Sunday, December 28, 2008

Pakistan Moves Troops Amid Tension With India

Now this is scary as hell!


December 27, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan has begun moving some troops away from its western border with Afghanistan and has stopped soldiers from going on leave amid rising tensions with India, Pakistani officials said Friday.

Two of the officials said the troops were headed to the border with India in the east.

The move is likely to frustrate the United States, which has been pressing Pakistan to battle militants in its lawless northwest territories and working hard to cool tempers in the two nuclear-armed countries, following terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, last month. Indian officials have blamed a Pakistani militant group for the attacks.

By late Friday there was little to indicate that the troop movements constituted a major redeployment.

One senior Pakistani military official said the decision to move forces and restrict furloughs was made “in view of the prevailing environment,” namely deteriorating relations with India since the terrorist attacks. He added that the air force was “vigilant” and “alert” for the same reason.

With few details being presented, including how many soldiers were involved, it was unclear on Friday whether the troop movements reflected a serious fear of attack or were intended as a warning to India.

Several senior American officials said they had not seen evidence of major troop movements. Still, high-ranking Bush administration officials called Pakistani officials to urge restraint.

A White House spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, said, “We don’t want either side to take steps to raise tensions in an already tense situation.”

Since the terrorist attacks, India’s leaders have repeatedly said that they do not want war, but have also expressed frustration with what they have called Pakistan’s unwillingness to curtail militant groups. On Friday, Indian officials refused to comment on the reports of troop movements inside Pakistan.

The situation is complicated by deep divisions within Pakistan about how to deal with Islamic militants, including fighters from Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the northwest who cross into Afghanistan to attack American and NATO troops. Under intense pressure from the United States, the government has sent troops to battle the militants there in recent months, but many Pakistanis resent what they see as American interference.

United States officials have expressed fears over the last month that tensions between India and Pakistan would divert Pakistan’s focus from fighting the militants.

Some of the Pakistani officials who spoke of the redeployment said it was partly a response to new intelligence that suggested India could launch an attack inside Pakistan by early next week. All of them spoke on the condition of anonymity.

One senior Pakistani military official who said troops were being redeployed from the areas where government forces were engaging the Taliban, added that the soldiers who were leaving were “being pulled out of areas where no operations are being conducted,” or where winter weather had limited their ability to maneuver. He called the number of soldiers being moved “limited.”

He and another senior Pakistani military official interviewed Friday about the troop movements chose their words very carefully and offered few details. They said nothing harsh about India, even though they were speaking anonymously.

But two Pakistani intelligence officials — one from military intelligence and one from the country’s premier agency, Inter-Services Intelligence — described the situation in graver terms, and said troops along the border with India were on the highest state of alert.

Another Pakistani official said the air force had been in a “point defense” posture for one week, prepared to defend specific key defense installations and cities — including Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Lahore — as well as the Kahuta nuclear weapons laboratory. Pilots are sleeping in uniform with their boots on, the official said.

Pakistani news media reported troops were being sent near the boundary that separates Pakistani- and Indian-controlled Kashmir, as well to the area surrounding Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city, about 20 miles from the border with India.

In public, Pakistani leaders have vowed in recent days not to attack first or be the aggressor in any conflict, but have warned India that it should not believe it can get away with launching even a “surgical” strike inside Pakistan.

“We will be compelled to respond if it happens,” said the Pakistani foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, according to Pakistan’s state news agency. “If war is imposed, we will respond to it like a brave, self-respected and self-esteemed nation.”

If the redeployment was meant to warn India, it would stand in contrast to some efforts this month by leaders in each nation to tamp down emotions that some feared could lead to hostilities between the countries, which have fought three wars since 1947.

Two weeks ago, for example, Pakistani officials went out of their way to play down what they said were two incursions by Indian warplanes into Pakistani airspace, calling them inadvertent in public even though some officials privately said the moves were most likely a test or a provocation. Their response to the airspace violations — which the Indian military denied — won praise from American leaders.

Indian and American intelligence officials have attributed the Mumbai attacks, which killed 163 victims, to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a banned group based in Pakistan that has fought Indian forces in Indian-controlled Kashmir for years. But Pakistani leaders say that India has not provided convincing evidence of who carried out the attacks.

For its part, India on Friday accused its neighbor and rival of “diverting attention” from terrorism by making statements in recent days that it would go to war if necessary.

The redeployment came as Indian authorities warned their citizens not to travel to Pakistan, citing news media reports that Indian citizens had been arrested there in connection with a bombing this week in Lahore.

But they took pains not to blame the elected civilian government in Pakistan.

“It seems that this is the work of other agencies in Pakistan that operate outside the law and civilian control,” an Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

The Indian foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, met with his counterpart from Saudi Arabia, among Pakistan’s staunchest allies, as part of India’s worldwide diplomatic campaign to put pressure on Pakistan to quash terrorist groups operating on its soil.

“Instead of diverting attention from the real issue, they should concentrate on how to fight against terrorism and bring to book the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack,” Mr. Mukherjee said.

Indian officials have said privately in recent weeks that they are reluctant to strike Pakistan, and that even a limited attack on terrorist training camps would invite swift retaliation. Just as important, any military standoff would only make the Pakistani Army more influential in Islamabad — precisely what India least desires.

Somini Sengupta contributed reporting from New Delhi, and Steven Lee Myers and Thom Shanker from Washington.



(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

The Noose Tightens

Newsweek: "The Noose Tightens: Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and other top Bush officials could soon face legal jeopardy." Uh, don't forget Cheney now!

They should face trial somewhere. If our system is too corrupt to hold them accountable, rendition them to the Hague. There must be justice this time. No more sweeping national scandals and crimes under the national carpet.

The first step on the long journey back to some moral authority in the global community is accountability for our own war criminals and those who committed crimes against the Constitution.

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Gooper Pergatory: How Long Will It Last?

Until quite a few of them are in hell, we hope or, at least, in orange jump suits in a federal prison.

This is not just any transition from a GOP White House and Congressional majority to a Democratic White House and majority. The departing Republicans, quite a few of them, must not be allowed to ride off into the sunset, trying their very best to re-write history as they go. These people have ordered and facilitated horrendous crimes against people from all over the world, including the American people.

If there is to be no accountability, I can no longer consider myself an American. What these people have done goes against everything in which I believe, their actions and their arrogance about their actions (crimes) offend my spirit deeply.



From the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal to the National Review Online, Republicans are working furiously to develop a comeback strategy.

The range of proposals and tactics runs the gamut from abandoning the religious right, to staying the course, to purging traitorous big-government conservatives lured by pork and power.

"Republicans walked away from the principles that minted our governing majority in 1980 and 1994," declared Mike Pence, the newly elected chair of the House Republican Conference. "There is a way out of the wilderness. But it will require humility, vision, positive alternatives and a willingness to fight for what makes America great."

That's not enough, counsels the American Enterprise Institute's David Frum: "College-educated Americans have come to believe that their money is safe with Democrats--but that their values are under threat from Republicans. And there are more and more of these college-educated Americans all the time. So the question for the GOP is: will it pursue them? To do so will involve painful change, on issues ranging from the environment to abortion. And it will potentially involve even more painful changes of style and tone: toward a future that is less overtly religious, less negligent with policy, and less polarizing on social issues. That is a future that leaves little room for [Sarah] Palin--but it is the only hope for a Republican recovery."

Evidence available now suggests, however, that whatever advice the GOP takes, it better not hold its breath. In all likelihood, Republicans can look forward to a considerable period on the sidelines. Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi could stumble badly in the face of a disastrous economy and under the constant threat of terrorist assault, but without such an opening, the Republican Party is not yet in a position to engineer its way back to dominance.

Why? First, party strength moves in cycles and the Democratic Party's turn has only just begun. Thus far, the Obama administration-to-be has demonstrated a commitment to avoiding the pitfalls of its Democratic predecessors, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, giving the GOP little, or no, negative material to work with.

Second, memories of the Bush years, of the war in Iraq, congressional corruption, and above all, the trillion-dollar meltdown will require years to fade.

That does not mean the Democrats are secure. Sixteen years ago, in the wake of the 1992 election, support for Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party nosedived. But in 1994, the GOP had not been as tainted as it has been today.


"This is a very bad point in the cycle for Republicans, in terms of demographic trends in voter support, the timing of the cycle, and the overall image of the party," said the AEI's Norman Ornstein. "Republicans can hope that Obama and congressional Dems screw up, or that voters are less patient about economic recovery than they were in the 1930s. But that is a thin reed on which to base long-term hopes when neither geographical bases nor emerging voter groups are moving in your direction."

Democratic consultant Bill Carrick noted that in 1993-94, his party's setbacks followed the 1992 election in which Bill Clinton won only a plurality in a three-way contest, and in 1994, "the Ross Perot voters went for Republican Congressional candidates. Right now, there is no similar large group of alienated and unaligned voters capable of changing the partisan balance."

Carrick argues that "we are likely at the beginning of a Democratic-dominant period. Republicans are confronted with multiple problems--regional, demographic, and ideological. So far, the GOP leadership barely acknowledges most of these problems. The first part of building a healthy Republican Party would be to recognize the seriousness of your problems. The political climate could be very hostile to the GOP for several more years. The severity of the current economic crises is much better suited to Democratic solutions like stimulating the economy with government spending or dealing with government help on mortgage foreclosures."

Republican pollster Whit Ayres was more optimistic about GOP prospects, noting not only the brevity of the 1992 Democratic surge, but also the quick collapse of Democrats' Watergate-driven gains in 1974 and 1976, quickly followed by major Republican congressional pickups in 1978, and the GOP take-over of the White House and Senate in the 1980 election. "The electorate can switch gears very fast," he said.

Ayres shares the widely-held view that "what really matters now is how Obama governs." But he believes that "Republican failings will seem like ancient history compared to Obama's struggles to deal with the economy and looming terrorist threats."

Looking at these questions from a long-term historical perspective, Yale political scientist David Mayhew contends that "perceived management success or failure by an in-party, involving the economy or national security, has been more important in motoring parties in or out of office. On the economic front, governing parties as well as their entire doctrines of political economy have been discredited by bad economic troubles that the in-parties didn't deal with well. Consider the Grover Cleveland Democrats (small state; free trade) in 1894-96, the Hoover GOP in 1930-32, the Carter Democrats (the great inflation; stagflation; the demise of Keynesianism, etc.) in 1980."

This suggests, according to Mayhew, that "on occasions like these, a new in-party has a priceless opportunity to enact policies its activists would have wanted to enact anyway by wrapping them in a package of relief, recovery, and needed structural reform. That window is opening up for the Obama Democrats."

In the meantime, Obama and his advisors are going out of their way to demonstrate that their decisions will not be designed to accommodate ideological interest groups, but rather to secure a centrist footing, a strategy demonstrated most explicitly by Obama's top Cabinet-level appointments and by the choice - some say centrist, some say too far to the right - of Saddleback Church's Rick Warren to give the invocation at the January 20 inauguration.



(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.


MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski mugged outside D.C. hotel

As the economy continues to collapse, there will be more of this, much of which will go unreported by the national news media because the mugging will not be happening to known celebrities of some kind.

You know, as you read this, take note that Ms. Brzezinski stated that she did not want Joe Scarborough to report the mugging, because she felt embarrassed. This is typical victim thought/ feeling process. Why should Mika feel embarrassed? She did nothing wrong.

I really can't speak for other countries, but Americans have become very good, over the years, at blaming the victim. This is especially true of rape cases, but the attitude bleeds over to other crime victims. If we can find something about the victim that separates us from them, we can rest assured that the crime will not happen to us; just another form of denial. The simple truth is, what happened to Mika has already happened to every last one of us.

Like, for example, we can all say that Mika is a well-known, TeeVee personality who makes a very good living. We are not well known people who make big bucks, therefore, it's not as likely to happen to us. All the time, somewhere in the back of our minds we know this is complete b.s, but it may make us feel a little safer, if we can actually hang on to that delusion.

12/18/2008 @ 11:31 am

Filed by David Edwards


MSNBC Joe Scarborough announced that his co-host, Mika Brzezinski, was mugged outside of her Washington D.C. hotel this morning.

"Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty was confronted face-to-face Thursday with some of the district's crime problems, when it turned out the host of the morning talk show he appeared on had been mugged in the city an hour earlier," The Washington Times reported.

Excerpts from article:

####

As the show began, Mr. Scarborough blasted Washington without naming the hotel, saying he needed to talk about what had just happened to his co-host.

Mrs. Brzezinski said she was embarrassed and didn't want him to tell viewers about the experience, but he detailed the mugging and complained the bell desk should have been paying attention.

"A guy walks across the street straight for her," Mr. Scarborough said, adding the hotel should "at least police five feet outside their own doors." Mrs. Brzezinski said she gave the mugger the $6 in cash she had with her, adding that he asked her for $20 and said something along the lines of "Give me money and nothing will happen."

Mr. Fenty, brought on the show to talk about education and plans for the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, told the hosts the matter would be investigated.

####

This video is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Dec. 18, 2008.



Download video via RawReplay.com



(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.


Rice: Bush didn't ignore any 9/11 'warning,' because there was no 'when, where, how'

This is absolute b.s.!

They were warned about hijacked planes being used to bomb places like, for example, the G-8 in Genoa in June of 2001. They took that warning, by Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, seriously enough to put Junior on a U.S. ship of the coast of Italy every night during the conference.

They were warned and warned and warned. The White House went deaf! They were warned about the possibility of hijackings. We know how to prevent hijackings. Did they even warn the FAA and airport security? How about simply warning the people to be more alert and telling them what to look for.

The Director of the CIA was running around with his hair on fire saying over and over that we were going to get hit.

The FBI was refusing to allow searches that may have prevented the attacks.

I do not believe that the people who could have stopped it wanted it stopped. After all, the Neocons needed their new Pearl Harbor and they got it.

And....by the way, now that the Bushites are on their way out of office and Washington, D.C., it is time for a new and independent commission on 9/11 and the anthrax attacks.

Bush loves to say that there have been no further attacks on U.S. soil, but he seems to forget the anthrax attacks which, like the attack on 9/11, happened on his watch, no matter who did it. It is quite remarkable to me that Bush nor Cheney talk about the anthrax attacks, not ever. Much like what happened to the British weapons inspector, David E. Kelly, a dead guy gets the blame and his colleagues come to his defense. Did Ivins really do the anthrax attacks. We will never really know the answer to that unless there is a truly independent commission to dig deeply into the attacks which led us to this disastrous place,

"Dark actors playing dangerous games," indeed!

12/18/2008 @ 9:00 am

Filed by David Edwards and Muriel Kane


Outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has acknowledged that she was responsible for the security failures that made possible the 9/11 attacks. However, she did so only fleetingly and in a backhanded manner before returning to justifications of her actions.

"I do take responsibility -- but this was a systemic failure," Rice told CNN's Zain Verjee during an exit interview on Wednesday.

Verjee had begun pressing Rice with a question about whether she had ignored warnings of the forthcoming al Qaeda attack.

"This is simply not true," Rice replied, saying that there had been only "a single item that said bin Ladin determined to attack – not when, where, how."

Rice insisted the real cause of the failure was that "we did not have the capacity in our systems to share information between law enforcement, the intelligence agencies, and to be able to act in a very quick and decisive way."

"The worst breach of national security in the history of the United States came under your watch," Verjee persisted.

"Absolutely," Rice agreed.

"Did you ever consider resigning?" asked Verjee. "Taking responsibility?"

"I do take responsibility," Rice finally acknowledged, "but this was a systemic failure. ... We, the administrations before us, had not thought of this as the kind of war against the terrorists that we were going to have to wage."

Verjee later brought up former Secretary of State Colin Powell's recent statement that "frankly, the National Security Council system didn’t function in a way that I thought it should have functioned. We didn’t always vet everything in front of the President."

Rice, who was head of the National Security Council at the time of September 11, insisted, "Any principal who ever wished to say something to the President, I facilitated it within hours – not within days, within hours. And the President sat with his National Security team, and everybody had an opportunity to speak their mind."


A full transcript of the interview is available here.


This video is from CNN's American Morning, broadcast Dec. 18, 2008.

Download video via RawReplay.com


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.


Paper projects Franken victory over Coleman

This is only a projection, but one we like. Franken is our kind of Democrat. He says what he means, means what he says and does what he says he's going to do. Coleman, on the other hand, has been a good little cover-up guy for the Bushies. I imagine that if there ever is a war crimes tribunal. there may well be a number of Congress Critters who may be found guilty of conspiracy to cover-up war crimes, as in their complete failure to to their job of oversight for the first 6 years of the Bush administration, when most of the crimes were committed, not to mention the illegal wire-tapping and other actions by this administration designed to shred the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.

Nevertheless, from what we understand at this time, the numbers that are important are the numbers when the Minn. Sec. of State certifies the election. Let's hope that all the absentee ballots are counted, as they should be when an election is as close as this one.

That's all we want.

Count all the votes.

12/18/2008 @ 10:39 pm

Filed by RAW STORY

As of Thursday night, GOP Senator Norm Coleman officially maintains a lead over Democratic challenger Al Franken of just five votes, with 5,861 challenged ballots remaining to be counted.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune, having just wrapped it's own count of the ballots in question, is making a projection: After lengthy deliberations and plenty of nail-biting, Al Franken will become the Democrats' 59th man in the US Senate; the new junior Senator from Minnesota.

The paper predicts a final margin of just 89 votes, in Franken's favor.

DEVELOPING...

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Car Bankruptcy Cited as Option by White House

While Billions were simply thrown at Wall Street corporate Banker type chumps with no oversight, no nothing, just Henry Paulson saying one thing and doing another. Of course, what the hell did Congress expect. That is what members of the Bush administration have done from the first day of their first term, legitimate or not.



December 19, 2008


WASHINGTON — The White House raised for the first time on Thursday the prospect of forcing General Motors and Chrysler into a managed bankruptcy as a solution to save the companies from financial collapse.

President Bush’s spokeswoman, Dana Perino, confirmed growing speculation within legal circles that the president and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. were considering the step.

“There’s an orderly way to do bankruptcies that provides for more of a soft landing,” Ms. Perino said. “I think that’s what we would be talking about. That would be one of the options.”

A senior administration official, however, later described that option as a last resort, to be used only if an agreement for a voluntary overhaul of the industry could not be reached.

These officials said the preferred solution would be to force a restructuring of the industry outside of bankruptcy court, extracting concessions that would make the companies more cost-competitive with foreign automakers.

In return, the Treasury would tap the financial rescue fund, called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, to make loans to the companies.

After a week of talks between the automakers and the Treasury Department over the terms of a possible bailout, Ms. Perino on Thursday said, “we’re very close.”

President Bush, speaking at the American Enterprise Institute, an organization dedicated to free market principles, said that he had determined that the economy was too fragile to allow G.M. and Chrysler to fail. The companies have warned that will happen if they do not receive financial aid soon.

In his speech Thursday, Mr. Bush made clear that he wanted to avoid a “disorderly bankruptcy” because of “what it would do to the psychology of the markets.” But he also said he was “worried about putting good money after bad,” and suggested he would only approve a plan that allowed the auto companies to “become viable in the future.”

Mr. Bush’s comments, a month before he leaves office, made clear that he was worried by the idea of returning to Texas amid more economic chaos and the surge in unemployment that a collapse of the companies could cause.

“The autos obviously are very fragile,” he said. He added that he was concerned about what President-elect Barack Obama would face on Jan. 20. “I believe that good policy is not to dump him a major catastrophe in his first day of office,” he said.

What the White House appears to be envisaging is a package deal of concessions — and an injection of money from the TARP, the $700 billion financial bailout fund — to keep credit flowing for G.M. and Chrysler.

Taxpayer loans, the White House has said, would have first priority over all other debt. Ms. Perino said the goal was to “try to come up with something that would protect the taxpayers but not allow a collapse that would hurt everybody in America.”

But for Mr. Bush, that could be difficult to negotiate. If the autoworkers’ unions conclude they are likely to get a better deal from Mr. Obama, they are likely to stall negotiations and settle for a shorter-term loan.

After the White House raised the possibility of a bankruptcy, G.M.’s shares fell to $3.66.

Investors may have also been reacting to a report in The Wall Street Journal that said G.M. had restarted merger discussions with Chrysler. But a G.M. spokesman, Tony Cervone, said the automaker had not held any talks with Chrysler since late October, when G.M. suspended discussions because of its bleak financial condition. “Nothing has changed,” he said.

G.M. declined to comment on the Bush administration’s suggestion that an “orderly bankruptcy” was under consideration. But the company was surprised by the White House statements, according to G.M. officials who asked not to be identified because the discussions with the administration were not yet final.

The automaker’s senior executives have said repeatedly that bankruptcy was not a viable solution because consumers would be reluctant to buy a vehicle from a bankrupt automaker.

In July, CNW Marketing Research said a survey it conducted showed that 80 percent of prospective car buyers would not consider purchasing a vehicle from a bankrupt company. A more recent survey found that 51 percent of the people it interviewed said they would not buy a car from G.M. even if it received a government bailout.

G.M. cannot afford to lose half of its prospective customers,” said Art Spinella, CNW’s president.

Spokesmen for Chrysler and Ford also declined to comment specifically on the inclusion of bankruptcy as an alternative.

Chrysler’s chairman, Robert L. Nardelli, has said that getting financing to reorganize in bankruptcy would be difficult given tight credit conditions. Ford is not seeking immediate government help.

There was no immediate comment from the United Automobile Workers union.

In a traditional bankruptcy proceeding, the U.A.W.’s contracts could be voided and the union forced to renegotiate benefits like health care.

The union’s president, Ron Gettelfinger, has said the U.A.W. is willing to make concessions if G.M. or Chrysler gets government loans that help them survive.

But Mr. Gettelfinger has said he believes that bankruptcy would cripple either company’s ability to sell cars. “There’s no question in my mind that people would not buy their vehicles,” he said in an interview.

Both companies are cutting production to stretch their available cash. On Friday, Chrysler will begin an unusual monthlong shutdown of all of its North American manufacturing plants in a bid to save money.

Legal experts said Thursday that despite discussion of an out-of-court solution, a revamping of G.M. and Chrysler might be difficult to accomplish outside of bankruptcy court, given the significant steps an overhaul would require.

“It’s not going to be easy, it’s not going to be pleasant, or palatable, but it’s the only solution that makes the least bit of sense,” said Hugh M. Ray, head of the bankruptcy practice at the Houston law firm Andrews Kurth, who has participated in major bankruptcy cases.

If the companies were to file for bankruptcy, major banks would provide financing, with federal funds as security for the bank loans for the companies to operate.

Some lawyers have suggested that the two companies could receive $25 billion, using $5 billion in federal funds to guarantee the banks’ loans, although auto industry analysts said the companies might need more.

G.M. has retained Harvey R. Miller, a longtime bankruptcy lawyer, as its adviser. It is also being advised by William Repko, an expert in restructuring with Evercore Partners who has worked with companies like United Airlines. G.M. is also working with Arthur B. Newman of the Blackstone Group.

Chrysler has retained the law firm of Jones Day to provide revamping expertise.

Mr. Ray said that a number of airlines went through bankruptcy protection earlier this decade, using federally backed loans awarded by the Air Transportation Stabilization Board, which was set up to aid the industry after the September 2001 attacks.

The board turned down United’s request, however, and the airline subsequently restructured under bankruptcy protection without federal money.

United is still flying, and G.M. is not doing very well,” Mr. Ray said. “Their chickens have come home to roost, and now it’s inevitable” that G.M. seek bankruptcy protection, he added.

David E. Sanger reported from Washington and Bill Vlasic and Micheline Maynard from Detroit.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Shocking, obscene...caught on tape

Monday, December 15, 2008


Shocking, obscene and possible criminal talk from a high-elected official captured on tape

Sure, it was shocking and appalling when we heard about Gov. Rod Blagojevich, but now an even higher ranking official has been captured on tape making outrageous comments that should offend every American:

"I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency, in effect, came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do. And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it."

(Questioner): In hindsight, do you think any of those tactics that were used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others went too far?

"I don't."

It's bad enough when a political figure is so brazenly willing to violate the Constitution, let alone international law -- but to say so on tape, when he realizes that he's being closely watched by the American people? You almost have to wonder whether Vice President Dick Cheney is some kind of sociopath, or has some psychological desire to get caught.

I hope that when the Obama administration gets around to figuring out what they're going to do with these criminals?

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.


Suing Cheney and Rumsfeld over 9/11 Attacks

12/18/2008 @ 9:49 pm

Filed by Stephen C. Webster

April Gallop 'will be very disappointed,' lawyer tells RAW STORY.


April Gallop, whom the Army News Service called a "hero" after she was awarded the Purple Heart for injuries sustained at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, will not likely be triggering another such response from internal government media.

On behalf of Spc. April Gallop, who served in the Network Infrastructure Services Agency as an administrative specialist, California attorney William Veale on Monday filed a civil suit against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and former US Air Force General Richard Myers, who was acting chairman of the joint chiefs on 9/11.

The suit alleges they engaged in conspiracy to facilitate the terrorist attacks and purposefully failed to warn those inside the Pentagon, contributing to injuries she and her two-month-old son incurred. Additional, unnamed persons with foreknowledge of the attacks are also named.

First news of the suit was carried exclusively by RAW STORY. Full text of the claims may be read here.

"Everything happened so fast," Gallop said in an Oct. 2001 published report. "I remember thinking that we had been bombed."

After rescuing one of her coworkers, the two began searching the smoldering debris that used to be April's office for her two-month-old son Elisha. She pulled him out and escaped the smoke-filled building, out onto the Pentagon's lawn, and collapsed.

Though thankful she survived the event, "I'm still angry at the enemy," she said. "...They will pay."

Years later, she's pursuing that payment in the form of a civil suit.

"I remember being so disgusted at the frequency of random drill exercises taking place for us to evacuate the building," Gallop told George Washington blog in a 2006 interview. "It seemed as if they always happened when I had to take care of certain things.

"Yet on September 11th, the day when our lives were threatened, not one alarm."

April sustained a mild brain injury, but still struggles with Post Concussive Syndrome and hearing loss. Her son also suffered a mild brain injury which has since spiraled out into a learning disability.

On the attack, Gallop's recall is somewhat different from the official story. She continued ...

"I have been misquoted on numerous occasions. That happens when individuals have ulterior motives. But here is my statement for the record.

"I was located at the E ring. From my inside perspective, with no knowledge of what had actually happened on the outside, it did sound like a bomb. And we had to escape the building before the floors, debris etc. collapsed on us.

"And I don't recall at anytime seeing any plane debris. Again, I don't know what plane debris would look like after hitting a building. But I would have recalled unusual looking pieces similar to plane parts."

"What they don't want is for this to go into discovery," said Gallop's attorney, Mr. Veale, speaking to RAW STORY. "If we can make it past their initial motion to dismiss these claims, and we get the power of subpoena, then we've got a real shot at getting to the bottom of this. We've got the law on our side."

Does it have a chance?


RAW STORY solicited the opinions of a number of lawyers with prior experience suing the federal government in civil court.

"The 15 page Complaint appears to be the product of a lot of hard research, alleging in meticulous detail an ongoing conspiracy among the named defendants to either cause or allow the attacks to happen and to catch us totally unprepared," said Larry Sterns, Esq., of San Francisco law firm Sterns & Walker. "We have seen conspiracy allegations before and an undercurrent of doubt remains as to just what did happen that day and why? Without question it was the turning point in the up to that time, far from a notable term as president for George Bush, following his controversial ascent to the office less than a year before."

According to the Sterns & Walker Web site, the firm represents survivors of aircraft and other major accidents and catastrophes. The firm "has been involved in almost every major air carrier accident case, and hundreds of other cases involving claims against major defendants," including the United States of America.

"We have already had a precursor of this, which unfortunately for the plaintiff, spells out what will happen to her case. Ex-CIA agent, Valerie Plame, whose cover was deliberately blown by Cheney and probably others at the White House, in retaliation for the unkind remarks her husband made after his investigation concerning the Bush claim that Sadaam Hussein had attempted to purchase raw material for a weapon of mass destruction from a country in Africa, filed a damage suit against Cheney and others for destroying her career," said Sterns.

He added: "However we may feel about these individuals, and what impact they had on the United States, we fear [Ms. Gallop] will be very disappointed in trying to address issues or obtain answers through the judicial process."

Sterns' prediction of failure is tempered by attorney Phillip L. Marcus out of Colombia, Maryland, who specializes in intellectual property and copyright law. Marcus professed to RAW STORY an expertise in Bivens vs. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents, a case in which the Supreme Court determined that the government could be sued for the violation of a Constitutional right, even if no federal statute exists to support such action.

"Jurisdiction is the big hurdle for the plaintiff, but there are two routes over the hurdle, the Bivens Doctrine (that where the facts support serious rights violations by federal agents there is a kind of federal common law jurisdiction, else violations of the Bill of Rights could not be remedied), and 28 USC sec. 1331, which is the Tort Claims Act," said Marcus.

"Mr. Veale has made extraordinary allegations. Normally if you simply allege enough facts for jurisdiction the court goes past that defense.

"But with such bizarre facts the judge is going to want to see a little bit of evidence to believe it has Bivens jurisdiction or FTCA jurisdiction, before letting Veale go ahead with what will be massive discovery -- tons of documents, and depositions under oath of Cheney, Rummy and many others, defendants and plain witnesses."

He concludes: "I'd bet [this story] lives at least four or five years, lots of news stories."

The complete text of both attorneys' opinions on the April Gallop suit is below.

####

When is the United States or any of its officers, agents or employees able to be held liable in a court of law? Can the civil judicial system, seeking damages, as opposed to a criminal charge, be used to correct what might be perceived as just not misconduct, but alleged criminal activity on the part of those in our government?

The answers to these questions can be complicated, but it seems clear that one case, discussed below, will not have much chance of success.

The frustrations of many many Americans may well be evident in the suit filed in the federal court for the Eastern District of New York by [April Gallop], who seeks damages against the sitting vice president, Dick Cheney, the ex secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and others, all arising out of the events of September 11, 2001.

The 15 page Complaint appears to be the product of a lot of hard research, alleging in meticulous detail an ongoing conspiracy among the named defendants to either cause or allow the attacks to happen and to catch us totally unprepared. We have seen conspiracy allegations before and an undercurrent of doubt remains as to just what did happen that day and why? Without question it was the turning point in the up to that time, far from a notable term as president for George Bush, following his controversial ascent to the office less than a year before.

However, although it may be easy to sympathize with some of the criticisms and allegations made against Cheney, Rumsfeld and the others (interesting enough, Bush is not named in the suit), as we look back over the last eight years, and however we may feel about these individuals, and what impact they had on the United States, we fear [Ms. Gallop] will be very disappointed in trying to address issues or obtain answers through the judicial process.

We have already had a precursor of this, which unfortunately for the plaintiff, spells out what will happen to her case. Ex-CIA agent, Valerie Plame. whose cover was deliberately blown by Cheney and probably others at the White House, in retaliation for the unkind remarks her husband made after his investigation concerning the Bush claim that Sadaam Hussein had attempted to purchase raw material for a weapon of mass destruction from a country in Africa, filed a damage suit against Cheney and others for destroying her career.

The court summarily ruled that the case did not lie; political questions such as this are routinely not heard by the courts. The court also ruled there was an across the board immunity for anything the sitting vice president did or did not do while in office. The same would be true, of course, as to any suit one might try to file against Bush, including after he leaves office.

It seems clear here the same rules apply and the same result will obtain. The court will dismiss this case on motion of the defendants, for the same reasons. However one may view Mr. Cheney, described by many as the Prince of Darkness, and worse; his actions while vice president of the United States are protected from judicial review. The sole remedy found in the Constitution to deal with unworthy office holders is impeachment.

This is not to say that suits may not be brought against the government itself. Indeed they can be, and are filed every day on a variety of issues. Our law firm has handled many of these, and with success. The courts have held that the United States starts with an overall immunity, but may waive that and permit suits against it, as Congress dictates.

One common example is the Federal Tort Claims Act, from 1946, which authorizes suit against the United States for damages caused by an act or omission of the government, acting through agents or agencies, if such conduct would have been actionable under the law of the state where the act or omission occurred.

There are some exceptions and some special defense available to the government, principally the Discretionary Function defense, which also shield government employees, right up to and including the president for decisions and actions, turning out in retrospect to be right or wrong, based upon an exercise of that discretion.

That defense has so far shielded the United States from any liability arising out of the Kenya and Tanzania embassy bombings some ten years ago, but the fight goes on.

Gerald A. Sterns, Esq.
Sterns & Walker
www.Trial-Law.com

**

This is not a simple negligence claim. Veale does scatter-shoot the jursidictional issue, in par. 8 of the complaint. You should read about the Bivens case.

Jurisdiction is the big hurdle for the plaintiff, but there are two routes over the hurdle, the Bivens Doctrine (that where the facts support serious rights violations by federal agents there is a kind of federal common law jurisdiction, else violations of the Bill of Rights could not be remedied), and 28 USC sec. 1331, which is the Tort Claims Act.

Mr. Veale has made extraordinary allegations. Normally if you simply allege enough facts for jurisdiction the court goes past that defense.

But with such bizarre facts the judge is going to want to see a little bit of evidence to believe it has Bivens jurisdiction or FTCA jurisdiction, before letting Veale go ahead with what will be massive discovery -- tons of documents, and depositions under oath of Cheney, Rummy and many others, defendants and plain witnesses.

This has a little bit of the feel of the Hatfill case, the guy who was "of interest" in anthrax envelopes, and then wasn't. But different district. Veale has filed in the SDNY while Hatfill was in the EDVa, Alexandria.

I'd bet [this story] lives at least four or five years, lots of news stories.

--Philip L. Marcus, Esq.
Business Negotiations & Agreements & Intellectual Property
www.negotiationpro.com

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.


Cheney Has Admitted To War Crimes

Vice President Dick Cheney said for the first time Monday that he helped get the “process cleared” for the brutal interrogation program of suspected terrorists.

In an interview with ABC News, Cheney was matter-of-fact and unapologetic about the harsh techniques used against the detainees — including waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning considered torture since the days of the Inquisition.

“I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the [Central Intelligence] Agency, in effect, came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do,” Cheney said. “And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it.”

Cheney made his comment in response to a question about whether he personally approved the harsh tactics used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

"There was a period of time there, three or four years ago, when about half of everything we knew about al-Qaeda came from that one source," Cheney said. "So, it's been a remarkably successful effort; I think the results speak for themselves."

Cheney’s nonchalant response to the questions about torture was reminiscent of his casual comment to a conservative radio host in October 2006 when Cheney said the decision to waterboard suspected terrorists was a “no-brainer.”

Thousands of pages of documents released publicly since that interview would appear to show that methods used against detainees constituted cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment in violation of anti-torture statutes and international treaties signed and ratified by the United States.

Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led the investigation of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, has said “there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”

In another interview Monday with conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, Cheney said the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, “has been very well run.”

“I think if you look at it from the perspective of the requirements we had, once you go out and capture a bunch of terrorists, as we did in Afghanistan and elsewhere, then you’ve got to have some place to put them,” Cheney said.

Defending the Iraq War

In the ABC interview, Cheney also defended the decision to invade Iraq, arguing that even though Iraq lacked the WMD stockpiles that Cheney and other administration officials had claimed it had, the invasion was justified by Iraq’s potential to build such weapons in the future.

“I think –as I look at the intelligence with respect to Iraq – what they got wrong was that there weren't any stockpiles,” Cheney said. “What we found in the after-action reports, after the intelligence report was done and then various special groups went and looked at the intelligence and what its validity was. What they found was that Saddam Hussein still had the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction. He had the technology, he had the people, he had the basic feed stocks. They also found that he had every intention of resuming production once the international sanctions were lifted. …

“This was a bad actor and the country's better off, the world's better off, with Saddam gone, and I think we made the right decision, in spite of the fact that the original NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] was off in some of its major judgments.”

However, an investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee found that Bush and Cheney didn’t simply buy into faulty intelligence but knowingly misled Congress and the public about the threat that Iraq posed to the United States in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion.

“Before taking the country to war, this administration owed it to the American people to give them a 100 percent accurate picture of the threat we faced. Unfortunately, our Committee has concluded that the administration made significant claims that were not supported by the intelligence,” said committee chairman, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, D-West Virginia, who released a report on prewar Iraq intelligence last June.

The Senate report was the first U.S. government document to state that Bush and Cheney knowingly made false allegations about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator who was overthrown in April 2003 and executed in December 2006.

“There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence. But there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate," Rockefeller said.

The Senate report singled out erroneous statements that Cheney made during the run-up to war that the Vice President knew were not supported by the available intelligence, such as allegations that Mohammed Atta, the lead 9/11 hijacker met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001.

In essence, the Senate report confirmed British intelligence assertions, which surfaced in a document widely known as the Downing Street Memo, that the facts about the threat posed by Iraq were being “fixed” around the Bush administration's desire to invade Iraq.

Principals Committee

Cheney’s unapologetic comments to ABC News were made less than a week after a bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report found that the Vice President was part of a group – also including President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice – responsible for the abuse of detainees that took place at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

As part of that investigation, Rice admitted that – beginning in 2002 as Bush’s national security adviser – she led high-level discussions with other senior Bush administration officials about subjecting suspected al-Qaeda terrorists to the harsh interrogation technique known as waterboarding. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Torture Trail Seen Starting with Bush.”]

Those meetings were first confirmed last April when President Bush told an ABC News reporter that he approved meetings of the NSC’s Principals Committee to discuss specific interrogation techniques the CIA could use against detainees. The Principals Committee included Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft as well as Cheney and Rice.

Earlier this year, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers wrote to Attorney General Michael Mukasey requesting he appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether Bush and senior members of his Cabinet committed war crimes by authorizing CIA and military interrogators to use harsh tactics against detainees at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq.

That request followed an investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross into interrogation practices at Guantanamo Bay, which “documented several instances of acts of torture against detainees, including soaking a prisoner’s hand in alcohol and lighting it on fire, subjecting a prisoner to sexual abuse and forcing a prisoner to eat a baseball.”

But Cheney continues to dismiss such criticism, still insisting that the United States doesn’t torture and that the administration broke no other laws in conducting the “war on terror.”

"I think those who allege that we've been involved in torture, or that somehow we violated the Constitution or laws with the terrorist surveillance program, simply don't know what they're talking about,” Cheney told ABC News.

Mukasey has refused to open a war-crimes investigation, although a special counsel – Connecticut’s assistant attorney general John Durham, is investigating the CIA’s destruction of videotapes taken of the waterboarding of Mohammad and other detainees.

How President-elect Barack Obama handles evidence of the Bush administration’s use of torture will represent one of the first tests of his administration.

Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, whose organization has represented Guantanamo detainees, said last week it is imperative that Obama authorize his Attorney General to launch a criminal investigation into Cheney and others in the White House.

“One of Barack Obama’s first acts as President should be to instruct his Attorney General to appoint an independent prosecutor to initiate a criminal investigation of former Bush administration officials who gave the green light to torture,” Ratner said in a column published in the magazine The Progressive.

Ratner said anything less than a full-scale criminal investigation – a substitute like a Truth Commission assigned simply to ascertain the facts – would be unacceptable.

“If Obama and [Attorney General-designate Eric] Holder want to adhere to our Constitution and uphold our highest values, they must pursue those in the Bush administration who violated that Constitution, broke our laws, and tarnished our values,” Ratner wrote. “To simply let those officials walk off the stage sends a message of impunity that will only encourage future law breaking. The message that we need to send is that they will be held accountable.

“This is not Latin America; this is not South Africa. We are not trying to end a civil war, heal a wounded country and reconcile warring factions We are a democracy trying to hold accountable officials that led our country down the road to torture. And in a democracy, it is the job of a prosecutor and not the pundits to determine whether crimes were committed.”

Jason Leopold has launched a new Web site, The Public Record, at www.pubrecord.org.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Gonzales, Rice Lied to Congress About Niger Intelligence



No shit, Sherlock. I doubt we could count all the lies they've told to Congress, the 9/11 commission and on countless TeeVee news shows, to the American people.


By Jason Leopold
The Public Record
Thursday, December 18, 2008



Condoleezza Rice was verbally warned by a high-ranking CIA official in September 2002 that allegations that Iraq had sought large quantities of yellowcake uranium from Niger were untrue and that she, as national security adviser, should not allow President George W. Bush to cite it in a speech he gave that month about the supposed threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to new evidence obtained by Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The Niger uranium claim was removed from two speeches Bush gave in September 2002 after Rice spoke with the CIA official who advised her the intelligence was unreliable.


However, it was cited by President George W. Bush in his Jan. 28, 2003, State of the Union Address as what became known as the “Sixteen Words”: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Rice and other White House officials blamed the CIA and claimed they were never advised the agency had doubts about the authenticity of the intelligence.

Those 16 words helped the Bush administration win support from Congress to launch a preemptive strike against Iraq and directly led senior Bush administration officials to leak the undercover status of CIA operative Valerie Plame after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, exposed the Niger uranium allegations as bogus.

The White House has never provided a full accounting of how the Niger story, despite warnings from several government agencies that it was unreliable, wound its way to the White House from strange-looking documents that surfaced in Italy and became a key element in Bush’s case for war.

Waxman subpoenaed Rice last year in order to compel her to testify about whether she knew in advance that the Niger intelligence was unreliable. Rice refused to comply with the subpoena and Waxman held her in contempt.

When the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence launched a formal inquiry into the Niger uranium claims after Wilson publicly accused the White House of “twisting” the intelligence to win support for the Iraq war, then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales told Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, in a letter that the CIA “orally cleared” the uranium claim “for use by the President” in both speeches. Gonzales had responded to the committee’s questions on behalf of then-National Security Adviser Rice, who was one of several top officials who vetted Bush’s speeches.

But new evidence obtained by Waxman suggests that Gonzales and Rice may have lied to Congress when they claimed the CIA green-lit use of the uranium claim in Bush's September 2002 speeches, in which Bush urged Congress to authorize the use of force in lraq.

Waxman said Rice received a telephone call on Sept. 24, 2002, from Jami Miscik, then-Deputy Director of Intelligence at the CIA, who told Rice to remove the uranium reference. Miscik is now an adviser to President-elect Barack Obama's transition team. Sept. 24, 2002 is also the date former British Prime Minister Tony Blair released a 50-page dossier claiming Iraq had a cache of chemical and biological weapons and the capability to unleash weapons of mass destruction within 45-minutes, allegations that turned out to be untrue.

“During an interview with the Committee, Miscik...stated that [National Security Council] officials who worked with Rice at the NSC "wouldn't take [the uranium claim] out of the speech,” Waxman wrote in an 11-page memo to members of the Oversight Committee. "Ms. Miscik stated that she spoke with Dr. Rice directly over the telephone on September 24, 2002. Ms. Miscik explained that the CIA's reasons for requesting that the removal of the uranium claim "had been conveyed to the NSC counterparts" before the call began and that she and Dr. Rice "were getting on the phone call with that information.

“As a result, Miscik was asked to explain directly to Dr. Rice "the reasons why we didn't think this was credible,” Waxman added. “Ms. Miscik stated, "[i]t was clear that we had problems or we at the most fundamental level wouldn't have been having the phone call at all." According to Ms. Miscik, the CIA's reasons for rejecting the uranium claim, "had been conveyed to the NSC counterparts" before the call, and Dr. Rice was "getting on the phone call with that information." Ms. Miscik told Dr. Rice personally that the CIA was "recommending that it be taken out." She also said "[i]t turned out to be a relatively short phone call" because "we both knew what the issues were and therefore were able to get to a very easy resolution of it."

Yet Rice "asserted publicly she knew nothing about any doubts the CIA had raised about this claim prior too the 2003 State of the Union address," Waxman's memo says. Gonzales "asserted to the Senate — on her behalf — that the CIA approved the use of this claim in several presidential speeches.

“Unfortunately, Dr. Rice resisted efforts by the Committee to obtain her testimony about these matters. Thus, I am not able to report to you how she would explain the seeming contradictions between her statements and those of Mr. Gonzales on her behalf and the statements made to the Committee by senior CIA and NSC officials.”

Despite the verbal warnings Rice was given, she penned an Op- Ed January 23, 2003 claiming Iraq was actively trying "to get uranium from abroad" to help further strengthen the administration's case for a U.S. led invasion of Iraq.

“Writing on Dr. Rice's behalf on January 6, 2004, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales addressed the uranium claim in the Rose Garden speech. He asserted: "On September 24, 2002, CIA officials orally cleared the [uranium claim] for use by the President." Mr. Gonzales wrote: The language cleared by CIA was identical to the language proposed for clearance by White House staff, except that it appears that CIA may have suggested that the second sentence read "in the process" rather than "of the process.”

Waxman has spent the past five years investigating the Niger intelligence, specifically, the genesis of the “Sixteen Words.”

During the course of the Waxman's investigation, committee investigators questioned John Gibson, who was Director of Speechwriting for Foreign Policy at the National Security Council. Gibson told investigators that he “he tried to insert the uranium claim into this speech at the request of Michael Gerson, chief White House speechwriter, and Robert Joseph, the Senior Director for Proliferation Strategy, Counterproliferation, and Homeland Defense at the NSC.”

“According to Mr. Gibson, the CIA rejected the uranium claim because it was "not sufficiently reliable to include it in the speech." Mr. Gibson stated that the CIA "didn't give that blessing," the "CIA was not willing to clear that language," and "[a]t the end of the day, they did not clear it."

During a closed-door briefing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence back in July 2003, Alan Foley, the former director of the CIA's nonproliferation, intelligence and arms control center, said he had spoken to Joseph, a day or two before President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address and told Joseph that detailed references to Iraq and Niger should be excluded from the final draft. Foley told committee members that Joseph had agreed to water down the language and would instead, he told Foley, attribute the intelligence to the British.

Gibson also told investigators that Gonzales’s claims to the Senate Intelligence Committee that the intelligence was cleared by the CIA were “incorrect.”

“He told the Committee that "the CIA had never cleared" the use of the uranium claim,” Waxman wrote in his memo. “During her interview with the Committee, Ms. Miscik made the same point, stating that the White House assertions were "not accurate" and "misleading." She explained further: "We had not cleared on this speech until the discussion that Dr. Rice and I had."

In July 2003, five days after Wilson’s column was published in The Times, Rice blamed the CIA for failing to vet the Niger claims. Former CIA Director George Tenet accepted responsibility, which many people interpreted as Tenet falling on his sword to protect the president.

Two weeks later, however, the CIA revealed that agency officials sent then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley two memos in October 2002, warning him not to continue peddling the Niger claims to the White House because the intelligence was not accurate. Hadley, who didn't heed the CIA's warnings at the time, said during a press conference on July 23, 2003, that he had forgotten about the memos.

Waxman’s committee deposed Tenet in June 2007 and the former CIA director said he spoke with Hadley personally and told him to remove the uranium claims from a speech Bush was prepared to give in Cincinnati in October 2002.

"In his deposition, Mr. Tenet provided new details about the explicit nature of these warnings," Waxman wrote. "According to Mr. Tenet, his staff at the CIA approached him and asked him to intervene. They stated: [W]e need to get this stuff out. We don't believe this. 'We need to get it out of the speech. It's not coming out. Can you call Mr. Hadley? Mr. Tenet explained that he called Mr. Hadley to direct him to remove the language. He told the Committee: [S]taff came down to say there was specific language that they wanted out and, essentially, I called Mr. Hadley up. It was a very short conversation. And I said Steve, take it out. We don't want the President to be a fact witness on this issue.”

Mr. Tenet stated further: "The facts, I told him, were too much in doubt." According to Mr. Tenet, the President's speech in Cincinnati did not include the uranium claim because the CIA had explicitly informed the White House that it was not cleared for a Presidential speech. Mr. Tenet stated: "We sent two memos to Mr. Hadley saying, this is why you don't let the President say this in Cincinnati."

Following his conversation with Hadley, one of Tenet's aides sent a follow-up letter to Rice, Hadley, and Bush's speechwriter Mike Gerson highlighting additional reasons the language about Iraq's purported attempts to obtain uranium from the African country of Niger should not be used to try and convince Congress and the public that Iraq was an imminent threat, Tenet wrote in his book, At the Center of the Storm.

"More on why we recommend removing the sentence about [Saddam's] procuring uranium oxide from Africa," Tenet wrote in the book, apparently quoting from a memo sent to the White House. "Three points: (1) The evidence is weak. One of the two mines cited by the source as the location of the uranium oxide is flooded. The other mine cited by the source is under the control of French authorities; (2) the procurement is not particularly significant to Iraq's nuclear ambitions...And (3) we have shared points one and two with Congress, telling them the Africa story is overblown and telling them this was one of two issues where we differed with the British."

The Niger case began in early 2002 when CIA officials were looking for people with the right connections to check out the claims that Iraq had obtained uranium from Niger.

The CIA’s counter-proliferation unit selected Joseph Wilson, a former senior diplomat in both Iraq and Africa, where Wilson’s wife worked as a covert officer, who used “non-official cover” to track dangerous weapons in the Middle East. “Non-official cover” assignments are considered some of the CIA’s riskiest.

After agreeing to undertake the unpaid assignment, Wilson traveled to Niger in February 2002, met with a number of high-level contacts and returned with the conclusion that the Niger suspicions were almost surely false. Wilson’s assessment matched with other internal reviews.

But the White House continued to peddle the bogus uranium claims and attacked officials who said the intelligence the claims were based upon was unreliable.

That led to a battle that pitted the White House against former Ambassador Wilson, which finally came to the surface on July 6, 2003, when Wilson wrote a New York Times op-ed revealing his February 2002 trip to Niger and directly challenging Bush’s use of the bogus yellowcake story.

In the following days, even as the administration was forced to backtrack on the Niger claims by acknowledging that the information should not have been included in Bush’s State of the Union, Bush’s aides and allies stepped up the campaign to discredit Wilson.

That was the angle that right-wing columnist Robert Novak took in an article on July 14, 2003, that relied on information from Armitage and White House political adviser Karl Rove to report that Valerie Plame Wilson worked at the CIA and had a hand in arranging her husband’s trip to Africa.

Waxman said in his letter Thursday that the new evidence on Niger proves that Bush’s “core arguments” for invading Iraq was “illegitimate.”

“For more than five years, I have been seeking answers to basic questions about why the President made a false assertion about such a fundamental matter,” Waxman wrote. “As the President's National Security Advisor at the time, Condoleezza Rice asserted publicly that she knew nothing about any doubts the CIA had raised about this claim prior to the 2003 State of the Union address. And former White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales asserted to the Senate - on her behalf - that the CIA approved the use of the claim in several presidential speeches. The Committee has obtained evidence that just the opposite is true.

“This evidence would appear to raise serious questions about the veracity of the assertions that Mr. Gonzales made to Congress on behalf of Dr. Rice about a key part of the President's case for going to war in Iraq.”




(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.