the stated neoconservative project for U.S. global domination, Tehran's objective constitutes an obvious encroachment on U.S. dollar supremacy in the international oil market. MORE

Delay Legal Team Subpoenas Texas Prosecutor
The Texas prosecutor pursuing conspiracy and money laundering charges against indicted Republican Congressman Tom Delay was served a subpoena by Delay's legal team on Tuesday. Delay contends District Attorney Ronnie Earle maintained improper contact with three grand jury investigations into whether Delay illegally funneled corporate money to Republican candidates in state legislative elections. Delay was forced to temporarily step down as House majority leader when charges were brought against him two weeks ago.

More Questions About Bill Frist's Sale of HCA Stock
Associated Press reports Frist earned tens of thousands of dollars from stock in HCA, the family-founded hospital chain largely controlled by his brother. Earlier this month the SEC began investigating whether Frist engaged in insider trading by selling off stocks in HCA. The nonpartisan Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights estimates that Frist made between $2 million and $6 million by selling his HCA holdings just before stock values plummeted in the face of a bad earnings report.

Israeli Army Seeks OK to Use Palestinian Human Shields
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz announced that the army will appeal last week's High Court ruling that bans the use of Palestinian "human shields" in the occupied territories. The court outlawed the practice following a petition brought by human rights groups. Israeli soldiers have been accused of using Palestinians to search houses thought to be booby-trapped or containing wanted suspects. Palestinians are also used as "human shields" to protect the soldiers from attack.

Terror threat merely Mayoral race ploy?

Actual poster from D.C. subway cars
New York Subway Terror Threat Eases, Police Reducing Patrols
Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) -- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said police would be "slowly winding down'' the intensity of subway patrols, after the target date cited in a federal warning about a possible terrorist attack passed without incident.
Bloomberg, who put the city on alert last week after being warned that an attack could come Sunday, Oct. 9, said the city will remain at the same state of heightened vigilance that it has since Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists killed 2,749 in an attack on the World Trade Center.
"Since the period of the threat now seems to be passing, I think over the immediate future we'll be slowly winding down the enhanced security,'' Bloomberg said
(Am I the only one that noticed that Bloomie used this to avoid a Mayoral debate Thursday night? Is this just some ploy to try to get ahead in the Mayoral election?)

THE EFFECTS OF GOVERNMENT-ISSUED TERROR WARNINGS ON PRESIDENTIAL APPROVAL RATINGS
by Robb Willer, Cornell University
"This study investigates the possibility that government-issued terror warnings could increase support for the president. This contention is supported anecdotally by the large increase in presidential approval immediately following the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001. Additionally, social identity theory suggests that fear of external attacks leads to increased support for standing leaders. To evaluate this proposition, I conducted several time-series analyses on the relationship between government-issued terror warnings reported in the Washington Post between February 2001 and May 2004, and Gallup poll data on Americans' opinions of President George W. Bush. Across several regression models, results showed a consistent, positive relationship between terror warnings and presidential approval. I also found that government-issued terror warnings increased support for President Bush's handling of the economy. Analyses intended to determine the duration of these effects were inconclusive."
"Following the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, all polls of President Bush's approval rating showed a huge and relatively immediate upward spike. For example, the percentage of Americans reporting approval of Bush's job performance climbed from 51% in the Gallup poll of September 10, 2001 to a remarkable 86% in the next poll released on September 15. This was the largest change between consecutive presidential approval polls ever reported by Gallup in more than 65 years. Similarly, the Washington Post-ABC News poll showed an increase in presidential approval from 55% reported on September 9, 2001, to 86% on September 13." MORE (pdf file)

Here's another cool cut-up track by 37hz:
BUNKERBUSTER
definitely song of the week!

Ex-Iraqi Officials Sought in $1B Theft
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraq has issued arrest warrants against the defense minister and 27 other officials from the U.S.-backed government of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi over the alleged disappearance or misappropriation of $1 billion in military procurement funds, officials said Monday.
Those accused include four other ministers from Allawi's government, which was replaced by an elected Cabinet led by Shiite parties in April, said Ali al-Lami of Iraq's Integrity Commission. Many of the officials are believed to have left Iraq, including Hazem Shaalan, the former defense minister who moved to Jordan shortly after the new government was installed. (So the puppets installed by the US are accused of stealing it). With strong U.S. backing, Allawi was named head of the first transitional government after the U.S. returned sovereignty to Iraq in June 2004, but his Iraqi List party did poorly in January parliamentary elections that swept the Shiite-Kurdish coalition into power. Besides Shaalan, warrants were issued against Allawi's labor, transportation, electricity and housing ministers, as well as 23 former Defense Ministry officials, said al-Lami, who heads Iraq's De-Baathification Commission, part of the Commission of Public Integrity.

GOP Forces Through Oil Refinery Bill
On Capitol Hill, House Democrats began chanting "shame, shame, shame" on Friday after the Republican leadership pushed through a bill to make it easier for oil companies to build new domestic refineries. The bill passed 212-210 but only because the house leadership extended the vote by 40 minutes during which time two Republicans switched their vote. The legislation will streamline government permits for refineries, open federal lands for future refinery construction, weaken environmental protections, and offer subsidies to build refineries even though oil companies are making record profits Congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts called the legislation the "leave-no-oilman-behind bill." The bill would also limit the power of community or citizen groups because if they filed a lawsuit to challenge the location of a refinery they would be required to pay an oil company's legal costs whether they win or lose the lawsuit. The New York Times reported that during the extra 40 minutes of voting House Speaker Dennis Hastert, majority whip Roy Blunt and former Majority Leader Tom Delay all pressured other Republicans to change their votes. After the Republicans extended the vote, Democrat Henry Waxman asked from the floor, ''Doesn't this make the House a banana republic?''

Bolton Blocks UN Discussion of Rights Violations in Sudan
U.S. ambassador John Bolton has blocked a U.N. envoy from addressing the Security Council on human rights violations in the Darfur region of Sudan. Bolton said that "We should talk about next steps, not about how to arrange the furniture in the Security Council." The envoy, Juan Mendez, told reporters that the human rights situation is "much more dangerous and worrisome" than he had expected, with "massive attacks of an indiscriminate nature against civilians" in camps in Darfur. (Sounds similar to the attacks on Native Americans in the 1800's to remove them from their land). Mendez added that the Sudanese government is refusing to cooperate with an International Criminal Court investigation into war crimes in the country. Bolton is one of the Bush administration's fiercest opponents of the Hague-based court. Meanwhile, two African Union troops and two civilian contractors were killed in the region Saturday, the first members of the AU mission to lose their lives. (Isn't it strange that Bolton is blocking dialogue about this issue and the Sudanese govt. is adopting US attitudes about the ICC?)

Sudan: Western Oil Greed Trumps ‘Genocide’ Concerns
(oh, now I get it)
The U.N. report concluded that while the military regime in Sudan “has not pursued a policy of genocide ... in some instances individuals, including government officials, may commit acts with genocidal intent.” (How's that for double-talk?) For the Western powers, the settlement raises hopes for the return of their oil corporations to Sudan. Associated Press reported on Jan. 16 that the peace deal “gives investors an opening in a needy country with large oil reserves,” specifying renewed investment attempts by French oil giant Total and Houston-based Marathon Oil.

Oil Drives the Genocide in Darfur
Invisible because it is happening in Africa. Invisible because our mainstream media are subsidized by the petroleum industry. Think of all the car ads you see on television, in newspapers and magazines. Think of the narcissism implicit in our automobile culture, our suburban sprawl, our obsessive focus on the rich and famous, the giddy assumption that all this can continue indefinitely when we know it can't -- and you see why Darfur slips into darkness. And Darfur is only the tip of the sprawling, scarred state known as Sudan. Nicholas Kristof pointed out in a New York Times column that ABC News had a total of 18 minutes of Darfur coverage in its nightly newscasts all last year, and that was to the credit of Peter Jennings; NBC had only 5 minutes, CBS only 3 minutes. MORE

From the CIA's "World Factbook: Sudan's economy":
In 1999, Sudan began exporting crude oil and in the last quarter of 1999 recorded its first trade surplus, which, along with monetary policy, has stabilized the exchange rate. Increased oil production, revived light industry, and expanded export processing zones helped sustain GDP growth at 6.4% in 2004. Agriculture production remains Sudan's most important sector, employing 80% of the work force, contributing 39% of GDP, and accounting for most of GDP growth, but most farms remain rain-fed and susceptible to drought.

New Poll: 59% of U.S. Wants Troops Out of Iraq
Meanwhile, a new CBS News poll shows that 59 percent of Americans want US troops to leave Iraq as soon as possible, even if the country is not completely stable, an increase from 52 percent last month. Iraqis are four days away from voting in a nation-wide referendum on a new constitution drafted by the transitional government.

Reports: US Considers Military Strikes, Regime Change in Syria
The Bush administration has reportedly considered launching military strikes on Iraq's neighbor Syria and finding someone to replace Syria's President, Bashar al-Assad. Newsweek reports that at a high-level meeting held on October 1st, U.S. officials debated striking training camps inside the Syrian border used by insurgents in Iraq. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declined yesterday to verify the magazine's account that she had successfully opposed the strikes. (Wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea, would you, Condi?)

Guantanamo Hunger Strike Enters Third Month
A hunger strike at the U.S.-run prison camp at Guantanamo Bay has entered its third month. At least 22 detainees have been hospitalized and are being force fed through nasal tubes and IVs. The number of detainees taking part in the hunger strike is in dispute. The Center for Constitutional Rights estimates 210 detainees are on hunger strike. The U.S. military says that as many as 130 took part in the strike but that only 26 are still refusing to eat.

GM Crop 'Ruins Fields For 15 Years'
The Independent - UK
GM crops contaminate the countryside for up to 15 years after they have been harvested, startling new government research shows. The findings cast a cloud over the prospects of growing the modified crops in Britain, suggesting that farmers who try them out for one season will find fields blighted for a decade and a half. Financed by GM companies and Margaret Beckett's Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the report effectively torpedoes the Government's strategy for introducing GM oilseed rape to this country.
Ministers have stipulated that the crops should not be grown until rules are worked out to enable them to "co-exist" with conventional ones. But the research shows that this is effectively impossible.
The study, published by the Royal Society, examined five sites across England and Scotland where modified oilseed rape has been cultivated, and found significant amounts of GM plants growing even after the sites had been returned to ordinary crops. It concludes that the research reveals "a potentially serious problem associated with the temporal persistence of rape seeds in soil." The researchers found that nine years after a single modified crop, an average of two GM rape plants would grow in every square metre of an affected field. After 15 years, this came down to one plant per square metre - still enough to break the EC limits on permissible GM contamination. Last night Pete Riley, the director of GM Freeze, said; "It is becoming clearer and clearer that it is going to be impossible to grow GM crops in Britain."

Avian Flu Could Be Bush's Pretext for Martial Law
from Conspiracy Planet

"Avian flu" could be the next 9/11, in other words, the next pretext by the Bush Cheney Regime in preparation for overturning the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which was enacted to restrict the use of the federal troops as law enforcement inside the United States.
Posse Comitatus was enacted by Congress to prohibit criminal behavior under the color of "law enforcement" by Union occupation forces in former Confederate states after the Civil War.
It was an ominous note in his White House Rose Garden press conference on Oct 4 that Bush emphasized using the "military option" in case of an Avian Flu pandemic.
Bush said, "If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country, and how do you then enforce a quarantine? When -- it's one thing to shut down airplanes; it's another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu. And who best to be able to effect a quarantine? One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move." "

Here's another perspective from The Boston Globe:
"Planning makes sense. But planning for ''brutal" or ''extreme" quarantine of large numbers or areas of the United States would create many more problems than it could solve.
*First, historically mass quarantines of healthy people who may have been exposed to a pathogen have never worked to control a pandemic, and have almost always done more harm than good because they usually involve vicious discrimination against classes of people (like immigrants or Asians) who are seen as ''diseased" and dangerous.
*Second, the notion that ruthless quarantine was responsible for preventing a SARS pandemic is a public health myth. SARS appeared in more than 30 countries; they all reacted differently (some used forced quarantine successfully, others voluntary quarantine, and others no quarantine at all), and all ''succeeded." Quarantine is no magic bullet.
*Third, quarantine and isolation are often falsely equated, but the former involves people who are well, the latter people who are sick. Sick people should be treated, but we don't need the military to force treatment. Even in extremes like the anthrax attacks, people seek out and demand treatment. Sending soldiers to quarantine large numbers of people will most likely create panic, and cause people to flee (and spread disease), as it did in China where a rumor during the SARS epidemic that Beijing would be quarantined led to 250,000 people fleeing the city that night.
Not only can't we evacuate Houston, we cannot realistically quarantine its citizens. The real public health challenge will be shortages of health care personnel, hospital beds, and medicine. Plans to militarize quarantine miss the point in a pandemic. The enemy is not sick or exposed Americans -- it is the virus itself. And effective action against any flu virus demands its early identification, and the quick development, manufacture, and distribution of a vaccine and treatment modalities.
In 1918 the Spanish flu was spread around the US primarily by soldiers, and it seems to have incubated primarily on military bases. It is a misreading of history that a lesson from 1918 is to militarize mass quarantine to contain the flu. And neither medicine nor public health are what they were in 1918; having public health rely on mass quarantine today is like having our military rely on trench warfare in Iraq."

Binding the hands of torturers
(from today's NY Times--not signed, interestingly)
When the Senate voted this week to bring America's chain of military prison camps under the rule of law, President Bush threatened a veto. The White House explained his objections by saying the measure would bind the government's hands. Yes, exactly. The rules would finally bind military prisons to democratic values and the standards of behavior recognized by every other civilized nation. They would bind the government to a code of conduct that will help protect those in the nation's uniform.
The measure would ban "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of prisoners held by the military - which, by the way, is already against American law and a longstanding treaty. Mr. Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales are about the only ones left who want to defend the justness and practical value of the abhorrent practices introduced at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and then exported to Abu Ghraib. Ninety senators voted for the new law, including 46 Republicans - even Bill Frist, the majority leader, who yanked the measure from the floor last summer.
More than two dozen retired senior military officers endorsed it, including two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, John Shalikashvili and Colin Powell.
The arguments made by the handful of senators still loyal to Mr. Bush on this issue were sadly comical. Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, argued that requiring American troops to follow their own field manual was not practical in the so-called war on terror. This is the central myth behind the administration's policies on prisoners, that the 9/11 attacks required a review of the rules and justified changing them to allow the torture of suspected terrorists. No serious person with experience in this field believes that, only because torture yields worthless information and false confessions.
Not only is the Bush administration trying to block the Senate's efforts to finally fix this enormous problem, but it continues to block any serious investigation of the abuse, torture and murder of prisoners.
The senators who voted for the law on the humane treatment of prisoners should also lend their backing to another measure that would create a truly bipartisan and independent commission, armed with subpoena power, to investigate the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib and other military detention camps - like the one that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The Republican majority in the House should also pass the new law on interrogations - then override Mr. Bush if he has the bad judgment to veto it.

The Police State Is Closer Than You Think
by Paul Craig Roberts
"Police states are easier to acquire than Americans appreciate. The hysterical aftermath of September 11 has put into place the main components of a police state. Habeas corpus is the greatest protection Americans have against a police state. Habeas corpus ensures that Americans can only be detained by law. They must be charged with offenses, given access to attorneys, and brought to trial. Habeas corpus prevents the despotic practice of picking up a person and holding him indefinitely.
President Bush claims the power to set aside habeas corpus and to dispense with warrants for arrest and with procedures that guarantee court appearance and trial without undue delay. Today in the US, the executive branch claims the power to arrest a citizen on its own initiative and hold the citizen indefinitely. Thus, Americans are no longer protected from arbitrary arrest and indefinite detention.
These new "seize and hold" powers strip the accused of the protective aspects of law and give reign to selectivity and arbitrariness. No warrant is required for arrest, no charges have to be presented before a judge, and no case has to be put before a jury. As the police are unaccountable, whoever is selected for arrest is at the mercy of arbitrariness.
Americans might think that the police state will only use its powers against terrorists or "enemy combatants." But "terrorist" is an elastic and legally undefined category. When the President of the United States declares: "You are with us or against us," the police may perceive a terrorist in a dissenter from the government's policies. Political opponents may be regarded as "against us" and thereby fall in the suspect category. In times [before our own] when people were properly educated, they understood the injustices that caused the English Parliament to pass the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 prohibiting the arbitrary powers that are now being claimed for the executive branch in the US.
As video, photographic, and testimonial evidence make clear, the US military has been torturing large numbers of people in its Iraq prisons and in its prison compound at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Most of the detainees were people picked up in the equivalent of KGB Stalin-era street sweeps. Having no idea who the detainees are and pressured to produce results, torture was applied to coerce confessions.
Everyone is disturbed about this barbaric and illegal practice except the Bush administration. In an amendment to a $440 billion defense budget bill last Wednesday, the US Senate voted 90 to 9 to ban "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" of anyone in US government custody. President Bush responded to the Senate's will by repeating his earlier threat to veto the bill. Allow me to torture, demands Bush of the Senate, or you will be guilty of delaying the military's budget during wartime. Bush is threatening the Senate with blame for the deaths of US soldiers who will die because they don't get their body armor or humvee armor in time. It will be a short step from torturing detainees abroad to torturing the accused in US jails and prisons.
In the Anglo-American legal tradition, law is a shield of the accused. This is necessary in order to protect the innocent. The accused is innocent until he is proven guilty in an open court. There are no secret tribunals, no torture, and no show trials.
Outside the Anglo-American legal tradition, law is a weapon of the state. It may be used with careful restraint, as in Europe today, or it may be used to destroy opponents or rivals as in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. When the protective features of the law are removed, law becomes a weapon. Habeas corpus, due process, the attorney-client privilege, no crime without intent, and prohibitions against torture and ex post facto laws are the protective features that shield the accused. These protective features are being removed by zealotry in the "war against terrorism."
The damage terrorists can inflict pales in comparison to the loss of the civil liberties that protect us from the arbitrary power of law used as a weapon. The loss of law as Blackstone's shield of the innocent would be catastrophic. It would mean the end of America as a land of liberty."

Just who is Zarqawi?
"Almost immediately in the wake of a terrorist event or warning, CNN announces 'we think this mysterious individual Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi is behind it,' invariably without supporting evidence and prior to the conduct of an investigation by the relevant police and intelligence authorities. In some cases, upon the immediate occurrence of the terrorist event, there is an initial report which mentions Al-Zarqawi as the possible mastermind. The report will often say (in substance): yes we think he did it, but it is not yet confirmed and there is some doubt on the identity of those behind the attack. One or two days later, CNN may come up with a definitive statement, quoting official police, military and/or intelligence sources. Often the CNN report is based on information published on an Islamic website or a mysterious Video or Audio tape. The authenticity of the website and/or the tapes is not the object of discussion or detailed investigation. Bear in mind that the news reports never mention that Al Qaeda is a creation of the CIA and that Al Zarqawi had been recruited to fight in the Soviet-Afghan war (This is in fact confirmed by Sec. Colin Powell in his presentation to the UN Security Council on 5 February 2003) (see details below). Both Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi are creations of the US intelligence apparatus. The recruitment of foreign fighters was under the auspices of the CIA. The press usually present the terrorist warnings emanating from the CIA as genuine, without acknowledging the fact that US intelligence has provided covert support to the Islamic militant network consistently for more than 20 years. "

The Real & the Fake Insurgencies
"The latest story is that the Iraqi insurgents are using American vehicles stolen in the United States in committing their attacks. This has to remind you of the discovery that the insurgents were using Italian-made hand guns manufactured without serial numbers, an order almost certainly placed by some intelligence agency (it should also remind you of the inconsistencies in the assassination of Nick Berg). The 'experts' claim that the American vehicles are used because they more easily fit in, but that is obvious nonsense, as they stand out like a sore thumb.
Since the British agents provocateurs were caught red-handed in Basra, it has become more and more difficult to reject the theory that much of the insurgency - in particular those acts intended to create tensions between Sunnis and Shi'ites and create a civil war that will break up the country - is a concerted effort by intelligence agents from the United States, Britain, and Israel. There are two parallel 'insurgencies':the real one, which consists of attacks against foreign occupying soldiers by people, mostly from Iraq, opposed to the occupation; and the fake one, which consists of attacks by American, British and Israeli agents provocateurs against groups of civilians, and against foreign aid workers and journalists, which is intended to break up the county in a civil war and obfuscate what is really going on. Mixing these up is intended to hide the reality of the real opposition of the people of Iraq to the occupation."

Al Zarqawi and his “Al-Qaeda in Iraq” are inventions of the occupying forces
The general attitude of many Iraqis could be summarized in a statement made by a Shiite man. He said: “I believe it is the Americans who are doing this, pretending it is Sunnis, so there will be a civil war and they can control our wealth.” International reporters, such as the American journalists Dahr Jamail and Juan Cole, started viewing car bombings through the Iraqi point of view.
When asking the important question of who benefits from these car bombings, we discover that the only beneficiaries are the occupying forces. Blaming car bombings on Iraqi resistance the Americans are trying to drive a wedge between the resistance and the sympathetic Iraqis. By bombing Shiite mosques in one day and Sunni mosques in another they are trying to incite hatred between the two religious factions. Civil war and division of Iraq is the ultimate goal of the occupation. Bush’s and Blair’s speeches are geared towards planting seeds of religious conflict. Corporate-owned media on both sides of the Atlantic seem to cultivate these seeds and repeatedly report that car bombing attacks causing casualties among Iraqi civilians are pushing Iraq towards a civil war between Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. To incite more religious hatred between the groups the corporate media report of “alarming ethnic cleansing” of Shiites in the predominantly Sunni Baghdad neighborhoods. To exacerbate the situation the American army has been deploying Kurdish Peshmerga troops and Shiite militias in their attacks on Iraqi cities, lately in Tal Afar and Ramadi, killing Sunnis and destroying their houses in a manner designed to inflame ethnic hatred.
The policy is to divide in order to conquer, and the ultimate plan is to partition Iraq into three warring three ethnic sections; Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish. Such division entails civil war and ethnic cleansing on a massive scale to weaken any merging Iraqi government, so that it could not demand the withdrawal of the occupying forces. The division of the Yugoslav Federation in the 1990s into smaller weaker states has been taken as a model to slice Iraq. This plan falls perfectly within the Israeli strategic goal, proposed in 1982, of dividing Iraq, the strongest Arab nation, into three warring ethnic states. The same policy can be seen In Israel’s attempt to incite civil war between PA on one side and the other Palestinian factions on the other side.

The nice guys running everything

Washington Insider: Subway Alert Is Fake Terror To Distract From Indictments
After it was reported that Karl Rove had agreed to give further testimony to the Grand Jury investigating the CIA leak, Rove's attorney Robert Luskin denied his client had received a target letter from special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, a formal "heads up" sent to individuals who are about to be indicted. However, it is being reported from well-informed source throughout Washington that:
1) target letters have been sent to Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and Ari Fleischer;
2) Rove has agreed to testify and possibly agree to a plea bargain agreement in return for his testimony against other targets of the criminal probe;
3) Cheney and Bush may be named as unindicted co-conspirators;
4) Bush's "war speech" before the National Endowment for Democracy and a late Thursday afternoon report that "19 operatives" have arrived in New York City to place bombs on subway trains are blatant attempts by the White House to divert attention from the impending indictments against the Bush White House.
The main stream media is just beginning to take notice that a "Watergate-level event" is about to occur in Washington.

Question: if Bloomberg really thought there was a credible threat against the subway, would he be riding it?

Security fears as flu virus that killed 50 million is recreated
Scientists have recreated the 1918 Spanish flu virus, one of the deadliest ever to emerge, to the alarm of many researchers who fear it presents a serious security risk. Undisclosed quantities of the virus are being held in a high-security government laboratory in Atlanta, Georgia, after a nine-year effort to rebuild the agent that swept the globe in record time and claimed the lives of an estimated 50 million people. The genetic sequence is also being made available to scientists online, a move which some fear adds a further risk of the virus being created in other labs.
The recreation was carried out in an attempt to understand what made the 1918 outbreak so devastating. Reporting in the journal Science, a team lead by Dr Jeffery Taubenberger at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Maryland shows that the recreated virus is extremely effective.
The government and military researchers who reconstructed the virus say their work has already provided invaluable insight into its unique genetic make-up and helps explain its lethality. But other researchers warned yesterday the that virus could escape from the laboratory. "This will raise clear questions among some as to whether they have really created a biological weapon," said Professor Ronald Atlas at the Centre for Deterrence of Biowarfare and Bioterrorism at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.

Bush suggestion for military use in bird flu epidemic slammed
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A call by President George W. Bush for Congress to give him the power to use the military in law enforcement roles in the event of a bird flu pandemic has been criticized as akin to introducing martial law. Bush said aggressive action would be needed to prevent a potentially disastrous U.S. outbreak of the disease that is sweeping through Asian poultry and which experts fear could mutate to pass between humans. Such a deadly event would raise difficult questions, such as how a quarantine might be enforced, the president said. "One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move," he said. "So that's why I put it on the table. I think it's an important debate for Congress to have."
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 bans the military from participating in police-type activity on U.S. soil. But Dr. Irwin Redlener told The Associated Press the president's suggestion was dangerous. "The translation of this is martial law in the United States," Redlener said.
And Gene Healy, a senior editor at the conservative Cato Institute, said Bush would risk undermining "a fundamental principle of American law" by tinkering with the act, which does not hinder the military's ability to respond to a crisis. "What it does is set a high bar for the use of federal troops in a policing role," he wrote in a commentary on the group's Web site. "That reflects America's traditional distrust of using standing armies to enforce order at home, a distrust that's well-justified." Healy said soldiers are not trained as police officers, and putting them in a civilian law enforcement role "can result in serious collateral damage to American life and liberty."

Bush will veto anti-torture law after Senate revolt
The Bush administration pledged yesterday to veto legislation banning the torture of prisoners by US troops after an overwhelming and almost unprecedented revolt by loyalist congressmen. The mutiny was the latest setback for an administration facing an increasingly independent and bloody-minded legislature. But it also marked a key moment in Congress's campaign to curtail the huge powers it has granted the White House since 2001 in its war against terrorism.
The late-night Senate vote saw the measure forbidding torture passed by 90 to nine, with most Republicans backing the measure. Most senators said the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal and similar allegations at the Guantanamo Bay prison rendered the result a foregone conclusion. The administration's extraordinary isolation was underlined when the Senate Republican majority leader, Bill Frist, supported the amendment.
The man behind the legislation, Republican Senator John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner in Vietnam, said the move was backed by American soldiers. His amendment would prohibit the "cruel, inhumane or degrading" treatment of prisoners in the custody of America's defence department. The vote was one of the largest and best supported congressional revolts during President George W Bush's five years in office and shocked the White House. "We have put out a Statement of Administration Policy saying that his advisers would recommend that he vetoes it if it contains such language," White House spokesman Scott McClellan warned yesterday. The administration said Congress was attempting to tie its hands in the war against terrorism. The veto would be Mr Bush's first use of his most extreme legislative option. But senators pointed out that a presidential veto can be overturned by a two-thirds majority in both houses.
For now the amendment's fate depends on negotiations between the Senate and the lower chamber, the House of Representatives, which is more loyal to the administration. But senators said they were confident that most of the language would survive and that the issue could pose an extremely awkward dilemma for the president. The amendment was attached to the $440 billion defence spending bill and if Mr Bush vetoes the amendment, he would have to veto the entire bill. That would leave America's armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan short of cash as early as the middle of next month.

Let's put it all in perspective, shall we?

Money-laundering indictments against DeLay
A Texas grand jury brought a charge of money laundering Monday against Rep. Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader indicted last week on conspiracy charges stemming from a campaign finance probe. DeLay and two associates are now also charged with conspiring to illegally steer $190,000 in corporate donations to state legislative candidates in 2002 and to disguise its source by sending it through national Republican campaign committees.

Ex-White House Aide Indicted in Abramoff Case
David H. Safavian, former chief of White House procurement policy, was indicted yesterday on five counts of lying about his dealings with former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff and impeding a Senate investigation of him. The indictment alleges that "from May 16, 2002 until January 2004, Safavian made false statements and obstructed investigations into his relationship with a Washington, D.C., lobbyist," who has been identified as Abramoff. The indictment refers to him only as "Lobbyist A."

FBI Examines Computers in Cheney's Office
FBI agents examined computers in Vice President Dick Cheney's office and talked to former and current White House aides Thursday as they investigated an FBI intelligence analyst accused of passing classified information to Filipino officials.

Scooter-gate. It’s all about treason
Now that Libby has been identified as Ms. Miller’s source, the focus in the investigation into who "outed" CIA agent Valerie Plame has shifted from Miller and Bush adviser Karl Rove to one of the most powerful men in Washington: "Libby Is to Cheney What Cheney Is to Bush," as a recent Washington Post headline put it. "Plame-gate" - always a bit of an awkward phrase, and not that descriptive, in any case - has now become Scooter-gate, which, you’ll have to agree, is a much more mellifluous and catchy all-purpose rubric for Fitzgerald’s ever widening investigation, which now seems to be reaching its dramatic climax.

White House trying to clamp down on spy leaks
"I knew in my heart that his government had this information," Franklin said. "He gave me far more information than I gave him."
When Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin decided to plead guilty Thursday to passing classified intelligence to two pro-Israeli lobbyists, it marked another advance by the Bush Justice Department to clamp down on leaks.
Franklin will testify against two former officials for the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee who were charged Aug. 4 with “conspiracy to communicate” classified intelligence about alleged threats to Americans and Israelis in northern Iraq. Steve Rosen, the erstwhile director of foreign policy issues for the pro-Israeli lobby AIPAC, and Keith Weissman, its former Iran analyst, were charged with “delivery and transmission” of classified materials “to persons not entitled to receive it, including members of the media and foreign government officials.”

Rove returns to Grand Jury without immunity
The special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case has summoned Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, to return next week to testify to a federal grand jury in a step that could mean charges will be filed in the case. Karl Rove is returning to testify before the grand jury investigating the outing of Valerie Plame, and he's doing so without any guarantee that Patrick Fitzgerald won't prosecute him.
"It shows Fitzgerald now, perhaps after Miller's testimony, suspects Rove may be in some way implicated in the revelation of Plame's identity or that Fitzgerald is investigating various people for obstruction of justice, false statements or perjury. That is the menu of risk for Rove," says NYU Law Prof. Stephen Gillers.
"It's always risky to go before a grand jury," Tim Grieve of Salon.com adds. "You can't take your lawyer into the room with you. It's especially risky if you've already testified once -- or, in the case of Rove, three times -- before: The odds of introducing inconsistencies into your testimony increase each time you give it. That's why, the former prosecutor tells us, a defense lawyer would advise his client to make a return appearance before the grand jury 'only in extremis.'"
It's possible, of course, that Rove is returning to the grand jury in the hope of saving someone other than himself. Conversely, it's also possible that he's testifying in the hope of implicating someone other than himself.

George Will: Can This Nomination Be Justified?
"The president's "argument" for her amounts to: Trust me. There is no reason to, for several reasons.
He has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. Few presidents acquire such abilities in the course of their pre-presidential careers, and this president particularly is not disposed to such reflections. Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that Miers's nomination resulted from the president's careful consultation with people capable of such judgments. If 100 such people had been asked to list 100 individuals who have given evidence of the reflectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers's name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists."

It's the Right gunning for Bush now
Then came the zinger. "Are you still a conservative?"
Mr Bush doughtily feigned surprise. "Am I what?" he shot back.
"Still a conservative?" repeated the questioner.
"Am I still a conservative?" chuckled the President. "Proudly so. Proudly so."
But Mr Bush cannot have been surprised at the question. Like so many second-termers, he is finding his second four years harder than the first.

Deghayes said the soldiers tortured him using electric shocks
“They blinded me”
Hypocrisy and a disregard for basic human rights and international laws continue to mark the American President’s so-called “war on terror". Omar Deghayes is a British resident who has been tortured by U.S. guards at Guantanamo Bay, suffering violent sexual assaults, near drowning and an attack in which he was blinded. Deghayes said the soldiers tortured him using electric shocks. They also put him in a room with caged snakes when he was in Pakistan before he was taken later to Guantanamo. He was first jailed in a U.S.-run jail in Afghanistan, which he likened to a "Nazi camp."

GW Bush's brother, Marvin Bush, ran security co. for World Trade Center on 9/11
Marvin P. Bush, the president’s younger brother, was a principal in a company called Securacom that provided security for the World Trade Center, United Airlines, and Dulles International Airport. The company, Burns noted, was backed by KuwAm, a Kuwaiti-American investment firm on whose board Marvin Burns also served. According to its present CEO, Barry McDaniel, the company had an ongoing contract to handle security at the World Trade Center "up to the day the buildings fell down."
and:
Dan Baumbach, 24, a software engineer from Merrick, was stunned to find that building officials in One World Trade Center were telling workers not to evacuate even after the first jet struck.
"You can try it, but it's at your own risk," he quoted one official as telling a group of 100 people on the 75th floor. Many chose to follow that advice; Baumbach continued his descent from the 80th floor and survived, but only after braving the debris that fell when the neighboring tower collapsed. "The reason we got out was because we didn't listen," he said. [Newsday]
In the neighboring south tower people were also evacuating, but an announcement over the PA system tells them their building is secure and they can return to their desks..." said Stanley Praimnath - WTC 2 Survivor, 'If they had continued on and exited the building, all of their lives would have been spared. As it was, that's not the way it happened.As soon as we reached the concourse level, the security guard stopped us and said, 'Where are you going?' Stanley explained about seeing the fire in Tower One. According to Stanley, the guard said, "Oh, that was just an accident. Two World Trade is secured. Go back to your office."' [Mercola]

"Doubtful credibility" of
"Terror threat"
U.S. intelligence has picked up mention of possible terror attacks planned for New York, Washington, Boston and more broadly, the U.S. coastlines. But federal law enforcement sources say there are doubts about the credibility of the threats. They also say those transmissions are not the reason why the government has raised the threat level to orange. Authorities said they have nothing credible suggesting a time, method or target.

The questionable past of Harriet Miers

Who is Harriet Miers?
Miers has proven herself to be a GOP hack and both a personal and political crony of President George Bush. She was "a top-level regular in the “Strategery Group,” where Bush’s top political advisers contemplated how to use the levers of government to advance the Republican Party. As staff secretary, Miers had final say over every paper that crossed the President’s desk."
President Bush's former speechwriter David Frum has claimed that "She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met." !!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Scoop on Harriet Miers
It gets better, if not dirtier. At roughly the same time Miers was helping Bush dodge National Guard questions, Bush had named her chair of the Texas Lottery Commission, which had been scandal-plagued for years. The chief issue before Miers and the commission was whether to retain lottery operator Gtech, which had been implicated in a huge Texas bribery scandal. Gtech's main lobbyist in Texas in the mid-1990s was none other than Benjamin Barnes, who just happened to have the low-down on how Bush got into the National Guard to avoid going over to Vietnam. Gtech fired Barnes, in 1997. A short time after Barnes was fired, Gtech had its lottery contract renewed even though two companies had bid-lower than Gtech had.Former Texas lottery director Lawrence Littwin filed suit, as he thought the whole charade smelled of scandal.

Miers' firm represented convicted "Ponzi-scheme" con-man
The details of the case are both nauseating and highly troubling, considering President Bush is considering putting Miers at the top of America's legal system. Under Miers' leadership, the firm represented the head of a "foreign currency trading company [that] was allegedly a Ponzi scheme." The law-firm admitted that it "knew in March 1998 that $ 8 million in [the company's] losses hadn't been reported to investors" but didn't tell regulators. This wasn't an isolated incident, either. The Austin American-Statesman reported in 2001 that Miers' lawfirm was forced to pay another $8 million for a similar scheme to defraud investors. The suit, which dealt with actions the firm took under Miers in the late 1990s, was again quite troubling. As the 9/20/00 Texas Lawyer reported, Miers' firm helped a now-convicted con man "defraud investors and allowed the firm's [bank] account to be used as a 'conduit.'" The suit said "money from investors that went into the firm's trust account was deposited into [the con man's] bank accounts and was used to pay for his 'expensive toys.'"

Miers honored by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League
Harriet Miers, President Bush’s nominee as associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, was honored by the Anti-Defamation League. Miers, Bush’s White House counsel who was nominated Monday to take Sandra Day O’Connor’s seat on the high court, was honored by the ADL’s Dallas office in 1996.

Miers: Covering up Rove's wrongdoing?
Gee, that's a shocker....
RALPH NADER: Well, we’re trying to find out whether Karl Rove, during the 2004 election, obeyed federal law and properly allocated the time he spent in the White House on political activity, the resources he spent in the White House on political activity from his taxpayer funded role as special assistant to the President, performing duties that are well defined. And we can't get an answer. We wrote Harriet Miers in March, asking for an allocation to be made public, if there was an allocation, and there was no answer. We wrote her on the 18th of July, and there was no answer. And today, I'm writing President Bush, asking that that allocation be made public and if there is no allocation, what is his explanation under federal law? The performance by Harriet Miers on this matter is not trivial. Karl Rove was the architect of President Bush's re-election campaign. Those were the words that President Bush used on the celebration after the election last November. And here we have the counsel to the President, Harriet Miers, a nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States, refusing to answer a simple letter that basically says, “Did Karl Rove obey federal law 5-USC-7321 and have an accounting, separating his duties in the White House, in terms of time and resources? And if so, make it public.” No answer.

Bush's Stay out of Jail Card
In the high stakes game of Supreme Court Hold 'Em, Dubya has made a decisive and bold, yet defensive move. Has has gone "all in" and nominated his former personal lawyer, Harriet Miers, for the Supreme Court. What better way to avoid jail for war crimes, profiteering and conspiracy? Appoint your own lawyer to the bench. A truly brilliant maneouver even if Alberto's really disappointed. Bush's cronies can stop sweating now.

DeLay facing possible life term in prison for money laundering?
Rep. Tom DeLay was indicted for a second time in less than a week by a Texas grand jury looking into campaign contributions. The latest indictment, for one count of conspiring to launder money and one count of money laundering, was brought hours after DeLay's lawyers attacked on technical grounds another indictment handed down last week. If convicted, the money laundering charge carries a penalty of up to life in prison. The charge of conspiracy to launder money is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The initial conspiracy charge carries a punishment of up to two years.

Washington Post finds DeLay indictments "surprising"
A Texas grand jury indicted Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) yesterday for alleged involvement in money laundering related to the 2002 Texas election, raising new and more serious allegations than the conspiracy charge lodged against the former House majority leader last week. The surprising new indictments followed by a matter of hours a motion by DeLay's Texas legal defense team to quash last week's charge on grounds that the Texas prosecutor in charge of the case lacked authority to bring it. The lawyers alleged that the crime of conspiracy was not covered by the state election law at the time of the alleged violation. Later on Monday, a different grand jury -- which had no prior involvement in the case -- brought the new charges, which roughly match allegations made against two of DeLay's political associates one year ago.

Another Brit agent provacateur in Iraq?
Colin Peter,a British national who was arrested yesterday in southern Iraq, looks on at the Najaf, Iraq, police station Tuesday Oct.4 2005. A spokesman for the Iraqi border police in Najaf, said Peter, an engineer, and 10 Iraqis were carrying weapons and surveillance equipment in several vehicles when police stopped them on a road between the Saudi border and the Iraqi city of Najaf and took the Briton into custody because he had entered Iraq without a required visa.(AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)

Lynndie England: "I know worse things were happening over there"
A US soldier convicted of humiliating and abusing Iraqi prisoners has said she knew of "worse things" happening at Abu Ghraib and insisted military commanders were fully aware of what was going on in Iraq’s infamous jail. The comments, made by private first class Lynndie England in her first post-court marshal interview, contradicted assertions by top Pentagon officials that a small group of out-of-control soldiers were responsible for abuse at Abu Ghraib, and that however repulsive that mistreatment was, it did not amount to torture. England, appearing on NBC's Dateline program, said the pictures did not convey the full extent of the abuse that took place in the cell block."I know worse things were happening over there," admitted the 22-year-old convict. She said one night she heard blood-curdling screams coming from the block's shower room, where non-military interrogators had taken an Arab detainee.

21 Administration Officials Involved In Plame Leak
The cast of administration characters with known connections to the outing of an undercover CIA agent:

Karl Rove I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Condoleezza Rice Stephen Hadley Andrew Card Alberto Gonzales Mary Matalin Ari Fleischer Susan Ralston Israel Hernandez	John Hannah Scott McClellan Dan Bartlett Claire Buchan Catherine Martin Colin Powell Karen Hughes Adam Levine Bob Joseph Vice President Dick Cheney President George W. Bush

Also of interest:
State by State GOP Scandal Scorecard
Find out who accepted money from Abramoff & other scandals...

The Joy of Blogging

American Graffiti: Signs of the Times
President Bush used to enjoy healthy support for his Iraq policy. But now freeway 'bloggers' are speaking out.
Feel like getting something off your chest against that iniquitous warmonger in the White House? Well, you can write a letter to your newspaper, tune in to liberal talk radio, or click to a reliably leftie website. Alternatively, you can take a drive on the highways of the United States.

These are the domain of the freeway bloggers, a breed that have invented a tangible concrete and tarmac version of the internet to make their feelings known about George Bush. The messages, posted from overpasses, bridges and verges, are short, pithy and very, very rude. How many of these bloggers are out there? No one really knows. Who are they? Mainly, it would seem, young men of a mildly anarchic disposition, with a message to get out, a modest talent for gymnastics and a pronounced taste for the adrenalin rush of their trade.Are they breaking the law? Perhaps, though it's hard to argue that anti-Bush ranting is any more distracting to drivers than the raunchy fashion ads, local TV station posters and the other beacons of rampant consumerism that adorn every US highway. These advertisers have to pay for the privilege of course - but what about that hallowed first amendment of the US Constitution, guaranteeing free speech and free expression? Nor is the technique illegal. Back in that distant 18-month period of unalloyed patriotism between the 11 September attacks and the first adrenalin-fuelled days of the Iraq war, America's highways blossomed flags, diatribes against Osama bin Laden, and myriad calls to back the troops. Now the politics has changed, and the messages have a darker ring. Next to an old sign bearing the message "Support our troops", a freeway blogger has added his suggestion as to how this might be best achieved: "Impeach the murdering bastards who sent them to die for a pack of lies." Another notes: "Nobody died when Clinton lied." Another cuts to the quick of the CIA leak scandal lapping at the President's top political adviser: "We support Karl Rove," says the message on the banner, signed "Americans 4 Treason.org" Whether they are having a effect is debatable. Approval ratings for Mr Bush and his handling of the war are sliding to record lows - but the 1,800-plus US soldiers killed in Iraq, the 10,000 seriously wounded, and a seemingly unquenchable insurgency surely have a lot more to do with it than the musings of these 21st century political graffiti artists.Unarguably however, freeway blogging is a highly efficient means of expression. "A blog takes me about seven minutes to trace and paint, six seconds to hang," says one practitioner. The materials - cardboard or cloth and paint- cost only a few dollars, and affixing them is also pretty simple.According to one set of instructions posted on the internet, smaller signs should be placed against fencing and strapped in position with strong bungee cords. For larger signs, coat hangers as well as duct tape are recommended. The hangers should be taped to the top of the sign and then twisted around the fencing, before being fastened with the bungee cords.And don't worry about the fencing obstructing the view. As long as the letters are six inches high, a sign will be perfectly legible. As for location, anywhere (almost) goes. Not just overpasses and verges, but "anything you can see while driving is a place you can put a sign", the instructions advise would-be bloggers."The more difficult it is to reach, the longer it'll stay up. Tens, even hundreds of thousands of people can drive by a sign before one of them takes so much as five minutes to take it down. Apart from actual prisoners, you won't find a more captive audience than people in their cars." Some of the signs disappear in minutes. But others stay up for months.As a general rule, another blog-artist comments on the website www.freewayblogger.com, the larger the sign, the faster it comes down. "The most effective signs I post are small reminders along the peripheries of the freeway such as 'The war is a lie', or 'Osama Bin Forgotten'."The spoilsports who take them down are, he presumes, "cops, highway workers and Republicans". But who cares, in the easy-come, easy-go world of the freeway blogs. "So long as you can keep putting them up, it really doesn't matter. "In a way, moreover, the medium is even more effective than the internet from which it draws its name. Political cyberspace is divided into ghettos of the left and the right - but as an aficionado puts it, "When you put something on the freeway, you get everybody." And on the jammed California freeways where the art form was pioneered, everbody means a lot of people - tens, even hundreds of thousands of commuters on an eight-lane highway, all with no choice but to read these roadside political statements. For Republican drivers, it must be hell. But for the freeway blogger, life doesn't get any better.

Gov't paying $2,500 per roof for two hours of tarp-tacking in Gulf Coast
Across the hurricane ravaged Gulf Coast, thousands upon thousands of blue tarps are being nailed to wind-damaged roofs, a visible sign of government assistance. The blue sheeting - a godsend to residents whose homes are threatened by rain - is rapidly becoming the largest roofing project in the nation’s history.It isn’t coming cheap.
Knight Ridder has found that a lack of oversight, generous contracting deals and poor planning mean that government agencies are shelling out as much as 10 times what the temporary fix would normally cost. The government is paying contractors an average of $2,480 for less than two hours of work to cover each damaged roof - even though it’s also giving them endless supplies of blue sheeting for free.
"This is absolute highway robbery and it really does show that the agency doesn’t have a clue in getting real value of contracts," said Keith Ashdown, vice president for Taxpayers for Common Sense, noting that he recently paid $3,500 for a new permanent roof. "I’ve done the math in my head 100 times and I don’t know how they computed this cost." As many as 300,000 homes in Louisiana alone may need roof repairs, and as the government attempts to cover every salvageable roof by the end of October, the bill could reach hundreds of millions of dollars.
"When you have 400 or 500 people staying out of town, you’re paying a whole lot more overhead than you normally do," Manser said. "I couldn’t imagine being paid any less, well, scratch that, I guess I could. People will do a lot to get work."
Jim Pogue, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, said the agency strictly followed government contracting requirements and did all it could to get the best deal possible for the roofing work, given the magnitude of the task and the need to protect vulnerable homes as quickly as possible. (Just for the record, according to whistleblower Bunnatine Greenhouse, the Army Corps of Engineers gave the sweetheart contracts to Halliburton KBR in Iraq, over her protests that it was not following procedure -- getting competing contracts-- in doing so). Contractors watching from the sidelines, however, said they’d be happy to do the work for a fraction of what the government’s paying. Mike Lowery, an estimator with Pioneer Roof Systems in Austin, Texas, said that even with astronomical overhead the companies would have plenty of room to make a profit. In normal circumstances, Lowery said, his company would charge $300 to tarp a 2000-square-foot roof in Austin. For that same size job, the government is paying $2,980 to $3,500, or about 10 times as much. "It sounds to me like these people are probably making a stinking killing," Lowery said. "It’s hard to imagine somebody asking that kind of money. ... It sure seems to me like somebody is getting taken advantage of." LJC Vice President Allan Buchanan said his company has 300 to 400 workers in the New Orleans area and is completing nearly $900,000 worth of billable work daily.

Government Disseminating of "Covert Propaganda" found to be Illegal
Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party. In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated "covert propaganda" in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban. The contract with Mr. Williams and the general contours of the public relations campaign had been known for months. The report Friday provided the first definitive ruling on the legality of the activities.
The auditors declared: "We see no use for such information except for partisan political purposes. Engaging in a purely political activity such as this is not a proper use of appropriated funds."

Bushies may have illegally shifted nearly $38,500 to bankroll propaganda campaign
The administration of President George W. Bush broke the law as it resorted to illegal "covert propaganda" in trying to sell its key education initiative to the public, US congressional investigators have found.
"This qualifies as the production or distribution of covert propaganda," said the investigative arm of Congress. "In our view, the department violated the publicity or propaganda prohibition when it issued task orders... without requiring Ketchum to ensure that Mr Williams disclosed to his audiences his relationship with the department." Congressional investigators pointed out that under US law, "an agency must inform the viewing public that the government is the source of the information disseminated."
The report also suggested the administration may have illegally shifted nearly 38,500 dollars within its budget to pay for its propaganda campaign.
In statements that followed the GAO report, Senator Kennedy and Lautenberg demanded the misused money be returned to the government. "The taxpayer funded propaganda coming from the White House is another sign of the culture of corruption that pervades the White House and Republican leadership," argued Kennedy.
The finding comes as the Republican establishment in Washington finds itself embroiled in a series of scandals ranging from the indictment of House majority leader Tom DeLay on charges related to his fundraising activities to allegations of preferential treatment of contractors helping victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Senate Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist is facing an investigation into a questionable stock sale, while the probe into the illegal disclosure of the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame took a new twist Friday, after it was revealed that Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Richard Cheney's chief of staff, was one of the sources of information about her.

Air sampler detected possible disease agent during protests
Officials are revealing that air sensors on the National Mall detected a possible disease agent last weekend during the Iraq war demonstrations. Health officials say the sensors showed signs of a low level presence of Tularemia bacterium. Tularemia can be treated with antibiotics and is not contagious.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has alerted state health officials in DC, Maryland and Virginia. But officials say no one has reported symptoms of the disease, and subsequent air tests have come back negative. DC Dept of Health Director Doctor Gregg Pane tells W-T-O-P Radio the city was notified just today that a Department of Homeland Security air sensor detected the biohazard.
[Could this be purely a booga-booga to scare people away from future protests???]
Officials say Tularemia is found naturally in the environment. Health officials are encouraging doctors to be on alert for any signs of the disease. Symptoms include sudden fever, chills, headaches, joint pain and pneumonia.

British hand over control of Basra
British forces have handed over their main base in the city of Basra to the Iraqi military to allow it to take over the main security duties there. In Baghdad, US forces raided the homes of two officials from a prominent Sunni Arab organisation, arresting bodyguards and confiscating weapons, Sunni officials said. The handover by the British took place a week after riots broke out in the city - Iraq's second largest - after troops stormed a jail on September 19 where they believed two British soldiers had been taken after being arrested by Iraqi police. The raid sharply increased tensions between the British forces and Iraqis in the city. British troops moved to a base 18 miles outside Basra to be able to intervene in a crisis. It was the third southern city to be handed over to Iraqi forces in the space of a month following the US transfer of security control in the cities of Karbala and Najaf.
Adnan al-Dulaimi, secretary-general of the Conference for Iraq's People, said US soldiers in tanks and Humvees, with two helicopters circling overhead, broke into his home earlier, put him and his family in a guest room and searched the house. "It was if they were attacking a castle, not the home of a normal person who advises Iraq's interim government and has called for reconciliation and renounced sectarianism," al-Dulaimi told a news conference after the raid in western Baghdad. The other raid took place at the Baghdad home of Harith al-Obeidi, another senior official in the organisation, said Iraq's largest Sunni political party, the Iraqi Islamic Party.

Whistleblower exposes more torture in Iraq
Captain Ian Fishback laid out the list of atrocities committed at the order of the enemies of freedom: "Death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage-taking, stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment." Fishback, frustrated after 17 months of trying to get the atrocities investigated through official channels, finally turned to Human Rights Watch.
It was no secret; at first, the Bushists even bragged about it. "The gloves are coming off" was a favorite phrase of the deskbound tough guys cracking foxy to an enthralled media. They also boasted of "unleashing" the CIA, which set up its own "shadow army" of non-uniformed combatants operating outside the law -- i.e., "terrorists," according to Bush's own definition -- while creating secret prisons all over the world. As one CIA op enthused to The Boston Globe: "'We are doing things I never believed we would do -- and I mean killing people!" A senior Bush official proudly pointed to the ultimate authority for this deadly system: "If the commander in chief didn't think it was appropriate, we wouldn't be doing it."
"They wanted intel," said a sergeant, one of the ordinary, untrained grunts pressed into duty as interrogation muscle. "As long as no [captives] came up dead, it happened. We kept it to broken arms and legs" -- sometimes with baseball bats, and occasionally augmented by scalding naked prisoners with burning chemicals. The soldiers learned their "stress techniques" from CIA interrogators.
Meanwhile, one of the Republican senators Fishback approached, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, has already put the kibosh on legislation setting clear legal guidelines for prisoner treatment. Frist, a goonish errand boy now under investigation for insider trading, killed the bill after hearing Fishback's evidence.